Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform/Phase I/RfC

Introduction

Purpose

The intent of this RfC is to broadly identify the problem(s) with our administrator election process. As was mentioned just now, we are focusing on broad issues here. Assuming that any of these issues obtain consensus (as described in the "Instructions for closers" section), there will likely be a second RfC that will follow this one, so that we can narrow our range of focus and expand on the issues discussed here.

Instructions for voters

There are eight proposals to start with, but additional proposals may be added within the first three days of launching. This narrow window exists to prevent proposals from getting less attention, as would likely happen if they were added near the end of the RfC. (For instance, a proposal existing from the start would likely obtain more attention than a proposal added a few days before the end of the RfC.) Editors are to support, oppose, or simply comment on (in the "Comments" section) the proposals accordingly. To represent the highest level of consensus possible, participants are encouraged to vote on as many proposals as they are able.

Instructions for closers

The closers should gather all the proposals that attained at least 50%+1 support. After this, assuming that there is an even number of proposals that meet this criteria, they should take the top half of these.

If there is an odd number, the closers should half the number of proposals that reached at least 50%+1, round the result up to the nearest whole number, and then choose the top (whatever the rounded result was) proposals. For example, if there are five proposals that reached the bar, the top three should be selected [half of 5 is 2.5, and 2.5 rounded up to the nearest whole number is 3]. If three proposals reached the bar, the top two are to be selected [half of 3 is 1.5, and 1.5 rounded up to the nearest whole number is 2].) The goal of this is to default to the inclusion of proposals.

Voting

A: High standards

Participants at RfA generally expect too much of candidates (e.g., have excessively strict criteria). Those who !vote at RfA should lower their expectations and understand that the majority of candidates will be less than perfect.

Support A

1. Support The current expectations of !voters are unrealistic. Several years of experience, tens of thousands of edits, accurate participation in all admin areas, the right "hit rate" at AfD. It's nonsense. My idea of the right admin candidate is simple: the candidate has been around for a time (about 9 months to a year), shows no signs of habitually making personal attacks, and has demonstrated knowledge of basic policies. Some oppose for extremely petty reasons not grounded in policy. We were much less strict previous years, and Wikipedia didn't plunge into ruin. --Biblioworm 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Support – in general, I find this to be true. The most extreme version of this is those voters who have already expected candidates to have participated in virtually every facet of the project before supporting for RfA. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 01:52, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Support - Perfection is impossible. 100s and 100s of good edits, and an opposer will pin point one bad CSD or AfD nomination. That doesn't really make sense. And the next thing is asking for GAs and FAs. It should be understood that not all editors are native or professional English speakers and it is hard for non-native or non-professional English speakers to promote articles to GAs or FAs. Plus less or no content creations doesn't necessarily mean they have little or no idea on policies. Regards—☮JAaron95 ^Talk 04:43, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Support. The "requirements" people look for are the source of the problem. Adminship is not about content creation and is not about being "right" in a discussion. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:17, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Support. Well, alright, I'll support this. But what effect will supporting this have? It seems like a petition, or maybe an Arbcom principle. Are we going to vote on the "purpose of Wikipedia" like Arbcom? Well, anyway, I agree. Let's just focus on one aspect of high expectations: numbers of edits. Someone with 6500 edits would probably be told they need more experience, but that's enough to put you on the list of 10,000 most active Wikipedians of all time. There are only 2100 people have more than 30K edits total, and there are only 3300 people who make more than 100 edits per month on English Wikipedia. I think people probably should have some kind of experience with content creation, voting at AfD, new page patrol, and speedy deletion. But these should be indicators of suitability, not a checklist of "must have" qualifications. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 05:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. Not sure I agree with the premis for promotion suggested here but overall we do have unreasonable expectations for candidates. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
7. Support. Agree with everything stated by Biblioworm and NinjaRobotPirate, above. Also, the backlogs on Wikipedia are getting worse. — Cirt (talk) 08:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
8. Support. One year and 5000 edits are more than enough if they come with clue, and perfection is something we should not expect from anybody. The ability to achieve something great without asking for immediate perfection is central to Wikipedia's success. —Kusma (t·c) 09:45, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
9. we have moved from a system where people check the candidate's edits and come to a view as to whether they would make a good admin to one where few really check edits, not least because the expectation is that candidates should have too many edits to be checked. So some expectations are higher and unrealistic, others are lower. I don't believe that overall the standards are as effective at screening out people who would make bad admins, but some arbitrary bits such as edit count and tenure are higher. ϢereSpielChequers 12:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
10. support, though I have no idea how this will lead to an actionable recommendation. Protonk (talk) 13:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
11. Support: the "NOTNOW" opposes in this RfA (a recent prominent example) show just how unreasonable people's base expectations are. But in RfAs that are close to passing, we hit a different problem: lots of people have very high standards in a specific area. So some people expect unreasonable levels of 'content creation', others value AfD stats too much, others expect candidates to make X posts to random admin boards Y and Z etc. These are significant enough minorities to cause an RfA to fail, so for a candidate to pass they have to appease every single one of these groups, leading to a requirement for them to pass every single high standard if they want their RfA to succeed. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
12. Support All a candidate has to show is a good level of experience, competence and confidence. That doesn't translate into perfection or haughty standards. ^{My name is}not^dave (talk/contribs) 15:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose A

