Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

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DYK

This is definitely not in regards to any particular candidate but what is this giant emphasis on DYK with RFAs? I'm not getting the importance. Is it just an area people like to work on? I've never seen it as particularly important. Drawn Some (talk) 21:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The idea, I think, is that DYKs offer some evidence of content building. In some cases they do, but in many case they don't, as there's no quality control at DYK. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

There is some... it has to be at least 1500 characters and written in the past few days...---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:05, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

That's not quality, it's volume, written rather too rapidly to have time for a spellcheck. --Malleus Fatuorum 22:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) And one thing that DYK is supposed to verify - your "hook" is supposed to referenced with a WP:RS. It at least shows an understanding of the fundamental concept that we are an encyclopedia rather than a blog. Although .. I've seen a few articles ...;) — Ched :  ?  22:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Whatever you say Ched. I suggest that you read a few of them though, before firming up your opinion. --Malleus Fatuorum 22:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Read em? .. ahh hell, I'd rather write em. No, seriously Mall, I think I understand what you're saying, and I agree - a DYK is far from being our top notch stuff. In a sense it's audited content - I mean, someone can't just submit a DYK, and then approve it themselves - another editor is supposed to review it. I admit, I've read through a few DYK articles, and some have really made me scratch my head in regards to quality. But that's what we have FAC and GAC for, it's kind of a beginners ride for editors. — Ched :  ?  22:27, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you do understand what I'm saying. DYKs are in no sense "audited", and are often as a consequence an embarrassment. Just take a look at this advertorial featured on today's main page for instance, The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

DYKs are at least slightly "audited". Before they make it onto the main page, at least a handful of other editors look at them, and once they make it on the main page, they tend to get at least 1k views. This is a lot more attention and "auditing" than your average article gets. Sure, the average DYK isn't great (and some are truly abominable), but I'd say that your average DYK is still better than your average article. Try hitting the "Random article" link a few times, and you get an awful lot of one sentence stubs. You at least don't get that at DYK. Cool3 (talk) 00:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

You use the word "audited" in a sense that I don't understand. Does this "audit" involve actually reading the article? All of it? Or just enough of it to verify the hook? --Malleus Fatuorum 01:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, some articles from DYK get deleted after their main page appearance, so someone must read them. Gimmetrow 01:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

At least personally, I never verify a hook without reading the whole article. It's possible that other reviewers don't even do that, but I'm fairly certain that just about all DYKs have at least been read by an experienced editor. Sure some DYKs look like this, but others look like this. Cool3 (talk) 02:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

So you're quite relaxed at seeing stuff like this on the main page? --Malleus Fatuorum 02:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Other than the enormous unsourced list of customers, I don't see a big problem with that, but yes of course some bad things make it onto the main page via DYK, but if we're talking about this in the context of RfA, I don't see a problem. I think it's a big plus for a candidate to have some involvement with good DYKs. Naturally, if someone who regularly submits garbage to DYK is at RfA that's another issue entirely. The mere fact that some DYK articles are bad doesn't mean that others aren't good. Cool3 (talk) 03:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah well, we'll have to agree to disagree then, 'cos that article is a clear advertorial. I suggest thst you take a critical look at today's DYKs and see if you find any basic spelling or grammar errors. --Malleus Fatuorum 03:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

It's definitely better than average. A lot of very basic articles can make it, but click on random page.... YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 04:43, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

DYK has its issues, like plagiarism, poor writing quality, and incomplete research, but it's better than nothing. At the very least, they usually don't have that ugly stub tag... –Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, given the issues you've enumerated, I'd say that DYK isn't better than nothing. :) Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 05:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I can safely say that DYK is one area of Wikipedia that I care absolutely nothing about, and consequently, it would never impact my decision at RfA. In fact, I typically ignore it. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 00:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think we all ought to care about it, as it occupies a very significant amount of the main page. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, good point. I agree with Wisdom, and dislike DYK - most of the hooks are trivia at best. Uninteresting trivia, at that. I would rather simply see a "newest articles" section. However, I don't feel that strongly about this, and I seem to remember previous discussions that ended in hung juries. In the end, I just tolerate it without comment and disregard any support/oppose mentions of DYK (although sometimes it's a useful indicator of article creation/building, which I will then review further). Tan | 39 01:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Disagreed; something can be important but still not be cared about by every individual editor. Everyone has their focus, which is important to them but likely unimportant to everyone else. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

You appear to have either misread or misunderstood the point being made here. As a matter of interest, which was the last DYK hook you read that made you think other than "Who gives a shit?" --Malleus Fatuorum 05:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

You could say that about 99% of wiki content as a whole. In fact, I could say it about almost all the featured FA's, because I almost never feel interested enough to click on the link and read the article.

An encyclopedia is not a magazine, aimed at getting the maximum number of people to buy. It's an information source, and naturally most of the information contained in an encyclopedia will be of little interest to the average reader.

For the record however, I constantly see interesting DYK hooks, although many of them - such as the regular building hooks for example, are of no interest to me. And I still remember the time I complained about the intrinsically boring nature of articles about roads and highways - which instantly drew a bunch of responses from people who like reading about highway routes. People have different interests, and there is no accounting for taste. Gatoclass (talk) 14:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

That sentence could have ended after "hook you read". ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

You dissing my goose-propelled washtub? – iridescent 15:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be getting away from the point originally made in this section, which seems to be that DYK is overemphasised in RfA (possibly because there's an element of metric to it; some quantifiable somewhat-standardised output). Apposite questions would be (a) how prominent is it (b) is that too prominent, given factors such as quality control and how many prospective admins get involved with it. Comparing DYKs with articles turned up by the Random Article button seems a very long way from this RfA issue. Rd232 ^talk 12:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I have yet to see, oppose not enough DYK's.---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 13:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - Not enough DYKs or participation in the MediaWiki talk namespace. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

• DYKs only matter to me when people express interest either in working at DYK or they mention it and I want to see if what they have done actually matches what they claim. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

There are two reasons why DYK is relevant. Firstly, admins are needed to move hooks from unprotected pages at DYK to protected pages, and also to edit the protected pages, and secondly, because participation at DYK shows a community-minded editor who is willing to help other people get their stuff featured. Gatoclass (talk) 14:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Anyone think it's possible that this emphasis on DYK is actually contributing to poor quality? If someone gets into DYK because it's on some checklist of things to do before leveling up, they're probably not the best person for working on DYK, right? Wouldn't we rather see DYK populated by people who care about getting it right, rather than people who care about ticking off an item on a list? Friday (talk) 14:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You could say the same about any process though. If someone is seeking adminship as a trophy, they are going to start participating in areas that will get them some attention, whether it is at DYK or somewhere else. Gatoclass (talk) 14:53, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, this thread turned out to have a lot more thoughtful responses and discussion than I would have hoped for. I still think it is over-emphasized, but now I understand why. Thanks. Drawn Some (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

From today's front page: "DYK... that the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct was disbanded in 1999 despite only having started work in April 1991?" This is a perfect illustration of why DYK is useless and serves to depress Wikipedia's credibility. Tan | 39 20:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey Tan - check out the Wikipedia entry on Earth - you'll be amazed to discover that America doesn't comprise the whole of it. Pedro :  Chat  20:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Pedro, I know that somewhere along the way you lost your respect for me - and believe you me, the feeling is completely mutual - but this could happen in any country and I'd feel the same. I could have Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee in my den, and it still doesn't make it interesting or significant that the committee was around for eight years. Who cares. Keep your ill-founded insinuations to yourself, please. Tan | 39 21:00, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess I should have put a smiley at the end of my comment (or indeed not made it at all) - it was a playful knee in the ribs Tan and sorry it came across any other way. FWIW I've no issue with you at all and sorry to hear you have with me. Still, this is not the venue so best dropped. Pedro :  Chat  21:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• It is a mistake to categorically assert the quality of DYKs. I know more than a few that went on to become FAs maybe two or three weeks later. I know more than a few that didn't amount to anything much at all. DYKs are like all new articles: very varied. So to make catchall judgements is like making catchall judgements on all of WP's new articles – which is quite a meaningless thing to do. And, for the record, quality control there has improved drastically over the past year. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Where was the discussion about RfB's needing 90% to pass?

Anybody have a link to it? I'd like to read the discussion.  iMatthew :  Chat  (Review Me) 17:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

There's this, but for further combined reading, perhaps also try User:Useight/RFA Subjects/Bureaucrats (but that's an incomplete work in progress). Useight (talk) 17:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Jeez, that's stuff from over 3-5 years ago. Are there any recent discussions about it? I find that 90% for a few extra buttons is over-the-top. 80% seems reasonable to me, not 90%.  iMatthew :  Chat  (Review Me) 17:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

That discussion could not possibly have resulted in an increased support percentage requirement to be promoted to a bureaucrat. I really hope there has been a more recent discussion that resulted in an actual consensus to raise the bar for RfBs. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 17:42, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's see, this was semi-recent. I'll see what else I can find. Useight (talk) 17:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thats over a year ago, and from that it looks like the consensus was leaning on 80% ...  iMatthew :  Chat  (Review Me) 17:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, from the archives it looks like the 90% was from several years ago and all of the more recent discussions related to that have been attempts to lower that bar. Useight (talk) 17:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but there must be something somewhere if it's still 90%.  iMatthew :  Chat  (Review Me) 17:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. If the decision was 90% in year 200X, and then in 200Y and 200Z there were failed discussions to lower the bar, the 90% is still implied; no need for a further discussion to reconfirm the 90%. Useight (talk) 18:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I haven't kept up on the most recent RfB standards, but I remember in March 2008, 85%+ seemed to be the minimum. Jamie^☆S93 18:26, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

You are also correct, the 70-75% for RFA is roughly translated to 85-90% for RFB. However, if I recall correctly, the lowest passing percentage for an RFB is 86.7%. Useight (talk) 18:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

←I always thought it was because, when you're picking someone to make an occasional call on who gets to be a crat or an admin, it's not enough for them to be good at it, people have to be willing to accept their judgment. But I don't see why that would apply to CHU or turning on bots, or other potential crat-tasks, such as appointing people to Flagged Revisions tasks (Brion will get a test going by August, supposedly) or handing out abusefilter rights. - Dank (push to talk) 18:03, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The links above are from over a year ago. There have been a few threads lately about needing new 'crats. More volunteers might appear if the percentage needed to pass went down to 80 or 85%. Recently, the bar is set at 90% to pass.  iMatthew :  Chat  (Review Me) 18:30, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

IMatt, you're changing colors ... camouflage? - Dank (push to talk) 18:34, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Haha, it's in my signature script-thingy. :)  iMatthew :  Chat  (Review Me) 18:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

If there are new ideas on new crat-tasks, and if we can get any consensus on that, then it would become easier to talk about whether the RFA/RFB skill set is a completely different skill set, and if we could get consensus on that, then it would be easier to tackle the question of whether the percentage for getting one ought to be lower than the other. tweaked - Dank (push to talk) 19:04, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The links are from a year ago, but that doesn't mean the consensus in them is automatically invalid. In fact it's more like the last demonstration of consensus is the best thing to go with unless a change is demonstrated. Previously the 90% bar had been traditional. After a number of discussions a substantial number of people felt that the bar should be somewhat lower without a specific number being agreed on. I would say that's the best guideline we have for the current consensus. I think that answers what you were looking for, but if you want the literal meaning of your question, where the actual discussion around the 90% guideline was, you'd have to do some serious reading to find that. It certainly wasn't a big poll or anything, it just kind of solidified in various places and discussions. But given the most current discussions, I think that's mostly irrelevant anyway. - Taxman ^Talk 19:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the current consensus is 90%. As you seen from the RfB bar discussion linked above, compared to lower measures the 90% level had only minority support. What leads you (iMatthew) to conclude that 90% is the current level despite the outcome of that poll? Nathan ^T 19:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been talking to many people on IRC, they all said it was 90%.  iMatthew :  Chat  (Review Me) 19:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Strange, saying as I had it in my head that the "magic number" (if we were restricted to such things) was 80%. Bureaucrat cabal > IRC cabal, 'natch! EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I still have not seen any consensus to put the threshold at 90%, yet it is at that. In RfBs, the community automatically holds candidates to higher standards than RfA candidates. Therefore, there is no need for a higher "threshold for consensus" number than RfAs. It just limits the number of good candidates that are promoted. This 90% number really should be lowered to a sort of baseline, the RfA level, as it doesn't seem justified. Then, the community needs to come up with a threshold number through actual consensus. My guess is it would be lower than 90%. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 23:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

If you can get a solid community consensus to lower it, we can lower it. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the fact is that we have a solid consensus for lowering the percentage. It's frustrating that people seem to have completely forgotten the outcome of the RfB Bar discussion, especially bureaucrats. We may not have had consensus on the specific percentage it should be lowered to, but certainly we had consensus that 90% was too high. That does not mean we're stuck at 90%, it means the percentage is lower and just how much lower is left to the crats (to interpret the poll outcome). Nathan ^T 23:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The results of rfa bar were spread all over the place, that's not a consensus. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Rlevse, can you confirm that you have read this section, and specifically this comment left by Kingturtle: "This poll is closed. We have over 170 editors voice their opinions on this issue. Depending on how you interpret the data, 75.5% support lower the bar; 65% of the supports support "80%" as the new bar. The average of the opinions is 82.9%. "80%" is the median. I am interpreting this poll as an indication that Bureaucrats should use 80% as the new bar. Once a new policy is agreed on, I think we should re-assess the policy in one year. Kingturtle (talk) 3:02 pm, 16 March 2008, Sunday" I'm interested in whether you disagree with this interpretation, or if you were just unaware of it. Thanks, Nathan ^T 02:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

←I can think of some things that might go wrong if we just lowered the discretionary range to 80-85 and made no other changes, although I think separating RFA/RFB-enabled crats from regular crats would avoid these problems. For one thing, you'd have a lot of admins running for cratship. Either a lot of them would fail, wasting time and burning morale, or a lot of them would pass. So far, people haven't "revolted" against crat-reign (which is a good thing); even for the people who don't like RFA, they still accept that they have to live with the system we've got (or not). What would happen if we had 50 crats, many without much experience at RFA, apparently deciding who was promoted? I suspect people would lose faith in the basic workability of the system. If the RfB voters reacted to this by requiring high participation at RFA/RFB of all candidates, then RFA/RFB would fill up with people with crat aspirations. I actually think RFA is reasonably functional, given the alternatives, but for people who think RFA is a cesspit ... just wait until it fills up with people who are there to pad their resume/CV for a crat run. Yikes. I like the 85%-90% discretionary range, for people making the call at RFA and RFB, because the system won't work unless just about everyone buys into it, so you really need very wide support for crats. Again, I see no problem with lowering the passing percentage for crats who will be doing the other crat tasks. - Dank (push to talk) 00:09, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

↑ What he said. The average RFB gets about 100 votes; if 15 people think there's something seriously wrong with you, you can guarantee there'll be needless drama down the line. It's not as if the current crats are rushed off their feet dealing with the average one or two RFA closures and bot requests per day and at most half-a-dozen renames they're needed for. – iridescent 00:18, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Those are good points you two made. Nevertheless, consensus was not to have the threshold at 90%, and that really disturbs me. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 00:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Regardless, as someone who participated in that discussion, I agree with Timmeh that consensus was to have the threshold below 90%, and that should be followed. hmwithτ 15:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Pretty easy to figure out where consensus is today

You know, it would be pretty easy to sort out, since it's all just basic math. Start a discussion asking everyone's opinion very simply on what their low-end range is for the discretionary range. Very simple; it's a number, it's subjective. RFA is what--75%-79% usually? There have only been a tiny handful of 80% RFAs that never passed. Everyone call out their preferred minimum, and then a simple poll based on the discussion's responses--there can only be so many responses, realistically, since the range is not up to the crats themselves, and we're done. Since it's an actual numerical value (not a policy/procedure--that already exists, it's RFB itself) we're after, once we see what the average low end is, it's a simple advertised poll and we're done. Discussion -> lock in consensus. For example:

• Everyone say their preference and why, etc.
• "What should the discretionary range for RFB be?"

• 75%-80%
• 80%-85%
• 85%-90%
• 90%-95%

Realisticaly, it'd be a pretty vanilla discussion/vote, since it's not like we're swimming in options here. It just needs formalizing. Since what the discretionary range is isn't something the crats themselves decide upon, we just need enough people (a very healthy sample) to say what their preference is, and whatever is the overwhelming favorite or the mathematical average of their selections is it--simple.

