Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

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Tony1's Rfa

Allow me to again express my UTTER DISGUST at the Trial by ordeal the Rfa process seems to be degenerating into. This is how we lose so many excellent, talented and thoughtful contributors. Are none of us entitled to express our strong opinions without running the risk of incurring a personal, political pile on?! Do we not have the right to defend ourselves when we feel we are under unfair attack?! Can we not even be bothered to FORGIVE some percieved slight?! Or to extend to our colleagues the benefit of the doubt rather than to doubt their benefits?! If one of my dear friends were to nominate me today, I would DECLINE rather than face running such a disgraceful gauntlet as that which Tony1 was subjected! A Kangaroo court has more decorum!!! I wonder how many of YOU would fare facing such a barrage of negativity. Would you be able to sit quietly and smile, while your honor, your integrity, your personal charachter are smeared in the mud? I think those who would DO NOT deserve to be admins. Those are the very ones who merely want some small crumb of status/reward/power/influence. Who will use their position as a personal TOY rather than a TOOL to make our encyclopedia and community better. Something needs to be done about the ordeal process, otherwise Wikipedia will continue to hemmorage knowledge and talent from these self-inflicted wounds. --R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 17:04, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

• Calm down. I've read some of the comments in the RfA, and while most seem rather civil, there are some that look like outright accusations to Tony1. If I were in his place I would perhaps got a little angry too. I personally don't know Tony1 but judging by the comments in the RfA, he doesn't seem ready for adminship just now, but if he reapplies in a few weeks or months I might support him. — JIP | Talk 17:45, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
• RDH, outside of the decorum issues on RfA, you don't appear to be raising any particular faults that the RfA process has nor suggesting any ways in which to improve it. I grant that you have some very legitimate feelings regarding the RfA process, but failing any detailing of just what is wrong, there isn't anything for us to comment on. As for decorum, certainly the behavior of certain users should be spoken of on their respective talk pages. Their behavior on RfA is a reflection of their behavior; not of RfA. There are a large number of people who acquit themselves appropriately on RfA. I don't think that extending the behavior of a few against the many is what you intended, but based on the above is sounds to me like that. --Durin 18:19, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

It only takes a few spiteful, rude, inconsiderate and outright trolling individuals to contaminate the entire process. These few can create an atmosphere of ill-will and distrust which grows and carries over to other nominations. I think losing even even one good editor/contributor to this flawed process is one too many.

But you ask, and rightfully so, do I have any suggestions to make the process, if not better, then at least less flawed? What sort of Wikipedian would I be if I did'nt:> First off, we could have Rfa "Ushers" or "Bouncers", who could step in when an Rfa begins to get out of hand, before the flames and pile-ons have a chance to cause serious harm. If someone can't behave in accordance with the rules of Civility, No personal attacks, Staying cool, Assumption of good faith and perhaps most importantly Don't be a dick, then these officials would be able to remove them from the Rfa in question and negate their vote. Offenders would recieve, at most, 2 warnings and may also have their offending comments stricken out. Any registered user in good standing may volunteer to be an "Usher" or "Bouncer", but if they are not yet an admin, they will need an admin to be "Enforcer" for their decisions. Durin, you may be ideal for this role.

Second, a while ago someone mentioned that we need a "Wiki Middle Class" between registered users and admins. I think this is an exxxcellent suggestion. Towards this end, I have proposed HERE to create a corps of Article Custodians, or admins-lite if you will:>. Basically they would have limited admin powers over a single article (48 hour lock maximum and rollback button). They would be voted in, as are admins, but the threshold for concensus would be lower (60%) and they may be removed by bureaucrats if asked to by at least three different admins. Article Custodianship would reward good contributors who have put a lot of time and work into an article with the power and responsibility to care for it. It would also allow them to show they have The Right Stuff to be admins, make the transition from to admin much easier and help take the sting off a failed Rfa. It could also help the admins deal with the bane of the Wikiverse-Vandalism.

If anyone can come up with better suggestions, by all means please do and I'll endorse, peddle, push and pimp them wholeheartedly:> But something must be done, not only to keep our talent but to maintain the atmosphere of civility and collaboration which makes the Wiki MORE than simply an encyclopedia. Tony left a message on my talk page today, thanking me for my comments and support and asking me to contact him in mail. This makes the second friend, User:Rl is the other, I have lost due to the toxic effects from Rfa. The system may not yet be broke, but it is clearly starting to crack under the strain of Wikipedia's growth. The time to fix it is now. Thanks for your time and consideration--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 18:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm against instruction creep, and feel these suggestions are in that vein. I would like to see what impact WP:GRFA has when it's 'officially' released first before applying any other salve on the RfA process. With respect to the suggestions; I think the first carries more merit than the second. But in general, I don't like the idea of adding in additional special classes of wiki-citizens to pursue particular problems. --Durin 19:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

So you are against "instruction creep", then you post a link to yet another page full of instructions. But they are good instructions...I wish I'd known about them before I became involved in Rfa. Unfortunately, I jumped right in and learned nearly everything in there the hard way. I'm afraid most others will learn the same way too, afterall the Wikiverse is so vast and there are so many WP:Instruction pages to keep track of already. It can be confusing even for those who know their way around. I'm none too optimistic WP:GiRaFA will have any significant impact at all. Anymore than a warning sign at a Mosh pit.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 19:33, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges. Talrias (t | e | c) 11:37, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

That is a step in the right direction. But only a step. And it does'nt address the problem of bruising if not abusive Rfas. My friend SoLando has come up with an interesting idea. If y'all promise to be nice, I might convince him to share it here:>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 19:33, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

The very community interaction that makes Wikipedia rewarding can become destructive when critical comment is made in RfA or FaC discussions, particularly when candidates or authors take understandable pride in their work. It's hard not to take attacks personally, though better forewarning and support might help. In this instance an interesting article marred by grammatical errors and convoluted writing has been isolated from critical improvement, and more importantly a contributor with uncommon skills has been alienated. Administrators have to be responsible, but testing their restraint by public abuse is out of order. The Admin-lite idea would still involve the same process, and limited powers to protect one article would have no relevance in this case, where an editor was making contributions over many articles. However, there could be merit in a kind of official barnstar or recognition of responsibility as a standard precursor to adminship, possibly giving access to rollback buttons, and I'm for that...dave souza 18:41, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I see no "public abuse" at Tony1's RfA or, indeed, the RfAs of most users. What I see is a legitimate comment about a tantrum Tony threw at an old FAC, followed by Tony dragging in his objections from that FAC to a forum where they have no relevance. Then, when other users opposed (notably Cyberjunkie and Alkivar), he blew up at them. Frankly, if you respond to legitimate comments by throwing a very public tantrum on your own RfA, I don't feel you have any right to be upset when your RfA doesn't pass, and further, you are not admin material. Good editors are not necessarily good admins, and vice versa. Please, let's not let our personal feelings get in the way of the basic facts. Tony was not mistreated, and it's pure fantasy to say he was. --fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 08:38, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I figure this section would be an appropiate location to place my proposal, since R.D.H.'s proposals inspired mine. Now hopefully this won't be considered an unnecessary tier to the RFA structure. But as the principal reason for some RFA descending into a frenzied debacle is that of unresolved issues, why not have an optional "peer review" similar to that used for articles, which invariably are a precursor to the article becoming an FA Candidate. At the peer review, issues could be raised and resolved with the prospective admin, and perhaps an indication of their chances (or whether they are even ready) could be given, as many seem to be jumping head first into an RFA, then get hurt when it doesn't go as they anticipated/desired. I can imagine this idea may be seen as unnecessary, what with there being RFCs and the like, but as R.D.H. said responding to me on his talk page: "RFCs usually involve edit wars, personal pissing contests and such, what you propose would exclusively deal with admin candidate issues." SoLando (Talk) 19:25, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