1. I want admins to be seasoned. A year is a minimum. Usually, usually, a significant number of article edits, some article creations (not redirects or stubs), that's a minimum too. Come on--we want an admin to have judgment, to have a feel for the community and for its members, to know what it's like to write an article so they know what it's like to get one's work deleted, etc. Drmies (talk) 00:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Current policy WP:Consensus ("try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense"), WP:Administrators ("Any editor can comment on a [RfA] request, and each editor will assess their confidence in a particular candidate's readiness in their own way.") is extremely broad in considering individualized factors gauging judgement of "trust" and "common sense" -- so are the instructions at WP:RfA. By measure of policy then, the support arguments for this proposition must fail. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. RFA has no shortage of editors who will comment upon (and ridicule, if appropriate) overly strict and/or unreasonable criteria for adminship. Neil916 (Talk) 01:45, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. While we certainly shouldn't expect prospective admins to have the gift of the gab or a golden tongue, we should certainly expect them to have experience in mediation, negotiation and conciliation especially those that work in contentious discussions. Blackmane (talk) 01:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. The idea that becoming an admin is "no big deal" is a remnant from a different age, and is not relevant today. Admins need to be well vetted. Although it's easy enough to find faults in the current system, this is not one of them. BMK (talk) 02:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. WP:NOBIGDEAL is a big deal now. If you want to talk about being too strict you can review our GA and FA criteria, and the effort it takes for a sole person to achieve those goals in comparison to what it took many years ago. The same is true with adminship, its criteria has grown stricter as the project grew large. Candidates should know the ins and outs. Overall I don't think our expectations are excessive or unreasonable given the circumstances, but that's not to say an RfA won't be a harrowing experience, but it can be, but for different reasons — MusikAnimal ^talk 05:45, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
7. It's not clear how this supposed to work. For example, Biblioworm opposed Montanabw's recent RfA while I supported. We were both aware of a general issue - her feisty behaviour - but took a different view about it. Was our judgement too strict or too lenient? It seems impossible to say because there are no standards or measures for this. My impression is that, if we were to be more relaxed about this then we'd use a significantly different system which would be more automatic - like autoconfirmed or autopatrolled status. That would be more efficient but we'd then need term limits and a better process for removing the tools. Andrew D. (talk) 11:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
8. Cats do not go back into bags - Wikipedia is no longer small, irrelevant potatoes, and we can't treat it as such. WilyD 12:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
9. Since administrators are effectively lifetime positions, removable only in case of egregious misconduct, it's only natural that users are difficult and exacting in RfAs. Even without that factor, users have a right to expect editors who have some experience in content creation. If the tools were ever unbundled, that might not be necessary. If the procedures for removing admins were made less onerous on all concerned, the process itself might ease. Coretheapple (talk) 15:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on A

• 1) Unless RfA is changed from "consensus about whether other editors trust the candidate" to "consensus on whether the editor fulfills a community-crafted checklist" every editor will have his own standards and some editors will have standards that others consider unreasonably high. 2) It's very very unlikely that RfA will be anything other than a "consensus about whether other editors trust the candidate" any time soon. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• I have always found it very amazing indeed that this is so difficult to see for some. We rely on the admins elected back in the day when the standards were lower. There is no question that they were. As recently as a few years ago, we still had admins being elected with only about a year of experience and less than 15k edits. Wikipedia did not crash amist all the alleged abusive (or incompetent) admins that are supposed to result when we're not incredibly strict, right? In fact, without them, Wikipedia would have tanked a long time ago. Several admins that were elected back in that time are still active today, so the effect of standards increases may not be extremely obvious. But, inevitably, these old-timers will retire, and with the strictness of today's process, we will not have anywhere near enough to compensate for our losses. Mark and remember my words: eventually, in a few years' time, this will happen and everyone will see that we annoying "gloom and doom" predictors were right after all. But really, is there any evidence to suggest that we had loads of more abusive admins from the older period than we have now? Bad apples will always get through, even if we set the bar at 90% and made our standards even stricter. Of course, it should be realized that there will almost certainly be more desysopped admins from the older period, since there have been more years since they were elected and therefore they have had more time to do something wrong and lose their tools. But the same thing will happen in a few years to those at least a few of those who we elect now. I suspect that over time, the ratio of admins elected in a given year that are desysopped to the total number elected in that year stays even. In fact, I'm compiling data on this offline right now, looking for an even way to present the data. --Biblioworm 03:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• It seems like the two "sides" here have extremely different ideas of what "unreasonably high" is. shoy (reactions) 12:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

B: Undefined standards

Participants can support or oppose candidates using any criteria they like, some of which are not based in policy but rather personal opinion. This system is not used in other areas of Wikipedia. Arguments for keeping/deleting an article at AfD, for instance, are given weight according to their basis in policy

Support B

1. Support – minimum standards, either in terms of edit count, or time of active editing, would be an improvement to the process to my mind (as it would mostly eliminate WP:NOTNOW candidacies). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. What I think is a problem is that expectations keep shifting and its difficult for a prospective candidate to gauge whether their face fits at the time they are planning a run. I agree opinion is good but we should offer more consistency. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Support. Agree with Spartaz, above. More specificity and increased standardization and increased uniformity would be a great thing to provide ease of mind to both our candidates and the community. It would also set certain standards for the future. — Cirt (talk) 08:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. This is the heart of the problem. We don't have this issue with other rights such as Rollback where we have agreed a criteria. Frequently RFAs degenerate into discussions not about whether the candidate would be a good admin, but whether admins need to have x months tenure, an FA or be an adult. If this was a job interview you would have some things set out in the job ad. You'd know if the candidate had to have a clean driving license or other qualification and you could then concentrate on other issues. ϢereSpielChequers 13:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Support...sort of. If ATA is the model, I'm not super hopeful for a resolution, since I don't really want the oppose section of an RfA to be filled with meta comments about ATARFA. The alternative is to have roving clerks/crats remove opposes based on this, but I can't see that ending in any other way than a huge shitstorm. Protonk (talk) 13:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. The community needs to decide what it wants in an admin and set those standards. Right now a minority can force their view of what admin should be even though the community at large rejects the idea. Arguments that goes contrary to the expectations of the community should be given less weight like everywhere else one Wikipedia, otherwise we are picking admins by voting, not by consensus. I disagree with those that say this would be hard to define, I am sure for example we could come to a clear consensus of the age issue. If a topic is not covered at all then it is naturally left to opinion, if it is divisive then we can have a nice talk about it and amend our expectations. HighInBC 14:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose B