This doesn't exactly come up often, so it's not like we need a big to-do. Discuss, pick possible options, pick the best of the options, go do some article work. rootology (C)(T) 00:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Excellent point that it isn't usually this simple, so we can be more optimistic than usual. Tell me if I'm pushing a new-ish idea too hard, but I really think the discussion about potential crat tasks should come before the vote on the discretionary range, so that people will know what they're voting on. Abusefilter permissions is brand-new, and probably needs very skilled hands with wide community approval, and ... I hate to open up the can of Flagged Revisions, except to say that whatever it morphs into, again, skilled hands, wide community approval. And CHU may not take that much time, but getting it exactly right is really hard, and the skill set is very close to the skill set for UAA; if the discretionary range were lowered just a little, the RfB voters would have more candidates to choose from, and they could pick hard-working, competent crats to spend more time overseeing both areas. Likewise, bot flagging has been trivial ... but it doesn't have to be; with a bigger candidate pool, RfB voters could pick a candidate that has broad support at BAG and could use their bot-flagging power as license to say "Tell me how this works again?" - Dank (push to talk) 01:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)insufficient support for this idea at this time - Dank (push to talk) 14:12, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd support 80–85%, but I fully agree with Dank in that we'd need to reconfirm the role of bureaucrats. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:17, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• 85%-90% discretionary. Any higher and you let the few cranks that you invariably piss off derail the process; any lower and any controversial call is open to challenge. As I say above, it's not like we're suffering a desperate shortage of crats; we got on perfectly well last year when at one point we only had two active. – iridescent 01:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
• 80%-90% works for me. Also replying to the above comment: We got on perfectly well, but the two active 'crats must have felt a lot of pressure put on them.  iMatthew :  Chat  01:27, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
• 80%-85%. What we have now is too high, but I don't think we need to go as low as what's used for RfAs. Also, two active crats is a very small amount, and I'm sure they did feel a lot of pressure. There aren't many processes requiring bureaucratic action, but I think there are enough that they would require more than two active crats to run smoothly. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 01:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Sheesh. Rootology, have you seen Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/RfB_bar? It is precisely what you describe above. If you think the results of that identical poll need to be updated, fine, but your comment seems to imply that there are no original results. Nathan ^T 02:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, my own vote remains unchanged since then: "Trust the bureaucrats" (no fixed percentage range of discretion). I do seem to remember that a lot of votes in that poll were cast after the semi-controversial closing of an RFB as unsuccessful (85.8% support). See Wikipedia:Requests_for_bureaucratship/Riana/Bureaucrat_discussion. Due to possible additional motivation by some of the candidate's 237 supporters to pitch in at the time (myself included), the poll might well be systemically biased. (The bureaucrats' discussion says the lowest passing percentage was 85.3%, by the way). ---Sluzzelin talk 02:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Quadell's RFB was unsuccessful. Useight (talk) 03:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear. Bedtime. Thanks for pointing out that error. ---Sluzzelin talk 04:02, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not dead-set against 80%, but before I could agree, I'd need to hear how we plan to anticipate and deal with the potential problems I mentioned. If the problems can't be avoided, then I'd favor a new role, maybe "technocrat", meaning bureaucrat permissions minus RFA/RFB. - Dank (push to talk) 03:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, a bit more context is that Riana's RfB (and a number of others around the same time) were prefaced by a fair amount of discussion on how more 'crats were needed. That discussion and the sudden proliferation of RfBs probably have a lot more to do with the poll participation and its outcome than any single RfB. Even if the presence of a live RfB biased the outcome in some way, a poll without a similar high profile draw is unlikely to involve nearly the same number of editors. Nathan ^T 03:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Good point. People normally don't care that much. :-) ---Sluzzelin talk 03:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

←Although I agree with Rootology that we want to keep the vote simple, let's lay some groundwork first here and on talk pages. The vote tends to be split between 80-85% and 85-90%, and I'm not happy with just trying to get "consensus" on this, I think we want a super-consensus, otherwise someone might wind up being or feeling disenfranchised at RFA. I made an argument for 85-90% above, here's the counterargument:

• We could instruct the crats to use 80-85% as a discretionary range and go slow. The worst that could happen would be that it doesn't work and we go back to 85-90%.
• At RFA, when we say the discretionary range is 70-75%, crats have always taken that to mean that they can easily push the discretionary range to 80% if something "special" (such as canvassing) is going on, so we could say the range is 80-85% with the same understanding.
• We could add to the instructions: even if a candidate gets 85%, we still feel you should not promote if the rationales from the 15% suggest that some group will wind up being disenfranchised and feeling alienated from the RFA process.
• We need to be vigilant at RFA to make sure people aren't trying to make a name for themselves to help with crat runs. It shouldn't be hard to stop (just speak up if someone is saying something foolish, which usually happens anyway), and if someone talks a lot of nonsense at RFA and then runs for RFB, tell them about it at the RFB. People will probably figure out what will and won't work over time.
• If the crats would be a little bit more open about who participates in crat chats, and If the crats would state that they understand that crats who haven't been involved much in RFA shouldn't be making contentious calls solo ... and I think the record shows plainly that they do understand this ... then I think that would help people be less nervous about promoting crat candidates, especially candidates who aren't currently active at RFA. - Dank (push to talk) 12:42, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
  • So, should we have like a reconfirmation poll on this?  iMatthew :  Chat  12:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

We should talk with each other publicly and privately first to see if there's any position that can gain a super-consensus, then have the poll. - Dank (push to talk) 14:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

nathan, the quote of mine you refer to was the beginning of a discussion, not the end of one. the general agreement of that discussion supported the following wording: "Whilst RfB is not a vote, it is generally expected that RfBs with more than 90% will be successful, whereas those with less than 80% will not be. Bureaucrats should assess the level of consensus bearing in mind the high levels of community trust expected for appointment." I thought it was pretty clear that this was the current thinking. Kingturtle (talk) 04:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh I know, and I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression - the two comments don't conflict, really, because both statements give 80% as the cut-off. The benefit of your initial comment is that it also sums up the outcome. Nathan ^T 12:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It's already been done, with the final statement quoted above by Kingturtle. And please lets not put up a false dichotomy with discretionary ranges of 5% that will inevitably fail to take into account the significant community opinion that there are other options (wider ranges, not using strict percentages, going more on the stength of the arguments, etc.) - Taxman ^Talk 18:04, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, now I see what you're saying, I didn't see the point clearly on my talk page. (Btw, people, I suggest some calm discussion on the very real concerns before the poll, for reasons that old hands will all understand already. I left talkback notices with everyone who commented in this section to discuss this stuff on my talk page, and my subjective impression is that we've only covered about half of the things that are potentially worrying people so far; more discussion would be very welcome.) I completely support your idea, Taxman, that we want to send a very clear message that shifting the range from 80-90 (or whatever it is) to 80-85 will not "solve" anything; it's only the very start of a series of changes and discussions that's likely to take a long time. I would welcome discussion on your other questions, but only if we can get a clear vote that a different presumed discretionary range is desirable. Think how long RFA has taken to evolve, and that's with more than 10 times the amount of regular discussion. Rootology's point, which I support, is that when tackling a question that might get mired down, it's important to start with the most trivial, yes/no part first. If you can't get anywhere with that, then you know it's pointless to proceed with the more important but more subtle questions. And btw, when I say "proceed", it seems to me that what's happened in individual RFAs has had at least 10 times more impact on the RFA process than discussions about RFA here and other places; that doesn't mean we're wasting our time, it just means that the best use of time is to focus on one candidate and one question at a time, and I suspect that's true for RfB as well. Finally, on your point that we just discussed this 15 months ago ... how much overlap is there between the people who participated at RFA/RFB 15 months ago vs. now? And how much has changed at RFA? This isn't a question of "consensus can change", this is a question of "we know consensus has changed, now what does that mean for RfB?" - Dank (push to talk) 18:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

There are more active bureaucrats than people think. For instance, were I to find that there were no other bureaucrats available to do promotions, I would be able to do pretty much every single one myself by simply noting when they close and remembering when to come online. --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 12:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

• I think that it should be 80-80%. People have higher standards when voting for crats, so there's no need to also compensate with a very high percentage. hmwithτ 15:49, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• I also think about 80-85% is acceptable due to the somewhat higher standards people use when !voting. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 17:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• I'm with the above. 80-85% would be my preference for RfBs. 173.56.156.73 (talk) 19:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

A fake RFA

OK I have too much time to spare. I just created this. Feel free to add to it. Hope you like :) Majorly talk 19:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

*giggle* EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:32, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Ev, can you do a check user on him... I think we now have enough to suspect that Majorly might in fact be a sockpuppet of another user... I present, this as evidence!---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Everybody should love my vote. ^_^ Meetare Shappy ^Cunkelfratz! 23:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not really funny. :P  iMatthew :  Chat  00:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I like it :} — R² 00:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose, user spends too much time in own userspace instead of editing the encyclopedia. Dekimasuよ! 00:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)Very funny. Pmlinediter  ^Talk 08:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Three letters: UAA! don't speak of credit these days, don't even think of it. What's next, User:Payroll Slasher? User:Headcount Optimizer? NVO (talk) 13:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

That RfA is oddly realistic. Enigma^msg 02:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Only 20 questions? You guys can do better than that :) Majoreditor (talk) 02:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I knew that there would be someone copying DougsTech on there :)--Iner22 (talk) 16:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

User:This flag once was red/27RFAreason. This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 00:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That joke was a lot funnier before the subpage was deleted, trust me ;-) This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 13:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Counting As, Bs and so forth as separate questions there are still only 33, but the number of answers is even lower. ϢereSpielChequers 12:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh. My. Goodness. I have not laughed out loud at something I read in ages! Thanks for the laughs everyone! That is just too funny! Ariel♥Gold 10:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Hardly anyone running for adminship

Is this the end of all Wikipedia??? What will happen? Haven't most of the desysoped admins had a chance to create new accounts so they could run again a la Sam Blacketer? Or are they already resysoped and waiting for the next Arbcom election?

Seriously, I'm concerned. I mean I've seen good nominees be turned away as unsuccessful over whatever drama opposers could create, but certainly there are more editors with no content contributions and lots of automated reversions that we can promote??? Aren't there??? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the necessity to get people to run for adminship, as if a pause in nominations will indicate, per this post, the end of Wikipedia. Wikipedia will end when editors stop adding to and maintaining articles.--Moni3 (talk) 01:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we have a comfortable number of admins, and don't need a constant supply of new ones. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Stats show we're losing admins faster than +sysop ing them for the last 18 months or so. We need more new ones, not less or the same number. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, there you go. Maybe becoming an admin is seen as less desirable than it has been previously? -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, being an admin can be boring, stressful, and time-consuming, so I'd buy that theory. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, it's only as time-consuming as I want it to be. It's not like I keep regular office-hours here or something. As for stressful... yeah, it can be that. Yeah. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It's merely standard laws of growth, an enterprise starts slow, catches on, grows fast, then slows down and stabilizes out, which is where we are now. The depends on if wiki interest grows or not. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Today there are 927 active admins. 9 Dec 2007 (18 months ago) there were 984 active admins - that's a drop of 5.8%? Today there are 13 active bureaucrats; 9 Dec 2007 there were 15 - that's a drop of 13.3%? Am I doing my math right? Meanwhile, today there are about 2,908,000 articles, while on 2008-01-01 there were about 2,153,000, up 35%? We need more admins, and we need more crats. Kingturtle (talk) 02:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I've also noticed a decrease in the amount of people who are using automated tools such as Huggle. As the encyclopedia gets bigger, we need more vandalism patrollers as well as anti-vandalism admins. I think I'll start using Huggle again. -download ׀ sign! 02:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you have some stats on that, Download? I'd be interested to see 'em since, having been in a similar position elsewhere, I have always been consistently impressed these past four years with the amount of work done by non-admins. It's nice to see someone with 15k edits and be a rollbacker, not sysop; you know they've not strayed. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 03:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't have stats. However, I've noticed that while I'm using Huggle that I used to have a lot of competition at reverting vandalism before everyone else. I no longer have that problem as much as it seems like there's less people. As for admins doing the reverting, I still think there's a few; take J.delanoy for example. -download ׀ sign! 04:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Great News!!! I stand ready to run for Admin again and to help fill the void. I trust I can count on all of you for strong support. I'm looking at you GTB & Rlevse. :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec, r to Kingturtle) Interesting data, but another way to think about it is that we need more active admins, since I think there are something like 1600 (??) total. Apparently well over a third of those are non-active, though I don't know what the definition of that is. Then you have additional admins who are not especially active (I'd put myself there), which cuts the number down further. One solution is more folks running at RfA, but another is trying to get some of the folks who already have the bit to contribute more, or at the least to try to figure out some of the reasons why they do not. It might actually be interesting to survey admins that have voluntarily stopped editing or at least radically reduced their level of contribution and see some of the reasons why they do so. Perhaps there's a fairly consistent burnout rate/reason(s) for burnout among admins, and it seems that's the kind of information that would probably be useful. Probably someone has thought of this before though. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

you're posting at WT:RFA; everything has been thought of before :P --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

...including your comment that everything has been thought of before.... hee. Keeper | 76 02:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

....and thus we continue the Great Circular Discussion that is WT:RFA. Can't... break... free.... *strain* --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Where does WP:GCD redirect? My nifty "show preview" tool says....no where! Anyone up for some Beans? Keeper | 76 02:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

AAAAAHHHHH –Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Are there any particular tasks that are "most understaffed" due to the dearth of active admins? Which ones? -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

A germane question! (relative shock) I believe that the image maintenance categories are perennially understaffed, particularly the NFCC reduced size one (sorry I don't have the actual link, I'll hunt for it or someone cleverer than I just add it). --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, and I guess this is directed at David Fuchs primarily, was there actually an effort to gather data from non-active admins, or was this just something that was bandied about? --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No idea. There's been a billion "we need more admins" threads, and probably just as many "where have all the admins gone?" threads. But as to any hard metrics? Beats me. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 03:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Uhh, okay. I guess I was under the mistaken impression that you were responding at least semi-seriously to my previous comment. But if everything has been thought of before here at WT:RFA, then I guess we may as well save some time by deleting this page and then salting it against recreation. I know I know, surely that's been thought of as well, but I'm afraid I can't spare any more brain cells for this place than I have already. I'm pretty certain I clicked on the wrong button to even end up here in the first place. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In response to GTBacchus, Category:Candidates for speedy deletion is definitely another one of those understaffed areas - there are frequently over 100 candidates for speedy del. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 03:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

this is the category with the mother of all backlogs referred to above that a number of us have been battling with for a few days now since it got brought up on AN. Mfield (Oi!) 03:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Spam blacklist would be another one. MER-C 05:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The more things change, the more they stay the same. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

PANIC---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 04:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

LOL I think we'll survive. But I am wondering about early Aug. when Flagged Revs. hit town. Any ideas on what it will do to the admin. workload? — Ched :  ?  05:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like I need to start nomming people again if the wells are this dry.. Wizardman 05:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Wizardman coming out of retirement? Sweet! :D J.delanoy^gabs_adds 05:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

We are short admins. I probably wouldn't pass an RFA today. I think the standards and questions at RFA have gone up, and it means people are unsuccessful or don't even go for adminship for bad reasons. This is going to get worse when flagged revisions come. Stifle (talk) 14:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The flipside to the question/concern about a slowdown in new, successful admin candidates is: why are we losing admins at a rate faster than we are getting new ones? It's too bad there is no reliable record of when and how we "lose" an administrator, to see if it's a matter of simple attrition (I have been somewhat less than active of late myself due to RL workloads) or if there is some other issue going on. If admins are being chased away from the position for some other, specific reason, it would be equally helpful - perhaps more useful, even - to try and tackle that issue as well. After all, retaining a seasoned administrator is every bit as helpful as promoting a new one. Shereth 14:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I think we will continue to lose admins as long as the community does not back people up who try to resolve problems. Who'd want to be an admin when all adminship does is give people the right to abuse you, assume bad faith, scream admin abuse and then drag you through endless process. It's a hard, thankless job. If you have any sense, do not apply. Jehochman ^Talk 14:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree 100%. If we are going to put someone through the ringer of RfA and they come out still standing, we should reward them with some measure of trust and community confidence - not scrutinizing their actions at every turn. Shereth 14:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Why would anyone bother? It is not worth the effort. If your niche is admin related areas, then you can't garner enough support. Dlohcierekim 12:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

My RfA was defeated by editors who don't like my outspokenness. You couldn't pay me enough to run again. I have found that I can be as effective as a peon, as I could as an admin - and maybe more so. And by not being an admin, I'm less likely to be targeted by other internet sites seeking revenge against wikipedia admins for having indef'd some belligerent user. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Look, when I ran, I told everyone I was going to keep concentrating on content issues. I now and then will do something adminly, usually on request. However, WP has six more featured articles than it had before I became an admin, thanks to me (and others). I don't feel guilty; I'm not paid and there is no shortage of mops. Deal with it.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The theory behind the concern expressed is that the "population" is growing while the number of "cops" is shrinking. Whether it's anywhere near a "crisis" is certainly debatable. But some proactive concern is good. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I did vote for you!--Wehwalt (talk) 13:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

And I appreciate that. And if you decide to run again, as some do, to "renew your vows", as it were, you'll get my vote. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it would help if admins were perceived as something different from cops, or even "cops". People who want to be a cop might not make the best admins, and acting like a cop does tend to invite the kind of interactions that scare some away from the job, I would think. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:29, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe there needs to be a very short list of what being an admin is actually about. Of course, that might scare even more potential candidates away. An admin doing his job right would find that it's nearly all pain and little gain. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree there's little gain, but I don't know what you mean by "an admin doing his job right". There's no obligation that any admin perform any particular task, painful or otherwise. An admin who works in uncontroversial image deletions and never sees an edit war is still doing his job right. Being an admin is almost entirely what you make of it, but there are very few groupies or private jets involved.

In your opinion, what does an admin who is "doing his job right" do? -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

A few thoughts - the sad thing is that they're not new, but have not previously been mentioned in this thread:

• There's been a lot of cricitism of actions by admins in the last few months, possibly longer. In the biggest recent case I know of, and admin blocked someone for a week and then rescinded the block within an hour - at least one of these actions was ill-considered. The incident that triggered this involved 3 admins piling on to one person (who admittedly had done something questionable).
• There's a related perception that "admins stick together". In particular they vehemently oppose proposals for a system to recall admins who act improperly
• Non-admin users don't know or care about most of the "housekeeping" tasks, they care about the risk of abuse of power, of being unjustly or over-harshly blocked, and about XfD. If they can't contest actions they consider unjust, they'd rather lose a potential good admin than promote a potential bad one.