How would this not turn into "personal pissing constests" as well? People's pasts are a big reason why RfAs pass or fail. You could always list youself at RfC and explain you are looking for constructive criticism. Or do as other have done, start a user subpage seeking comments. The new guide should help incredibly though. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

>How would this not turn into "personal pissing constests" as well?< There is no guarantee it would'nt. None of the suggestions SoLando or I have made would make the process completely "piss-proof". We realize this, but it is our hope that they will at least help reduce the "piss level" which is slowly creeping over the levees and flooding the Rfa. SoLando's suggestion for RFAC, would allow candidates and nominators to "test the waters" first, so they will know much better what to work on and what to expect from the Rfa. It would make "ambushes" and "pile-ons" much less a problem than they currently are. Plus his proposal has the added virtue of being easy and painless to implement without having to change the (sacred) Wiki software. --R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 19:02, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• The process is fine. The problem here was Tony had a temper he could not control, he became as a spoilt and petulant child. Insulting all who came near. If no-one had ever said "No, Tony I don't like your edits they are wrong" When would Tony's temperament have come to light - after you, the sympathetic crowd had voted him "Admin of FA", and everyone new to the page was too frightened to say a word.

I'm sick of being the villain of this piece. Tony was over forceful and arrogant in his edits. Pages I've written are edited every day, and good, so they should be! There's one coming up on the front page very shortly, and we all know what happens there, especially me because I've had several on the front page before, all thankfully well copy-edited before they arrived there. (and before you all rush off to have a look now). I couldn't care less what style and grammar gurus do to a page but when they alter the integrity of the page - I do.

My grammar and spelling are appalling, I can't write a simple stub without being copy-edited. I admit it, it's Wikipedia's most badly kept secret. However, I will not be harassed into altering the essence and emphasis of a page. If people can't cope with that, then the encyclopedia may as well give up now. Tony was very good with his grammar, and his phrasing and vocabulary was wonderful for children. If he comes back knowing his limitations good, if he doesn't come back well grammar is taught in schools. End of story.

Keep the process as it is, because a few people behind closed doors would fail to reach the correct decision. Tony was very happy originally to be there, but he was too new. If he was ignorant and unhappy blame those who nominated him, not a tried, trusted and proven system. 81.131.95.249 20:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC) Giano (I keep being logged out - have I been banned)

Completely independent of SoLando or RDH, I stumbled across the idea of peer review as well. It's entirely notional at this point, but I did create a subpage of mine for it: User:Durin/Peer review.

As for WP:GRFA being instruction creep; it's nothing of the sort. There are no instructions anyone is compelled to follow. It is not policy. It isn't even a guideline. It's a set of recommendations and are not part of the instructions found at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate. There are no additional hurdles here to jump; it is just some helpful advice.

I do think people should take some responsibility for keeping the RfA process as civil as possible. To that end, I've begun advising people of when I feel they have overstepped the boundaries a bit [1]. That said, I have no intention of becoming the Sheriff of RfA. I think we should all be encouraging each other to contribute to RfA productively. --Durin 21:16, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not saying the instructions (or recommendations if you prefer) won't help. They will. But they won't be enough. However, they, along with my proposal for Rfa "ushers" and SoLando's "Peer Review" idea TOGETHER might be enough. They are at least worth a try. What do we have to lose except more talent? The system may have worked fine when Wiki was relatively small, but it has grown, and is growing, tremendously now. It is starting to bend and in time it will break. The time to start fixing it is before it reaches this breaking point.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 19:25, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• But who regarding Tony overstepped the mark? Tony was originally asked to provide the "diffs" for a problem he (no one else) first mentioned. He could not oblige. The man failed, it was unpleasant, so are all interviews, the process is fine. Giano | talk 21:29, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

"I'm sick of being the villain of this piece." No one here even mentioned you by name, Giano, but since the shoe fits... You knew DAMN well Tony had buttons, where they were and how to push them...which you did..like a maestro troll. Afterall, it is his fault for having buttons, not yours for pushing them right? Seems it is not enough for you to have shot down his Rfa and driven Tony away, you continue to insult and belittle him and his charachter here to defend your actions. What does that say for you? That you are petty, spiteful and vindictive...not exactly good traits for either an editor nor an admin. You are the sort who must tear someone else down in order to make yourself feel bigger. The HONOURABLE thing to do would be to apologize, publically and sincerely. But instead you take an almost perverse pride and reprehensable callousness IE-"If he comes back knowing his limitations good, if he doesn't come back well grammar is taught in schools. End of story." You say the system is fine...well we will see just how fine it is if you or one of your nominees ever faces it. There is NO ONE here worthy of serious admin consideration who does'nt have SOMETHING in their past which cannot be distorted and blown out of all proportion. There is no one here who does'nt have a boiling point and won't explode when the right buttons are pushed. It is only a matter of finding them and applying enough pressure. Tony's major flaw is his were easy to find. I wonder how well hidden yours are...I'm guessing hardly much better than his. It will be amusing to find out, afterall, according to you all Wikipedians are basically expendable.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 21:15, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• Are the bolded quotes mine or yours, I think yours, or are mine the unbolded, perhaps when you have calmed down you would like to explain, because I am rather confused. You remind me of the famous quote about throwing pebble into a pond and watching the rings, always a fascinating observation, you should try it sometime. However I'm unsure of your point here, and less sure of it's relevance to the subject under discussion, when you feel calmer I look forward to your explanation. Because poor Tony rather lost the plot, there is no need for us all to follow suit. Please bear that in mind. Giano | talk 21:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Dual nominations

Is there any point to dual nominations? There was even a recent nom that had three conominators. Why not just one, and everybody votes? When are too many co-noms too many? Why not 10 co-noms? 20? Always concerned about scalability, --Durin 19:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it's slightly silly but harmless. I hope that editors will try to mostly limit themselves to the standard "I was going to nominate him myself!", or make their positive remarks in the comments section. I don't foresee it becoming a major problem; there's only so many laudatory things that can be said about any candidate, so potential nominators will eventually run out of new things to say. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