1. If there's any place where Wikipedia should allow for "opinion" it's this. And this question is problematic: you can't say "I support candidate X because they have reliable sources". You can say "I support candidate X because they seem to have the right temperament for the job", and that's the kind of thing one should say. If RfA turns into a rubric...well, that will be the end of Wikipedia. Drmies (talk) 00:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Current policy WP:Consensus ("try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense"), WP:Administrators ("Any editor can comment on a [RfA] request, and each editor will assess their confidence in a particular candidate's readiness in their own way.") is extremely broad in considering individualized factors gauging judgement of "trust" and "common sense" -- so, are the instructions at WP:RfA. By measure of policy then, the support arguments for this proposition must fail. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. I see no problem with each editor determining for themselves what's important in an admin. For one thing, it allows for the possibility of more diversity in elected admins, which would not be the case if a single standard were imposed. BMK (talk) 02:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. This is a consensus-driven project, and applies to every corner of the wiki. Adminship accounts for a suite of tools and responsibility that I don't think can be put into a definitive set of standards, and requires broader input. If you want a rough guideline you can refer to WP:RFAADVICE, which I fear many candidates fail to review — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:08, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Editors need to apply their own life experiences and common sense to the process. There should be no arbitrary "standards." Coretheapple (talk) 15:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on B

• There will always be cases of relevant non-policy reasons why someone would support ("has been an admin on the Commons and French for years and was elected a Steward two years ago, no history of problems on those other projects") or oppose ("Met him at Wikimania last year, he was supposed to give a talk but bailed with a lame excuse, plus he got drunk and got a DWI, it was in the local papers[citation goes here]. Therefore not trustworthy.[link to candidate's own publication of his real-life identity goes here so there are no "outing" issues]"). So, even if I were to generally support this I cannot absolutely support it as written. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• I actually cannot tell whether this section is intended to be an affirmation of current fact or of what the goal should be. Once I can tell whether I should be supporting or opposing, I will respond there with the following statement: Any argument that is not primarily policy-based should have little to no value; that is all that adminship should represent. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

C: Hostile environment

The environment of RfA is hostile toward candidates and is discouraging for those who are contemplating a candidacy. Incivility, lack of WP:AGF, and excessive (or intentionally deceiving) interrogation are too common. Furthermore, candidates are unable to defend themselves and will garner opposition whenever they attempt to do this.

Support C

1. Support The general environment at RfA seems to be "assume bad faith" rather than "assume good faith". (The latter is a community-approved guideline, for the record.) This is shown by the skeptical, excessive asking of questions and the tendency to oppose for the slightest issue. --Biblioworm 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Support While there are certainly many times voters will cast a !vote to support/oppose per Editor X, the RFA environment is nonetheless hostile. RFA regulars may view that as fairly standard but at least, in my eyes, some RFA's descend into something that is just this side of a brawl. Blackmane (talk) 02:07, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Support – I also find it to be, on balance, an "assume bad faith" environment among far too many of the participants. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Support This is the biggest fix that I think is needed; the questions and votes too many times do not assess the suitability of the person for the job, but are veiled personal attacks and attempts to play "gotcha". I don't know yet what to do about it, but to say that the general tenor of RfA is not "lets find suitable candidates for granting admin tasks to", it's "Someone wants to be an admin, that means there must be something wrong with them. Expose them now!" It has to stop if we're going to keep the admin corps going. --Jayron32 02:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Support - We are here to build the encyclopedia. One good faith contributor means a lot. And an experienced editor, who is ready for an RfA, means more. Even if he's not ready for the mop, hostility or incivility or ABF is not really a way to address them. Facing all those nonsense, he'll retire or loose interest in contributing. Congrats community, we've lost one valuable asset. —☮JAaron95 ^Talk 04:51, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. Support. This is a corner of the site that I have stayed away from participation in simply because of all of the toxicity reported, and though I've been silently watching, I regret not arriving sooner. If there's only one thing that needs to change, it's the desire to sharply oppose for small things, and I additionally agree with the proposal's words in regard to self-defense. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
7. Support. We should better enforce civility at RFA. It's better than it used to be, but that doesn't mean that we should allow anything to go. I'm not talking about trick questions or assuming bad faith of the candidate. I don't really care about that. I mean passive-aggressive hostility, outright personal attacks, and aggressive badgering. You can ask as many bad-faith questions as you like, but remain civil while doing so, that's all. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
8. Partial support It can be hostile, very hostile, but that's expected anywhere there's community-wide discussion. Here it's just a matter that we have a sole individual at the center of it, who has to take a beating if the discussion goes sour. It probably wouldn't hurt to have some additional ground rules on conduct at RfA, or rather we just better exercise the existing fundamental policy on civility. However I think the ability to see past the imminent nonsense and have the strength to deal with it is yet another expectation or valued asset of an aspiring admin – this prudence shared with the bureaucrats who should discount frivolous opposition. Genuine opposition doesn't collect on it's own, though, there's reason for it, and if the candidate is well-suited there should be plenty of support to make up for it in both the eyes of the community and the closing 'crat — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
9. Support, strongly, per Biblioworm and NinjaRobotPirate, above. Unfortunately, RFA can be a poisonous, toxic environment. Increased standards for civility and professionalism that are standards which would be uniformly applied to increase standardization — would go a long way towards ameliorating this significant problem. — Cirt (talk) 08:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
10. Jayron32 says it well. —Kusma (t·c) 09:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
11. The most effective way to derail an RFA is to give a clear civil oppose with two or more reasons supported by recent difs, showing why the candidate is not yet ready. There are some who seem to believe that adding invective and overstating their case makes it stronger, at worst they then ramp up the invective instead of taking the smarter route of making their oppose more focussed on reasons why the candidate is not yet ready. I've seen at least one RFA sail through because the opposer was so incivil they were counter productive. ϢereSpielChequers 13:12, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
12. Support, RfA should not be a place where editors take their hatches to. Fix the hostile environment will allow more candidates to be willing to come forward. - Mailer Diablo 13:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose C