These are all well-documented. I also guess that some policies and guidelines that admins have to uphold are out of step with with the views of typical editors - not the vandals and long-term POV-pushers, but people who just want to to get on with editing articles on subjects that interest them. Perhaps admins should identify the policies and guidelines that cause the most disputes and act to align them better with the views of those who do not spend large amounts of time at policy and guideline Talk pages. --Philcha (talk) 13:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

it doesn't take an admin to do that. Any editor can propose a change in policy. It is of course well to have a considerable experience observing and participating in the discussion of similar proposed changes of the same general magnitude & the same subject--actually effecting major changes takes careful patient work, a high tolerance for frustration, and the willingness to accept a long time scale--and many of people with these qualities & the necessary experience do tend to become admins. It also helps to have no obvious axe to grind on a particualr article or topic that would be affected. Even on some relatively fundamental matters, consensus has changed before and can change again. DGG (talk) 23:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

While reading the ongoing discussion I was struck by a comment by Rlevse -"Stats show we're losing admins faster than +sysop ing them for the last 18 months or so." Is it possible the slowdown of applications for adminship might also be due in part to the current economic conditions? Speaking for myself, I've had to get a part time job on top of my full time job at the beginning of this year. This has certainly cut down the available that can be used for editing or even working on larger projects. Shinerunner (talk) 23:16, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see a projection as to when we will get to the point of having no admins at all. Then it will become truly a site that anyone can edit. There could be side effects, though. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The bad side of this is that I believe we have reached a point where the process has become so difficult, demeaning, political, and unpredictable that few people are interested. When I became an admin, I had just over 1000 edits and answered (as I recall) one or two questions. The site has grown in complexity since then, and people accumulate edits more quickly, but it's still quite a contrast. I'm not going to suggest that we loosen the standards that far, but on the other hand, they've become too stringent. People draw oppose votes for not having enough FAs, having too low an average edit count per day, too few edits in project space, too many edits in project space, not enough conflict, too much conflict, etc. A review of the RFAs of admins who resigned their adminship in response to community concerns or had their adminship removed against their wishes shows that it is difficult to detect these cases in advance, at all, let alone by calculating edit count ratios.

On the other hand, I think there's quite a bit less admin work to do, because the MediaWiki software stops more bad edits before they get committed to the page database (things like the captcha and the account creation throttle have helped immensely), and because the bots are effective enough that there's rarely a compelling reason to block someone for vandalism. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I feel like there's less activity in the NH summer. Also, even though there are editors running all of the time, at some point, there will be less (and more at other points). On graphs, the line normally zigzags. In a week or two, there could be more running again. However, I'm always a fan of more people becoming admins. Who wants to get to work on nomming? :) hmwithτ 14:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It's because everyone saw my RfA and decided that they all had something somewhere in their past that would be horribly misconstrued and/or taken out of context, so they decided to pass. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:17, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Amount of questions

Lately as most of you have seen, the amount of RfA questions has shot up. Maybe we should step back and determine which of them have anything to do with becoming an administrator, rather than "Let me ask him/her a question because I can." Wizardman noted on the current RfA, that it seems we are playing 20 questions with the candidates. The questions mean a lot to some people in an RfA, and I can't image it's very easy to complete 20 questions with well-thought out answers in just two days.  iMatthew :  Chat  01:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

But of those, there are only 6 askers. If you have a bunch of stock RFA questions, try not to unleash them all at once! –xeno^talk 01:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Good thing, then, that candidates have up to seven days to answer questions. I agree that the amount of questions have only increased, and it can be daunting to answer them all, but every question is important to the person asking it. My recent question (#19) on the current RfA, for example, may seem silly and far-fetched to many editors, but it has importance to me; the answer may determine if I support or not. I'm not, however, going to oppose if the question isn't answered within two days, or at all... and I doubt there are many (or any?) who would. -kotra (talk) 01:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem is some would. You are asking your question which may help determine your !vote. The silly thing is when some people !vote, then come back later and ask a question or two.  iMatthew :  Chat  01:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Some candidates don't answer all 12 questions from one voter, which is probably a good strategy. We can always suggest this in the Guide. - Dank (push to talk) 01:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Just for a bit of historical reference, at my RfA over a year ago my nominator (and then bureaucrat) WJBscribe commented on this very issue, so this is an ongoing concern (which also ties in with the thread above). He noted in part: "There is an increasingly held view that candidates are feeling overloaded with questions and that this is putting people off applying, which is a problem. A steady flow of new admins is important to a project that continues to increase in size - already we have the lowest ration of admins to users/pages of all Wikimedia projects I believe. Lets try to encourage candidates - if there's information you haven't been able to glean from what the candidate's contributions and what has been said already that you think is needed to decide whether they are trusted/competent to use to tools go on and ask. Otherwise, it's just adding extra burden to the process. Candidates shouldn't be here to jump through everyone's collective hoops - just to help people decide if they can be trusted with the additional user right."

Personally I did not really mind the extra questions (including one or two frivolous ones), but I do agree with the general point that this adds burden to an already burdensome and, I would argue, fairly dysfunctional process. Avoiding questions that are not going to tell us all that much about whether a candidate will be a good admin or not is probably a good idea. In the current Engigaman 3 RFA I see several questions that almost certainly will not tell us more than a quick perusal of a user's contributions would. It's a fine balance obviously since some questions are going to be needed, but perhaps we're erring too much on the side of too many questions and need to dial it back as apparently was happening a year ago (at least in my RFA, but perhaps some others as well). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the bigger issue is timing. 20 questions isn't so bad if you have seven days (that's a measely three questions a day, not hard to pull off) but as is noted above, a candidate really only has a few. Today was the perfect example. Snowded had his open for what, 55 minutes? And he had 2 Supports (one from nom) and 8 Opposes before even answering a single question, or anyone posing any extra. You can't compete against that kind of rush. If there were a more reasonable "Pose Questions and Comment" period followed by "Vote and add additional comments," it might be a lot more favorable. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 02:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes it's not a tough call. - Dank (push to talk) 02:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If I were in charge I would ban generic questions from individual editors. Questions that apply to everyone should be part of the standard questions that everyone is asked and should be added to that list by consensus. Custom questions should be limited to questions relevant to that specific candidate and not to everyone. --Tango (talk) 03:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

A couple days ago, I was looking at a certain person's stock questions list that they are planning on posting to RfAs, and I was shocked. I saw almost 20 questions from one user. That is, really, a little excessive. (X! · talk)  · @215  ·  04:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, some of the questions asked these days are also quite inappropriate. Asking about someone's polical views or other views has almost nothing to do with building an encyclopedia, as long as the candidate has no problems with POV or COI. -download ׀ sign! 04:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Tango and Download. Side note: if a user has undergone previous RfAs, it's probably reasonable to assume that you can draw conclusions from their answers there. This does not apply in all cases, but it seems silly to have to answer similar questions again and again. Furthermore, as mentioned above, I believe the person asking the question should have a personal stake in it. In other words, the answer to the question should affect the questioner's !vote. Opposing and then throwing up multiple tricky questions that are designed to trap the candidate is unfair, in my opinion. If the answer matters to you, then I would recommend not pre-judging. Enigma^msg 05:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, do we have support here for adding advice to the Guide that if one voter asks you a lot of questions, it would probably be wise to only answer a few of them at first, so that other voters won't feel bad about asking additional questions, and then come back to the ones you didn't answer later, if you have time? - Dank (push to talk) 12:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps uninvolved parties should just start removing everything after say, the third question, asked by the same person. –xeno^talk 15:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Doubtless it has been discussed at some point in the past, but perhaps some of the concerns about the "question crush" could be alleviated by some kind of Q&A period prior to opening the RfA up to general discussion/!voting? As stated above, a significant number of people !vote in an RfA after is has only been up a few hours (or even minutes!) and remain unchanged even after a dozen or more new question have been asked. While this would necessarily lengthen the process, it would allow participants in the discussion more time to consider a candidate's qualifications and answers, as well as allow the candidate ample time to provide thoughtful answers to the questions. Just a thought! Shereth 14:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ironholds 2. It didn't turn out well. I guess so many people wanted to test the process that they asked dozens of questions... (X! · talk)  · @185  ·  03:25, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course that went overboard with 50+ questions. However not only is that seemingly an isolated example, but it's a pretty bad one. It was the fourth RfA for that user, who had also had the issue of having switched accounts. Let's please not damn the idea of "discussion before !voting" based on this single example. I agree though that some measures to limit the number of questions may be helpful. One possibility would be for questions to be proposed on the talk page first, and developed collaboratively - reducing the number of very similar questions. Disembrangler (talk) 13:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a Q&A period before the process starts, when you create your RFA it is preloaded with questions 1 - 3 and there should be no time pressure at all about answering them before you Transclude. If anyone has generic questions that they are going to ask of every candidate then I would suggest they make a proposal here for them to be added to the three standard questions. But I suspect that the current perception of a glut of questions is really a symptom of our shortage of candidates; As the number of RFA questions being asked per week is actually unusually low, but with so few RFA candidates the number of questions per candidate is quite high. However a lot of questions do look like they are generic and not based on a review of the candidates contributions, so one change we could make would be to require non standard questions to be supported by diffs. ϢereSpielChequers 15:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• How about press conference style, "One question per person"? - Mailer Diablo 14:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I support that idea. Kingturtle (talk) 14:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. I wonder if people look at questions already asked. I submit a pretty thorough battery and remove questions about areas already asked. Also, I see little value in questions about areas outside the candidate's requested area. A person can be a net positive if they stick to an area that they like and understand instead of trying to please everyone in all areas. I for one pretty well stick to CSD and AIV. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 15:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I like that idea as well. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I strongly support that. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't and I'm one of the more vocal critics of too many questions. The problem is that when there are legit questions, there are legit questions. Legit questions should not be hampered, it's the stock questions that are asked of every candidate regardless of whom it is... it is the questions wherein a single person has decided that they have the right to ask a dozen stock questions despite the community frowning upon that action.---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I also like the idea of one question per candidate. They have to be relevant to the candidate, though.  iMatthew :  Chat  17:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree - questions should be allowed or disallowed based on their own merits, not on who asked them. --Tango (talk) 17:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

A valid concern, but I think it would offset by the fact that people would be more inclined to make their one question "count."
Also, I'm definitely only seeing this "restriction" (for lack of a better phrase) as being on RfAs; RfBs tend to have numerous questions, but there are less superfluous ones there. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think a limit of one question is a good idea. I hardly ever ask questions, but, when I have, I've asked more than one. In one particular case that I can remember, the second was based on his answer to the first. hmwithτ 14:24, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, so I can't help wondering if this aimed in part at my battery (which I just shortened, by the way). It's mostly stock stuff, I think. Maybe if there was a way to pre-announce pending RFAs as "open for questions"? rootology (C)(T) 17:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

You might also consider not asking the questions if you plan to support anyway, Root. Just a thought :-) Tan | 39 17:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

In part, yes. But the issue has been around a lot longer than your stock questions, and it will be around long after you are gone. So, while I did cite your battery of questions elsewhere, they are only a symptom of a larger issue, and not related to you individually. Does that make sense? EG while your questions are (in part) what has prompted this latest wave of discussions, it not intended as an inditement against you.---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 19:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

New Q4 Standard question

Given that a lot of the "non-standard questions" have become pretty standard lately, I believe this is a reasonable suggestion. Shereth 15:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

OK but what would be a good question 4? I'm not sure that any of the questions I've read recently would be relevant to every RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 16:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Question Are there any policies or guidelines that you are involved with, work with, or have any concerns about? — Ched :  ?  16:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I think this question would serve 2 functions: 1.) It would allow a candidate to present his/her strong suits in regards to understanding a policy or guideline. 2.)In a sense it would allow a candidate the opportunity to "opt out" of items they felt they were weaker in, and acknowledge the fact that we can't all be great at every aspect of the 'pedia. (Just a thought) — Ched :  ?  16:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

OK I agree that policy would make a good q4, but I don't see we have a problem with admins who want to change particular policies, as long as they will administer according to current policy. How about:

Question Are there any policies or guidelines that you disagree with to the point of not being willing to enforce them as an administrator, if so how would you handle situations where such policies were being breached? ϢereSpielChequers 16:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

hmmmm...Yes, better I think. I know we seem to have a lot of things in a state of flux right now: WP:BIO, WP:PLAGIARISM, WP:NOT (well, that's an all the time thing there), ...Seems ... not quite NPOV enough. Let me think on this a bit. — Ched :  ?  16:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that WP:PLAGIARISM is going to change much (if at all) as that's a legal issue and mostly controlled by the foundation. If someone plagiarizes, the content gets removed, and if they continue to do so, they get blocked. Really simple. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The solution to boilerplate question-inflation is more boilerplate questions? What problem is this intended to solve?  Skomorokh  19:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• There are a few good questions being asked. Considering they are asked on basically every RfA, why don't we discuss adding some of those questions to the standard list, and getting rid of the ones that are irrelevant to adminship?  iMatthew :  Chat  19:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• I can think of several questions I'd like to ban off the top of my head: age of majority, other accounts, activities off-wiki, strong beliefs, Wikipedia review, and Wikipedians' rights. I also would not object to a ban of any questions not directly relating to a candidate's previous actions. The community should be able to determine if they will support or oppose based on the candidate's editing history, his interactions with other editors, and his answers to the first three questions. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 19:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Timmeh that there are some very inappropriate questions being asked at RFA and I'm not sure that I'd describe any of the current boilerplate questions as good, IMHO even the best of them are not relevant to some candidates, and some of them seem to be subverting policies such as WP:SOCK#Clean start under a new name. But I do think RFA would be a little more daunting for woefully underqualified candidates and more manageable for others if more questions could be answered before the RFA is transcluded. Turning some of the currently common questions into standard questions 4, 5 or even 6 risks fossilising current RFA fads into a permanent RFA overhead, but here's an alternative that anyone whose thinking of running in the future could try out. Perhaps we should add this to the guidance notes: "As well as questions 1,2 and 3, many other questions may be asked in your RFA, some of which will probably be asked of most candidates who run in the same month as you. To save yourself time during your RFA week you might consider copying in questions from other recent RFAs and answering them at your leisure before you transclude your RFA. You can do this in the format:

:'''4.''' Copy commonly asked question here. this question copied from a recent RFA where it was asked by [[user:(insert username)]]

 ::'''A:'''

I dare anyone whose about to take the plunge to test this out in their RFA! ϢereSpielChequers 20:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's an idea. Maybe we could allow only a certain number of questions, and everyone is allowed only one question. Then, whoever the first x number of people are to post questions are the only ones who get to ask them for that RfA. It would solve the problem of an overwhelming amount of questions and allow a variety of different questions. I'm not sure how it would be enforced, but it seems to work well in theory. ;) Timmeh!_{(review me)} 20:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a great idea. Only one question per user. Use it wisely. And no proxies. Kingturtle (talk) 20:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Anything's better than what we have now. I'd favor this, or 2 per person, or you can ask as many questions as you want, but we advise the candidate to pick only the one (or 2) per person they like best and answer those. I wouldn't mind experimenting with insisting on a diff of some kind, and I don't have any idea whether we'd wind up liking the results or not. - Dank (push to talk) 21:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with somebody asking 10 questions if they are unique to the candidate in question. The problem is that people have gotten into their heads that there are certain questions they would like to have answered and they think those questions are one's the rest of the community wants; despite the repeated cries that there are too many stock questions.---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised more people don't do that. If you're self-nominating, it seems the logical choice. What really surprises me is that more people don't answer yes or no - most of the "stock" questions boil down to simple "Yes or No" scenarios. Hence the lack of value. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 22:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Hey Timmeh, would it be safe to say this is a list of questions that you'd like to see banned?---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Let me first say that I'm not trying to insult Rootology or his ability to formulate RfA questions. There are a few there that look acceptable, but I do not like more than half of them. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 21:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• I don't like any of them. IMO questions should only be asked if you are trying to obtain clarification from a specific individual about a specific issue/criteria. Otherwise, you should be able to look at the candidates history and derive the answers. Stock questions lead to stock answers. And it's not just Rootology, it's everybody who has gotten into the habit of asking the same question(s) of every candidate. I've always hated the notion of one stock questions. I also don't like the idea of one person essentially imposing their will upon the RfA community by asking the same stock questions over and over again. If there was consensus to add these questions to to the RfA process, then fine, add them. But as there is none, these stock questions circumvent the community... the one thing we as a community have agreed upon is that there are too many questions. If you have a specific question for a specific candidate based upon a review of said candidate, fine go ahead and ask your question. Ask 10 for all I care, but make them about the candidate. Asking them what zoological sign they are is a waste of time. This has been a pet peeve of mine for over a year now...---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• I don't feel as strongly about the questions relevant to administrator work, such as, "what would you do in this scenario", but like I said above, I would likely support a measure to ban any questions that have nothing to do with the candidate or his/her past actions. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 21:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If the first questioner had asked 10 questions in my RFA, then I would have picked the two that I wanted to answer the most, and added something like: "Most voters ask questions because they really want to know the answers; if I let the first guy be the star of my show by jumping through all 10 hoops, then someone else will want to be the star too, and by the time I've answered 20 questions, most voters won't want to add any questions to that ... which means that I miss out on my chance to deal with their concerns and gain their vote." If we point this out in the Guide, we may not need to make any new rules; candidates will stop answering a lot of questions because it's in their own interest. - Dank (push to talk) 21:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I must agree with you guys (Timmeh and Spartacus) - if the questions aren't individually tailored to help voters try to figure out where they stand on the candidate, then they shouldn't be asked, pure and simple. If you know how you're going to vote, then vote and discuss, don't ask. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 22:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Timmeh ad Spartacus: questions should be individually tailored to find out information specific to a particular candidate. Now if someone wanted to have a page of questions they noticed they were asking frequently, and then choose from them based on what s/he wanted to know about a particular candidate, I don't see a problem with that. I don't think we really need more standard questions, though. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 17:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