What Ten said. I don't think it hurts anything; should a particular case become a problem we can deal with it individually. (It's not as though having multiple nominators affects the process itself; it's just unnecessary. And perhaps a bit embarrassing, for the candidate being gushed over!) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:15, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Come to think of it, are there any good reasons why we need any nominators? Why not have everyone self-nominate? I did - it never did me any harm... It helps those users who don't regularly come into contact with any particular other users to be nominated without suffering the increased social hazard that self-nomination brings. The only reason I can think of for having nominations is to let users recommend unknown users to the community. I don't, however, find that a desperately useful thing. [[Sam Korn]] 20:21, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

One good reason is modesty - some people feel uncomfortable telling others what great people they are. Failure to self-promote should not be a reason not to become an admin. Guettarda 20:32, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Im a supporter of co-nominations (I just did a co-nom with FireFox RFA) but I some how agree with the above. There should be a limit for only one nom and maybe one co-nom but no more cause if lets say User:Faa is such a excellent user that everyone want to nominate him for admin and when the request for admin comes he gets 10 co-nom than that will be ridiculos. Its harmless to co-nom but it could go way to far to control so a limit should be into 2 noms --JAranda | watz sup 01:54, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

If there's to be a limit, why any limit higher than one? Once you open the door to co-nomination, escalation seems almost inevitable, and capping it at any further point, arbitrary. Procedurally, anything after a single nomination seems redundant, unless there's to be some requirement for multiple proposers (which might not be a bad idea as such). Nominated is nominated, anything further is "seconding", or just plain "voting". But I agree it doesn't do any harm, other than the possible appearance of silliness/gush, as has been said.

Here's a thought for your collective idle consideration though: why not bar nominators from voting? Doing both is somewhat redundant, after all, as the nomination is required, and support is implied thereby. This might act as a (mild, marginal) deterrent against multi-noms, and as a (mild, marginal) encouragement to self-nom, which people seem often reluctant to do (perhaps understandably, given the occasionally fraught nature of the process). If those are desirable... Though presumably due weight would still be given to the gravitas (or whatever else) of the nominator, as at present. Alai 19:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• There's been past discussion about making RfA self-nom only. For what it's worth, I recently took a look at the success of self-nom vs. nom for nominations of candidates with more than 2,000 edits since June of this year. What I found was that 83% of non-self noms were successful. 68% of self-noms were successful. That's a 15% difference. The difference might be explained by other causal factors, but the difference is interesting nonetheless. Personally, I'd prefer to see the process remain open to people nominating others. --Durin 19:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• • ... but I'm not suggesting making it 'not open' to that. People would still be free to nominate others, just not to nominate and to vote. Alai 20:23, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Silsor and adminship reaffirmation

I think that Silsor makes an interesting case on his RFA, and it's unfortunate that some people immediately discount it as disruption. The issue seems to be the perennial question of adminship reaffirmation.

• Basically, the question is if adminship should be a lifetime position, or subject to review once per year. The latter system is used on Meta, and on several other language wikis such as the Dutch one.
• Review would simply mean to publically ask if there are any objections to the admin. If there are none, as would usually be the case, he remains an admin. If there are, a RFA-like vote is used.
• This is very different from RFDA, because an RFDA could be filed at any arbitrary time, such as whenever a dispute occurs; whereas revision only occurs once per year, around the admin's "anniversary". This makes revision far more even-handed.

What problem is this trying to solve? Basically, it's a matter of administrator accountability. Admins are said to have the trust of the community, and said to be held to very high standards. However, that isn't true in practice. Admins are subject to peer review but can choose to ignore it, and losing community trust has no effect whatsoever on their status, except if their behavior is so extreme that the already-overworked ArbCom has to deal with it.

Additionally, some admins have been around for years and have been promoted for different reasons than we use now. People change, and standards change, and people should not be in a position of authority merely for having been around longer.

This has been debated before, of course, but I've seen only two real objections. First, some people think that the sheer amount of admins here makes it impractical, but that's not actually true: for the vast majority of admins, reaffirmation would be automatic since nobody objects to them. If necessary, two or three objections could be required before the matter is put to a vote.

And second, it seems that some people oppose because they're afraid that they, or their friends, might lose their privileges. That hardly sounds like a good reason. There are a small number of controversial admins, and the thought that they should keep community trust may well serve as an incentive to behave less controversially.

Food for thought? Oh yes, and see meatball:DevolvePower and meatball:VestedContributor. Radiant_>|< 12:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Let an affirmation vote stand 48 hours. If three objections are raised it triggers a full re-vote and the admin will need the usual 70-80% plus to retain adminship. And I'll take a stab at something raised earlier: if an admin hasn't been active in a year they are automatically de-sysopped. Marskell 13:15, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Any admin who after a year of adminship hasn't pissed 3 people off hasn't been very active. Throw in those who will use this to try an impose insanely high standards and 3 votes per admin is pretty much garenteed.Geni 14:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

This proposal would virtually guarantee that anyone on ArbCom will have to face frequent affirmations; all of us (except maybe Mindspillage) have at least three people out there who don't like us enough to demand our adminships yanked. We'd all probably survive such attempts, but why waste our time and everyone else's? We have enough trouble convincing people to serve on ArbCom as it is. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

A yearly AdministrativePower review wouldn't be a bad idea. Admins who fail to show up for the review, voluntarily ask to be de-sysopped, or are criticised and respond inadequately to criticism, would be de-sysopped. Other admins would be kept. — JIP | Talk 13:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll point out that, on a purely semantic level, you've misinterpreted Silsor's request. He has not, in fact, asked to be reaffirmed as an admin — instead, he has requested, technically, that his admin status be removed (and, by stressing that his request is no different from any other on RFA, seems to be suggesting that one can nominate someone else to be "promoted to usership").

And another objection you didn't mention: since this has never been tried before, nobody is quite certain of the potential scope of such a policy. There is, indeed, a "small number of controversial admins" (who, for better or worse, tend to be among the most active) who could be quite certain of being forced into a confirmation vote. There is a much greater number of admins for whom the the level of opposition is less clear — they have likely made some enemies, but nobody knows how many. Losing a few active admins may be unfortunate, but losing a hundred would be rather more traumatic for the project as a whole; thus, since no-one is certain of just how many admins would lose their positions, supporting such a policy seems rather ill-advised. Kirill Lokshin 13:26, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Silsor's request was misunderstood. I think the idea here is let's take the implication of his request and try to create a more plausible framework. Also, I very much doubt we'll lose anywhere near a hundred and, of course, bureaucrats would still have their discretion if they feel "enemies" have suddenly materialized out of nowhere. Marskell 13:36, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• Kirill, while I'm sure that a few admins would be "forced into confirmation", that by no means implies that we will lose all, or even most, of them. In fact I expect most confirmation votes to pass, so your allegation that we would lose a hundred admins sounds like a strong exaggeration. It is very unlikely that, as you seem to claim, many admins have sufficient opposition in hidden enemies. Please provide some evidence thereof? Being uncertain is no grounds for assuming the absolute worst.
• Most regular adminship nominations pass. If (as I strongly doubt) there are in fact a large number of current admins that would not pass an adminship nomination, then we are having serious problems with double standards here. Radiant_>|< 13:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