1. Sorry Biblioworm, but the "tendency to oppose for the slightest issue" is more than balanced by the tendency to "support per editor X". I should know; my own RfA was full of those (and I thank you all very much for them). That editors Y or Z got a hard time at RfA may well mean that they deserved to get a hard time at RfA. Drmies (talk) 00:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Current policy WP:Consensus ("try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense"), WP:Administrators ("Any editor can comment on a [RfA] request, and each editor will assess their confidence in a particular candidate's readiness in their own way.") is extremely broad in considering individualized factors gauging judgement of "trust" and "common sense" -- so are the instructions at WP:RfA. By measure of policy then, the support arguments for this proposition must fail. AGF cannot require someone to assume a particular person should be an administrator - moreover, the framing of this proposition violates the neutrality requirement of WP:RfC - in fact the proposition, itself, generally assumes bad faith by those who pose questions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. In actuality, my experience is that the atmosphere is not hostile to the candidate, per se, it's hostile between those voting "support" and those voting "oppose". That's one of the primary things which makes the process so unpleasant. BMK (talk) 02:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Even if it were the case, its fair to say that being an Admin can be very challenging and we need people doing the job who are robust enough to deal with the pressure that even the most routine admin actions can engender. I personally think the level if unpleasantness depends on the level of controversy around the candidature and the more marginal the candidate the harder the ride. Whether that is a good thing I'm not sure but it does serve to test the level of resilience. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. It's the opposition that gets too much heat, in my experience. This can be quite intimidating and this risks distorting the process. Notice that, when you have a secret ballot, as in the arbcom elections, you tend to get a higher level of opposition. Andrew D. (talk) 11:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. There is a "hostile environment" for editors who probably shouldn't be up for RfA in the first place. I've seen many slide right by. Coretheapple (talk) 15:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on C

• While I acknowledge that this is true, I also acknowledge that it can be necessary to a degree. A few years ago an RfA was nearly passing until about day 5 or 6 when someone dug up some policy-related "dirt" which rightfully caused the nomination to tank. By "rightfully" I mean if the info had been stated up front the person would probably never have crossed 50% much less 75%. I don't remember the details but the revelation itself - an the feeling that participants had been duped - had inherent elements of hostility in it. If "hostility at RfA" were banned, such an editor may be promoted because late-arriving RfA participants who know there is relevant "dirt" to be found may be afraid to bring it up. Having said that, we should expect everyone to behave as politely as reasonably possible under the circumstances with allowances for human emotion to intrude a bit in certain circumstances such as the one from a few years ago (sorry I can't remember the particular RfA, and it wouldn't surprise me if such things have happened more than once). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

D: More participants

RfAs should be advertised more widely than they currently are. Different !voters, rather than constantly the same ones, would result in a wider and fresher range of opinions. This would also make RfAs more representative of the community's opinion, rather than a small subset of it.

Support D

1. Support Although I don't think this will fully "fix" the process, it would be good to have a wider spectrum of opinions from the wider community. --Biblioworm 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. I wish we had a quick and easy bulletin board where we could see this stuff--this, and major changes in the interface, ArbCom elections, what not--and not those irritating pop-up kinds of things. Drmies (talk) 00:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Support with the obvious reservations about making things too open, and possibly find !voters drawn in from some other site to support of oppose a candidate. John Carter (talk) 00:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Strong support More often than not, the voters tend to be those who are familiar to regulars on the admin boards. The consistency with which some names appear at RFA to support/oppose certainly give the impression of a cabal promoting their friends, even if this is not the intention. Blackmane (talk) 02:10, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. There's never going to be anything wrong with getting as many voters out to participate as possible, although I will say that I'm constantly surprised that many of the names I see voting on RfAs are of editors I've never heard of before. BMK (talk) 02:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. Support RfA has become a walled garden of regulars who have axes to grind with adminship in general, and we need fresh voices to fix the system. Not sure how to do that, but having more people invovled would certainly help a lot! --Jayron32 02:50, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
7. Strong support - I would go so far as to have random messages go out to experienced users, such as "one out of every 100 editors with over 3 months of editing and 1000 edits total and 10 edits in the last 90 days will get a message about a current RfA or RfB candidate, assuming there are any RfA/RfB's in progress," with a method to turn this off in the user's preferences. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
8. Support - Better outreach and advertisement with the RfA process would do many good things (as stated in the initial proposal). It would encourage a wider and more diverse range of voters that would provide new/different opinions and insight. An even more important reason to support expanding outreach and encourage new/more !voters is because it would help "shift" the norm that the RfA is comfortably used to sticking by - something that usually does not occur when the same long-term participants, and only the same long-term participants, cast !votes. All you need to do is simply look at the last 100 RfA's, as well as the many attempts to change the system in RfC. A majority of RfA's close with (generally) the same reasons and with many editors mentioning how badly it's broken, and when a well-thought-out RfC is started that would change things with RfA, it fails... every time. I believe that expanding outreach and encouraging more editors to participate and vote in the RfA process is a solution that would begin to break this entire cycle. If anything, it's a perfect place to start and we really have nothing to lose. ~Oshwah~ ^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:35, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
9. Support I think that getting more opinions is generally a good idea, and I don't see any harm in better advertising RFAs. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
10. Support, with one suggestion being to add RfA as a category of the feedback request service. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
11. Support - "New blood" in these kind of important discussions on Wikipedia is almost never a bad idea IMO. Guy1890 (talk) 05:57, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
12. Support The more the merrier. We could consider a watchlist notice, or for starters transclude the RfX report on more visible pages. — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
13. Support, strongly, per Bibliworm. This is an excellent idea, for excellent reasons as set out, above. — Cirt (talk) 08:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
14. Strong support, in international comparison our participation rates are embarrassingly low. If at least half of active admins could show up at RfA, that might help. —Kusma (t·c) 09:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
15. Support I agree, getting more opinions by advertisements will be a net profit. Jim Carter 12:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
16. Support - More community input means a more diverse opinions. It will bring up great qualities of a candidate which other never know and vice versa. Regards—☮JAaron95 ^Talk 13:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
17. Support - It makes sense. More participation means more varied opinions. This has many plus points and would a net positive change. Yash! 14:12, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose D