←Well, I wasn't around for the "old school" RfA days, I've always seen those 3 questions, or I'd likely feel much like Spartacus toward "stock questions" in general. I do think the number of questions gets to be too much sometimes, and agree they should reflect on the individual candidate. I don't know if there is a good "stock question" in that policy area or not, but I may follow-up with WSC one day on it. One other item did pop into that little thing I like to call my mind though - alt. accounts. Other than an occasional WP:RTV thing, I would not object to asking if a candidate had other accounts that we should be, or could be, looking at. Just a thought. — Ched :  ?  14:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

About the alternate accounts, if a candidate had accounts whose edit histories could harm his chances at being promoted, he probably wouldn't disclose them anywhere, let alone in a public area such as RfA. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 15:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

You've got an extremely good point Timmeth. And not one I hadn't considered ;). Personally, if a person requesting RfA (the tools) were to avoid answering the question, it would draw questions. If a person was honest, and said "I had an account ... but prefer it not be part of this RfA because I don't use it anymore - I might be inclined to accept that. If however, a person stated flat out that they did not have another account - and it came to light at a later time that they did indeed have such an account, I would be inclined to think that it could be a reasonable justification to seek a de-sysop. The reason being, if someone lied about having an account, then my (our) Support would also be invalid. Hence, the RfA would be invalid. Just a thought. — Ched :  ?  17:37, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey Timmeh, out of curiosity, what do you dislike about the alternate accounts question? I realize it's more a trust question, but given that someone reached the highest levels of this site by gaming the RFA system, it's very valid. rootology (C)(T) 18:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

An RfA candidate is not going to disclose accounts that he is using against policy. If he was going to do it, he'd do it long before the RfA, or maybe after it, but certainly not during it. The question would not accomplish anything. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 18:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:SOCK#LEGIT there are various types of legitimate alternative accounts, for example WP:SOCK#Clean start under a new name allows an editor to stop editing under one account, open a new one and make a fresh start. If you want all alternate accounts declared at RFA then that policy would need to change. I'm not sure whether or not I'd support changing WP:SOCK#Clean start under a new name to say that clean start accounts can't become admins without being disclosed at RFA; But I am sure I'd rather we changed such a policy by consensus not by individual action. ϢereSpielChequers 19:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I have several "sock" accounts that I registered as they were close to my username and I didn't want people impersonating me (which did actually happen once or twice). I don't remember them all, though, so I likely couldn't give a list of them even if I wanted to. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 21:25, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• <* thinking *> hmmm ... wondering if I mentioned my "Gwarp", "HAGGAR", and "Wheels" accounts? ... meh, prolly not important. </poor attempt at humor> — Ched :  ?  00:18, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Acceptable?

Is it acceptable to ask the following questions on RfAs?

1. Do you have any strongly held beliefs or affiliations, "In real life", and would you be willing to disclose those here? Would you be willing or able to permanently recuse from using your admin tools on those areas?
2. Are you engaged currently, or were previously, in any activities off-wiki which (under your "real name", or your online "handle") which, if made public, could potentially bring Wikipedia into disrepute?

Regards, — Aitias // discussion 17:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The second one is a legitimate question, but the first is too personal, I think. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. God knows what sort of answer you'd get to #2 other than "No", though. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 17:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

There are two sections above regarding the appropriateness of a lot of these questions. The first one is pretty personal, like Julian said. But I don't think the second one is very bad.  iMatthew :  Chat  17:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @iMatthew: My apologies, but I did not read those sections before starting this one. Sorry. — Aitias // discussion 18:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --Philcha (talk) 17:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The first is far from acceptable, but neither of them serve any purpose. I don't think you'd ever get a "yes" to the second one, whether the candidate has engaged in such activities or not. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 18:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

We all have strongly held beliefs, it's part of being human. The important thing is whether we are prepared to leave them in real life. As Boilerplate the first question is either irrelevant or inappropriate, not least because they might stop someone asking a similar but relevant question such as; "Your earliest edits include these two diffs showing quite partisan views on the history of Easter Island, would you use the mop in disputes on that topic?" And I think the second question challenges the principle of this being the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. If your contributions show bias then you may have diffs that betray breach of wp:COI; If your contributions are good, what exactly could one do or be in real life that would bring disrepute on us if it was known that you were editing Wikipedia? ϢereSpielChequers 19:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

As I answered them I was pretty much thinking that. I had nothing particularly interesting worth disclosing, but I suspect that if I was some kind of commie-nazi-kitten-eater in real life I probably would have had the presence of mind not to disclose that fact if I was planning on using admin tools to further my nefarious goals. I'm not sure if those questions will ever really achieve anything other than infringing people's desire for privacy. ~ mazca ^t|c 19:18, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think either of them would really amount to much. Plus, if there was a concern, it would probably be brought up in the RfA. Take Enigma's RfA for example, while he hasn't said anything, I suspect that he will tread very lightly on using admin tools when working on articles related to Judaism. While the allegations, IMO, don't hold much weight, they have been made. Now, if he is really a commie-nazi-kitten-eater and has been able to work on those pages without issue, then who cares? I mean, I work on the Poker pages all the time, and I'll use the tools there if necessary (and if I'm not involved with the issue.) You don't want to block people who might be possible first responders.---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 19:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The first is too personal to be relevant, and the second will do nothing to actually weed out questionable candidates. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

It is my belief that any question that is not patently offensive is acceptable, in the sense that a user should feel free to ask it; however neither of these questions are especially useful or relevant to a candidacy. I do not think a user's personal beliefs/affiliations has anything to do with their suitability as an administrator and I would ignore it (or any subsequent comments hinging upon its answer or lack thereof) were I a bureaucrat closing the discussion. The second question is a non-starter; we may as well be asking them "Are you a bad person?" Shereth 19:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh what hilarious times will be had by all the first time someone says "Oppose Candidate is a bad person" (or better yet, "Support Candidate is a bad person"). EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

People always enjoy asking questions like this after some kind of controversy happens. It dies down eventually when people get bored of it. --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 19:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Where is Keepscases (talk · contribs)? He'd probably add some relevant content to this thread. Tan | 39 19:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Sir, when did you stop beating your wife? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Another question that has nothing to do with adminship is

• What are the most important things you feel you've learned during your time on Wikipedia?

Do we really need that question being asked?  iMatthew :  Chat  21:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I've wondered how it would turn out if the fourth question wasn't even a straight-up question at all, but rather a hypothetical situation that gave some insight into the candidate's perspective. For example, "Hypothetical situation: You alone will be making a change to a policy. It can be any change to any policy, but it must be a change. What change do you make and why?" Useight (talk) 22:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Simple, that I have to answer a question about which policy I have to change...---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

That's actually really good, as a question. I'd almost say make it so you have to name a change in three areas: 1) Content policy; 2) behavioral policy; 3) policy on administrator action/tools. Since that's what we have to "police" half the time. rootology (C)(T) 22:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

What information would this give RfA commentators? Standard answers will be 1. More references and verifiability; 2. Tougher policy on WP:CIVIL; and 3. Some way to make admins more accountable. I guess what I'm trying to say is that these questions don't really bring anything new or extremely profitable to the table. Cookie cutter responses aren't helpful, but neither are invasive personal questions that will deter users from RfA and Wikipedia in general. Should we even move in the direction of more questions? Are we looking to raise standards or lower them? Malinaccier (talk) 23:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I also don't think we need to start adding more standard questions, I am of the school of thought that a candidate's contributions tell the story, but if any questions are to be added as standard (which would be nearly impossible, due to the number of "cooks in the kitchen"), it needs to be a question, that, like you said, wouldn't be easily answered with cookie cutter responses and would also provide some useful insight into whether the candidate would make a good administrator. That sentence is a very bad run-on, but without a question like that, I don't see why we need a fourth question. Useight (talk) 00:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, I don't understand why "Are you over or under the age of majority" is a relevant question as an editor could make anything up. I also believe there are too many questions asked these days. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 00:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to assume that comment was not directed at me, but rather just a general comment, as I never defended that particular question. Useight (talk) 00:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Nah mate, wasn't directed at anyone. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 00:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that people are looking to add questions just as some sort of busy work that makes it feel like things are moving forward here. I support change at RfA, but needless change in areas that work fine just add to functionality creep. Malinaccier (talk) 01:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The first question is far too personal, and no one will tell the truth in the first or second. IMHO, there's nothing to gain from asking these. hmwithτ 14:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree with hmwith on the first one. The second one has two problems: First, this issue isn't a problem for Wikipedia, as far as I know. Why ask a question about a problem that doesn't exist? Second, I'm not quite sure what 'activities' would tarnish the encyclopedia unless they were a user's personal, legal (civil or criminal) woes, in which case that user should be advised not to discuss those matters anyway. I really don't want to see a user, who is so anxious to get the toolkit, reveal personal information based on some questions that clearly show the mindset of someone who takes their volunteer time at the free encyclopedia much too seriously. Law _{type! snype?} 16:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It's about character and clever thinking

Let me try to explain why I use the questions at User:Rootology/RFA. Keep in mind that these are all optional. My reasoning is very straightforward on each one, and here it is in easily digestible bullet form:

1. Alternate accounts question:

Yes, the alternate account question spawned after I saw it used on another RFA in the wake of User:Sam Blacketer gaming our system to come back from being User:Fys. Will the smart socker disclose? Of course not, but that's not the point of the question. It's a question of character. Adminship, short of being, well, a total moron, an ass of the Highest Magnitude, or Really Screwing Up in tools use is impossible to lose. An RFA passed under false, pretenses, however, is tainted. Sure, a fellow can "lie" here, or innocently, or legitimately, exclude a given username. It's about the integrity of the user to stand up. Plus, if they do disclose a given name, relevant information about the operator's Wikipedia history may come into play. I am 100% behind the notion of a clean start under a new username for regular editors. I am 100% against the notion of a clean start that allows one to go up the system food chain here via such a thing if they have something major in their past. User:Fys is the textbook example of this. And of course, User:Poetlister in the past. If he could pull that off on one project, it could be done anywhere if done carefully enough. I absolutely reject any notion that this question is an invasion of privacy. It's a valid question to ask of any candidate at any level, up to and including Board Member and I disagree with suggestions it should be asked off the books. If you want a position of trust, you have to be open. If something in your personal life prevents that, or for "security risks", why are you really wanting to be in a role that could put a target on your head based on your deliberate actions, honestly?

2. Beliefs and affiliations question:

Again, character; but if your history of editing is littered with partisan conflicts--careful how you answer. There are some areas that some of us have flat-out no business using tools, period and full stop. Either for actual COI, or what would be perceived COI. I would have massive perceived COI if I used tools on Obama stuff, so I simply hard restricted myself from doing so. It's that simple. Answer true, and you're fine here, answer false and with history visible... well, if some oppose, that's their right. We don't need liars as admins. Again, I reject privacy notions on this; it's a valid question.

3. Age of Majority

How would we prove it, anyway? AoM in some nations is 14, and 25 in others. It's about the admin prospect putting trust in us, as much as him. I wouldn't oppose for being over or under, myself, but some are certainly entitled to oppose. Asking if you're either "Over 14" or "Over 25" is not invasive of any privacy. If any one question I could see myself immediately removing from my list, it's this one. As for the idea of checking a userpage (as was mentioned on my talk) before asking some of these-- I prefer to ask anyway. If someone does lie, and is caught out, again: We don't need liars as admins.

4. What do you think of BLP?

Pretty stock and vanilla, and I'm a fan of open-ended questions.

5. My flagged revs question

Flagged Revs are coming, so I think it's important we get people on the record. Once it's live, Admins will be responsible to support it in various ways, like they are required to with other policies and procedures like WP:NPOV and WP:BLP.

6. Admin status and policy application

Yes, I know my 'equality' proposal bombed, or was flawed, or was hopelessly ahead of it's time, or just pie in the sky naive. However, I'm strictly in the camp that I'm not any better than anyone else as an admin on here, and that I'm always now on an even shorter leash than non-admins or "lower ranked" people. If I want the leash off, I resign. That's my 'wiki philosophy', and I'm entitled to ask how people see such things.

Anyway, that's my reasoning for these questions. 1-3 can almost be stock-type questions, and the others are issues I'm passionate about. What is wrong with these, and my reasoning? I understand people can say whatever they want, but that's not the point. It's a simple idealistic test of character and thinking. rootology (C)(T) 22:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Each question might be, by itself, quite rational and normal for any RfA. But when you ask 12 questions, its a problem. When we've got a group of people who have separately come up with multiple otherwise rational questions, and they all post it to a single RfA, the net result is irrational even if the components were not. Nathan ^T 23:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Certainly. I've actually dropped some of mine, when similar were already asked, and would continue to do so to not be redundant. There was one RFA (I already forgot which) where the alternate account one was asked in a fairly different form, so I left it in anyway, since mine is more to the point and direct. rootology (C)(T) 23:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Another point... While I don't think that people have been criticising questions for their content as much as their number (for the most part, with the exception of the two questions challenged on this page), I would quibble with your closing justification. It seems a stretch to conclude that the questions are a test of character - I'm not sure you can test character with such questions, especially at a time when the person answering the questions is under the most pressure to craft politically palatable answers. Nathan ^T 23:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm weird. If someone went off the rails with brutal honesty I'd be far, far more likely to scream support from the rooftops. But, I've never exactly been normal in my thinking on this site. rootology (C)(T) 23:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me ask you Rootology. Why do you ask questions that can't be verified. Opinion and situation questions are different, but you can't verity a few of your questions. So why do you bother asking them?  iMatthew :  Chat  23:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Which questions are you referring to particularly? Malinaccier (talk) 23:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

On this list ^, questions two and three.  iMatthew :  Chat  00:10, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The only thing keeping anyone from lying is the possibility that they would be exposed later and face consequences, but on the age subject it's basically a loaded question (either tell now and get opposed or revealed later and get crucified). Malinaccier (talk) 00:16, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

That's why that's the one I'm most likely to drop, and I think I will right now. Since it's all but impossible to get Oversight/CU now without being 18 now anyway (I hope!) it's not a real concern for me. rootology (C)(T) 00:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Again, the strength of their answer. If we're not going to fix what's actually broken on RFA, to make it easy come/easy go, and do the logical thing by breaking up the rights, then anything we do to keep the really deceptive trash out helps in my opinion. Not that it will, but if/when they're caught out later, this will be a big bullet for the AC or community to pop them out. I hope. rootology (C)(T) 00:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think question 1 is extremely unhelpful. Anyone who is intent on socking illegally will answer no, anyone who has an admitted legal sock has already tagged it, and anyone who has a hidden legal sock (for privacy purposes) is now faced by the dilemma of admitting its existence, allowing people to start "hunting" for it or denying its existence, and run the risk of should it ever come out, a horrible brouhaha would erupt, even though the new admin had done nothing wrong. As someone who is privy (at times) to the reasons why people create alternate accounts (CU list) I would personally recommend that everyone not answer that question, so as not to automatically cast suspicion on only those who demur. -- Avi (talk) 15:10, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree with Avi. It serves as far more of a trap for good-faithed candidates than bad-faithed. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Ditto... but you can apply the same rationale to questions 2 and 3 as well---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:16, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

If flagged revision are coming (duck and cover!), why care about anyone's opinion? They don't matter anymore. NVO (talk) 23:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

We still ask about BLP all the time on RFA, and that's been here for a while. Admins have to enforce policy; if someone had for example an opinion on BLP that was to me offensive, I could not support them. rootology (C)(T) 23:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• Historically, optional questions are not optional. The stock questions bear an uncanny resemblance to the standard job interview or even visa application questions. (i.e. Aliases, declaration of eligibility, convictions, company policy and values, etc.) - Mailer Diablo 07:49, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
  • What's next, Rorschach test? In real world, this crap somehow disappears at some invisible point in life. Kids are harrassed by all kinds of useless Qs, then it all reduces to a handshake at lunch. NVO (talk) 09:03, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

WT:RFA

Adminship is supposed to be relevant and civil, and here we are devoting hours upon hours of our time debating/discussing/arguing about it. As such, I believe I have a solution to this problem. Basically, anyone that wants to be an admin or wants to nominate someone can just throw that tag on their userpage, and there will be a link to the discussion page. Simple and easy. thanks. South Bay (talk) 23:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

RFA will never be simple and easy until it's just as simple and easy to lose the tools. rootology (C)(T) 23:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