  My apologies — I didn't mean to imply that we would lose a hundred admins (I should certainly hope that wouldn't be the case). My concern, however, is that, if this were put into place and subsequently got out of hand, there would be no way of stopping it without being unfair to those who had already undergone the process. Kirill Lokshin 14:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• Despite the response to "What problem is this trying to solve?" I think this is a solution looking for a problem. I also fear that it's a form of m:Instruction creep. I do agree that there is a limited accountability loop for appropriate admin behavior. That loop is, at present, restricted to dispute resolution processes. The appropriate area is Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_conduct#Use_of_administrator_privileges. Notably, this area sees little in the way of traffic. I have come across users before who have complained of admin abuses. I have routinely asked users to show me the evidence of their concerns. So far, I've received nothing in return. I'm not saying that what I received wasn't substantiative; I'm saying I received nothing. Of course, that is anecdotal. At this point, I think a new level of procedure/bureaucracy is premature. More evidence of the need of it needs to be generated. In an effort to help keep admins accountable, I started a (still very notional) project called "Admin watch" as a subpage of mine. Feel free to contribute there. --Durin 13:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • There is a difference between being downright abusive (which are very rare and dealt with by ArbCom) and not adhering to the high standards to which admins are supposedly kept. According to Wikipedia:Administrators, an admin is a "known and trusted member of the community". If someone no longer has community trust, should that person remain admin indefinitely? Radiant_>|< 14:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

  You've avoided defining "community", however. There is a certain group of users — the trolls, the creators of speedied pages, the submitters of copyvios — who would love nothing more than to exact their revenge on the admins who interfered with them. Are you quite certain that this group is not large enough to constitue a significant voting block? Or that certain members of this group, given the capability to remove admins, could not restrain their destructive impulses long enough to create a "legitimate" account with which they could vote? Kirill Lokshin 14:27, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

  Chicken Licken thought the sky was going to fall in. It didn't. -Splash^talk 14:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

The difference is that most admin nominees have never been admins before nor have they performed admin tasks. If we set the standard 70-80% threshold for reconfirmation, I expect that we will risk losing a large number of productive and useful admins simply because they are the ones who most often deal with active trolls and the most ornery editors. Every editor who you have temporarily blocked for 3RR, personal attacks, disruption, and other forms of asshattery becomes a potential revenge voter—and each of those revenge votes needs four support votes to be counterbalanced. Toss in a couple of 'legitimate' oppose votes from editors with honest qualms and suddenly we are in a position to lose a lot of admins. If we set threshold for reconfirmation lower to account for this, then you start getting charges that confirmed admins don't have the support of the community, and you taint their reputation for the next year.

Plus there's the delightful disruptive effect of encouraging the formation of cliques and voting blocs. If this is an annual process then we're looking at a couple of confirmations per day with our current admin population; it becomes a continuous election atmosphere. We've already started to see some editors engage in campaigning for and against RFAs—I don't want to see the practice take root in a reconfirmation process too.

This may also have an effect on our supply of new admins. If we start seeing a very ugly reconfirmation process–and frankly, I can't see how it won't be–then that is likely to give pause to new candidates who won't want to put up with the annual abuse.

Finally, if the vast bulk of confirmations are expected to pass, then the process is a waste of our time. Though the ArbCom is certainly busy right now, I don't see their docket crowded with cases regarding admin privileges. Requiring all of us to run through six hundred reviews every year seems kind of silly if we can't be bothered to refer six cases to ArbCom now. If someone has lost the trust of the community through misuse of their administrative power–even if it's not gross abuse–you can still ask the ArbCom to step in. If it appears that that process won't work, then we can consider creating a whole new massive bureaucracy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:29, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Very insightful. Not quite related to my RFA but insightful nonetheless. silsor 14:38, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• I think this would be incredibly divisive, and I think we have enough of that as it is. If an admin is active at all in some of the more difficult areas they'll get a review virtually automatically causing a lot of ill-will, discouraging taking and defending unpopular positions. Any group needs some of its members to challenge the status quo and community assumptions and this would stifle that. We have processes for comment and de-admin right now, if they are ineffective then I think we should look at improving those first as a review function. Rx StrangeLove 14:45, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• Kirill Lokshin hit the nail on the head above when he pointed out that silsor has "requested, technically, that his admin status be removed (and, by stressing that his request is no different from any other on RFA, seems to be suggesting that one can nominate someone else to be 'promoted to usership')". This is the vital big giant neon-illuminated red flag that everyone should be looking at: silsor's actions are creating a back-door Requests for De-adminship, when every attempt to do so through community consensus has failed. This should be ended now. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:42, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Two responses to Ten... first, you're assuming that most (e.g.) blocks would result in revenge votes; I don't think that's correct - first, most blocks are not against established editors, and second, most established editors are not vindictive. And of course the 'Crats would discount obvious troll or sockpuppet votes. I invite you to take a look at the Dutch process, which is working fine on our 6th-largest Wiki. Second, you're assuming that we would have to vote on every existing admin, but that wasn't the idea. There would only be a vote on those to which objection is voiced. And I do believe that the average effect of campaigning is to vote down the nominee because he was gathering votes. You do have a good point about cliques though, but of course such cliques already exist in whichever discussion forums we use. Radiant_>|< 15:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, no—I don't actually assume that most blocks will result in revenge votes; I merely suggested it as an example of a reasonable administrative action that could result in retaliatory voting. Editors who act as mediators on our more contentious articles, or admins who try to keep the peace or warn users about WP:NPA violations might also tend to face problems. Any admin who's expressed an opinion on Gdanskig will probably face review. There are dozens of things that admins do (or should do) on a regular basis that may annoy the editors who don't take our policies to heart. We don't block editors (usually) for the more mild violations of WP:AGF, WP:CIV, WP:NPOV, and WP:NPA; frankly there are quite a few regular contributors who are dicks—it only takes a few to force a vote, and only a few more to push support below 75%.

Looking at the Dutch Wikipedia, they have only 66 admins: a tenth our number. Is it reasonable to assume that a process that works for them will work equally well when scaled up by a factor of ten? Of the fifteen candidates whose adminships are currently on the review board, nine are being voted upon; while it is true that they don't have to vote on all candidates, they still have to vote on a majority of them. I freely admit that I don't speak Dutch, so I'm doing a bit of guessing here—but between my broken knowledge of German and a little bit of machine translation, it appears that most of the oppose votes are based on candidates being insufficiently active rather than on their administrative actions or missteps. From what I can see, the Dutch process appears to affirm my suspicion that the process would be a waste of time. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:49, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

A "factor of ten" doesn't begin to describe it. The English Wikipedia had more than 66 admins (68 to be exact) confirmed in the month of October 2005 alone (see Special:Log/rights). -- Curps 16:07, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• And that will become more problematic over time. I did a linear progression of this recently. I don't have the finished data any more. But if I recall correctly, the progression showed that by the time two years from now we'll be nominating >100 admins per week. I don't think what is being suggested is readily scalable. --Durin 16:31, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

As an aside, Fred Bauder has recently created a page describing Administrative probation as a possible remedy that the ArbCom could impose. It is designed to cope with admins who are not "...able to adequately fulfill or conform to community expectations regarding some aspects of their responsibilities". Such a remedy could be appropriate for the cases where full-blown desysopping might be overkill but where there is serious concern about an admin's behaviour. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:38, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm minior burcratic challenge. If a review system was set to one year on what date would I be reviewed?Geni 03:23, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see silsor stating anywhere that he is trying to prove the point that Radiant describes up there, to wit, that there should be adminship reaffirmation. Maybe that is what he's trying to prove, but he has certainly not been clear about it, and this strikes me instead as somebody trying to hitch the wagon of their own issue to the minor disruption of silsor's RFA so that they can get attention given to the issue without personally having to WP:POINT.