1. RFA is not going to hold widespread appeal for most of the users of Wikipedia. Editors who have the familiarity with issues that matter at RFA are going to be aware of the process, they may just not choose to participate, just as an editor may be aware that there is a process of deletion, but it's not a process that interests them. I don't think RFA participation rates are unreasonably low. Don't overlook that a count of the number of participants only includes the number who have actually commented on a candidate, not the number who have reviewed the RFA, considered the supporters and opposers, and chose not to comment because the RFA was already going in the direction they would have preferred anyway. Neil916 (Talk) 01:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. People who are interested will watch WP:RFA and those who aren't won't. Advertising is simply going to randomise the expectations even more then they already are and encourage inexperienced users to dive in with out of field thoughts and opinions. There is very litter evidence that involving more random people has ever solved anything. Just look at the reactionary cesspit that is AN and ANI. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:22, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on D

• Although I support this idea, care should be taken as this invites SPAs, and votes rather than discussions i.e., Supports and Opposes not based on contributions.—☮JAaron95 ^Talk 04:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• @Neil916: If they don't comment, then they shouldn't be called a "participant". —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• I don't know whether to support or oppose: I oppose the header but support the statement underneath it. We need different participants. We do not need more. Roughly 100-200 !voters per candidate is more than enough. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

E: Difficult to remove admins

The current process by which we remove admins (namely, WP:ARBCOM) is too long/bureaucratic/difficult. The community should have an easier and more community-based method with which admins can be desysopped.

Support E

1. ...Weak support maybe policy or guidelines could be adjusted in such a way as to make WP:AE or something similar a way to remove admins, probably with a fair number of opinions or !votes on the removal required before action could be taken? John Carter (talk) 00:49, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. I think this point can be worded better to illustrate that "RFA is hard to pass because participants know it is so hard to remove a seated admin". I agree with this, and in the current system, it causes participants to be very cautious about who makes it through the process. Neil916 (Talk) 02:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Support. I agree. I think that, if bans and editing restrictions can be imposed upon a user by community consensus (such as what you will see occur regularly on ANI), then surely there can be the same process of establishing community consensus to have an administrator desysopped (given that legitimate concern is brought forward with supporting evidence, enough editors are involved, there is enough community participation to comfortably assert that consensus has been reached, etc). Or, maybe an "Request for De-adminship", or something similar? Where filing one against a current admin would require evidence of numerous failed attempts to resolve the matter in question and/or evidence of numerous failed attempts to correct the action(s), and maybe 10 supporting nominations before moving forward. If it does, then there are questions that the admin can answer in order to explain the concerns. If enough support votes are attained to establish consensus then the "RfD" closes as successful and a crat proceeds with desysopping. Just another idea... ~Oshwah~ ^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Support, though I don't have much to add; my opinions are closely aligned with those of Neil916 and Oshwah here. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Support - There needs to be a more widespread community recall procedure for administrators on Wikipedia. No where near enough current administrators are really open to voluntary recall efforts, and I think that the community would get better general behavior from our administrator corps (and improved confidence in them over time) if we all knew that being an administrator wasn't a "lifetime appointment". Even a few Wikipedia administrators that feel like they are above reproach can cause a lot of damage to this project over time. Guy1890 (talk) 06:05, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. Support, with a good idea put forth by John Carter, above. — Cirt (talk) 09:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
7. Support without reservation. IMO one of the big causes of RfA problems is the eventual realization by the community that adminship is essentially indefinite. We can talk about how it isn't a big deal or how opposes should be moderated on the basis of this or that, but so long as people understand the structure of the underlying game, they're going to be strongly risk averse. Protonk (talk) 13:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
8. Yes, this is a major underlying reason for the reluctance of users to elevate editors: that being an administrator is a roach-motel lifetime position. The process for removal needs to be made more civilized, less drama-ridden for all concerned. Also, within reason, users bringing complaints against admins in such proceedings need to be given "whistleblower" protection and not subject to retaliation unless their complaints are utterly groundless and made in bad faith. Coretheapple (talk) 15:28, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose E

1. RfA is too hard by desysopping is also too hard...? The recent past has seen a number of admins desysopped, and while that usually takes a bit of time, that's the proper way. And if desysopping is so hard, I wonder what one makes of the case of Malik Shabazz, who got his tool within a few hours (or less?) yanked after one tiny little infraction, being baited by racist commentary. Drmies (talk) 01:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. I'd say this has it 100% backwards. The reason why adminship is too hard to take away is that the community treats it as too precious. If it were already easier to become an admin, we'd have more better admins, and wouldn't feel the need to make removing it so hard. --Jayron32 02:51, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. The evidence is that admins who step over the line are having their bit removed - if the Malik Shabazz case shows anything, its that Arbcom are too quick to yank the bit. People who claim abusive admins are inviolate rarely provide the names and evidence to back up their assertions. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:32, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Oppose: ~97% of administrators who have passed RfA have not been removed from their posts by ArbCom. Unless a body of evidence can be provided showing there is some significant number of admins that should not be admins that have not been de-adminned by ArbCom, then this idea is moot. Everyone likes to think that a community based de-adminship would solve what ails RfA. There's no evidence to suggest it would. Meanwhile, there's significant evidence to suggest it would decimate the standing admin corps and reduce the ability of this project to function. I am not opposed to a community based de-adminship process. I am opposed to attempting to implement one without evidence to support there is a need for one. Taking a poll is not evidence, just opinion. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on E

• My solution to this is for admins to serve limited terms, say 5 years, after which they would go through a process similar to RfA, but where the passing level would be pretty low, say 45%. (This is to compensate for any accumulated grudges.) For the occasional admin who oversteps his bounds, or approaches their work with a bad attitude, knowing that a re-confirmation process is coming up might be a impetus to behave better. Or, admins who just slip by could serve "probationary" terms of 2-3 years, while those who pass with high percentages perhaps serve 7 years before having to be confirmed. The point is that a lifetime appointment does not seem to me to be a good idea. Certainly it protects the admin from unwarranted reprisals, but it also shields them from the displeasure of the community. BMK (talk) 02:28, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse limited-term adminship, BMK's idea of retention elections is not the best but it is better than we have now. I do like his idea of shorter terms for those who start off with lower support ("admins who just slip by"). I think another Wikipedia (German?) already has fixed-term admin elections. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

  If the problem with RfA is that the hostility of the environment makes it too hard to add new admins to the admin corps, the solution to the problem is to now take the existing corps and subject them to the same unwarranted hostility so they can be allowed to continue responding to RFPP requests? And that's going to fix the core problem? --Jayron32 03:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

  If you are referring to those elected prior to any change to a term-limit, we would have to handle "grandfathering in" existing admins in some form or fashion. This may mean leaving them with the "lifetime bit," it may mean leaving them with it as long as they remain active as an editor and/or as an admin, or it may just mean "declaring them elected for a full term" so they won't have to worry about running again for awhile. But that's a discussion for another day. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:43, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

F: Unbundle the tools

Currently, it is too difficult for candidates to pass because they are being trusted with a large toolset. If we unbundled the tools, candidates could simply apply for the particular right(s) which they would personally find most useful and/or have the most non-admin experience in.

Support F

1. Support – Of course. It's inevitable. It's only a question of when. That said, this is tangential to the overall thrust of Biblioworm's RfC, and should probably be dropped as it's a separate topic. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:22, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Strong support. Some candidates could easily be trusted with page-delete/undelete but their past behavior (e.g. interaction bans, short temper, etc.) means they probably can't get 70% support to have the "block user" user-right, and vice-versa. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Support, but depends on which tools, and what are the standards, for each. — Cirt (talk) 09:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Support AS ALWAYS. It's silly to keep tools unbundled beyond the minimum necessary for legal issues. block/protect/delete are different classes of tools and can be meted out through different processes. Protonk (talk) 13:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Weak support I support unbundling in principle, but I don't think it should be unbundling just for the sake of unbundling. I don't think it would make sense to unbundle something that is almost always used with other admin tools during normal admin duties, but if there are cases where the tool is usually used by itself, then unbundling would be a good option. One example that springs to mind is closing AfD discussions, which normally only requires delete and viewdeleted. Of course, viewdeleted is the right that requires community vetting due to the legal implications for the WMF, but it still may be more attractive for some candidates to run for a deletion-only RfA than to run for the current incarnation of RfA. There may be more scenarios like this that I haven't thought of. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:07, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. Yes, I think that if the tools were unbundled it would make the whole process much easier on everybody concerned. An editor who can recognize and block vandals might not be qualified to engage in intricate sockpuppet investigations or rule on complex ANI complaints. Coretheapple (talk) 15:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
7. Delete, block and protect. People might think these are roughly the same level of importance, and therefore that they should be given out together. But, as an example, people often oppose RfAs for reasons relating to how someone deals with deletion (i.e. CSD and AfD), when actually the user just wants to deal with vandal fighting (block, protect, and the occasional delete). Yes, some jobs need mixtures of these tools, but then you can post to the relevant noticeboard—that's what happens anyway when the user has none of the three rights. I would be open to a variety of ideas about how these tools could be given out individually (based on an RfA, some kind of mini-RfA, something closer to requesting rollback etc.), but I definitely support the idea of unbundling them somehow. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose F

1. Nope. Any level of trust required to grant one of the tools would be required for all of them. If I trust a user to block someone, I'd also trust them to delete an article. If I don't trust them with the ability to block someone correctly, I also wouldn't trust them to use protection correctly. --Jayron32 02:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Oppose - Admins tools are for Admins. We currently have some of the unbundled tools and that is sufficient. Unbundling all of 'em will lead to more chaos and confusions. Regards—☮JAaron95 ^Talk 05:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Oppose I think, we give the admin bits on the basis of competence and trust. A candidate applying for a single tool must have both, as well as a candidate applying for a complete tool set. Simply in the latter case, it is AGFed (based on trust) that the candidate won't use the tools in which he is incompetent haphazardly. Secondly, all the tools are needed in tandem, unbundling will be chaotic as more semi admins would be required to take on an IP hopping vandal, moving and vandalizing pages. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 05:05, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Oppose I think the ones that are worth unbundling have been. Delete, block, protect, etc, if you can be trusted with one of those you can be trusted with the others. We've been through this far too many times anyway to no avail, let's focus on other solutions to improve the RfA process — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Oppose - if you believe RFA has problems, proposing replacing it with multiple RFAs is, frankly, stupid. WilyD 12:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. Oppose, vandal fighters need block and protect and delete and viewdeleted to work properly, speedy patrollers need delete and block. RFPP patrollers need block and protect. I can't think of a major admin area where people with access to only one of the three key tools would be all that helpful. —Kusma (t·c) 12:41, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

G: RfA should be replaced

The current process by which we choose our admins is fundamentally broken. No amount of reform will fix it. We must discontinue it and replace it with a different system.

Support G

1. See User:Application Drafter/Sysop applications draft. Agent 73124 (talk) 15:27, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose G

1. Oppose I support the concept of RfA, which is namely that the community have a direct voice in electing its admins. I can't think of any other alternative to the basic structure of admin selection that would be more bureaucratic or "elite" (in that the selection of admins is put in the hands of a committee). --Biblioworm 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Opposeish I think the current system should be replaced, but I'm afraid the replacement would be (on paper) pretty much exactly like RfA is supposed to work on paper. That is, if I were to create a set of rules to select admins, it would look like what RfA's rules look like (for the most part). The problem is that what we need to do is flush the entire current system, and create the same system we have now, minus all of the bitterness and negativity. --Jayron32 02:55, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Oppose I'm with others in that we can focus on making the experience a little calmer. I'm not talking about legitimate opposition perceived as being harsh, but the unbridled negativity some bring to the table that can steer an otherwise promising RfA off course — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:47, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on G

• There are a few user-rights, such as seeing deleted pages, which the Foundation will require and RfA-like process, so for editors seeking this user-right, we are kind of stuck with it. For users seeking other user-rights like block, delete-to-make-way-for-page-move, delete-and-"content-blind-undelete" (useful in history merges), and the recently unbundled edit-filter-manager and template-editor user-rights an RfA process is not required by the Foundation and, as we have seen with edit-filter-manager and template-editor, may not be required by the community either. Disclaimer/selfish conflict of interest: If the tools needed to do a history-merge are ever available without going through RfA, sign me up. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:07, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• I'm neutral on this one. I think that RfA could be reformed successfully while retaining something close to its current incarnation, but I would also support well-though-out proposals that look nothing like the current RfA. The devil is in the details - just because we ditch RfA doesn't automatically mean that we will get a system that is better. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

H: Leave as is

The process with which we select our admins is completely fine as is. There are no problems with it, and no change is needed at all.

Support H

1. This is a loaded question, but RfA in itself isn't broken. It's being trolled, sure, but that goes for every page on Wikipedia. There is no better process than community approval: this is what we are, this is what working in a collaborative environment is all about. There is no metric for determining whether someone is going to be a good admin or not; it cannot be automated. Drmies (talk) 00:51, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. I'll put a vote in here. I've been participating (off and on) in Dank's RfCs about RfA for a while now, and in my opinion a lot of the collapse in RfA is due to a shrinking pool of long term editors. The decline in long term editors can be more moderate than RfA decline, in fact I'd expect it to be, and can drive both candidate and voter behavior. We can and should reform RfA, but no reform will be magic. Protonk (talk) 13:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose H

1. Oppose The very obvious consensus amongst the community is that RfA needs some sort of change. I think enough has been said. --Biblioworm 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Oppose While RFA itself should continue to exist, the existing process needs change. An RFC was recently proposed to look into adopting a DE-WP style system. While on merits it looked good, it wouldn't work here, but it certainly sparked, along with a large number of other RFC's, a great deal of discussion about the whole RFA process and the subsequent management of administratorship. Blackmane (talk) 02:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Oppose-ish It has its problems, but do not take this "oppose" to mean the status quo is worse than whatever will come out of this discussion or that the status quo will automatically have less community support than any particular proposal here. In other words, even if 80% of the community says "the current system is broken" but no single proposal or group of mutually-compatible proposals has more than 20% support, then we must acknowledge that the current system is still "more popular than any other viable proposal" and either leave it as is or have a second "up or down vote" RfC to see whether the community preferred to keep the current RfA process or the new proposal with the most support. Do not "close" the discussion by saying "oh, the current RfA has only 20% support so we will have to ditch it, let's see, the highest-supported proposal has 18% support so we'll go with that one." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Strong Oppose - Something has to change. The current process is broken and we *do* need a reform. Regards—☮JAaron95 ^Talk 05:12, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Oppose, per Biblioworm, above. Change is needed to improve this site. — Cirt (talk) 09:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. Oppose I don't agree that RfA is totally a broken process but I think there are things which can be reformed/changed. Jim Carter 12:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
7. While it worked in the past, it seems to no longer work for the Wikipedia we have today. —Kusma (t·c) 12:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
8. Oppose We need more admins, and the current system isn't creating them. Something has to change. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on H

• Question: What is the German system? BMK (talk) 02:29, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

  @Beyond My Ken: See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-10-22/Special report. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

  Thanks. I read it, but I'll have to digest it. BMK (talk) 15:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I: Ease the load on admins

The admin load can and should be lightened with carefully considered changes to procedures and/or by creating bots and scripts to assist and possibly in a few specific cases replace admins.

We've already done this with Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion/Archive 19#RfC: Proposal to allow non-admin "delete" closures at TfD 3 months ago, effectively allowing editors to make all of the decisions and do all of the work except actually hitting the "delete" button.

Here are two hypothetical examples:

• Encouraging established editors to "second" speedy-deletes and giving admins a tool to flag those CSDs as "seconded by an established editor" would free the admin up to do a 2-second sanity check before hitting "delete," freeing up his time for more involved tasks.

• Creating admin-bots to allow editors to delete a page they created in their own User: space if it meets certain other conditions (e.g. never been edited by anyone else, never been moved, etc.) would free up admins to do other tasks.

Note: "support" or "oppose" on the general idea that we should work towards lightening the load of admins, not on any particular method. You can be dead-set against having a special group of "CSD second-ers" or having admin-bots to delete user:-space pages but still support lessening the load of admins.

Support I

1. Support as creator of this section. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Support. We have the technology. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Support, most sensible ideas. — Cirt (talk) 09:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Support I like the idea, I can't imagine any major problem with this idea if applied. Jim Carter 12:47, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Support In the long run, this is one of the better solutions, but very few bots come out of committees. :| Protonk (talk) 13:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
6. Support Sure, these are good ideas. I don't think they should be should be a substitute for reform of RfA itself, however. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:57, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
7. Support - Why not? These are amazing ideas. Yash! 14:09, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
8. Support: this can and should be done, even if it will not solve the problem in its entirety. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:47, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on I

• I like the WP:U5 adminbot idea, but that would require considerable input and well-established consensus. We do have ProcseeBot, who makes about 300-500 blocks a day, so this kind of powerful full automation is not unheard of. From my own experience, however, what we really need is more recent changes patrollers. This task is ongoing and of extreme urgency. A TfD that stays open for an extra week is absolutely fine, but the wiki will be useless if we can't keep it from being defaced. If all I had to do was clean out AIV than it would be an amazing, rewarding day and I'd have a few less gray hairs. Instead most of my blocks are from patrolling, since during peak hours we seem to be lacking that much needed help. Meanwhile the unfounded reports at AIV grow and grow, but I digress — MusikAnimal ^talk 07:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• I am not convinced that taking away more of the "easy" part of the workload is going to make a day of admin work any more fun. As MusikAnimal said, it may help with some less important backlogs. However, to deal with user-requested deletions is actually the relaxing part of CAT:CSD patrol (you sometimes even get nice thank you notes for it). If you take that away, only the stuff remains that will make people shout at you or that is difficult to sort out. When I do speedies, I like it that some things are easy and some are hard. Probably just me, though. —Kusma (t·c) 10:08, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

J: Oppose votes carry too much weight

As Biblioworm said in their Signpost op-ed, due to the average of 75% support necessary to pass an RfA, oppose votes carry about three times as much weight as support votes. That is, if an editor gets six oppose votes, it will require at least 18 support votes to cancel them out. Most voting systems only require 50% plus one vote for a pass, and as Biblioworm also points out, at 67%, even getting the U.S. president's veto overturned requires a lower percentage of support than RfA. Closer to home, the German Wikipedia require 50% + 1 67%, and it doesn't seem to have blown up their wiki. For a fairer system we should reduce the discretionary zone from 70%–80% to something lower.

Support J

1. As creator of this section. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. Support - Something that should have happened a long time ago. Yash! 14:05, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
3. Definitely. A candidate with 2/3 majority (or even 3/5 majority) is still going to be widely trusted. —Kusma (t·c) 14:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
4. Support. Obviously. --Biblioworm 14:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
5. Support - Yes, we need to lower the majority level.—☮JAaron95 ^Talk 15:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose J

1. This is just a backhanded way of stacking the deck in favor of getting more admins. Since people have well-grounded concerns, change the rules. No dice. Coretheapple (talk) 15:32, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
2. It is untrue that it is 75% to pass (it is about 70%), so per WP:RfC (the requirement for neutral statement) this RfC should fail for being misleading. Admins need very wide demonstrated support, if anyone can believe, in the least, they are trusted by the community. It is nonsense to suggest that 70 is somehow unfair but 67 is not. This proposal displays fundamental dislike of deciding things with even a semblance of WP:Consensus("A consensus decision takes into account all of the proper concerns raised. Ideally, it arrives with an absence of objections, but often we must settle for as wide an agreement as can be reached. When there is no wide agreement, consensus-building involves adapting the proposal to bring in dissenters without losing those who accepted the initial proposal" (emphasis added), because apparently 'consensus is hard', which is the usual claim of people who just do not believe that Consensus matters. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:11, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments on J

• Looking at recent German de:Wikipedia:Adminkandidaturen, it seems to me that they use 2/3 or 70% as the cut off point, not 50%+1. There is no bureaucrat discretion involved. —Kusma (t·c) 14:12, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

  @Kusma: Has this changed since 2012 when the Signpost op-ed I linked above was written? I may need to strike that part of the proposal if I have outdated or wrong information. Unfortunately, my German isn't good enough for me to check on the German Wikipedia myself. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

  Actually, it appears that I just misread the op-ed. If I am understanding this correctly, the percentage has always been 67%, and the thing that changed in 2009 was the addition of a re-election and recall procedure. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

  From de:Wikipedia:Adminkandidaturen/Statistik it appears that it has always been 2/3 (sort by "Prozent"; "wurde Administrator" and "erfolgreiche Kandidatur" are passes, "wurde nicht gewählt" or "... nicht bestätigt" are fails, while "Abbruch" is a withdrawn candidacy). I also understand it that the thing that happened in 2009 was a forced recall procedure that leads to a new election (there have also been many voluntary re-elections). I don't have a lot of time right now, but can dig to answer specific questions if you have any (I am a native German speaker, but almost inactive on the German Wikipedia). —Kusma (t·c) 14:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

• Note that 70% is near the rock bottom of the discretionary range. An RfA almost never succeeds in this range without a 'crat chat, and it is not uncommon for such RfAs to be closed as unsuccessful or no consensus. I say that 75% is the bar because, reviewing RfAs from previous years, I have seen virtually no RfAs that have failed above 75%, while the number that passed between 70-75% is split quite evenly. Under 75%, closes are typically very drawn out and controversial. --Biblioworm 16:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• I'm also getting very tired of hearing this complaint about the "neutrality requirement" for the RfC and that the RfC should therefore fail. First of all, it's a logically invalid argument in that it attempts to cheaply discredit the argument by criticizing the way it is written rather than addressing the substance of the issue. By this logic, all RfAs should fail, because the nominator doesn't write a neutral statement; all RMs should all fail, because the proposer is "advocating" that it be moved to a new title and is therefore not neutral; finally, pretty much all other RfCs should fail, because the proposers often write at least a few lines showing why he thinks the proposal is needed. I should also note that I wrote all the proposals here favorably for the side concerned, so I did not write it well for my "side" and write it poorly for the position that we should leave RfA as is. --Biblioworm 16:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
• If 67% were the "bar", the following additional RfA's would have passed this year: Cyberpower678 and Thine Antique Pen; two more are just outside this range: EuroCarGT (65.83%) and Rich Farmbrough(65.97%). While this may be a good idea in its own right, we need to be realistic that it's not a "magic bullet" that is suddenly going to produce "dozens" of extra Admins each year... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)