And WT:RFA will never be silent because people like gabbing :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm adding something based on that to my stock questions: "Are you currently, or have you previously, participated on WT:RFA?" rootology (C)(T) 23:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I doubt I'd pass RfA by today's standards! - Mailer Diablo 07:57, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting point in that we all seem to have criteria for 'adminship' before we offer a support !vote, most of which could be automated. X edits here, Y months active, Z areas with contributions. If the bit is "no big deal" then maybe every editor who lasts out "several months" of experience should be given it automatically? Note: this isn't a view to which I adhere, I merely offer it as relevant to the discussion. Coldmachine^Talk 23:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

No way, disruptive, POV pushing etc users can last "several months" and I doubt anyone would want them with the tools even if adminship is no big deal.--Giants27 (t|c|r|s) 23:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that if we automated the process with a Bot we could put in factors such as recent blocks and warnings, and those who don't get 50% currently could be screened out by a good AI system with a pretty high accuracy rate. But I'm not convinced that a Bot could replicate the vagaries of RFA, ultimately a lot is down to judgement calls. Also the current process is far from being an easily automated criteria based thing, RFA has its fads and fashions, and an ever evolving self selecting cast of participants so an RFA that would pass one month might not if it had run a month earlier or later. If you were to create a bot to automate this you'd either have to have some sort of randomisation effect embedded in it or you'd have to decide on the composite RFA criteria to use. ϢereSpielChequers 15:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It would have to have very, very good accuracy to be accepted as a straight yes/no. And even then there is likely to be candidates who would fail the bot test but might have passed RfA, an alternative might be a bot which gives you your "score" on how suitable a candidate it thinks you are, and also give the average score of passed candidates from the last month. The problem with this, is if the score was made "public" on, say Wikipedia many users may vote depending on what score the candidate got. And even if the score was not public, it's likely that users may go and use the tool to review candidates (technically you could make so that the tool only reviews the user who is reviewing, by requiring the password of the user, but it depends how bothered people are I guess). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 15:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Now that's a good idea, and the only problem I could see is commenters, supporting/opposing based on it. The only way I could see that not happening is leaving the info to the candidate. Also a candidate would more than likely have to request such a review so maybe something like Wikipedia:RfA Compatibility requests being used to house such requests.--Giants27 (t|c) 00:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

That's an option. I believe bots can send emails (?), so if we had the bot send an email directly to the user requesting, that would keep it (more) private. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:21, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

If there are no objections I will add this to the bot requests page (few days). I have no desire to program such a bot myself, I have a feeling that the code will be very messy how ever it's done ;). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 07:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It might be good to see if someone can run one for 6 months or a year and have it "close" them by tracking how it would have closed them compared to how they were actually closed. Then, at the end of that time, there would be some hard data on how a bot could do it and people would have something to actually discuss. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 07:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't sound too bad. I still disapprove of a bot deciding is RfAs should fail or not, but I can see little harm in saving what it would have done should it be allowed to. And then if at the end of that period it's always been correct... well maybe we should consider again then - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was thinking. I suggested a longer period (I'm leaning toward one year) in order to have a lot of data collected. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 08:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I like this idea a lot. Now we just need someone to write the code for the bot. It would have the potential to be very useful. Enigma^msg 08:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, even if it's only useful in laying to rest claims that a bot can effectively "close" RfAs, it would be useful to be able to point to the study as proof oe way or the other. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Argh, there seems to be a lot of support for this, so I'll add the request now. See if anybody's up for the challenge :) - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Added at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Bot to judge suitability of potential admins. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Fresh Meat

Fresh meat on the grill folks. If ya wanna get some questions in now before I call it a night, I'll give it a shot. Root .. I think you're probably up next. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ched Davis. I'll add my acceptance before I call it a night, and if Pedro doesn't transclude tomorrow, I will sometime late morning after a couple jobs. (I'm east coast USA) — Ched :  ?  02:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Ha, ok. rootology (C)(T) 02:49, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Get on with it, you. I've been up for the past two and a half hours waiting, not even kidding! — neuro^(talk) 03:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok already .. I accepted. Transclude at will if it's not dependent on Pedro to do so. — Ched :  ?  03:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate for RFA?

It seems like this is the appropriate place to do so. Are questions like this appropriate on an RFA? tedder (talk) 12:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind it personally, assuming they are friends IRL, then it's perfectly fine.--Giants27 (t|c) 13:10, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Has nothing to do with being friends IRL. They are optional questions, and don't seem to matter to Steve regarding his !vote. There are multiple threads above encouraging editors not to add those kind of questions, but it's not a really big deal since Ched doesn't seem to mind.  iMatthew :  Chat  13:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I feel they are not appropriate. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but also feel that since people feel that they are not appropriate, he could totally ignore them and it would not impact his RFA negatively, so it's not a big deal. --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 13:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I feel that if he feels that if we feel that it's okay for him to feel that he doesn't have to feel obliged to respond to them, then we should all feel okay with that :D Coldmachine^Talk 22:27, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think any of these types of questions asking for personal info and beliefs are appropriate. -download ׀ sign! 22:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably prudent if I provide some sort of explanation here. As I noted in my edit summary, me and Ched are friends in real life. I added the first question, obviously, as a serious question, with the other two being light-hearted jokes. I discussed this with Ched and he doesn't mind, indeed, he responded to the questions in a light-hearted manner. He said he'll comment here soon. I assure you these questions were nought but an attempt to lighten up the RFA page, and do apologise if they offended or irritated anyone. Sincerely, Steve Crossin ^Talk/_{Help us mediate!} 00:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

←First I do truly appreciate the concern. As Steve mentioned, we are friends in real life, and I did not take offense to the questions. I agree, that they would not be proper in a general RfA, but I was not offended. Tempest in a teapot thing here, and no need to make a big deal out of this particular incident. Cheers to all. — Ched :  ?  01:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Doing it at all sets a precedent for other RFAs, even if you don't object in this instance. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Defniately understandable ... hopefully it's a "one of" instance. — Ched :  ?  02:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course it is, this isn't something I'd do to anyone else. Steve Crossin ^Talk/_{Help us mediate!} 02:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Better not done at all. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

With respect Rlevse, discussing it here isn't solving much. This won't happen again. If you feel compelled to remove it, please do so, if not, can't we just get back to editing? :) Steve Crossin ^Talk/_{Help us mediate!} 02:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Ched archived this, and I'm carefully taking it out of archive, as I think it's worth explaining a little more, and I have been well and truly away from the keyboard as it's progressed. I'm a supporter of Ched's (look at the fourth support vote on his RFA), and I don't have a problem with witty comments (see my appreciation of CoM's comment). Nor do I know or have issues with User:Steve Crossin nudging a pal on Wikipedia in appropriate places. However, using the official RFA (especially question space) for light banter seems (a) something better suited for a user talk page, and (b) starts moving the RFA process in a more casual, less NPOV (aka a less objective) direction.

I really don't/didn't intend to make an example out of Ched and other supporters. However, it's a specific example that can be used to discuss the process and the goal of the RFA. It seems like concerns about why editors shy away from running an RFA are compromised when the process appears to be influenced by a fraternity. I hope this makes sense, and that I didn't just beat a dead horse or dig myself into an deeper anti-WP:AGF hole. tedder (talk) 05:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Request

i would like to be an administrator. i have been serving Wikipedia for long time.and i think i can handle the job well.please trust me and let me be a administritor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Animesh1986 (talk • contribs) 09:51, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

At the present time, I don't think a request for adminship from you would be successful. While you've been here since August 2007, you've got less than 40 edits. Take a look at WP:NOTNOW for some helpful advice. –xeno^talk 14:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

And it might help if you sign your posts :) Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 15:16, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that you read WP:RfA. Please note that it is almost unheard of for any editor to be entrusted with the admin tools until they have made 3,000 edits, and most applicants have made more. Edits should be spread not only in article-space, but also in talk-space and in admin-related articles such as WP:CSD, WP:UAA, WP:AfD, WP:AIV, WP:RfA, etc. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 17:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

1. Oppose Too many admins who don't sign their talkpage posts already Dou (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:23, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Section Wording

In the ABOUT RFA's section, in the Decisions section, it says:

may also de-list a nomination

does anyone think it would sound better as "unlist"?--Airplaneman (talk) 15:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Either one could probably be used, but I believe "de-list" should not have a hyphen. Timmeh!_{(review me)} 15:32, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed it to delist. NW (Talk) 19:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that delist sounds best - there's a subtle difference, I think. Something that's unlisted has never been listed, while something that's delisted was once listed, but now is not. Not sure if general English usage supports that or anything, but that's how I think of it! ~ mazca ^t|c 20:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I kind of think of "delist" as "to remove from a list" while "unlist" is "undo the action of listing", somewhat implying completion versus cancellation. Useight (talk) 22:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the terminology definitions of mazca and Useight. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Yea, not that I'm some huge fan of "group-think", but Useight and Mazca pretty much say what goes through my mind when the two words are compared. — Ched :  ?  00:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

What I'm most impressed with is that someone actually read that section in enough detail to bring a grammar question here to wt:rfa. Kudos to you, airplaneman. :-) Keeper | 76 01:39, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Obviously Airplaneman is either not a not a product of public eduction or not an American ;-)---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

They can't be British - they're complaining. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you implying that British people don't complain? lolwut? hmwithτ 14:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

British people complain a lot, as long as there's no chance of their concern being rectified. For instance, if a British person has a bad meal in a restaurant, they won't complain to the manager, but they'll bitch about it all day at work the next day! ~ mazca ^t|c 16:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

"Hanging on in quiet desperation..." Tan | 39 19:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Request for adminship

I intend to use Wikipedia Adminsitrator powers to enforce Wikipedia policies and to punish vandals who damage works that are meant to help the many people who use Wikipedia as a base of information. I wish to help make Wikipedia reliable.

I do not have any "best" contributions but I have contributed to many articles and helped correct flaws and add information. Although many are minor edits such as corrections of spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, I always correct mistakes whenever possible, and always to the advantage of other users of Wikipedia.

I have had one problem with adding in articles which where not necessary. However, I have dealt with that problem and have never made any problems since.

Nathan.tang (talk) 10:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello Nathan, if the above post was you asking to be an administrator, please read through the guide to adminship, especially things to consider before requesting adminship. There is a specific application process one goes through, and as you have less than 300 edits in total, there is very little chance that your request to become an administrator would succeed at this point. Wikipedia has numerous areas, policies, and guidelines, as well as many behind-the-scenes areas that most editors are not even aware of, and one must be familiar with a good amount of these things to be able to be an administrator. I would suggest that you seek out a mentor for a while, to assist you with editing articles, how to follow the manual of style, learn about things like footnotes and sourcing, and many of the basics before you consider adminship. Cheers! Posted on user's talk page as well. - Ariel♥Gold 10:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow Ariel, I've never seen you edit this page before. Welcome to the circle of hell known as WT:RFA ;-) Nathan ^T 22:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

And sandwiched between two Nathans, no less. Useight (talk) 22:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

bow ch ch bow wow... EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[1] –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:17, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Julian! – (iMatthew • talk) at 23:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

ROFL! You guys make me laugh. (HI EVULA!) I read this page often, just have rarely had any reason to join in. ;) Ariel♥Gold 13:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Lets try to avoid all checking the same things

COM raised an interesting point on the talk page of Ched's RFA. No-one reviews every single edit by a serious RFA candidate, and I suspect few then check the circumstances, sources etc to look for plagiarism and all the other potential flaws that should derail a candidacy. If we want RFA to be a bit less of a hazing ceremony and more of a serious discussion as to whether a particular candidate should become an admin, I think it would be helpful if we all made it clearer what part of the candidates contributions we have checked and from what angle. Looking at the ninety or so !votes on one current RFA, very few give enough indication as to what aspects of the candidate's contributions they have checked for other reviewers to look elsewhere. If we assume that every !voter spends half an hour reviewing an unfamiliar candidate, thats an an awful lot of eyes going over the last 500 edits, the talk page and the block log, quite a few admins going through the deleted edits but possibly the odd thousand edits in the last few months left totally unreviewed. I think that RFA would be a more effective process if more of us copied So Why, A Nobody and some others in giving clear indications as to what sort of scrutiny we've done of the candidate, much like at FAC where different reviewers tend to focus on different aspects of an article. In the longer term I suspect we'd save a lot of duplicated effort by implementing a flagged revisions or New Page patrol type system whereby RFA !voters can mark a candidate's edits as reviewed, and if they choose only look at edits not yet marked as reviewed. ϢereSpielChequers 14:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but often the sum is greater than the total of the parts - and often one very poor edit will bomb an other excellent candidate as at Beebelbrox's RFA for example.

A review of, say, all AFD comments might indicate exceptional knowledge of content policies - but if the candidate is tagging for CSD badly then should they be given the delete tool?

Equally a review of all edits in say May might indicate exceptional strengths - but a foolish ANI bit of drama in June is then missed. I for one find hitting random diffs across the namespaces to be a good way of getting the overall impression of the candidate. Then a drill down through user and articel talk archives often uncovers more, and finally a review of the nomination and existing supports / opposes / neutrals.

The main problem of course is that RFA supports or opposes are subjective. No-one's "criteria" or standards are the same. Pedro :  Chat  15:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Gotta agree with Pedro here. This approach would only work if I was confident that your review of all X edits would yield the same impression as my review would. Tan | 39 15:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll often spend a good amount of time reviewing an unfamiliar candidate, but a lot of what I do tends not to be focused in specific areas - I skim-read down pages of contribs looking for things that look good/bad/interesting, and investigate anything that catches my eye. I generally find I get a good feel for the candidate from doing this, but it's hard to summarise in my vote unless I find something particularly noteworthy. ~ mazca ^t|c 16:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I check userpage; talkpage; block log; a random sample of user talk, Wikipedia, Wikipedia talk, and deleted edits; along with a deeper look into the areas mentioned in Q1. But I guess what you're suggesting is that there be something like a list on the talk page of each RFA of who checked each major area. Something like: blocklog was checked by User:ABC and User:XYZ, ANI was checked by User:Example and User:Sample, UAA work was checked by User:Somebody and User:Anybody, and so forth. And then each subsequent reviewer could take a look at the list and see which areas have and have not yet been checked by many other reviewers and/or reviewers that they trusted and thought had a similar criteria to themselves. But, as mentioned above, it is extremely subjective and some users are more stringent in some areas than others. Which, if you know the other editors well, could be either quite useful or not useful at all. For example, Wisdom89 happens to be on the stricter end of the scale when it comes to UAA. If he checked UAA work and still supported, then I know his (the candidate's) UAA work must definitely be very good. However, if Wisdom89 opposed based on UAA work, I would still take a look at the candidate's UAA work because I happen to be slightly less stringent in that area. But in other areas of work, it would be the other way around. Useight (talk) 17:29, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Well, I'll certainly admit that it's given me a totally different perspective on the process. Having participated in maybe 70-75 60 RfAs in the past, and reading through maybe 40 or 50 older one, it does appear that a couple things may be a tad unusual - but perhaps that's part of the subjectivity. Only you guys and girls would be able to say if it was "typical" I guess. I've definitely seen a huge evolution in RfA from the ones of only 2 or 3 years ago. I get the sense that there is a certain "ebb and flow" to the process too. As far as evaluating, in the past I've glanced through UT and UP, the stats on the RfA talk page, looked at areas where the candidate is most active, and looked through maybe the 3rd or 5th from the top item. If I think I need more input, I'll go back and look through things from about a month ago, hope there are edit summaries, and look at some diffs. I do try to check back toward the end of the RfA too, just in case something has come to light that I wasn't aware of - and if I think it's proper, I'm not opposed to changing my vote. — Ched :  ?  17:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Well we could encourage voters to say what they checked against their vote. Or perhaps we could have a checklist that is substed in, and checkers can sign up against the items they have checked. We could break it up into timeslots of a month each, different categories of activities, eg file uploading, moving, SD tagging, AIV warnings, AfD nominations, XfD arguments .... There are probably aspects that no one checks. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Why fix what isn't broken? This sounds like an awfully tedious type of reform that will turn alot of people away from participating in RfA, narrowing the ammount of input garnered for a candidate (which, mind you, is already incredibly slim when you sift through all the useless comments).--Koji† 03:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. If people think there's an RFA cabal now, just wait until this checklist is created. Law _{type! snype?} 03:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate that not every reviewer would want to change the way they review at RFA, and I suspect that the editors who post here will include many who've been around long enough to want to make their own judgement about candidates. I agree with the above that we don't want to make the place more bureaucratic, with checklists and so forth but I do suspect that there is an awful lot of time wasted at RFA because multiple eyes are looking at the same things. I'm also fairly sure that some things are being missed because we don't know what has and has not been checked by others. For example, if I'm unfamiliar with a candidate who says they intend to work at CSD then I'm liable to look very carefully at their CSD tagging, however there are RFA regulars whose judgement I trust at CSD and if one of them says they've checked and approve of the candidates CSD tagging then I'm liable to accept that and check something else. So the answer to why "fix what isn't broken" is that the current system is one of the many aspects of RFA that some consider broken or at least worthy of improvement. We recently had an admin resign just after her RFA because of something that wasn't spotted in her RFA, if even a third of the RFA participants were to make it clear in their !vote what they'd checked, and only check things that had not already been checked, then in my view RFA would be a little more likely to identify relevant flaws in a candidate's contributions; and potentially make slightly more efficient use of our volunteers time. ϢereSpielChequers 10:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I get what you are saying about things being overlooked, but take that case you mentioned, for example. Ottava and others now seem to really look at the character of contributions, which shows that as RFA goes on, we are learning. Law _{type! snype?} 11:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The only way to get around that point (WSC's) without turning RfA into a collaborative project and leaving it a process that is open to the community as it always has been, is for individual reviewers who share your concerns to crack down and spend more time evaluating a candidate. Any attempt otherwise would be trying to reform RfA into a closed process with only certain people allowed to elaborate candidates, going against the point of RfA's being a community decision. WP:RFA says: "the community currently endorses the right of any Wikipedian with an account to comment in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections" To turn reviewing certain aspects of a candidate into responsibilities of a few designated people, if I'm understanding this right, defies that.--Koji† 16:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Koji, Just to clarify I'm not suggesting that only particular editors have responsibility to review candidates or that more time in total be spent reviewing candidates. What I'm suggesting is that reviewers give more info in their !votes as to what they've checked, so that those who wish to check things that may not have been checked already can read what others have checked and look elsewhere. Hopefully this will result in a more thorough evaluation of RFA candidates and a more efficient use of everyone's time. But this is not a suggestion either to restrict who participates at RFA, or to prevent those who wish to knowingly duplicate what has already been done from doing so. ϢereSpielChequers 17:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I mis-understood in that case—my bad. Although now, tbh, it sounds like less of a proposal and more of an advisement.--Koji† 19:25, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I support the proposal, and suggest a refinement to minimise duplication still further - editors should sign up to review some aspect / part of the candidates' work, add comments, then sign off when done. This is not bureacracy, it's an adaptation of the very simple system used at WP:GAN, where we can't afford duplication of effort. More generally I'm all in favour of having a standard "form" - it would act as a reminder / checklist, help other editors to find things, etc. A template for the initial (empty) layout would be fine. OTOH I wouldn't make it dependent on knowing which templates to use - "checking" and "checked" plus signature would do. --Philcha (talk) 16:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I do think editors should say more than simply "support" or "oppose," because otherwise it is a vote rather than an argument. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a pretty interesting and reasonable idea. On every DYK they check the length, cites, and dates. It would be nice if someone actually checked the article content, AfD votes, CSD noms, etc. Maybe an options checklist and people who review them can have a place to comment? Like *I checked XYZ, PBQ, and MNO articles and they looked pretty good -sig. And *the AfD posts look reasonable -sig. It would be interesting I think. Could it be tried on the talk page? In theory noms would do this anyway, so I think they could help too. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I can't see any harm in trying it, at least. You're welcome to use my RFA's talk page if you wish :) . - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c, rfa)} 17:48, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Troublesome statistic