I also have an issue with the statement that People change, and standards change, and people should not be in a position of authority merely for having been around longer. I agree that that shouldn't be the sole reason, but "having been around longer" is one of the most important things to me in an admin. From my point of view a lot of admins have not been around on Wikipedia as long as would like. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 15:42, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Silsor

Hmmm, looks like Silsor is not requesting Admin review at all. He's requesting honorable discharge basically. Something we'll likely see more of in future.

RFA is the page best suited for now, though I agree we might want to set up a separate page if this becomes common.

Anyway, please state your support if you think Silsor has done a good enough job as admin, or oppose if you think he needs to stay on longer to prove he's good enough.

And do leave the RfA up, I'm curious as to the outcome! It can't do much harm to have it there anyway. :-)

Kim Bruning 08:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC) (Note also that the deadminship request submitted by Curps was denied )

No, the page best suited for it is on the talk page of a steward or at m:Requests for permissions. The request was denied because Silsor didn't make it himself. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship is to request adminship, not to request de-adminship. This request is just a poll; regardless of the outcome, nothing will take place except Silsor can see people's opinion of him and his request. If he wishes to have his adminship removed, he will still have to ask a steward or on meta, just as he could have done first without wasting people's time. That a strong majority of people commenting/voting on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/silsor are protesting the listing should be a sign that the listing is inappropriate. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Kim, I'm glad you reposted this RfA (RfDA?), but disagree with your interpretation. Drawing on my military background, what Silsor is requesting is not an honourable discharge, but to be stripped of his rank. He can get an honourable discharge much easier by moving his name from the Active to the Inactive section of WP:LA. Or better yet, create a new section on that page called Editors who stopped acting as admin. Again using the military metaphor, I voted "Oppose" as any court martial would when judging an officer in good standing. I don't expect Silsor to do any more than he is prepared to; this is a voluntary service, after all. But Silsor has rightfully earned his sysop rank, and I will not support stripping him of it—even at his own request—without due cause. Owen× ☎ 11:36, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I know I'm often thought of a bureacratic process monkey, but why is everyone so bloody serious? A little breaching experiment now and then, performed by someone with such obvious good standing, can only serve to keep us from ossifying.
brenneman^(t)(c) 11:48, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• If we set a precedent of abusing standing process for purposes other than for which they are intended, where do we stop? Should we use AfD for undeletions? Should we use ArbCom to heap praise on somebody? Should we use RfCs in reverse? This is an abuse of Wikipedia processes. RfA is ill-suited to handle such a request, was not designed to handle a request, and regardless of the result will not result in the action that Silsor wants. He's been directed to the appropriate place to handle his request. He should go there. If a brand new user took the Mel Gibson article to AfD to get an idea of how much the people liked the article, he would be roundly criticized for the action and it would be rapidly undone. Why is this any different? --Durin 13:13, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

RFA is and should be "bloody serious" (aside from the sometimes-funny support votes). WP:POINT still applies, even when the supposed point leaves most, including me, scratching their heads. IIRC, Aaron, you weren't too happy when Uncle Ed did a little "breaching experiment" by deleting VfD. What makes that bad and this okay? android79 13:25, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• I don't know this admin, but this looks like vanity, pure and simple: and timewasting vanity at that. If an admin wants desysoped, he requests it at meta, he gets it - end of story. What this admin seems to want is a dramatic exit, with lots of people saying wonderful things about him. Well, someone give him a damn carriage clock - and organise a whip-round! It is about a childish as editors who say they are leaving the project, in order to get everyone to say 'no don't do that, we all really love you......' --Doc (?) 13:30, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• If we approach this another way:
  1. Has silsor demonstrated that (prior to this) he was overly dramatic?
  2. Has silsor demonstrated (prior to this) eggregious poor judgement?
  3. Does silsor know what the processes are if all he wanted was to be dead-minned?

As I understand it, that's "No, no, and yes". So he makes his point, or gets his lovefest, or corrupts the database, or introduces crypto-anthrax into the Erotic spanking article or whatever. He's happy, and in three weeks this will barely be a blip on the collective horizon. We'll have all forgotten. Chant WP:IAR thirty times, examine the real level of harm done by this, and move on. The possible damage is limited mostly to silsor's reputation, slippery slope arguments aside. Most importantly - Nothing is to be gained by further exhorting him to stop. He's found enough supporters/hangers-on/codependant personality types/whatever to let him have this unfold the way he wants. Unless you want to have open wheel wars over this total non-issue? People do crazy things, stupid things, even pointless things, and sometimes all that we do if we try to figure out why is make ourselves crazy.
brenneman^(t)(c) 13:39, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I may be a little bit slow on the uptake, but to this moment I haven't really understood what he really wants. It smells of WP:Point, it has a slight tinge of vanity, with something on top which I can't really fathom. Lectonar 13:47, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Erotic spanking is censored where I'm at, but I must ask: what the hell is crypto-anthrax? ;). Marskell 13:51, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Aaron, I agree. To qualify as WP:POINT, an action has to involve a disruption. It takes maybe five seconds to read silsor's nomination and skip it, if you think it's pointless, futile, or a waste of time. We are engulfed in counting votes, tallying edits, and endlessly debating whether someone or other deserves to be admin; I find it refreshing to see this RfDA shake things up a bit, make us examine both our processes and our view of what is essentially a multi-class hierarchical society, as much as we hate to admit so. Silsor is questioning our beliefs in this dogma, but is doing so in a fascinating, thought-provoking way. Silsor didn't just go ahead and delete WP:RfA or open an RfC against all the admins whom he believes are tarnishing our image; his methods are much more subtle, and—I believe—more productive.

I think giving the RfA system a good shake once or twice a year is a good thing. It is, indeed, a constructive way to illustrate a point. Owen× ☎ 14:47, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

You see "fascinating" and "thought-provoking"; I see confusing and pointless. As it stands, I'm still unsure what silsor's point was in the first place, as he has remained pretty enigmatic throughout this whole... thing, whatever you want to call it. Whatever problems silsor sees with adminship could have been discussed thoughtfully on this talk page, but instead we get disruption and acrimony, intended or not. Make a statement with words, not with actions. android79 14:58, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

In the absence of a detectable 'point' to this so-called 'disruption of WP:POINT', one arrives at the logical conclusion that there is no point trying to be proven, and that no harm is being done here. Talrias (t | e | c) 15:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's the unecessary conflict. If nobody can figure out precisely why the non-RFA was posted in the first place–I know I still can't figure it out–silsor's insistence on reposting it without a clear explanation of what he's looking for and why it belongs here is disruptive. There's also the bandwidth being wasted, which I object to as a matter of principle. This non-request will stay up for a week, then...what? Be closed as no consensus? Since nobody seems to understand exactly what Silsor is hoping to get out of this process, we can't give it to him anyway. If he wanted general comments on adminship versus non-adminship, he could use RFC or the Village Pump. He's a good editor and a sound admin, but this non-RFA just doesn't make any sense; it's disruptive for him to ignore all the other sensible editors who are telling him that.

This obviously isn't an urgent matter. He'd have been better off not repeatedly restoring his non-RFA to the main page until he could clearly spell out what he wanted to find out. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I've had the list of reasons for my RFD listed at the bottom of it for two days. You are of course welcome to continue wondering and speculating about what I want but it's really recommended reading. silsor 23:01, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

The number of comments here expressing confusion would seem to suggest that some of us are particularly obtuse; we still don't understand what you're hoping to accomplish. If you're interested in knowing what we think of you having yourself desysopped, put a note on your user page, file an RFC, or post a question on the Pump. I suspect that the bulk of the reaction to your specific request would fall somewhere between "That's too bad; he's done a good job as an admin and I don't see why he needs to give up the tools if he's not leaving" to "Meh; this won't have a significant effect one way or the other".

If you're interested in more general comments or discussion about the adminship/deadminship processes here, once again an RFC or Pump notice would be the way to go; a note at AN and even a box at the top of RFA wouldn't be amiss.

This third route that you've chosen has left a lot of people scratching their heads. You've couched your non-RFA as a request for permission that we're not required to give (or capable of giving, for that matter). We've already told you how to achieve the goal you've purportedly set out to accomplish. Once again, I ask you to state plainly what you want. What topics do you want to discuss? What do you think is wrong that needs fixing? Do you have any goals here? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:30, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I second TenOfAllTrades. I support de-adminning, and I surely don't mind voluntary votes of confidence, although for both of those I have questions of the appropriate forum. Here, I'm still confused. I don't mind the RfA, I just can't see how it can mean anything. There are many different interpretations of what it's for, and many people like me, going, "eh?," so the thing is really useless. If Silsor wants it, fine... as long as he's actually de-adminned at the end of it, because I'm worried that he's unwell. Xoloz 18:35, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• I'll tell you what I don't understand, and that's why we're all still talking about this. The best thing that we could do is simply shu
  brenneman^(t)(c) 00:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I second the mo
    Owen× ☎ 00:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

flawed jewel

Today I was sorely tempted to pull an Ed Poor and delete RFA, luckily I came to my senses that it would be a bit too bold, would be a violation of WP:POINT and would be too crazy of a unilateral action to take not to mention countless other side issues it would cause.

I contend here and now that although it is not inherently flawed RFA has become flawed, RFA used to be an unbiased and untainted way for users who felt they had what it took to request community input on whether they were trustworthy enough to have adminship privileges. Over time this has been changed and dare I say corrupted by campaigning for and against canidates as well as being influenced by old grudges from long before the fight began and that adminship is now not determined by whether an editor is trustworthy enough and is not given out very liberally as originally intended but a canidate's worth has now been degraded to who's faction agrees with them and how much power that faction holds, who likes them and who doesn't, whether they're in the in crowd or whether they are not. I think anyone would be hard pressed to disagree with me when I say that this is not what the envisioned when RFA was originally implemented.

My suggestions for RFA are simple. Form a solution, even a temporary one, and use it to replace the current system. If the created system is only temporary then work as a community to create a more permanent one, one that works and one that is free from individual and group biases. I would also suggest getting the input from those who who envisioned and worked on the original RFA process and even from Jimbo himself if he is willing to comment on how to create this new system. I will be the first to admit that I do not have an answer to RFA nor do I have a way to solve it's problems, however I hope that the community as a whole can find a way to make RFA work. We have the technology, we can make it faster, better, stronger. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 01:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Is it just me or are a lot more people getting admined now than they used to? People also seem to have many more votes than before (my RfA had somthing like 20 votes)- why do people bother to vote support when there are already an overwhelming number of supports? A while ago somebody (not that I remember who) was using a criteria that said that all admins had to have an FA to their name. Perhaps a concrete standard like that (that particular one seems a bit strict) could work. It wouldn't solve the factionalization though I personally haven't noticed such cabalish behavior. Are you looking for a complete overhaul or just different standards? Personally, I wonder if we should make vote soliciting against the rules? Broken S 02:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

There are more editors now, and Wikipedia is growing faster, so I should hope that more people are getting adminship now than in the past. A more interesting question is how the ratio of successful/unsuccessful attempts has changed over time; but that is actually fairly hard to calculate, since unsuccessful attempts are not grouped by date. Naturally, the number of people voting in each attempt has also increased with Wikipedia's population. In successful nominations it does no harm; in close ones we can hardly forbid people from adding their vote; and plainly failing attempts generally get removed. But anyway, to get back to the main point: I agree that a few recent nominations (and some not-so-recent ones) have suffered from extreme amounts of factionalism... There are some people whose name, appearing on one side of a vote, is practically a guarentee of several other specific names on both sides. My general feeling, though, is that whatever course we take, we should try to stick to the principal that adminship is no big deal. The more admins we have, the less damage individual admins can do; making as many people as possible admins, then depending on them to watch each other strikes me as the closest we can get to the Wiki Way. Optimally, adminship should be automatic for anyone who wants the job and wouldn't abuse the position. --Aquillion 02:38, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

...Is a solution possible? Those seem more like problems with the community than the process. It is obvious that community input is necessary for adminship selection. The community is sufficiently large that a vote may be the only non-cumbersome way to get input. A vote will naturally lead to social issues. The current RFA process seems to be the least bad of all the bad choices. ~~ N (t/c) 02:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

My assertion though is that there shouldn't be bad choices, whether through reform of the process or of the community there should be a way to find a good choie in all of this. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 02:46, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course, but that doesn't mean a good choice exists. I don't believe one does, aside from the fairly minor change of discounting unjustified "me-too" votes (and I'm not even sure that's a good idea). Getting proper community input (a vote or other objective measure, not evidence to sway a bureaucrat's subjective judgement) is not possible without making heated argument likely. The only way to fix that issue (to the extent that it can be fixed) is through changing social atmosphere. ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to restate a proposal that I made several weeks ago, and similar to that which R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) made earlier on this page - to divide the distribution of admin powers into at least two levels, with a lower threshold of support required to achieve less potent powers (e.g., the rollback button, the power to block only anonymous users, perhaps page protection), and a mentoring system for people in the higher level to assist those in the lower level. BDAbramson T 02:55, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

In my experience, blocking anon IPs requires much more care and skill than other blocks. It would probably be better to leave that to higher levels. Of course the software would need to be modified to enable the above (except for rollbacks which can apparently be provided to non-sysops in the current version of the software). --Tony Sidaway^Talk 03:08, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Alternative

I agree that it's horrible right now. I was adminned just over six months ago, but if RFA had been as it is now I would have refused the offer. I could edit Wikipedia perfectly well without going through this bare-knuckle battle.