I know we've been over and over admin burnout and why admins are leaving in increasing numbers, but a net of -21 in 8 days? Troublesome indeed. Enigma^msg 08:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

We have way more admins than we used to, so more will retire or become inactive at any given time. Not terribly surprising to me. Prodego ^talk 08:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and we have far more inactive admins than ever before, so one would think we could have enough admins being promoted or returning from a hiatus to make up for the ones leaving in droves. A net of -21? That's not the amount of admins that became inactive over that period. That number is even higher. Enigma^msg 08:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

The last time it was this low was the 3rd of April, 2009, so that's not too drastic Spitfire^Tally-ho! 08:34, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Bit of a shame really. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 08:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Also as another interesting point, on September the 5th 2007 it was exactly the same as it is today. Spitfire^Tally-ho! 08:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it will be plus one a few months from now when Fut.Perf automatically gets the bit back (I think that's the current plan). Personally, I blame some combination of ArbCom and an as yet determined segment of the community for making the admin job thankless AND high risk. Who needs the aggravation? In fact, I would strongly encourage any regular editor reviewing this page who is considering an RfA NOT TO RUN. Hiberniantears (talk) 20:16, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Turnover is as high as ever, and that is something Wikipedia has to be prepared and cope for the long term. - Mailer Diablo 21:53, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to panic. There are always fluctuations in the numbers of admins here. Unless we see them dropping by the multiple scores, I don't think it's an issue. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:04, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Another frightening statistic... +4 admins one day later. At that rate we'll soon be over run with admins. No? I guess my point is that you literally picked the highest date since march... and yes 908 is the lowest in a long time, the 912 isn't outside of the range of normalicy. The numbers seem to fluxuate greatly with a 20 point range.---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think these numbers are something that should really be paid attention to, unless one week it shows some sign of suddenly dropping off by a few hundred so that wiki-chaos befalls everyone, putting vandals in control and officially raising the wiki-defcon level to the previously un-used "Holy Balls" setting.--Koji† 22:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

If it drops by 21, you'd expect it to come back up. It's something I noticed a few days ago. I wasn't picking the highest number since March, just the highest from this month. Since we need more administrators, not less, and since the number of active admins has been trending downwards this month, despite promotions, well... Enigma^msg 22:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This conversation reminds me of Mark Twain. Useight (talk) 22:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

He's a distant relation. :) Enigma^msg 22:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose too many admins. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

If anybody cares, it's currently at 915, up three more... looks like they're trying to prove you wrong, Enigma :O weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 10:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, the famous "Prove Enigma Wrong" cabal... :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

You don't need a cabal to do that... Tan | 39 23:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I am my own cabal. I see now where I was wrong, but I still don't agree with removing the protection. Enigma^msg 01:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly one year ago we had 999 "active admins", 84 more than we have today, but less than our Jan & Feb 2008 peak when for three months we consistently had more than a thousand "active admins". This is a very different pattern than the plus or minus twenty mentioned above. The numbers of "active admins" are fluctuating, and we are still appointing a trickle of new admins. But the clear trend since spring 2008 has been negative, with insufficient new and returning admins to replace those we lose. This isn't news to those of us who've long considered that RFA is broken; but I'd be interested to hear from the RFA isn't broken crowd as to how long that trend would have to continue before they would concede that there is a problem. I think it's also time for those who believe we have too many admins to start suggesting ways in which the community can operate with a smaller group of admins who perforce do little but admin work. I would like the community to be self administering; with most responsible longterm users having the mop, and few if any specialising in primarily being admins. But with the current RFA process that seems to be an unrealistic ambition, and I would be interested to hear from others as to how else they think we can operate; and especially how we can avoid the pitfalls of a dwindling admin cadre becoming detached from the community. ϢereSpielChequers 16:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a perennial topic, so I'll give my perennial response. You say that the percentage of active admins has gone down by 8%. How does that compare to movement in the overall number of active accounts? It isn't a given that that number has gone up during the same time period. Dekimasuよ! 16:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dekimasu, I don't know what our figures are for numbers of active accounts, but User:Katalaveno has been assembling some useful stats on the intervals between ten million undeleted edits. For two years now this has been consistently six to seven weeks. I would have thought that blocks per month and pages deleted per month would be even better indications for our need for admins, but if total editing activity is steady then IMHO our need for admins is unlikely to be falling. ϢereSpielChequers 18:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

It's possible that a greater percentage of edits are edits or reversions being made by bots as well. As of last September, year on year, bot edits were on the rise, while the number of editors with <250 edits a month was falling. The number of editors with 1000 edits a month was rising, but those users are much less likely to make administrative actions necessary, and probably more likely to be administrators themselves. Dekimasuよ! 10:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

WereSpielChequers question about "how we can avoid the pitfalls of a dwindling admin cadre becoming detached from the community" is very relevant. There's a widespread perception that admins stick together when one is under fire, and that they care more about continuity of procedures and administrative convenience than about fairness or aligment with consensus among non-admins. An effective recall process is an essential but not sufficient part of a package to "avoid the pitfalls of a dwindling admin cadre becoming detached ..." --Philcha (talk) 17:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

we do not a certain number of admins. Just being an admin doesn't mean you're doing anything useful. We need enough admins who

• are willing to do chores (backlogs)
• have enough experience, and guts, to tacke difficult situations and troublesome users.

It will be very difficult to get any reliable statistic on that. Counting admins is at least as flawed a concept as counting articles. --dab (𒁳) 18:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

How to become one

How do I nominate my self? AlienX2009 (talk) 01:36, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Follow the instructions here. But first, please read this advice from that page and reconsider running:

"Wait. We have 48,246,229 registered users, but only 852 administrators - this process is not taken lightly by the community. Take a moment for self-evaluation. Try to consider your contributions to Wikipedia the way that others will see them. Look at recent successful RfAs and unsuccessful RfAs. How do your contributions compare to those of candidates who passed but had notable opposition, or failed but had strong support? Check your edit count (line four of your my preferences tab). While there is no minimum requirement, self-nominated candidates with fewer than 2,000 edits and three months of active editing often see their RfAs closed per WP:SNOW or Wikipedia:Not Now shortly after adding them. More importantly, candidates should have contributed substantially to different areas of Wikipedia and should demonstrate a thorough understanding of Wikipedia policies (e.g., deletion policy, blocking policy, etc.)." Timmeh!_{(review me)} 01:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying this to you, AlienX2009, because we're currently in a dispute, but don't. You have only been editing for a little over a month and a half, you have only ever edited one topic area, you have under 700 edits, and you have absolutely no knowledge of any of Wikipedia's policies that an administrator should be aware of. If anything, wait several months.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I do I know all the rules of Wikipedia. AlienX2009 (talk) 02:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I highly doubt that. Nobody is familiar with all of the rules. While applauding your enthusiasm, it's patently obvious that you have a long way to go before you are ready to put yourself forward for adminship. Don't despair though. Just glean the experience and return in about 6 months or so. Heed the advice of your fellow Wikipedians. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 02:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I highly doubt you know all the rules. I don't think anyone on here would know every single policy. I've been on here a year and I'm still very much learning. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 11:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been here 5 years and I know darned well there are policies I've never taken more than a cursory glance at.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Ditto! Deb (talk) 11:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Request

Can an admin please create Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship with instructions on how to properly nominate and that this is not the page for doing so, as some people are not getting it. Triplestop (talk) 21:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The instructions on how to nominate are at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/nominate#Instructions. There is a notice at the top of this page already. And users who don't understand the process aren't likely to be suitable admins (see all the requests on this talk page), so making new users who would fail per WP:NOTNOW or WP:SNOW actually go through the process is a bad idea. Cheers - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 21:14, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I have very little faith that people who don't read the instructions are going to pay attention to an editnotice here. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose that we adopt a guideline recommending no more than three questions from any one person in an RFA.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 16:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I can appreciate the idea behind this proposal but I believe it to be fundamentally flawed. For one thing, setting a limit on "questions per person" is arbitrary and may prevent users from asking useful, germane questions; at the same time, it does nothing to prevent a proliferation of irrelevant and often wasteful questions by multiple users. Shereth 17:01, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

While I like the idea, I do agree that arbitrary limits are unlikely to be effective. If you cap someone at 3 questions, you'll end up with people who want to ask six and just mash them into three multipart questions (i.e., "4. What is your opinion of the BLP situation? Flagged revisions? RfA? Being an administrator open to recall? ..."). On the other hand, people legitimately trying to follow the spirt and letter of the rule may not be able to ask pertinent and useful questions. Cool3 (talk) 17:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Stuff like this was talked about before and gets talked about all the time. This won't lead anywhere, and I can remember a time when it'd get swiftly archived for that very reason.--Koji† 17:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Other proposal

For me, it would be easier if under each main "Questions for the candidate" section, we had three subsections, "Questions about the candidate," "Questions based on policy/guidelines," and "Questions based on opinions." Anybody agree? – (iMatthew • talk) at 17:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea, but it doesn't solve S Marshall's problem (too many questions from one person). Aditya ^α _ß 17:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You're right, I split it into a new section. – (iMatthew • talk) at 17:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Well if you don't think we have enough questions at RFA this might encourage some of our regulars to put at least one question in each section. Apart from that potentially dubious benefit I'm not sure what we would gain from this split other than reducing edit conflicts for those adding questions; and if that's happening we perhaps have too many questions. Also I can envisage discussions as to whether a question had gone into the right section, and whether the candidate was answering questions in the right sequence across three sections. ϢereSpielChequers 19:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I find myself agreeing with WereSpielChequers. This suggestion sounds like it could cause more problems than it solves. ~ mazca ^t/c 19:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I find that people spend time looking for the flaws in any type of proposal. Nothing will ever be improved if we don't stop looking for flaws instead of considering the positives in any type of proposal. The advantages of this is just more organization, helpful to voters and the candidate. It would help eliminate questions that have no value, if we don't allow questions that don't fit into any of these categories. – (iMatthew • talk) at 19:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the bike shed should be orange, with lavender stripes. Diagonal ones. In fact, I insist. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree .. I strongly believe the stripes should be horizontal. ;) — Ched :  ?  20:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

←Getting back on topic though - I agree with the first two. The third one I'm not sure - I think it would depend on how closely it was monitored. I could see it getting off into areas that really don't reflect on the candidates abilities to handle a few new tools - and drifting into an area of personal preferences and such.

• One other item on "questions" that had me scratching my head though .. What about people that ask questions - but then don't !vote? Is that unusual? — Ched :  ?  01:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Going back to the original three categories, and the implicit idea of reducing extraneous questions by only having questions in these categories; I think the important questions are usually those based on diffs showing the users past contributions. Whether those questions are probing policy knowledge, POV, civility or maturity; to my mind they are the questions that matter, as they are based on research of that candidate's contributions. So if there were to be a split I could see some merit in organising the questions so that those that were diff supported were in the current section, and the rest were on a separate subpage for those interested in such things. ϢereSpielChequers 14:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

people that ask questions - but then don't !vote?

Maybe they just don't wanna vote, but still feel like the question will help everybody else make a decision. I don't think it does any harm either way, not worth losing sleep over.--Koji† 01:54, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Not every neutral participant feels a need to list themselves in the neutral section. I suspect that if someone asks a question but then doesn't !vote, the answer or other things in the RFA has left them neutral. Either that or a RL intrusion has stopped their further participation. ϢereSpielChequers 07:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The last time I asked a question without voting, the request was snow closed before I saw the answer. I have to get in early with the questions, because I don't want to stress the candidate with too many. And another reason could be unable to make up their mind. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Aye, I often ask questions without !voting, because I think I have value to add by raising particular issues but not by making a comment about the candidacy and am not convinced either way. I think there is little point in undecided editors adding a neutral comment that does not advance the discussion.  Skomorokh  11:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

For me, the more "annoying" issue is people who !vote, then ask questions. What's the motivation to ask the question if you're already saying that you oppose the candidate? If the answer to question would sway your decision, stay out of the oppose or support sections until the question is answered. either way (talk) 11:24, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not a vote, it's a discussion. No problem with discussing (if you do that through asking questions than fine), and not !voting. As to !voting and than asking questions, isn't that nomally if something comes up which the user hadn't thought of before and wants to investigate further? There's no problem with changing your mind. And there's no problem with asking questions even if the answer isn't going to change your mind, after all, it's a discussion - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 11:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Stats request re: composition of RfA voters by user access level

Moved from WP:BN

Is there an easy way to determine and breakdown statistics to answer the question "what is the composition of votes in RfA by user privileges?"? Simply put, I'd like to know what proportion of votes for and against new admins are made by admins and functionaries. I'm not looking for anything particularly onerous, just a sample snapshot to get an idea - say the last 20 RfAs? Cheers. --Joopercoopers (talk) 12:19, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting question. I've queried User:X! to see if they're interested in crunching these data, since they've already written code that seems to parse RFAs fairly well. –xeno^talk 14:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

If no stats are forthcoming, you could get a rough idea of the proportion of administrator voters by browsing the RfAs with this script enabled.  Skomorokh  14:15, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going to pretend that it's necessarily a representative sample, but I went through and counted the votes in the most recent successful request (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ched Davis) and here's what I turned up. In short, about 50% of all voters were admins. Cool3 (talk) 15:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

!Vote	Total Admins	Total Non-Admins	Percentage Admins	Rollbackers	CU/Oversight
Support	55	48	53.4%	35	5
Oppose	3	7	30%	3	0
Neutral	1	3	25%	2	0
Total	59	58	50.4%	39	5

That was much quicker than I was expecting - thanks guys. Cool, would you give me an idea of your workflow for doing that and an indication of how long it took - sounds like I may be able to do it for myself. Cheers. --Joopercoopers (talk) 18:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I wrote a perl script that (1) downloads/parses the list of admins, (2) downloads/parses the list of !votes on an RFA, and (3) returns the list of !votes marked with which !votes were by admins. It wouldn't be that hard for me to modify it to generate a table of statistics if you are interested. The loading of the list of admins is the slowest part, but that part could be cached. The entire script isn't more than about 100 lines, and most of that is the part that retrieves the webpage over http. By the way, when I ran it on Ched Davis, I got 54-49 for the Support, but it could be a missed lookup in my code. Plastikspork (talk) 18:36, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd go with the script; I probably miscounted by hand. As for my method, I have popups installed. With popups, if you hover over a username it shows an edit count and user group memberships for that use. I just hovered over everyone and kept a tally on my notepad (high technology indeed). It took 10 or 15 minutes. Like I said, though, the script sounds much better, faster and more sophisticated. Cool3 (talk) 19:52, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess I could run again, just to assist with data collection ;P. Hey, I noticed the rfatally doesn't seem to be working on Cool3s RfA, does it maybe need to have the 4 piped in as well? — Ched :  ?  20:05, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I had the same problem at my RfA. You can see that User:X!/Tally has it right. So it's probably something to do with Template:Rfatally. Best to ask X! about it. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 20:14, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Ha, yeah you were right. It was just 'cause it was created in the wrong place to start off with. Thought it was using {{PAGENAME}} or something. Anyway, fixed now. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 20:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

As I recall last time I saw this issue (in oppose section) it was because the bot/what have you didn't register a comment unless there was a break of some sort (or another comment) after it. Dunno exactly what the issue was though, my technical side doesn't extend to wikisyntax and machinery. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:45, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

That's an unrelated problem (was in the guts of the bot) that I believe is fixed. –xeno^talk 22:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

• Shudder* bots... rather tally things up by hand like Cool did than muck around in programming and such... --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 22:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

@Kingpin13 - that's because I've been studying at the WP:EVULA school of never being wrong ... ;P — Ched :  ?  03:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd love to see some stats from a bunch of the RfAs, Plastikspork. I'm only beginning to approach moderately skilled at perl, but if you could cache the Admin users, how much quicker would it go? If it becomes negligible, what would it take to include the 2.5k or so rollbackers as well? I ask because I'm less interested in percentage of voters by privilege, and more interested in voting behavior by access level. The numbers presented here are in no way an appropriate sample set, but at least for Ched's, it looks like the more rights, the more likely you are to vote yes. If it's onerous, no sweat, I can attempt it myself. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 03:36, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

This is an interesting project, and I wonder if a few more variables could be added? Firstly can you subdivide the non-admin !vote between the non-admins who've had an RFA, those who haven't yet had an RFA but are Rollbackers, and the rest?? Secondly the support level in the RFA - you might need to take this in 10% bands and group the under 50% together, my prediction would be that the lower the support level the greater the proportion of admins amongst the opposition. ϢereSpielChequers 07:39, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm boarding an international flight in about two hours, but I should have some time after I land. The script would go very fast if the lists of admins and rollbackers were cached. The primary bottleneck is the time it takes to load those pages, as the individual RFA pages load very fast. Plastikspork (talk) 12:58, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've done a quick finger in the air snapshot for the last 10 successful RFA and 'significant' failures. - Failures are more problematic, because some close or are withdrawn with very low participation rates, usually because the candidates are wholly unsuitable - 130 edits, 2months experience etc. - Accordingly I've only included failures with a reasonable participation rate. I can't vouch for the accuracy too much - it was a quick count and it's not overly scientific. If anyone wants me to recheck the results for specific RFA's I'd be happy to.

RFA	support	oppose	neutral	admin support	admin oppose	admin neutral	%admin support	%admin oppose	%admin neutral	Total participation	Total admin participation	%admin participation	%S+admin	%S-admin	%admin effect
	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q
Promotions
Ched Davis	103	10	4	56	3	1	54	30	25	117	60	51	91	87	4	Ched Davis
Mazca	86	4	2	48	3	0	56	75	0	92	51	55	96	97	-2	Mazca
Enigmaman	147	6	5	72	2	2	49	33	40	158	76	48	96	95	1	Enigman
Colds7ream	79	3	6	33	0	1	42	0	17	88	34	39	96	94	2	Colds7ream
Mifter	56	12	3	21	5	2	38	42	67	71	28	39	82	83	-1	Mifter
Backslash Forwardslash	108	10	6	48	1	2	44	10	33	124	51	41	92	87	5	Backslash forwardslash
Billinghurst	78	19	4	39	8	2	50	42	50	101	49	49	80	78	2	Billinghurst
CactusWriter	93	3	0	33	1	0	35	33	0	96	34	35	97	97	0	Cactus writer
FlyingToaster	126	32	5	59	11	2	47	34	40	163	72	44	80	76	4	Flying toaster
Kotra	72	10	4	28	4	1	39	40	25	86	33	38	88	88	0	Kotra
Failures
Theleftorium	41	14	8	18	3	3	44	21	38	63	24	38	75	68	7	Thelaftorium
Kingpin13	39	26	9	15	10	6	38	38	67	74	31	42	60	60	0	Kingpin
S Marshall	51	25	6	18	14	1	35	56	17	82	33	40	67	75	-8	S Marshall
Kelapstick	48	8	6	12	4	5	25	50	83	62	21	34	86	90	-4	Kelapstick
Majorly (2nd)	107	67	19	58	20	8	54	30	42	193	86	45	61	51	10	Majorly
Beeblebrox	30	35	20	7	12	8	23	34	40	85	27	32	46	50	-4	Beeblebrox
Willking1979	38	33	15	11	10	7	29	30	47	86	28	33	54	54	0	Willking1979
Everyking (5th)	156	84	7	72	30	3	46	36	43	247	105	43	65	61	4	Everyking
BQZip01 (4th)	75	38	10	29	13	4	39	34	40	123	46	37	66	65	2	BQZip01
Gaia Octavia Agrippa	22	28	11	8	10	4	36	36	36	61	22	36	44	44	0	Gaia Octavia Agrippa

Notes

1. The following failed RFA were excluded from the stats because they were either withdrawn or failed too early to have enough participants for sensible stat analysis - Alien X2009, SOPHIAN, Wwsecoks, Abce2, Alexander.hugh.george,I Seek To Help & Repair!, frozen 4332, tdrss, tyw7, Gordonrox24, Einsteinbud, Harish89
2. The list was compiled with a manual count using the tool from User:Ais523/adminrights.js. This turns admin's signatures cyan. There may be some count error where the use of forced colours in signatures doesn't reveal admin status. It also doesn't distinguish between admins and other functionaries, although most are also admins.
3. %S+admin is the percentage support votes compared to the total participation less neutral participation. (100/(L-E))xC3
   
4. %S-admin is the percentage support votes adjusted to remove the effects of neutral participation and the admin component of the support and oppose votes. (100/(L-E)-(M-H))x(C-F)
   
5. %admin effect is the sum of the previous two to see what kind of lensing effect the admin vote is having on RFAs.
   

The results are interesting. Generally the admin support and oppose votes cancel out and the results are quite similar to the non-admin vote - there is a range of this effect however between about + or - 10%. By and large Bureaucrats are getting it right and promoting or failing candidates in line with both the admin and non-admin consensus. Two anomalies exist in the S Marshall and Flying Toaster RFAs. Admin voting pushed flying Toaster from 76% non-admin support to 80% (from marginal pass to pass), but pulled S Marshall down from 75% to 67% (from marginal pass to fail). If someone can get me the raw data for a larger selection set, I'd be very grateful. --Joopercoopers (talk) 13:51, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, I've looked at general user participation in RFAs against admin participation. General user participation as a percentage of active editors (155524) is very low - between 0.03%(various) and 0.09% (Everyking). Admin participation as a percentage of total administrators is unsurprisingly higher, between 1.33%(Gaia Octavia) and 6.33% (everyking). Admin participation as a percentage of active editors will be of a similar order to the general editors participation.--Joopercoopers (talk) 14:36, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

While this doesn't include support/oppose/neutral/other, the following is a table of every user group combination (except bots) and how many edits people in those groups have made to all RFAs since the beginning of 2008.

+------------------------------------------------------------+-------+
| grouplist                                                  | edits |
+------------------------------------------------------------+-------+
| rollbacker                                                 | 34421 |
| sysop                                                      | 32977 |
| no groups                                                  | 20338 |
| abusefilter,sysop                                          | 16765 |
| accountcreator,rollbacker                                  |  2365 |
| accountcreator,ipblock-exempt,rollbacker                   |  1642 |
| bureaucrat,sysop                                           |   937 |
| checkuser,oversight,sysop                                  |   825 |
| ipblock-exempt,rollbacker                                  |   768 |
| abusefilter,bureaucrat,checkuser,oversight,sysop           |   643 |
| bureaucrat,oversight,sysop                                 |   519 |
| anon                                                       |   513 |
| oversight,sysop                                            |   501 |
| ipblock-exempt                                             |   383 |
| bureaucrat,checkuser,ipblock-exempt,sysop                  |   352 |
| abusefilter,checkuser,sysop                                |   208 |
| ipblock-exempt,oversight,sysop                             |   175 |
| abusefilter,checkuser,oversight,sysop                      |   166 |
| accountcreator                                             |   146 |
| abusefilter,ipblock-exempt,sysop                           |    69 |
| bureaucrat,checkuser,oversight,sysop                       |    44 |
| abusefilter,accountcreator,ipblock-exempt,rollbacker,sysop |    43 |
| abusefilter,rollbacker,sysop                               |    30 |
| abusefilter,bureaucrat,oversight,sysop                     |    25 |
| checkuser,sysop                                            |     9 |
| checkuser,founder,oversight,sysop                          |     1 |
+------------------------------------------------------------+-------+

Note that this counts what the groups are now rather than at the time of the edit being made. The number for admins may be somewhat elevated by people answering questions on their own (passing) RFAs. Mr.Z-man 07:24, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Fascinating; I am always enthralled by statistics, as y'all know by now. One exogenous point, however. I would surmise that there should be severe drop-off in RFA edits by people who have become bureaucrats. Since bureaucrats cannot close contentious discussions in which they have contributed, and it is better that they not close even the brain-numbingly obvious ones in which they have participated, bureaucrats tend not to comment on RfAs to preserve their neutrality. -- Avi (talk) 16:40, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed; very, very rarely will I participate in an RfA, unless I'd have to recuse myself due to being friends with the candidate (like Mazca, who I've known for longer than Wikipedia has existed) or otherwise feeling strongly enough about them to !vote. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Jimmy only ever commented voted on one RFA, eh? –xeno^talk 19:45, 22 June 2009 (UTC) in the modern era of RFA =)

Three, in fact.  Skomorokh  19:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

But only voted on one.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 20:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The table only counts comments since the beginning of 2008. Mr.Z-man 21:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

There was a time when he was involved in each decision on adminship. That was before this page, which means it was certainly before the time when adminship was granted based on a vote. Recall that there was an era when adminship matters, and much other useful business, was transacted on what is now wikien-l but was then known as "the mailing list," a fitting name by virtue of the fact that there was only one of them. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 22:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes. I can't say I'm surprised he's hands off the process nowadays. –xeno^talk 03:50, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Ottava Rima's RfA

(Because everyone else has a subject heading with this) - Can someone do the participation stats of my RfA. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 22:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

PS, if you break it down further by separating out Crats, Stewards, Arbs, Wikipedia Review members, and those who were either blocked or desysopped by ArbCom, I am sure it will look even more exciting. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

IP comments and auto-numbering

IP editors are not allowed a numbered vote. That's fine. This means that any IP comments will be marked with, probably, an asterisk and not an octothorpe. So, if you're a registered user, and you're adding a numbered vote please make sure you add it before any IP users add their un-numered comments, otherwise wiki breaks and the numbers reset and start counting from 1 again. Or don't, I don't particularly care, but I guess some people will and will raise merryheck about it. Please note that "Vote" is not my choice of words, but is the word used on the RfA page -- "Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to comment in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections, but IPs are unable to place a numerical (#) "vote"." You may wish to edit that but I'm wary of getting involved in the clusterfuck of RfA policy editing. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 22:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I find it amusing this comment was posted by an anon IP. ···日本穣^? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:31, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I find it refreshing. An anon posting on this page must be brave seeing as we registered editors have cut off their right to officially comment on RfAs. Malinaccier (talk) 23:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

hmmm, RfA page itself says that anyone can comment, but IP editors cannot have a numbered "vote". (This is fine, I'm not trying to change that). But it means that IP comments either break the auto-numbering that happens with the octothorpes because they chose to use an asterisk, or, uh, something else. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 23:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments from IPs are indented, but that doesn't screw up the numbering. We don't use an asterisk, which would break it. Instead of "# comment" its "#: comment". Nathan ^T 23:41, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. If (and I probably wont) I have a need to comment on an RfA in future I'll remember not to use an asterisk, but to use colons instead. Which is a better solution than my bossy grumpy suggestion. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 23:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Specifically, make sure it's a # before the colon; that's what preserves the numbering. Anything after the # is rendered normally (you could do "#*", but it would likely be converted to just "#:"). EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, right. now I finally get it. That's counter-intuitive to me but I'll remember if I ever need to use it in future.

About placing the comments in neutral (or otherwise) vs in COMMENTs - I had thought that putting stuff in comments would place undo prominence on them. hidding them away on a list, after all the YES / NO votes, would allow useful comments with minimal disruption. I've noticed that they seem (and I have no idea why) to have een a bit disruptive, so I'll probably stop doing even that. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 22:07, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Instead of worrying about this, you can just create an account then you can support/oppose.--Giants27 (c|s) 22:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It really is time we get rid of the tagline "WIKIPEDIA, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA ANYONE CAN EDIT". 82.33.48.96 (talk) 10:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll bite - are you being prevented from editing the encyclopaedia's articles? Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 10:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

"i'll bite" feels a bit like calling someone a troll. Trolling is, after all, a fishing metaphor. You may wish to think if that's good civility. Why, if registration doesn't prevent anyone from editing, is it not compulsory for all articles? Why, if captchas don't prevent anyone from editing are they not used a lot more on wikipedia than they are now? The answer is because of pillar three, and the link near the top of the main page - you do not need to register to edit most articles. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 14:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

And that's ignoring the fact that it is a wikimedia project founding principle 82.33.48.96 (talk) 14:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

My point was that you do not need to be registered in order to edit the vast majority of articles. The tagline remains accurate. Anyone can edit it, registered or not. With the small but important exception of those former editors who have abused the privilege. You may need to be, or may find it beneficial to be, registered to edit outside article/talk/user/usertalk space - but that doesn't render the tagline inaccurate - the daily politics of running an encyclopaedia is not the same as the encyclopaedia itself. And if I'm honest, your query did sound like trolling. Apologies if it wasn't. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 14:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

polite request for information

Is it possible to find out how many bytes (mega, mebi, gibi, whatever) Wikiedia:RfA took in various months over the past two years? I'm less interested in RfA:Talk than RfA. I'd e interested to know some figure that combines amount of bytes for total RfAs in a month divided by number of RfAs in a month. Statiticians are welcome to tell me why this is a dumb idea (I need to learn this stuff) but it might interest people who are suggesting that RfA is a hurdle-too-big for wannabe admins. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't actual physical disk space is the issue. And yes just go to all the RfA's and look at the page size. You can see them from the list of Unsuccessful/Successful RfA's. 03:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure it's possible. Open up the lists of successful and unsuccessful RfA's, open the RfA's one by one and look at the page size. You can see the size of the latest version in the page history tab. Jafeluv (talk) 06:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely possible, in bytes:

Date of start of RfA	Sum of bytes of last revisions	Number of RfAs	Average size of each RfA in bytes
2003-12	44921	1	44921.0000
2004-6	100	1	100.0000
2004-8	898	1	898.0000
2004-9	226334	26	8705.1538
2004-10	393802	26	15146.2308
2004-11	758103	71	10677.5070
2004-12	283636	35	8103.8857
2005-1	164796	20	8239.8000
2005-2	147148	15	9809.8667
2005-3	374607	31	12084.0968
2005-4	433599	38	11410.5000
2005-5	558094	41	13612.0488
2005-6	712308	59	12073.0169
2005-7	663177	49	13534.2245
2005-8	831376	61	13629.1148
2005-9	1288312	74	17409.6216
2005-10	2106270	107	19684.7664
2005-11	1213548	72	16854.8333
2005-12	1828609	111	16473.9550
2006-1	2080378	96	21670.6042
2006-2	1554036	75	20720.4800
2006-3	2099973	94	22340.1383
2006-4	2229806	75	29730.7467
2006-5	2615095	102	25638.1863
2006-6	2035934	80	25449.1750
2006-7	2551094	87	29322.9195
2006-8	2277669	89	25591.7865
2006-9	1389450	64	21710.1563
2006-10	2728847	90	30320.5222
2006-11	1885805	68	27732.4265
2006-12	1581641	75	21088.5467
2007-1	2589204	88	29422.7727
2007-2	2587099	98	26398.9694
2007-3	2112882	100	21128.8200
2007-4	3071034	101	30406.2772
2007-5	3123971	126	24793.4206
2007-6	2361270	87	27141.0345
2007-7	2619329	86	30457.3140
2007-8	1985850	89	22312.9213
2007-9	2444669	87	28099.6437
2007-10	2603946	96	27124.4375
2007-11	2556316	96	26628.2917
2007-12	2608378	89	29307.6180
2008-1	3160116	101	31288.2772
2008-2	1963541	57	34448.0877
2008-3	2983441	136	21937.0662
2008-4	2158035	61	35377.6230
2008-5	2660010	75	35466.8000
2008-6	2024589	61	33189.9836
2008-7	2165927	51	42469.1569
2008-8	1964262	39	50365.6923
2008-9	2022859	146	13855.1986
2008-10	1404361	36	39010.0278
2008-11	943491	33	28590.6364
2008-12	1546467	33	46862.6364
2009-1	1511001	29	52103.4828
2009-2	1516303	31	48913.0000
2009-3	1914241	53	36117.7547
2009-4	2169288	50	43385.7600
2009-5	1992681	50	39853.6200
2009-6	817930	29	28204.4828

See User:Cobi/RfA Stats MySQL for the SQL code used to generate this. -- Cobi^(t|c|b) 09:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Cobi's figures give you a graph that looks like :

That's a five point moving average by the way, not that it matters very much. It makes interesting viewing I think. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c, rfa)} 10:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

And a comparison against the number of RFAs open at the time (red):

Fewer RFAs = more discussion per one? Seems logical, but the correlation on a month by month basis is poor (e.g. Spearman's of 0.17), though one would expect that because of the manner in which the data was collected. Draw your own conclusions from the graph, I say. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c, rfa)} 10:40, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The length of long RfAs could be understated if this data is only related to the main page of each RfA. A lot of the more controversial RfAs have long discussions moved to the talk page (and generate discussion elsewhere as well... here, BN, etc.). Dekimasuよ! 10:59, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

(deindenting) So if you want a short RFA, do it in February. That's been the case for the last several years. Interesting. tedder (talk) 12:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this. 82.33.48.96 talk 18:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

That makes perfect sense... its the month of love!---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 19:48, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Pardon my ignorance but the table shows the highest averages over a five month period from Dec 08 to Apr 09 yet the graph suggests the peak was the five months between Apr and Sep 07. Is there an explanation for the difference in table and graph? Also March and September look far better months for short RFAs than February, at least in the past three years. 212.139.88.102 (talk) 20:53, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Net Positive

I've dragged my personal essay kicking and screaming into the Wikipedia space. There was already a cross namespace redirect anyhow, so I've de-personalised the essay as it seems to be increasibgly getting quoted at RFA.
Any one want to take a bet on how long it takes before someone uses the short cut as rationale at WP:AFD? :) Pedro :  Chat  10:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't you have moved it rather than copy+pasting it to Wikipedia space? SoWhy 11:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

PS: Wikipedia:Net positive is the essay Pedro talks about, not the one he links above. SoWhy 11:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not a total cut and paste. The original essay is a highly personal view, with lots of first person statements. The one in Wikipedia space is a bit different, and I wanted to retain the personal one as well! Pedro :  Chat  12:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Given Pedro wrote it and moved it, I don't think the attribution issues are too severe. MBisanz ^talk 12:06, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

That's my understanding - because it's a derivate work of my own work. Akin to uploading a photo, then re-uploading it with a crop and some fixes. If the original creator is the same then we don't need to attribute back to the first version. I think that's okay under both GFDL and CC-SA ? (I hope!) Pedro :  Chat  12:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure is. I misunderstood your posts that you have dragged it to Wikipedia space but essentially leaving it the same. Sorry, my mistake. Regards SoWhy 12:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

No worries - that was me not being clear as well. So, how long before;

• Strong Keep Article about this myspace band is a net positive to Wikipedia's coverage of musicians.