So, the beauty contest concept is becoming less useful. Here's an outline of a possible alternative:

1. Give admin powers only to people who demonstrate useful skills. An RC patroller who consistently gets high praise from his fellows, an AfD closer who does a good job, someone who cleans up copyright infringements, or one who lists them, someone who maintains one of the dispute resolution pages, or tracks down orphanned page protects and listed them on Wikipedia:Protect page, welcomes new editors, or maintains Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. Someone who does a good job on these tasks for a couple of months is probably admin material.
2. Discount anyone who keeps getting involved in sterile edit wars. We've got enough edit-warring admins already.

The idea is to have published criteria. Someone would be nominated in the usual way. He can write a brief (250 words at most) candidacy address.

Anyone who likes (including the candidate) can then add single lines in a prescribed format of the form:

• (list of diffs) "Brief and neutral description of useful task performed by candidate"
• (list of diffs) "Brief and neutral description of sterile edit war involving candidate"

A bureaucrat decides at the end of the period whether to grant an admin bit to the candidate. He should use his common sense, and may wish to take into account the editing experience of the candidate as well as the evidence presented.

I bet it'll frighten away the RFA groupies and the edit counters, while permitting useful information to be quietly gathered and a good decision to be made. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

A bureaucrat decides at the end of the period whether... that's making it too subjective and less transparent. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

What's transparent about an editor who just rolls up on RFA and types ~~~~ '''Support'''? Where's the objectivity? --Tony Sidaway^Talk 03:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Nothing, but anyone gets to do it, not just a bureaucrat. Just discounting votes that don't have a reason would fix that problem (although it has its own problems). Leaving the final decision up to the subjective, non-transparent judgement of an empowered class is oligarchy. I don't trust the bureaucrats enough to give them this level of (opaque, subjective) judgement, do you? ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Bureaucrats closing noms based on diff and common sense makes it less transparent. Bureaucrats are there to enforce community decisions on adminships, not to make subjective calls. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I would support Tony's proposal wholeheartedly. It is time the RfA process evolves to something better and devoid of political bias or being missused to castigate editors with opposing POVs. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 03:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

As reform proposals go, it doesn't seem that bad. Two issues: one, it should be more flexible, allowing more reasons to oppose than just edit-warring. Two, again, subjective, opaque judgement of a bureaucrat is bad. ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Alternative 2: Adminship by "mini-RfC"

In the past 12 months Wikipedia has more than doubled in size: from 380,000 articles in November 2004 to 804,000 now, for an increase of 112%. Growth in total traffic has more than tripled during this year. The number of active admins, on the other hand, grew by only 74%, from 313 to 545 in this period. This means that the workload on each admin is much higher than it was a year ago, and it keeps getting worse. The reason we have more admins now is that we need more admins now. What we should now find is a method to recruit admins faster, without giving up quality. My solution includes two parts, drawing on some good ideas presented above by BDAbramson and Tony Sidaway:

1. Adopt the new Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges, and assign the "rollback" privilege liberally (automatically?) to any registered user with a clean record (never blocked) who has been here for two weeks and amassed 150 edits. Having an army of well-equipped RC patrollers would take a good chunk of the workload off admins, allowing them to deal with trickier or more delicate tasks such as copyvios, AfDs, CSDs and such.
2. Modify the RfA process as follows: nominations would still appear here, but opinions, rather than votes, would be added by anyone who has something to say about the candidate. At the end of the seven day period, two bureaucrats would review the opinions as well as any evidence they choose to collect, and based on that and their own best judgment, issue a unanimous decision. If the nomination fails, the two "adjudicators" will issue a short justification for their ruling. Since the two adjudicators are assigned and announced at the time of nomination, they can—at their discretion—make a decision before the seven days are up, if they feel additional opinions are unlikely to change the outcome.

Using this system, "piling on votes" would be futile. Only people bringing something new to the table would have an impact on the outcome. Any "faction" or clique would be quickly recognized and discounted as such by our seasoned b'crats. Petty grudges, when such exist, would have to be supported by real evidence. And lastly, we would get the benefit of the judgment of two humans making a choice, rather than a blind algorithm counting votes. I expect most nominations to gather no more than a handful of opinions. Some would turn into a heated discussions, of course, but maybe rightly so. Repeat nominations of failed candidates would only accept new material; the pervious nom would be used as a baseline. Not all bureaucrats will be willing to take this job, but all we need is a few dedicated ones, and we're in business.

This may not be a perfect system, but I think it is a step in the right direction, and addresses many of the concerns voiced on this page. Do I hear a 'second'? Owen× ☎ 04:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Seconded, if the issues of transparency and oligarchy can be properly dealt with. I.e., the bureaucrats should have to provide a detailed rationale no matter what, and there needs to be an appeals process (at least for opponents to appeal promotions). I do think this would require many more bureaucrats, though - what you're describing is actually like a mini-arbitration case. ~~ N (t/c) 04:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. The current system of making admins is fine, except this should be done: All "yes" vote for promotion should require no explanation, a simple "yes" should do. However, if you make every "no" voter be required to post a unique reason, at the tally, those "no's" with crummy reasons would be discarded for having not having met a reasonable objection threshold. In addition, use a "bot" that tags an editors user page with a "You can be an Admin" announcement -with easy to follow link that says "click here" to accept your nomination. The system "bot" can automatically nominate editors who reach certain thresholds. Rex071404 ^{216.153.214.94} 05:10, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Before we can make changes, we have to clearly identify the problems

There's a call to make changes to RfA. Very well. Step 1: Identify what the shortcomings are. You have to do this before you can craft a solution; else you have no way of determining if your solution addresses the shortcomings. Without this, you're just as likely to make things worse as you are to make them better. What I've seen people say the shortcomings are of late (and my responses).

• Incivility. This is an individual issue, and not a problem with RfA. RfA was plenty civil in the past. The process hasn't changed to cause it to become incivil. What has changed is our willingness to accept incivility in the process. That's not a fault of the RfA process. That's a fault of the contributors. Put blame where it belongs.
• Campaigning for and against candidates: What I have seen over the last four months has been a number of candidates being roundly criticized for campaigning, and similar response to people campaigning against them. I simply don't see that this has been a problem. Cite examples if you want to make the case. Currently, I don't see it.
• Factionalism: Again, I don't see it. I see quite a number of RfAs that have not become contentious in any respect. If cliques truly existed, it is again a fault of specific users and not a fault of RfA. If nominees who are not in the 'in' crowd are not getting in (this wasn't spoken, but implied) then how is it that User:Edcolins passed with barely a peep of opposition (only Boothy443 opposing). He's a patent lawyer, and hardly among the 'in' crowd. There might be certain groups of people heavily influenced by IRC. I can't speak to that as I personally refuse to be party to IRC.
• Individual and group bias: Individual bias? How do you expect we can remove that and still have humans involved in the process? If we did it purely by machine, we still couldn't remove group bias. Any mechanism by which we attempt to develop consensus is going to inherently have bias. We can not be automatons that simply look at base facts and vote strictly based on binary qualities. No matter what system you design, there will be bias of one form or another.
• Piling on of support votes: Since more people are on Wikipedia, more people are involved in RfA. Unavoidable. Unless you want to exclude people from the RfA process you can count on this being part of RfA. I readily grant it is not easily scalable, but I doubt there's any easier solution unless you layer in all sorts of instruction creep (perhaps things like...only allowed to vote thrice weekly or some other arbitrary restrictions on suffrage).

Opaque judgement of a bureaucrat is part of the current process. It is generally used in the 75% realm of RfAs. If the process were transparent, and a bureaucrat was obligated to show which votes were discounted, or what consensus they felt was stronger and why...I doubt there would be any people applying to be bureaucrats and the bureaucrats we have now would run screaming for the hills. The process would rapidly degenerate into accusatory pit brawls, with bureaucrats being in the center of it.

The measures of Wikipedia growth used to show why admins aren't being promoted fast enough suffer from being indirect measures of how much work admins need to do. There's a presumption that the amount of work has increased in direct propotion to the growth. This could be very, very wrong in either direction. At least one person did a very (very) small study on the incidence of vandalism. We need a more comprehensive study before we can say with any firmity that we are not promoting admins rapidly enough.

As for having a featured article to a nominee's name; can anybody...anybody...provide a reference to an article that was crafted by one single individual that made it to FA status? Such articles aren't the work of a single individual. An article getting to FA status isn't the credit of one single person.

If people are curious, I can provide statistics on any number of different takes on the RfA process as it has progressed since June 23rd of this year when I began keeping detailed statistics. As memory serves, I don't think the ratio of success/unsuccess has changed. What has recently been a surprising abberation is the number of early withdrawls; a rate in excess of 30% when the prior rate had been ~10%. A number of editors have been working on WP:GRFA, a recently developed guide to the RfA process. One of the hoped for outcomes is a reduction in the number of premature nominations. This may have a desirable effect on the number of early withdrawals.

Thanks for reading. --Durin 05:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

There's a numeric rule for removing?!

I'm disturbed by the suggestion that once Oppose–support=10 an RfA has failed. I don't recall, and nor can I find, a "general consensus" on this new instruction. We don't need it, it wasn't very widely approved (unless I was asleep for, say, a two week voting period), and we shouldn't be removing noms early anyway, in my opinion. And hard numbers are bad since a controversial RfA could easily swing around 9-11 votes difference and I would be horrified if someone thought "ah, then that RfA is dead". It seems to me to be part of a recent instruction creep assault on RfA which we have successfully fought off. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: RfA is not broken and does not need constraintive rules to help it in not-breaking. The immediately above debates aside, of course, since they are substantial reform rather than creep. -Splash^talk 03:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

In complete agreement. Legalism is bad. ~~ N (t/c) 04:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

In general, any arguments in opposition to the idea that failing RfAs should not be withdrawn early have fallen on deaf areas, and it remains policy. Barring a full blown poll on the matter to demonstrate (or not) community consensus on the issue, I doubt there will be any shift. --Durin 04:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

There are too many negatives for me to be sure of what you mean. But in any case, policy (such as it is) most certainly does not stipulate a 10 vote difference constituting failure, and it never has. -Splash^talk 04:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Although it's possible to come back from 10 votes in the hole, it's totally inconceivable. 10 supports up? Easily, just screw up and bang! you're gone. But 10 opposes? If you get 10 opposes with 0 supports, it's strange that the oppose votes came that fast that you can expect to get 40 support votes without another opposition vote, and it's just as weird to go from 50/60/0 to uhhh, 240/60/0, if you know where I'm going with this. I can't think of being able to do something so amazingly great that you WON'T lose the RfA. However I believe if RFA's are delisted to protect the subject from woe, and thus if the subject doesn't WANT to be delisted, don't delist them. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The point about numbers is that, if you stay 9 votes down, you get a whole week to turn things around, but, if you're 11 votes down, you're a dodo. If you're a controversial candidate, and your total vote count is reaching toward 80-100, that's dead easy to see happen. -Splash^talk 04:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying 80 people participate? that'd be 35-45, meaning you'd still need 180 total support votes, assuming no more opposes come... and as for 9 vs. 11, I guess you have to draw the line somewhere... but once again I think we can use common sense in delisting, and if the subject wants to relist themselves, don't stop them. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Lucky6.9 springs to mind, and so does William M. Connolley. But anyway, there doesn't have to be a line drawn at all. If you must unlist early, then use judgement, not hard rules. Judgement in reading RfAs is why we make people Bureaucrats. Those we elect to interpret sociology over statistics should not be trying to break the process down into mere statistics. -Splash^talk 05:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Many of the arguments in favor of removing failing RfAs are based on the presumption that the only thing that can result from an RfA is a determination of consensus on adminship. This simply isn't true. Quite a number of RfA candidates have used prior RfAs as a guide on how they can improve themselves for the next go around. Removing RfAs prematurely denies them this resource. Further, quite a number of RfA contributors use prior RfAs to see if the candidate has improved on shortcomings from the last RfA. Remove the RfA earlier, and you open the door for people to castigate noms on a second nomination because of errors they made prior to their first RfA. Look at Alkivar for a case in point of how bad it could have been if his prior RfA had been yanked prematurely. He's succeeding because it's clear the objections are from before the last RfA and were stated in the last RfA. Remove early, and you deny a candidate that. No matter what arbitrary measure you use to determine whether an RfA is failing, you are going to find exceptions and objections to it. Early removal also encourages people to vote quickly, rather than slowly. I tend to not vote very much despite spending a lot of time involved in the RfA process. This is because I vote slowly. Look at my oppose vote on Aranda56's nom ([2]). That took a while to develop. Let's say instead that it was a positive vote. I would have to move quickly for an RfA that I thought might fail to get my support vote into the RfA, to perhaps influence other later contributors prior to them voting oppose. As it stands now, anyone...whether a bureaucrat or not, whether an admin or not, can arbitrarily remove an RfA as failing based on whatever criteria they so choose. I can go on for a while on a number of points on why removing RfAs prematurely is bad. In fact, I have in the archives of this talk page. I keep repeating myself over and over and over again on these points to no avail. As I noted earlier, it's falling on deaf ears. I believe the policy is essentially etched in stone. As I noted previously, barring a poll to reverse the policy, it isn't going to change. --Durin 05:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)