.....? :) Pedro :  Chat  12:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Just what point are you trying to make exactly, sir?  Skomorokh  12:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Added a Ø edit that makes it possible to trace Avraham's copyedits back to him. While those edits may be considered to be "very small or irrelevant", and not require attribution, at least it doesn't hurt. decltype (talk) 12:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Er, wha? Can you explain? Nathan ^T 12:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh I see, an edit to the Wikipedia space page linking to the userspace page history. And Pedro, my guess is it won't be long! Nathan ^T 12:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for dotting the I's and crossing the T's decltype. And yep, Nathan, days at best :) Pedro :  Chat  12:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I forgot about that :) I think my edit summaries had more merit than my edits :-D -- Avi (talk) 04:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done, now used as a rationale at AfD.[2] :)   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 13:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Pointy Jeff, beansy Pedro, or both? Dekimasuよ! 14:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

That one doesn't WP:COUNT, Jeff. You did it on WP:PURPOSE. Jafeluv (talk) 14:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

If you are going to cite NET POSITIVE at that AFD, then I'll do the same with NOT NOW.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think Balloonman is spot on here. If we take our p&g items and view them in the "spirit" and "intent" mode, I don't see a problem with citing items that may be aimed at one area (XfD, RfA, Consensus !votes, etc.) and applying them in a broadly construed manner to other areas where they may apply - if it helps get your viewpoint across. (no need to point me to WP:NOHARM, I've read it.;)) — Ched :  ?  17:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/LouriePieterse

Would anyone care to close this, or shall we let it run?Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Why should it be closed? The only reason I can't think of is WP:SNOW, and WP:NOTNOW defiantly doesn't apply. I say inform the candidate that they can withdraw, and leave it at that - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

In fact, I've informed them myself - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Asking the candidate should happen before asking on this page. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Well yes, although it's a bit late for that now. LouriePieterse says they plan to keep it up, I for one don't have a prolem with that - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:53, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi all. I would like to see it continue. I would like to see all the points in which I could improve. Kind regards, LouriePieterse (talk) 17:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Admirable. Tan | 39 17:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. — Ched :  ?  17:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Very admirable. Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Note Small hint: it is not helpful to the candidate to simply oppose "per Julian" or "per JC," or with no rationale at all. There are currently three comments in the oppose section that simply say something along the lines of "Per JC," and two that have no explanation. If you must comment, bring some fresh advice to the table (though I do not deny that Juliancolton's comment is not insightful :]). Malinaccier (talk) 19:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I dunno. While it is nice to have fresh insight, sometimes someone else says it all, and spending the time to come up with a new way to say the same thing is a waste of time. Tan | 39 19:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the point is that in this case, the outcome is already determined and the request is only open for the edification of the candidate, so uninformative opposes are of little value.  Skomorokh  19:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I see Malinaccier's point now, and yes, I agree. Tan | 39 19:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed. I really dislike piling on in cases like this, especially if you've got no additional advice to provide. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 05:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see why it's necessary to protract an RfA like this - perusing the responses in both columns, I see nothing constructive being offered anymore. It clearly fits a SNOW definition. NOTNOW doesn't seem to apply. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 03:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of SNOW-closes, I have always understood, was to protect the candidate. If the candidate specifically states that they wish the candidacy to run its full term, I do not see a valid reason for taking it down. This is one area where NOTPAPER applies, IMO. -- Avi (talk) 04:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of SNOW-closes is partially to protect the candidate, but also to ensure that certain processes do not needlessly run to full term. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 05:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Per SNOW:

Use common sense and don't follow process for the sake of it. But when in doubt allow discussions to take place.…The snowball clause is designed to prevent editors from getting tangled up in long, mind-numbing, bureaucratic discussions over things that are foregone conclusions from the start.…The clause should be seen as a polite request not to waste everyone's time.

This is not mind numbing bureaucracy; the candidate has specifically requested that the RfA finish so as to glean as much constructive criticism as possible. That is neither a waste of the candidate's nor the respondents time, although I would suggest the candidate note the request for constructive criticism during a likely failing RfA for clarity. -- Avi (talk) 07:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

In the absence of any further constructive criticism, despite the obvious good faith request by the candidate, I absolutely do perceive this to be unnecessarily bureaucratic. What more can be gained by further "Per X" opposes or moral supports? My common sense tells me not a whole lot is to gleaned. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 09:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

You are probably right and this should be closed, BUT we have a long standing tradition that with experienced editors to let them have a little more say when their RfA gets closed.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone may come in at the end with a good piece of advice. Even simpler, the predominance of "Per X's" may indicate to Lourie which items on which to focus first and most intensely. SNOW for the sake of SNOW defeats is ipso facto bureaucratic. When the candidate is mute or in denial, I agree there may be no purpose. When the candidate specifically asks to be allowed to learn as much as possible, that is a good thing. We want candidates who are receptive to the community, not scared of the process, and willing to learn and give of there time. Lourie has indicated, I believe, that he has those qualities by wanting to gain as much advice as possible. In my opinion, it would be positively WP:BITE-y to shut it down for the sake of some nebulous notion of bureaucratic efficiency, even more ironic as it would be done by bureaucratic implementation of a process in opposition to what I believe common sense would indicate. SNOW is meant to be the application of common sense; not bureaucratic paper pushing. -- Avi (talk) 15:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Avi here. Noone is forced to comment at that RFA or anything and if the candidate is positively willing to endure further discussion, then we should respect it. SNOWing should be of the benefit of all involved and if it's against the explicit wishes of someone who is affected the most, then it's no longer beneficial. SNOW is not a rule, it's a part of WP:IAR. And IAR also means that you need to decide whether (and explain why) ignoring the rules really is the best thing to do in a certain situation. Regards SoWhy 08:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Avi. SNOWing the RfA at this point seems counterproductive when the candidate has explicitly stated a desire to gain as much feedback as possible from the process, despite the likely outcome. I think it's good for the candidate to want to receive the feedback, and therefore this is a poor application of IAR. ···日本穣^? · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Questions - thoughts?

Just thought I'd ask for outside input regarding my questions since I've never really been a fan of questions that try to "catch people out" and give reasons for people to oppose, so I thought I'd ask for outside input. I created these two questions as I have strong feelings about the two issues that these questions involve, admins using their judgment, and the ability of an admin to solve conflicts. But I thought it would be best to ask for outside input. Steve Crossin ^{The clock is ticking....} 22:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

My immediate comment actually pertains to grammar (Lord I hope that sentence is syntactically correct). The first sentence of the first question implies that the candidate is already an administrator, and the second sentence confuses me. I think you're asking that if the candidate disagrees with the "general policies and guidelines" as to how a problem might be solved, would they act on it? It's not entirely clear to me. The second question has some odd tense and subject issues akin to the first one, and I think it's a little pointed. The sentence starting with "For this reason..." implies that what is essentially your opinion (however widely held) is inherently true. I imagine, depending on how early or late you post to the RfA, a candidate might just choose to ignore it. Just my two cents, I think some rewording would improve them. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 23:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I actually dislike them. Nothing about the questions themselves; they are quite good. But the fact that you intend to ask them on every RfA is what bothers me. In my view, you should really ask questions if you want information about how the candidate would act as an administrator that you simply cannot figure out from their contributions. I agree with several of the users in the above thread, #Amount_of_questions, but Tango said it best: "Questions that apply to everyone should be part of the standard questions that everyone is asked and should be added to that list by consensus. Custom questions should be limited to questions relevant to that specific candidate and not to everyone." NW (Talk) 23:41, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. The only questions I like to see are the ones custom made for specific candidates based upon their edit history or individual concerns. Generic out of the box questions, regardless of what they are asking, IMO should be avoided at all cost. The number of times we've gone through this with people who think their questions are special or worthwhile is staggering... I think we have people asking about their questions at least once a month. If not that, we have people raising questions about the perponderance of banal questions coming from the peanut gallery. Do your home work, research the candidate. If you have questions,THEN ask them. But only AFTER doing your homework first.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 01:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, the infamous meta-questions. Useight (talk) 04:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

←Well, my intentions weren't really to ask them to every single candidate. That said, I feel that administrators should have some DR experience (as I explaned here) and be willing to use their discreton as an administrator, so I'd really only ask these questions if I had doubts after reviewing the editor's contributions. That said, I'm hardly an RFA regular, and generally only weigh in on RFA's that I've taken some interest in. And just in response to Amorymeltzer, the questions need fine-tuning. I basically thought of these in my head, and they were all good in my head, but putting it onto paper proved to be more difficult. Anyway, I thought I should respond to the concerns raised above. Best, Steve Crossin ^{The clock is ticking....} 06:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Most RfAs ever

I was just wondering, was there ever a record for the most number of active RfAs at a single time? Triplestop (talk) 01:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There have been more running at the same time than there is now. Not sure of the exact number, though. – (iMatthew • talk) at 01:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the date promoted of User:Majorly/RfA/Stats, you can see there are times in 2006 when over a dozen successful RFAs were running at the same time. MBisanz ^talk 01:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I saw 20+ at a time before, though that was rare. Wizardman 01:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I didn't feel like doing a whole slew of work, but it seems that September and December '05 were the months with the highest percentage increase in sysops, although September didn't seem too big when going through it manually. October was though, so going by those numbers...

• The period of 24-12-05 to 30-12-05 had seven unsuccessful and 13 successful, counting to a total of 20 during that week, exactly 1/5th of the total for the month. The period from the 11th to 17th had nine unsuccessful and 18 successful, for a total of 27 (27%). The week from the second to the eighth had 26. October '05 had, during the first full week (2-8) 20 successful and five unsuccessful, making 25.
• Additionally, November 2007 had 20 unsuccessful and 16 successful from the second to the eighth, for a total of 36 (~35% of 103 total). The week from the 8th to the 14th had 28 (27%), and the week from the 24th to 30th had 25. So... November 2007, between the second and the eighth, had the most (based on this extremely limited, hand-counted, and eye-balled examination). ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 01:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

tedder's numbers

I did the whole slew of work (okay, I wrote code to do it for me).

• the absolute max: 30 on 2005-12-06 (see the page with that many)
• There have been quite a few distinct times where the count was over 20. I haven't trawled them yet- need to decide how to divide the segments apart based on the "time distance".
• The most in 2009 (so far) is 13; the most in 2008 was 24; the most in 2007 was 26; the most in 2006 was 23; the most in 2005 was 30; the most in (the limited 3 months of) 2004 was 19.

I checked every edit in the modern era of transcluded candidate templates (i.e., back to 9/16/2004).

I have timestamps with the count of candidates, so I may go back and make a graph, pull some averages, etc. I could certainly see as it was trawling through the logs how the numbers have decreased. tedder (talk) 06:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

And here's the graph:

The numbers are hard to see on this graph, click through for the bigger size. Any idea why things started fading out at the beginning of 2008? tedder (talk) 03:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The drought at RFA that we've been in since early 2008 has been discussed several times here; but usually in terms of whether its just a statistical fluctuation or a genuine sign of trouble. Those like me who consider that the RFA process is broken sometimes cite the drought as evidence of this, but I'm not sure that the RFA isn't broken lobby yet accept that this is more than a statistical fluctuation. Interestingly I think this graph shows a less dramatic picture than if you simply graph the number of admins appointed per month, it might be worth charting RFA successes, fails and total applications per month as I suspect our fall in RFA candidates may not be as dramatic as the fall in the number of successful RFAs. As for why the numbers have fallen off my view is that we have several separate but interlinked phenomena:

1. An increasingly diverse set of adminship standards amongst the RFA regulars means its quite easy to provoke a significant minority of opposition.
2. Supermajority rather than majority voting means that the psychological pressure for standards to drift to the minority view rather than to tend to the mean (in majority decision making it is those in the minority that are left wondering why they were out of step with the community, and the tendency is to converge on the swing view at the 50% mark. But in a supermajority vote such as RFA you often have a large majority on the "losing" side who may find their standards drifting upwards so as to more frequently be on the successful side).
3. The more RFA is institutionalised as our communities right of passage and hazing ceremony the less attractive it becomes to some of our potential admins (it would be fascinating to work out whether editors who edit in their own names were less likely to go through RFA, certainly my advice to anyone editing in their own name would be not to run for admin unless they were at a stage in their life when they no longer needed to worry about being googled for job interviews etc.)
4. As with any hazing ceremony there is a risk of things getting increasingly vicious as the process acquires a momentum and subculture of its own.
5. Some editors have speculated that the lack of an effective deadminning process is a reason why some !voters are increasingly cautious at RFA.
6. I suspect that some !voters are judging RFA candidates against the best of our existing admins rather than against the level of experience those admins had when they became admins.

But whatever has caused this phenomena it is in my view very unhealthy for the community and unsustainable in the medium term. ϢereSpielChequers 12:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I like that last point. Two things would fix everything: having at least a few RFA voters give the same opinions at WP:ER that they give at RFA, so that candidates know what to expect and what to work on, and listening to and engaging opposition voters in close cases. One recent RFA would be a good example, but I don't like to point to recently failed RFAs unless that's okay with the candidate. RFA is clearly not "broken" in most cases where candidates get less than 50%, and one thing we can be very proud of is that we've got tough-skinned people who are willing to speak up at RFA when they see something they don't like, so that passing RFA is generally a very good sign and the community can have reasonable confidence these days in people who get the mop. Generally, when someone says "RFA is broken", they're talking about an RFA that failed in the 50-75% range. What I don't like about the word "broken" is that it reminds me of how people use the word "crazy" ... "she's crazy, I can't deal with her" ... it's an excuse not to have to listen to and work with people who are being difficult (and maybe it's the situation that's making things difficult, not the people). - Dank (push to talk) 13:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Just found the Twain quote I was looking for: "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." That's it's exactly. When an opposition vote seems to be non-specific, or off-point, or bat-shit-insane, if people would just engage the commenter as if they were a rational, competent adult making a tough choice, then many of them will be astonished ... and the astonishment will interrupt whatever was going on, and may start a conversation. And some people will be gratified and get what you're trying to do, and will be encouraged to help out. - Dank (push to talk) 13:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I think points 4-6 are particularly salient.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I liked them too, but 5 is out of my narrow range of competence, and the problem with words like "hazing" and "vicious" is that they tend to close off rather than encourage debate. Presumably, the opposers don't believe that they're viciously hazing people. - Dank (push to talk) 14:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The wording could be better, perhaps have it prefixed with the words a "A perceived hazing ceremony there with a risk of things getting increasingly vicious as the process acquires a momentum and subculture of its own."

Yeah- I don't think it's useful or accurate to describe criticism of a candidate as "vicious" or "hazing". But, we do have a certain crowd who regularly show up to complain about how mean it is to ever be critical of anyone. It's unclear to me how anyone could not realize that vetting candidates necessarily includes being critical. Friday (talk) 14:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Close DotComCairney's RFA?

Can someone close Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/DotComCairney? I asked the user if they wanted it closed, they said yes, so it seems entirely appropriate to do so- but I'm under the belief that someone with the mop should do it, not me. tedder (talk) 21:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done Useight (talk) 21:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I did it. Thanks Useight for adding it to the relevant lists. In the future, tedder, you can do so yourself. Any experienced user is allowed to removed RFAs of that kind. See the instructons at User:Enigmaman/SNOW for how to do it properly. Regards SoWhy 21:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for closing. I started doing it, then got scared away when reading NoSeptember's document. Maybe I'll try one in the future. tedder (talk) 22:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC)