Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 34

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Confused over the new nomination instructions

I tried to nominate User:Hermione1980 for adminship but found the new instructions somewhat unclear and might have goofed up. What I did was:

1. Create a new page Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hermione1980, filling out the template with the ending time and my reasoning,
2. Add my support vote,
3. Add the RfA-nom template to Hermione1980's user page.

Was this the right procedure or have I (as I suspect) goofed up somewhere? Why does the RfA-nom template say "a page will be created for you at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hermione1980" when I already have created it? Or should I have waited until she accepted the nomination? — JIP | Talk 12:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• You did it right - the nomination template needs to be changed to say that the page "has been" created - I'll take care of it immediately.  BD2412 ^talk 13:34, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• I did pretty much the same thing as above. I nominated Cool3 and it amde a page, but he doesn't show up under nominations. ErnestIsTheMan 22:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • That's because it needs to be manually added to WP:RFA, which is something reserved to the nominees now. Please do not do it. Also, the nomination of Cool3 (who has 22 edits and has been here less than 2 days) should not go forward; it would be roundly trounced. --Durin 04:24, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Huh? People use templates? I just cut n' paste the thing and adjust as needed - easym scheemzy! Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 18:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Kate's tool...

...again is not working for me (at the new link BDAb passed along). It gives a long caveat about edit count not being important and does not provide a count. My general thought on the issue, incidentally, is that the overall number is indeed over-rated but comparisons between namespaces are not. It's handy to be able to see if people make edits in the Wiki namespace often and also if they use talk (or over-use it at the expense of actual editing). Marskell 15:30, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I looked at it this afternoon - it gave a long caveat, but also a button to press to generate the count, which looked fine to me... Shimgray | talk | 17:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I done tried the button and it don't work for me. *shrug* Marskell 18:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

..."if you're checking your own edit count… well, do you really care?" Um, yes, I care - now can I see my numbers?  BD2412 ^talk 18:26, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Works fine for me in Opera and IE. Try in a different browser? Shimgray | talk | 18:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Firefox here, all is fine. --Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 18:34, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

It's a little different now. You have to get to the I understand, show me the edit count prompt. --hydnjo talk 23:04, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I have gotten there and it still only works about one out of eight attempts. I tried with Opera, as suggested, and it worked with the first two tries and then ceased to. Dunno. Marskell 23:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I too use Opera. It works ok. Note, if the spelling of the candidate is incorrect, you'll get a blank page. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

And that "spelling", in this case, requires the initial capital. If it's still glitching, might be worth dropping Kate a message. Shimgray | talk | 14:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I must say, I love it! Good job Kate, keep the editcontitis epidemic down! gkhan 17:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Good job how? Creating and helping popularize something and then creating a glitch? As stated above, it is a very convenient way to check relative contributions across name spaces which, I'd say, isn't editcountitis as such. Marskell 17:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

When you get to the page with the I understand, show me the edit count you must click on that and not the go prompt. --hydnjo talk 19:25, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

As stated, I have tried that. So it goes. Marskell 19:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Look, I'm sorry you can't check the edit-counts that easily, but what does it really matter? If you're seriously wondering if a guy has enough edits in a particular namespace, go to the contriutions, select a namespace, select an appropriate limit, if there's more than say 100-200 edits, what more do you need to know? If you want to know your own edits......why do you care? gkhan 10:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Click Kate's tools, type in user name, see all the namespaces neatly laid out, versus type in username, click user contribs, select a namespace, do a quick count up, select the next namespace, do a quick count up, select the next namespace, do a quick count up, select... it should be obvious why people want Kate's tools to work and work simply. Grutness...wha? 14:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not saying it isn't convienient, it's just that, you only really need to know if a user has a substantial number of edits, and you can find that out pretty quickly from just looking at the contributions. That is, if Kate's tool go down, it's not the end of the world! Calm down! Try to rethink why you are accessing it in the first place. gkhan 15:13, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

To see if someone is admin-worthy, you don't "only really need to know if a user has a substantial number of edits". You need to see that they have contributed to a wide range of different namespaces. it's by far the best way of judging whether they know enough about the intrnal workings of the wiki to make a good admin. Actual editcount is irrelevant to a large extent. But If an editor has contributed almost entirely to article space, they won't know enough about how to interact with the community or deal with problems that an admin would have to deal with. Clicking once on Kate's tools was the perfect way to see this. Clicking on user contribs is messy and time consuming. As to "calm down", I am calm. I'm just annoyed. Grutness...wha? 22:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I use the tools for other things - checking to see whether an AfD voter has enough experience to know what he's talking about; quickly checking to see if a dubious edit was made by a possible vandal; moving editors up on the Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts. All of these tasks are now more difficult.  BD2412 ^talk 23:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Its driving me nuts! I cant even check my own edit count. I'm starting to feel hypo and my hands are quivering, I need to see my edit count. On a more serious note, I want to see someones edit count, and by namespace, and, it only works about 1 in 10 times. My problem is identical to Marskell's. Who is Kate anyway, can someone have a word with her?:-) Banes 07:17, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Kate is apparently User:Kate, a former Wikipedia admin who gave up her AdministrativePower because she didn't have enough time for it. But I find it strange that not being able to check your own edit counts makes your hands quiver... — JIP | Talk 07:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Kate Turner is also a he, or so I've heard. encephalon 10:37, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Blimey, these confusing first names Anglosaxons use. I'll never get the hang of them. — JIP | Talk 10:40, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll see your Blimey! and raise you a Bugger!, i was sure Kate was a woman. gkhan 14:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

That would be serious editcontitis, and the only known cure is pure cold turkey. gkhan 10:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Erggg, that new message is annoying. Yes, I understand. Why do I care? Because I'm anal retentive, OK? Why do I want to know about other people's edit count? Because I want to nominate them as admin, but I know that if they haven't reached a certain number, a, lot of people will vote against. Yes, I know that's not the way it should be done, but it is the way that it is done, and until that changes, I need to... OH JUST SHOW ME THE ÐING EDITCOUNT, OK? Grutness...wha? 14:41, 13 October 2005 (UTC) (who has just passed the 50,000 edit mark!)

Look, you don't have to feel alone in this. Many of us has gone through this and has come out on the other side. If we can work together we can break through that barrier. Sure there'll be relapses, the occasional RfA-candidate you never heard off and people keep talking about their edit-count, but let's not let that dissuade you from the uniting goal. We can fight this! There are some programs....... gkhan 15:20, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh good grief. I'm entirely with SqueakBox on this one. It's a form of political correctness gone mad. There are only two reasons for wanting to use an edit counter - personal curoisity (which is perfectly OK... the sort of people who would contribute to a project like this will be naturally curious people anyway), or to get statistics that will help them to reach a decision. I don't think anyone regards editcounts as the be-all and end-all for adminship (have a look at the standard requirement page - almost everyone there lists it as just one part of their specifications,usually with a note saying that it is hardly a particularly important one). I do think, however, that editors checking Kate's tools should not be insulted by a message that makes it sound like they shouldn't be there and don't know what they're doing. Grutness...wha? 22:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I think Kate's tool is very, very valuable. I'm concerned that the recent disruptions in service to it, and now the warnings about it and having to press another button, are headed towards the possibility of removing it as a resource entirely. The community has come to depend on this resource for a variety of reasons. Some of these are:

• Quick determination about the experience level of a user who's recent edits are questionable. This is useful in vandal fighting. A long time user is unlikely to have a meltdown and suddenly become a surreptitious vandal. Knowing the edit count (and distribution) for an editor helps ascertain good faith. While WP:AGF is a Wikipedia guideline, the reality is that vandal fighters frequently assume bad faith of new editors, and good faith for experienced editors. Kate's tool helps to at least encourage good faith for experienced editors. The tool does not apply to inexperienced editors, as seeing their contributions at less than 50 quickly shows the lack of experience of the new user. Without Kate's tool, it is more ponderous to determine the experience level of a user.
• While edit counts should not be used to determine the acceptability of an admin nominee, the distribution of edits is a very valid basis on which to evaluate an admin nominee. Kate's tool provides a very easy way of gaining this information. Without the tool, gathering such information is quite time consuming in comparison. If Kate's tool went away, there'd be a greater chance people would revert to relying on edit counts.
• Users using Kate's tool to see other people's edits can and do become aware of other namespaces in which they can contribute. If you're a relative newcomer, your own distribution of edits is probably mostly in the main namespace. When you do an edit count on a long time experienced user, you see quite a few other namespaces. This creates exposure to those namespaces and can get people asking questions about how they can get their edit counts (read: contributions) in those areas.

I think Kate's tool should continue to improve. For example, it could show how often, by percentage, the editor uses edit summaries, average # of edits per day overall and for contributing days, and more. I do think it is bad for people to become obsessed with edit counts. But, Kate's tool is about a LOT more than edit counts. --Durin 14:43, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Um-hm. And I don't understand this sudden implication that to look at edit counts is something to be ashamed of. Why do people care about their own? Because they spend time here and want to see how much editing they've done—so fucking what? It's quick and it's easy with the tool. People do it anyway with contribs and it just saves time. And indeed without the tool, as Durin suggests, you actually spend more time edit counting rather than evaluating edits themselves. I'm not going to cease doing it—say what you like but it will always be one part, if not the primary part, of RfA voting. Marskell 14:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

• • Well stated, Durin. And don't forget also that it is by a country mile the easiest way to see whether an editor is active, and how active they are, on other language wikis. Grutness...wha? 14:49, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it only shows you the namespaces to which you've contributed, it doesn't the others. --TimPope 16:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

• Agreed. I implied that above. It is however a way in which Kate's tool could improve. --Durin 18:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to change the subject, but I'm somewhat of an edit count junkie. Are there any other dealers (swap "dealers" with "versions of Kate's tool") I can get my coke (count) from:-)? Banes 18:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The glitch is politically correct madness. Once is fine, but a deliberate nasty spamming message like that should never be used except for security reasons (avoiding bots etc) which can't apply here. Someone has seriously lost it which is very sad as a useful tool has been sabotaged in the name of treating us all like we are 12 years old. God help us if this is the way the internet is going, SqueakBox 19:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Well Kate has obviously been aware of criticisms of his spammy note, but as he says, it is his webpage so he can pxss off people as much as he likes. One does wonder how he gets the info and whether an alternative message free one could be set up. Creating a monopoly on anything is always a disaster. In this case a bit of healthy competition would force to Kate to change, meanwhile he displays the arrogance of a typical monopolist. I have no idea how he gets hios info, whether he has an exclusive deal with the wiki media foundation or not, SqueakBox 16:11, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Kate has no monopoly on information. Everybody has access to the edit information- just view the contribs! What kate's tool does is to count information that is availlable to everybody. You can write your own program if you want. (In fact, User:Durin apparently has one that graphs the edit history.) Borisblue 14:52, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, I do. But, it takes several minutes for me to produce. I do it almost exclusively for admin nominees with less than 2,000 edits to help pull people away from editcountitis. Kate's tool has direct database access. I do not. I think Kate's tool is very important. See my rationale above.--Durin 14:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• • And now it works for me, no disclaimer shown. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

"Vote here" links are breaking again

All the recent nominations have had broken "Vote here" links. --Durin 04:47, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Seems so. --hydnjo talk 05:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I fixed {{RfA}}. Please report any bugs to me at my talk page as I'll probably know how to fix bugs (I created it knowing there may be a problem or two, but I think I got all the kinks out now.) Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 03:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

RfA a scalable process?

With 29 active nominations on the list of RfAs right now, I really wonder if this process is scalable. Consider what this process might look like just a year from now. I'm not suggesting any particular changes at this point. I just want to point out that perhaps we need to consider what could change to make this more scalable. --Durin 05:44, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Well a few down at the bottom have passed their closing time and are just awaiting closing by a bureaucrat. Otherwise, I think it's likely that as the wiki grows, and more people join, you will see a corresponding increase in the number of nominations, which I personally welcome, as I think Wikipedia can't have enough good admins. That being said, perhaps the transclusion could be adjusted to not transclude the full RFA to the main page, but instead perhaps the main RfA page could simply link to current nominations, with maybe a high level status indicator on the main page to show the current vote tally for a given candidate, with the actual discussion taking place in the individual articles but not visible from the main RfA page. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 05:51, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I think this would be a good idea. Especially with really long discussions taking place on some people's RfAs, this would allow this page to load faster, etc. The name, the vote here button (if it works), the vote tally, and perhaps the nominators comment. Link to the RfA page, and that would be plenty. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:45, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the way to do it would be to have a template on the RfA sub-page that would transclude information to the main RfA page, then everything below it would just stay on the sub-page. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 15:22, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Just put the actual votes within a <noinclude> tag block. I think that works. Kelly Martin 16:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

That would have to be done manually to each nomination, as it obviously can't be in the nomination template. ~~ N (t/c) 16:16, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it can, because subst: ignores <noinclude> and <includeonly> blocks. – ABCD✉ 01:37, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Rollback button

I read in one of the previous archives some discussion about giving admin powers in steps (BD2412, I think). Most people thought it was too instruction creepy, and overly complex. But my question is, why doesn't every logged-in editor have the rollback button? Is it a matter of possibly allowing an easier edit war? Has there been discussion somewhere else about giving this power to all logged-in editors, and if so, where? Thanks. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:12, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

There is a proposal, requests for rollback, which would give just the rollback tool to editors who asked for it and are not opposed. Talrias (t | e | c) 16:21, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Seems like a good proposal, but it seems fairly dormant. Is there anything new happening there? Is it any closer to being possible? --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:35, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

In a sense, the RfA process is just that. Let us not forget that, asides blocking and deleting, being an admin is not too different than being a user. I'd like to think that a user with an established track record and approved/voted by their peers won't be starting "easy" edit wars as often as a "regular joe" that has just joined WP.

--Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 16:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

It's not only about edit wars - the rollback button produces extremely unhelpful edit summary, and when a user is tempted to use rollback in non-vandalism reversions it could lead to misunderstanding and tension between users.  Grue  16:48, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Grue has just hit the jackpot. I agree with him 100%. --Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 16:50, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

But couldn't they just use the script available, or even just make that their edit summary anyway? It is not really an "added feature" since people can already do it, it just might take a little bit longer. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:55, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe that delay discourages some users, or so I believe. --Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 17:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

It also discourages non admins from going on RC patrol...Borisblue 14:55, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I have just applied. Maybe I can be a test case, SqueakBox 16:52, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Look that something similar is being discussed at AN, whether the unhelpful edit summary can include an extra variable to make it more helpful. Titoxd^(?!?) 16:57, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I think is still in "proposed" mode, Squeak. I would vote for YOU, though. --Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 17:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Here's a whacky thought - what if we could give non-admins a rollback button that could only be used on anon edits? Most vandalism comes from anons anyway, and this would avoid rollback-related conflicts between logged in users.  BD2412 ^talk 17:03, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I have made it clear in my application that I know the difference between using it for vandalism and reverting, and I would expect the same scrutiny as an admin in my use of it, SqueakBox 17:07, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Well do vote for me. I am aware we are in proposal mode, and if it doesn't lead to being given said button because it isn't official policy that is okay, SqueakBox 17:07, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Abrams proposal might encourage anon vandals to sign in, if such a move were technically feasible, SqueakBox 17:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Godmode light, but if you abuse it, I will delete your javascript page and protect it ;-) Just ask User:Sam Hocevar where to get it, it makes non admins able to rollback. I use a more advanced godmode to block users from their user page, and I'd recommend it to anyone who becomes an admin. Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 03:09, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't work in OSX though on Opera :( Stops when it tries to get the edit box. Oh well, I'm glad I have the real version now :). Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 03:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

It works great on Firefox and Safari. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 03:48, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Deleting someone's monobook.js isn't going to do the trick I'm afraid, what with Firefox's greasemonkey and Opera's user javascript. Still, there's always RfC (and worse) for revert warriors. --fvw* 03:36, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

ScottyBoy900Q's nom extended

I have extended ScottyBoy900Q's by a day. 31 support and 9 oppose votes gives us a tally of 77.5% of the votes, bang in the middle of no-man's land. Since the oppose votes do have some substance, I feel a day's extension might give us a clearer outcome. I request the candidate (and the general community) not to solicit pro and oppose votes. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:22, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

So the message is "could people please vote on this and could everyone stop asking people to vote on this?" :-). But seriously, it sounds like a good call. --fvw* 06:25, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I've also CC'd the candidate. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:31, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I've got no prob with extending, but I just wanted point out the RfA page says that "the threshold for consensus here is roughly 75-80 percent support." 77.5 looks like its right in that consensus range. --ScottyBoy900Q 16:22, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

It's a threshold, not a range for defining consensus. Otherwise, your statement would seem to imply that nominations with more than 80% support lack consensus. What it really means is that below 75% generally means the nomination has failed, above 80% is usually clear success, and in between is a marginal case where it's up to the bureaucrats to determine whether you've crossed the threshold. --Michael Snow 18:26, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Do neutral votes count?

I am a little bit worried that those who posted neutral votes are not having their votes counted. I know the guideline is that the bureaucrat takes them into account when the voting is marginal, but it isn't obvious which way they are counted. I have seen a few cases where a candidate's support is given as the fraction of supporting votes to the total of supporting and opposing votes: neutral votes not being counted at all. I'm not entirely sure what those who cast neutral votes think they are voting for (very weak support, very weak oppose or "I don't care"), but I'm sure they probably wouldn't do it if their vote was uncounted. Thinking it over, if I may, I can see three ways to deal with this:

1. Scrap neutral votes: if they don't really make difference, we shouldn't suggest that they might.
2. Count each neutral vote as half a vote in support and half a vote in opposition: this suggests total abivalence.
3. Count a neutral vote as a supporting vote when calculating whether a candidate's election should be extended(~75%), but as an opposing vote when calculating whether to promote the candidate (~80%): thus, being a vote against promotion, but for extension.

For example, if a candidate received 70 supporting votes, 20 opposing votes and 10 neutral votes, we could say that the support was 70/90, or 77.8%, ignoring all neutral votes. If we counted the neutral votes as half each way, the candidate would have 75/100, or 75% of the vote. The third method would see that support is at 70% of total votes cast, and not eligible for promotion. However, counting the neutral votes as support gives 80% in favour of extending the election.

I believe the first example is just wrong: neutral votes count for nothing, and the support is slighly inflated by it. The second system works quite well, and gives a fairer representation of the voting pattern. However, I believe the third oprtion allows voters to be more nuanced: "I'm not sure if this candidate should be promoted, but I'm also not sure whether this candidate should be dropped so quickly". Of course, bureaucrat judgement should not be done away with here, but simply given a more accurate tool for measuring support.

I apologize for the essay! --Gareth Hughes 15:24, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Good point raised. But in some cases its is difficult to gauge in which way the neutral vote should count. The 70% part is not applicable as the neutrals are not opposing the nomination. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:46, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Interesting thoughts, but in my opinion neutrals shouldn't be anything other than a way of saying "yes, I've seen the nomination and I've thought about it and I can't really go either way." Andre (talk) 18:28, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm for option #3 - RfA is not a vote, its purpose is to find community consensus for promoting someone to adminship. That's why only those votes that clearly support the candidate should be counted as supporting. For someone to vote neutral clearly suggests that there's something wrong with the candidate that would possibly be a problem if they were promoted. However, they shouldn't be treated as opposing votes, but they shouldn't be ignored either. That's why the third option sounds best to me. - ulayiti (talk) 20:58, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

None of the three are relevant because the Bureaucrats shouldn't be merely counting votes in such close cases. There's no need to chaneg the way RfA works because it's working just fine. -Splash^talk 21:05, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

How about changing it to support/oppose/abstain?  BD2412 ^talk 22:53, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

That's possible. But I think at the moment there are 4 ways I can respond to an RfA. I can support, oppose, be neutral or abstain. Being neutral is taking an interest, writing a few sentences that say why you don't want to or do want to. Hoping that what you write will be read by others and by the Bureaucrats if it becomes close. It's saying also "persuade me one way or the other". Abstaining is rather different to that. -Splash^talk 23:18, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

True, but strictly speaking we abstain from every RfA in which we don't vote - so casting a vote that says abstain carries a different message, specifically that the voter has enough interest in the RfA to comment, but does not feel that either active support or active opposition is justified on their part. I'm parsing words excessively here, stop me any time.  BD2412 ^talk 23:22, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The very phrase "cast a vote of abstain" is a contradiction. One cannot "vote abstain"; rather, one abstains from voting. A neutral vote is not an abstension; at best it's an abstension with a speech. We might as well just call them "neutral". Kelly Martin 14:41, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Getting back to Gareth's question - if people wanted their vote counted, they would vote Support or Oppose. A neutral vote without an explanation is nothing - literally - but a neutral vote with an explanation may convince another voter one way or another. It's simply a way of saying, "I have an opinion, but not a strong enough one o go one way or the other", or "I lean towards Support (or Oppose)", and I would like my vote heard. Unless you know someone very well, chances are when they come up for RfA you only have partial knowledge to go on. If you look through the Oppose and Neutral votes, you may find some red flags which either send you to their contribs, or you may choose not to vote. I have found that neutral votes have much more influence on my voting than do Support or Oppose. Guettarda 19:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Questions about running for bureaucrat

It's been about a month and a half since my bureaucrat nomination failed 50/10/1. Nichalp mentioned on Redwolf24's nomination that he thinks we need another few bureaucrats. Thus, I'm probably going to run again soon, so I have a few questions I'd like to ask the community.

1. Have I addressed all the concerns from the previous nomination?
2. How long should I wait until running again?
3. Regarding the users who indicated that they would like to know when I run again (see User:Andrevan/Archive14), would it be appropriate to contact these (and only these) users? If not, how should I go about it?

Thanks! Andre (talk) 21:05, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

My passing thoughts...

Looked at your previous nom opposes and noticed "your actions have the appearance of rounding up your friends in order to get yourself elected." Three of ten opposed with similar reasoning. Won't you simply set up the same accusation if you notify people in the same manner this time? I actually think you'd have a better chance if you contacted no one, as you'd be removing one reason to oppose.

Further, a month and half strikes me as much too short (and this would in fact be a third nomination). At some point, over-eagerness can itself become an oppose justification as it appears an editor may be more concerned about the feather in their cap than anything else. I'm not saying that's the case here as I haven't interacted with you—just that you may create that appearance. Patience. If nominators exercised it a bit more I think the oppose rate would be close to zero on this page. Marskell 02:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• I'll echo Marskell. Be patient. Wait at least a couple more months. --Durin 14:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

The concern that I had during your nomination has been addressed. You've been explaining yourself when you vote on RFAs, which is a good sign. As for running again, I don't think it would be a good idea if you ran... say tomorrow. However, I don't think you have to wait too long. Maybe sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Acetic'^Acid 04:44, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:RfA

I saw that Jguk added to the questions to be asked 'Have you edited under any other accounts? ([1]). I happen to know a user or two who once was a vandal but then went straight. Of course if they say that they once controlled that vandal account, you'll see waves of oppose, so I'm not really for this question. Plus do we want to make it precedent that anyone can add in new questions? We'd probably end up with about 30 questions, taking a day's time just to answer them... A bit too bureaucratic for the likes of me. Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 18:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a valuable question, actually. Andre (talk) 18:54, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why people shouldn't be able to question the candidate. The candidate is under no obligation to answer any questions presented to them. But I don't think they should be added to the standard questions template without consensus from the community; the standard questions were put together after some large debates I believe. Talrias (t | e | c) 18:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that adding more questions was a mistake. Frankly, I don't think the questions should be required at all, but as it stands they are a mandatory part of the adminship process. That means additions to the mandatory questions should have a consensus backing them. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Without a consensus, extra questions shouldn't be added. Jguk can append his questions to the individual RFA, that isn't a problem. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree - the standard questions are standard for a reason, and any change to the status quo should be agreed upon by the community - else chaos will reign over the template.  BD2412 ^talk 19:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I think any user should be able to ask questions of the individual canidate who may or may not choose to answer but I think that this question shouldn't be one of the default ones. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 20:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

It may make more sense to ask if users have vandalised under any other account rather than just edited under another one. This would (assuming people answer honestly) highlight problem users without needing to remove privacy from users who have genuine need to edit under another account. Considering someone (or someone who shared the IP, opinion, and editing style of a user here) was recently made an admin after vandalising the September 11 memorial wiki, it may be useful to ask if they've vandalised any Wikimedia wikis, rather than just this one. Angela. 02:21, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Consensus Regarding Pile-Ons

Was consensus ever established regarding the removal of a clearly failing nomination (Oppose Votes = Support Votes + 10)? Misterrick's nomination is one of the worst cases of piling on that I have ever seen. Normally, I would remove it by the time he got 13 oppose votes. But after removing A Link to the Past's nomination, Durin left me a comment, telling me not to remove nominations as consensus was never reached. Just to have it down in writing, is it easy to remove a failing nomination like this? Does a Bureaucrat have to do it? Acetic'^Acid 06:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I think a candidate should be entitled to their full seven days no matter how bad they're loosing. I would have thought that it has to be up to the candidate to withdraw. All anyone else can do is suggest that they may like to withdraw early. Of course, in a case where someone is nominated without good faith it might be possible to pull the nomination as a case of vandalism. --Gareth Hughes 10:35, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Where a nomination is clearly failing (eg it would need a record number of support votes even if no more oppose votes were cast, and there's already an overwhelming majority voting "oppose") then it's sensible just to remove it. Anyone removing a nomination is, of course, is responsible for their own actions - so tread with care - but there's no real benefit in just prolonging the agony of a hopeless nomination, jguk 11:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier just to leave the decision to withdraw to the candidates (even for non-self nominations), instead of trying to create a consensus for an automated withdrawal which you probably wouldn't get? Lectonar 12:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

My view is that commonsense should prevail - we should not be slaves to process. Quite frankly, if a candidate goes to 2 supports, 30 opposes, there's really no moral justification for letting it stay. The candidate will have got the message - can anyone really object if it is removed? jguk 12:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

"commonsense should prevail - we should not be slaves to process." I think we should all repeat that 5 times a day when we wake up in the morning. Or possibly "die bureaucracy, DIE!" either will do. Martin 12:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

To Jguk above: I for one don't see a moral justification not to let it run it's course, 'cause nothing gives us the right to do that (except, perhaps, after asking him on his talk-page?); it could implicate that you presume to know more about the candidate than he himself, and that someone else is needed to sort it out for him. If he's got the message, let him withdraw his candidateship (but we should make this possiblity clear in some form, not that anyone feels shy about it. I just can imagine that an already whacked candidate hasn't got the courage to involve himself) Lectonar 12:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

There was a recent case of an obviously-destined-to-fail nomination that was pulled from RFA early. The candidate complained loudly, there were bitter arguments, page protections, appeals to Jimbo, and an ugly mess all around. The nomination was eventually reinstated, with the end date moved back to account for the 'missed' time. (It did ultimately, thoroughly, fail.) If we're going to remove unsuccessful candidacies, then to avoid controversy and complaints and accusations of a cabal, we're going to have to do one of two things. (If anyone can think of a #3, that would be fine, too.)

1. Ask the candidate's permission. Obviously voluntary withdrawals will be acceptable to all involved parties.
2. Set a threshold in some sort of policy (or at least a guideline for bureaucrats) at which a candidacy is eligible for removal. Acetic Acid's suggestion above looks reasonable; something of that flavour sounds about right.

We should probably also discourage people from 'piling on' to candidates; I'm not sure how to accomplish this, however. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:47, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that this seems the only reasonable way to go, but rather than asking the candidates permission, I'd say we should suggest removal by the candidate themself. Filiocht | The kettle's on 12:55, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll second that; btw, does anybody else get the impression that 'piling-on' is also a phenomenon in the support votes, and that the whole RfA process is getting more and more a sort of popularity contest? Lectonar 13:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, with the danger being that "popular" candidates may not always be the best ones. Filiocht | The kettle's on 13:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• First, I would caution everyone here to beware of instruction creep. Second, I don't see any valid reason for removing a failing nomination prematurely. If the nom was done in good faith, it's reasonable to assume the nominee has the ability to remove the nomination themselves if they so choose. People are free to suggest they withdraw a nominee's candidacy, but adding on instructions on what arbitrary level we should allow ourselves to remove failing nominations is not beneficial to the process. In fact, it makes us more slavish to process and bureaucracy, not less. Third, even in failing nominations benefit can happen. A failed nomination can teach a nominee in what areas they need to improve before their next nomination. Fourth, a failing nomination can teach all of us about problems with the process. I cite Wikiwoohoo's RfA in which nobody could come with any reason to oppose the nominee except on grounds of editcountitis. I did not support the RfA, but I did challenge people to come up with other grounds on which to oppose. The fact that nobody could is quite telling, and should teach us all something about the process. Fifth, if we are willing to put in place a policy regarding negative pile-ons (in essence, a speedy delete of RfAs doomed to fail) then a reverse policy should be considered as well; speedy promotes. Just considering such can serve to highlight the errors in a speedy delete notion. A speedy promote policy would be absurd. For example, look at NichBush24's RfA. This nomination was 36-0 a day and a half into the nom. I placed one negative vote, and assumed the nomination would still sail through. I was wrong. Following my negative vote, there have been 20 more negative votes, and just 7 more positive votes. The RfA is now failing. If we had speedy promoted his nom, we would have made an error. Sixth, as previously noted some nominees do not want their nominations removed. Doing so prematurely can hurt feelings just as much as leaving them up might do. In essence, to some users it can be interpreted as "I think you suck, and so do lots of other people, so bye bye RfA". --Durin 13:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• Regarding the positive pile-ons: As most people here know, I am keeping track of the RfA process and have been doing so since late June of 2005. I too was curious about the phenom of rapid positive vote pile-ons and took a look at the number of votes per RfA over time. Surprisingly, it's been steady over the last four months. So, while there have been a number of noms with large numbers of positive votes, the votes show that the pattern has been more or less stable for the last few months. That said, as Wikipedia grows in popularity, the scalability of the process comes into question. I raised some issues in an earlier section above regarding scalability. There are more. Do we really want to have RfAs with 200+ votes on them being the norm? Maybe we do, maybe we don't. Either way, we need to consider the consequences of having such RfAs being the norm, as it's going to happen in the future. --Durin 13:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Lag?

Shouldn't User:RobyWayne and User:Hermione1980 be admins by now? Is makesysop down again, or what? I'd promote them myself but I don't have BureaucraticPower®. — JIP | Talk 14:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

They are both close and RobyWayne is under discussion at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard. Close promotions are scrutinized more closely. I don't think it's unreasonable to allow 24 hours or so. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 14:56, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm very curious why in User:RobyWayne's case it was delayed. Support vs Oppose was 82.6% at time of when it was supposed to close. User:Pakaran seems to have been counting neutral votes as, in essence, oppose votes. This strikes me as improper. Splitting the 3 neutral votes half and half yields 82%. I know RfA is not strictly a voting process, but the only way to get to a gray area (I read as less than 80%) on this nom is to take the neutral votes as oppose votes, which yields 73% at time when it was supposed to close. Since June and up to RobyWayne's close, there have been 13 successful noms with less than 80% in favor, if you count neutrals as oppose. 4 of them had lower percentages than Roby's. Not counting neutrals as oppose, only one nom in that time has been unsuccessful (not withdrawn) and had >75% (counting neutrals as oppose, it was 71.74%). Please see the discussion above regarding neutral votes. Bureaucrats should, I think, clarify their position as a group. --Durin 15:37, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe that Pakaran may have made a mistake. We try to be conservative because we cannot undo promotions. Please realize that it takes considerable time -- as much as half an hour -- to go through a nomination in the painstaking fashion that is necessary in all but extremely clear cases. I read every comment, I review the edit history and look at every questionable diff, and investigate every questionable (possible sock) vote. I check the end time and be sure that 7 days have actually gone by. All that takes time, and so if there are close nominations and I don't have half an hour to spare, I leave them for the next day or for someone else to handle. I apply this degree of care in close nominations even if they are above 80%, both because if there are voting irregularities that may affect the percentage and because there may be cases where we might not promote even if the 80% guideline is met. Again, I don't believe that waiting 24 hours is too much to ask.

Regarding the percentages, please realize that they are guidelines. I have never promoted with less than 75% nor have I closed as unsuccessful a nomination with more than 80%, counting support and oppose votes only and not neutral votes. That said, I can think of circumstances where I might not promote even with 80%; a recent April Fools' joke was one example. Another would be if there were an organized campaign by someone to register dozens of new users for the sole reason of having them support their adminship request. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

So if the support rate is between 75% and 80%, you promote the candidate but leave the nomination open? What more is there to do, especially considered BureaucraticPower® doesn't include the power to take AdministrativePower® away? — JIP | Talk 16:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Scratch that. I should learn to read. "Unsuccessful nomination". Sheesh. — JIP | Talk 16:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Nominating people you don't know

I think it is mildly strange that there are lots of users who clearly would benefit the 'pedia if they were admins, but have just never been nominated and don't nominate themselves for one reason or other. I also think the 'pedia is in pretty desperate need of more admins to help with AFDs, Copyvios, speedies etc. Therefore I want to start nominating more people, but people who I don't know and have had no interaction with, basically starting with the Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts, of course making sure they are suitable candidates first. I think I am pretty good at finding candidates (of the 4 I have nominated, including myself, non received a single oppose) but would it seem odd to nominate people like this? Martin 18:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Why not try to get to know them first? If you look at their contributions, you'll surely find some page that you have a personal interest in and could start contributing to. (And personally, I think how people interact with others on Wikipedia is far more important than a high edit count, which can come from not using the preview button, or even from engaging in edit wars!) Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 18:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Just zip them a little note saying that you thought they might make a good admin, but haven't really interacted much. If they are interested, then go ahead and nominate them. It never hurts to ask. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

As someone who has nominated people with whom I've not had a personal history of interaction with, I see no problem with doing so. In such cases, it does pay to spend considerable time reviewing the potential candidates contributions, especially in talk space, to make sure there are no personality problems. Unfortunately, because people changed the RFA process, it is no longer possible to nominate and run. I once nominated someone and the first message I ever left on her talk page was that I had created the nomination . Dragons flight 19:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

In that case I'll try and find some good candidates! Don't worry, I will check their contribs thoroughly. Martin 19:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank yous

I'm all for thanking people when appropriate, but could we please let go of the (reasonably new) tradition of putting a standardised thankyou note on the talk page of everyone who supported your adminship when it is successful? I think we can safely assume you're grateful for your support, and I'm sure there's better things those people can do with their new responsibilities than post messages one lots of talk pages. If people really want to do that, could we perhaps have a "closing statement" section on the RfA template or something? --fvw* 19:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I never bothered to thank anyone, but I am just lazy and unsocial (thanks everyone by the way). I always wonder if the people who get ~80 supports actually thank each one - they must be damn grateful! Martin 19:26, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I've gotten some very nice and personal thank you notes - I thought those were nice.  BD2412 ^talk 19:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

It's how I find out about new admins—my watchlist lights up with all the thank-you notes posted to user pages.

Seriously, put a heartfelt note on your own user page. If you have questions or specific replies to voters' comments, messages, or questions, go ahead and deal with those. There's no need to fire off a fifty or a hundred duplicate messages, though. Once you're an admin, you can stop inflating your edit count. :D TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:46, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

When I thanking people for their involvement in my RfA, I tried to at least personalise each one and copy/pasted nothing. I figure if they took time out of their day to vote (either way) on my RfA, the least I could do was send them along a little gratitude. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think thank yous are a nice touch, even if they're substantially the same. (I still appreciate Christmas cards, even if they were part of a box of 20). Support. ;) · Katefan0^(scribble) 20:03, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with voldy, I'm up for adminship myself at the moment, and whether I am promoted or not, I intend to thank every voter personally, not using a cut and paste message. As he said, they took the time out of their day to vote on my nom, I can surely take a few minutes to let them know I appreciate it. -Greg Asche (talk) 20:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I thanked every voter (the fact that they all supported is by the by) using a default message but added a sentence or statement or two to the start or finish of each note. No two were the same. It took twice as long hbut I think worth it. --Celestianpower ^hablamé 20:27, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Kate (or I would, if I got Christmas cards). Much nicer to have your screen light up with orange to let you know that there's a polite thank you, rather than an anon angrily accusing you of admin abuse, or someone telling you that the picture you uploaded three years ago will be deleted unless you supply copyright information. Guettarda 21:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong, it's not like they're forced to. I don't undesrtand, how are we going to enforce the ban on thanking people? WIll be block those who thank???? -- (drini's page|☎) 02:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for all the pufferfish

(Edit conflict) I totally agree with Fvw. There is something about thanking people for supporting that's a little off, IMO. It's too much like implying the person supported to please me, and against their own better judgement as to what kind of admin I'd make. I do realize that's not what people mean, but still. In my own case, I wrote a general note saying I was overwhelmed and grateful for getting such nice, friendly comments on my RfA (i. e., not for being supported). I was, too, the whole thing was just heartwarming--I was awarded a commemorative toaster by JRM, and valued myself so on it that TenOfAllTrades then awarded me the Pufferfish for Most Conceited New Admin. Anyway, I put this note prominently on my own talkpage, not on anybody else's. I reckoned if people wondered what was holding up their thank-you note, they'd come to my Talk to see if I died, and see the message in its pretty pink box. That was appropriate, I thought, though I've always wondered how many people, if any, did see that message of mine. Bishonen | talk 19:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• Denelson83 thanked me for voting, even though I opposed. I thought that was pretty classy, and would have done the same thing. android79 19:58, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I didn't thank anyone who voted for me, on the basis that they didn't do it for me, they did it for Wikipedia; and the best thanks will be to repay their faith and be a good admin. I like Bishonen's approach though. Rd232 20:03, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I did thank people and would do it again, but with so many new admins being promoted, maybe we should save the disk space and add the "Closing Statement" section... --Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 21:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I guess I would be for that, and that wouldn't necessarily stop you from continuing to thank close WikiFriends, or the like. I suggest we add it to the template. Any objections? --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose I object. Then, on one hand, it looks like we expect people to say thank you (for "no big deal") and on the other, it discourages thank yous which have, on occassion, led to productive conversations - or at least amusing back-and-forths. Guettarda 21:46, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... you may be right. Is there some way we could inform nominees that they could add something like that at their own desire, but not make it standard? And it wouldn't necessarily have to be a "thank you" section. It could be a "I won't mess up" or a "I shoulda got this" section. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:58, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't feel super strongly about this, but I do think a template suggesting that people not thank people individually is a little counterintuitive, considering that Wikipedia flourishes best when lines of communication are open. Should we be encouraging less communication? I realize this is sort of an absurdist discussion, but I just don't see the harm. · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

(Unindent) I would feel the same either way. We shouldn't "discourage" it per se, but I know I would've used that place to send a general thank you instead of going into 22 different pages. I like the intimate feeling, but maybe we could save some time and bandwidth this way. --Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 22:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

And I had such a nice acceptance speach lined up too — purely Paltrow-esque it was! --Gareth Hughes 22:37, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Or, you know, people can do as they please. There are contexts in which enouraging and discouraging particular actions makes sense—this doesn't seem to be one of them. Marskell 00:20, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

When my RfA passed, I had 49 supports, and I gave every person a customized thank you note based on how well I knew 'em. I believe Splash and NicholasTurnbull have done likewise with the customized thank you's. Redwolf24 (talk) 02:11, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

What would Emily Post say? I didn't feel obligated to thank anyone for their support in my recent promotion. However, I felt a desire to acknowledge those people who voted (support, oppose and neutral). I've not communicated with many of these individuals directly before and sending any sort of message (thanks, hello, howdy) to them definitely opens a line of communication that did not yet exist. I have even received a nice comments back further clarifying their neutral/oppose vote--which made me feel better. Also, these folks often go through a great deal of effort to research a candidate prior to voting--thank them for taking the time to do that instead. Is it necessary to thank someone for voting? I don't think so. Is it polite? Probably. Does it foster the idea of community, communication and comradery? Of course!! >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist • E@} 02:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I have to admit I like the trend of leaving thank-yous: gives an excuse to leave a personal note in reply for people I may not otherwise run into much, particularly if I have seen them enough to have an opinion on a nomination. I see it more as "thank you for taking the time to look over my contribution history, and for considering me suitable for the position"; the more gracious nominees I've seen have also thanked those who opposed for expressing their opinion and addressed the reason for the opposition. (If you're an RfA regular who doesn't want to be thanked, perhaps a note on your talk page to that effect would be useful.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 02:25, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Now, this would be instruction creep gone mad. Some do it, some don't; what's the problem? Filiocht | The kettle's on 07:14, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I enjoy receiving thank yous and given them. I think I've made a few friends that way. I personally thanked everyone who voted on my RFA, not because I felt I should, or that I thought they expected me to, but because I wanted to. I hope people I thanked appreciated it, however reading the above, I now realize that perhaps some of you didn't :( Perhaps I should send personalized apologies to everyone I thanked? In general I think we should encourage thank yous not discourage them. But they should be completely voluntary. The less voluntary the less valuable. So I don't think a "closing statement" section would be a good idea. But I do think we should ban congratulations those just get in the way (just kidding ;-) Paul August ☎ 03:54, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Naive new admin: I didn't thank anybody personally for voting for me ... Am I gonna get deadminned now ... ? (I should have at least thanked the bureaucrat who promoted me I guess... ) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:10, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Merge requests for checkuser?

Someone has just suggested that checkuser requets be merged here. I appreciate that this page is already big enough as it is, but on the other hand I do think that way it would get a lot more attention, which is a good thing as it's a fairly big responsibility. Any objections here? --fvw* 23:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

None from me. I had supposed this would be where it was done. -Splash^talk 23:03, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, append it at the end, after bureaucratship. Andre (talk) 23:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Checkuser

I just have one question. How the hell did checkuser voting become policy with only a 5 day vote, if this is the state of the wiki please tell me and I'll take a very long vacation right away because frankly I think it is a bullshit decision, all other reasonings aside in terms of checkuser rights. 50 votes (plus 4 neutral/comments) does not make a consensus by any means especially when we have no policy currently on it's use and the process so far of using checkuser and the guidelines for it are not layed out and nobody has even attempted to lay out. I propose that we immediately close all checkuser votes and remove the option from the main RFA page until a clear consensus for or against can be seen and if a consensus for it is achieved then until a clear policy regarding it's use can be found. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 02:03, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Agree, seems Raul654 removed it. Checkuser is a very vital process, and it's important to set out guidelines for it. Ral315 W_S 02:07, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Requests for checkuser access removed

I have removed the requests for checkuser access. It is a clear example of overreaching. Checkuser access is governed by the foundation privacy policy, the application of which has still not been decided. It is inappropriate to be holding votes on it (checkuser access) before Jimbo and/or the board have made any decisions regarding access. (FWIW, Anthere is currently advocating a proposal on meta where wikis with arbitration committees and can designate one or [preferably] more of their members to have access) →Raul654 02:08, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, you beat me to it. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:14, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll assume that this was a good faith attempt to deal with the rampant vandalism problems we've been having lately and I apologize for getting a bit hot under the collar there but this was a travesty of the system. I support more people having checkuser since it would make the job a lot easier, however I think we need extremely strict guidelines including.

1) board approval/comment due to privacy policy and legal issues

2) COMMUNITY CONSENSUS (bolded for emphasis>)

3) checks and balances

4) guidelines on use and contingencies for misuse and/or mistakes in use

And that's just to name a few things, I urge everyone to think up new things that we need before this can be implemented since this is one of those things where we really can't afford to make mistakes for a dozen different reasons. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 02:17, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Regarding arbcom use I'd definitely be in favor of having the arbcom have checkuser access assuming that legal and privacy policies can be worked out, in that case consensus for each person might not really an issue either since the community has alreaedy voted that they trust these people to be arbitrators. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 02:17, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Honestly when people say things like "the rampant vandalism problems we've been having lately" I have to ask what they're talking about. Cool Cat's thermometer thingie seems to be more or less permanently stuck on Defcon 5, so either the vandal detection bots are all asleep at the wheel or we really don't have much of an acute vandalism problem. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:20, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Tony, I assume that people have a perception that we have recent "rampant vandalism problems" just because we have more tools and bots to detect them all. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:32, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Good point. We should all make a habit of checking our perceptions in case they should happen to be incorrect. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Tony, did you somehow manage to miss the vandalbot attack that made WP:AN, WP:AN/I, and WP:RFAr unusable to non-admins for a couple of days recently? --Carnildo 04:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The proposal Raul referred to is at meta:Proposed CheckUser Policy. It was written by Datrio, one of the stewards, with the intention of applying across all Wikimedia wikis rather than just the English Wikipedia. Angela. 02:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Just for the record, I don't particularly care for some aspects of Datrio's policy (it contains a lot of unnecessary bureacracy); I do think a more limited idea of giving access to all stewards and arbitration committees is a sound one. →Raul654 02:27, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Under the circumstances, should this be tagged "official policy"? --Tabor 02:31, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Somebody misguidedly designated the Quick and Dirty proposal as Wikipedia official policy. We don't make policy with 50 votes. I have changed the designation (at least for now) to rejected. There has been enough serious alarm at this to warrant that lable, I think. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:35, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

>80% is by far not a rejection. I've reverted. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I wish you much luck convincing anyone to heed a "policy" where only 50 people voted on a wiki this size. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:40, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

It is not policy and it has not been rejected; it's currently under discussion at a higher level of Wikipedia. So both of you hold your horses. →Raul654 02:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Raul, I retagged it as a proposed policy, even though it did pass. Part of the policy requires a permanent policy to be drafted, and that's all I said. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:46, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I would disagree that it passed. I would state that it's not even a proposed policy at this point, but merely a discussion pending the adoption of a Wikimedia-wide policy. Note that one project at Wikimedia cannot override Wikimedia general policy, most especially the privacy policy, no matter how many "votes" it scares up to do so. Kelly Martin 03:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

Well, I see the need of this checkuser thing since I do lot of patrolling, but after thinking a while, I realize we dont' actually need to know the IPs. What we need is just the ability of knowing if 2 given users are from the same ip (true or false) for making sure of sockpuppets, not needing to know the ip itself. So I propose that admins are given only this ability (deciding if 2 edits come from the same ip) and not the ip itself. -- (drini's page|☎) 02:32, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

That doesn't do as much as you might guess at first blush to protect user privacy. We need to decide to change our privacy policy first, then we can grant tools. Our highest obligation is to be honest to our users, and not place the project in legal peril with a dishonest privacy policy. --Gmaxwell 02:44, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if I'd trust the 600 admins to never abuse this power. Also this wouldn't be undoable (much like page history merges (which not everyone knows how to do, which may be a good thing) and image deletions) as you can't erase minds. There's too many legit sock puppets, like that Cute Little Doggie one. But at the same time having a requests for checkuser system might not be too great as every person running may get opposes such as I DON'T THINK ANYONE SHOULD HAVE THIS POWER... etc. People like Rainbowwarrior1977 are pretty rare, and needing to checkuser is too, and when you need it, get evidence and ask a developer. Yes the sockmasters seem common (like murderers played up on the t.v.) but there aren't as many as you'd think. Now I should stop procrastinating my homework... Redwolf24 (talk) 02:50, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

It's not even so much about abuse. It's about being wrong. What I want to see is a solution that doesn't permit the user of the private info for fishing, because fishing (i.e. finding users that we'd have no reason to suspect otherwise) is where the false hits of the system will bite us the worst. There are many ways to inhibit fishing, one is to simply give access to very few people. There may be others. The existing proposals do nothing to inhibit fishing. --Gmaxwell 03:09, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not proposing anything dishonest here. I'ts not like it would be a secret tool. It's just another proposal. -- (drini's page|☎) 02:52, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Our privacy policy isn't the clearest thing in the world, but it's clear that the proposed systems wouldn't be consistant with it. As far as I know we need the board to change the privacy policy. I'm not saying anyone here is trying to be dishonest, but if we were to impliment such a change we would make the project dishonest. --Gmaxwell 03:09, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point of a such a simple sockpuppet check would be in a case such as the recent vandalbot attacks (which, incidentally, are the reason for this whole mess). It should be blatantly obvious that the users k8932kj3@as and as0d9r!23, both of whom replace WP:VIP with identical nonsense, are sockpuppets, even without a formal check; but blocking the underlying IP, as was done in the recent case, obviously requires knowing that IP itself. Kirill Lokshin 03:01, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Bots are pretty much always going to require developer intervention. If someone goes through the trouble of making a vandal bot, they are going to make sure they circumvent all our normal tools. Perhaps if we worked on making less enemyes this would be less of a concern? --Gmaxwell 03:09, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Be nice to the vandals and Wikipedia:Don't make enemies are both redlinks. Pity. You could go and pre-emptively slap {{rejected}} tags on either of them if you happen to dislike them, though. -Splash^talk 03:24, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

It has always been well said that prevention is far better than cure, and it seems to me that most of this checkuser controversy (and, indeed, other measures against miscreants) is an effort to cure the problems with vandalism - which, incidentally, is already coped with moderately well by Wikipedia's existing immune system. What we really need to do is pour energy, effort and time into coming up with ways of preventing the vandals from making vandalism edits; or better yet, prevent them from having vandalistic tendencies at all, and making legitimate editing more worthwhile than scatological efforts. Such measures would, of course, not entail the creation of further risks through wider allocation of sensitive information. Let us, rather than wrangling over checkuser, apply the {{sofixit}} cliché and work on making strategies to preempt vandalism via prevention. I propose some kind of Vandal Reduction Initiative to further this cause. If any of you fine Wikipedians would care to join me, I would be greatly honoured. Regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 03:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism is like Death. It will always exist. As long as the wiki is open, and "YOU can edit this article" remain guiding principles of the wiki, which if I understand Jimbo's opinion, it will, we will have vandals. There will always be stupid people with nothing better to do than engage in destructive behavior, just as there will always be termites eating wood. Our only recourse is to maintain vigilance and effort against vandalism, and to work as a counter-force to vandals. Fortunately, the system is designed to give those on the side of constructive rather than destructive change the advantage, but to assert that we could possibly stop vandalism is inaccurate, in my view. Ok but maybe we could reduce it... Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 06:53, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

That being said, I still think a reduction initiative is a good idea. I'd love to help. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 06:58, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I have added Wikipedia:Be nice to the vandals if anyone is curious. Marskell 18:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

So great!! vandals are actually kids in need of wikilove :) -- (drini's page|☎) 22:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

And another section

We really need more admins with the right access to cope with vandal-bots like the one some days ago signing up accounts from a large number of different IP's. It was frustrating to see how much trouble that bot made without anyone here being able to tell if the bot was using a specific IP-range and what IP-range that was, or if it was some zombie net or some other random collection of IP's. Many people here wasted a lot of time doing reverts and blocking all the different vandal-accounts the bot signed up. The whole thing was utterly silly, frustrating and a case of overprotection of a vandals privacy not getting to know his IP's. By simply choosing to vandalise through user-accounts he suddenly got all these privacy rights and was basically untouchable and immune to all the good people doing vandal-control. To have people with access doing sock puppet investigations is fine and well, and I believe we have enough people doing that. But we need more admins around who can react on clear cases of mass vandalism like that bot. I'm quite sure this isn't the last time someone with access to a large IP-range doing vandalism like this, no matter how nice we are to people, and when it happens again we should be able to kill it right away, and not having to sit around powerless and wait for some of the few people with checkuser access to come around and take notice. Maybe make a version of the tool only available on new and blocked accounts, or something else that will cover this need. But we must stop overprotecting vandals and waste the time of all the people who work hard to keep vandals from ruining wikipedia. Shanes 03:33, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The vandalbot hasn't gone away... just a few hours ago today it created nearly 300 new "garbage" accounts (see Special:Log/block or Special:Log/newusers around 01:13–01:32 UTC today). Supposedly, creating a new login account on a blocked IP address has now been disabled, so this would mean that the vandal burned through nearly 300 separate IP addresses (can we get a verification?). At peak, he was creating about 30 new accounts per minute. And don't forget that back on August 26 a Willy vandalbot was doing about 75 pagemoves per minute. If it seems like the level of vandalism is rising, it's because it is. Like it or not, we seem to be caught up in some kind of arms race and things are indeed getting worse. -- Curps 04:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I honestly don't see a problem here. The minute one of these chaps sticks his head above the parapet, RC lights up like a Christmas tree and the revert-and-block squad goes to work. So we're supposed to be impressed that they can write a script to fill out a form? --Tony Sidaway^Talk 04:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I guess you missed the part about 30 new accounts per minute? We're seeing escalated bot-driven vandalism that is very hard to cope with by any traditional means, and I believe it's getting worse. -- Curps 04:50, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I just want them to be blocked so they stop vandalising wikipedia. But we can't block them if we don't know which range they are vandalising from. Shanes 04:33, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I do think Tony has a point. Attacks happen. They're a pain (and do seem to be worsening), but they get dealt with. Wikipedia's still functioning, so they couldn't have been too terrible. But as much as I agree with those statements, I think they miss a nuance -- to me, the real problem here is that, yes, we have people who stand ready to help beat back the tide of vandals. But wouldn't we rather have those people spend more of their time building an encyclopedia? It's a resource issue. Given that, I think there should be more efforts made to find ways to help people stem the tide more efficiently. · Katefan0^(scribble) 04:53, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The past is not a guarantee of the future. We are in an arms race that we will eventually lose if we stand still. Tony is far too complacent. Recent changes like the move log, newuser log, pagemove revert were good, but we need to keep moving forward and add more security and integrity features. I would strongly urge that fundraising monies should perhaps be used to hire a full-time Mediawiki programmer who could work on such things (starting with captchas for account registration) and a full-time or part-time ISP liaison person who would be on a first-name basis with the abuse contacts at the major ISPs and whose responsibility would be IP address tracebacks and vandal accountability issues (and just in case anyone was wondering, no, I would absolutely not be a candidate for either position). -- Curps 05:32, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I completely agree with Curps. Attitude seems to minimize the problem. When I commented on the warning of an impending botnet attack ([2] at the bottom) most people just shrugged and moved on. If we can take actions to prevent these events, why wait until they happen? -- (drini's page|☎) 22:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I remain opposed to the use of captchas for registration because of their impact on disabled users. Kelly Martin 15:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Me, as well. It completely contradicts the WP philosophy. Now, perhaps if people were given the option of captchas, email verification, or hashcash, I would like that (even though it's a lot of programming). We need a few more checkuserers, but we shouldn't let the vandalbots force us into a compromise if at all possible. ~~ N (t/c) 23:57, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

"Rip"ping and ToSsing major (Willy-style) vandals

As a supplement or alternative to the expanded use of Checkuser (see above discussion), I'm thinking of proposing an idea which could be called, for lack of a better name, retroactive IP or reveal IP (acronym: rip). That is, in cases where vandalism was serious and persistent enough, the IP address of the sock puppet in question would be retroactively made public and would appear in all log files alongside the username for the edits in question (the latter would require a software upgrade, though). For instance:

09:56, 18 October 2005 Astor family (diff; hist) . . William on wheels IP = 123.234.123.234 (Talk | block) (→Members)

This would be restricted to cases of prolonged, egregious, and seriously disruptive vandalism (willy etc) that if unchecked would threaten the integrity of Wikipedia — especially vandalbots — but would not apply to garden variety vandalism. It would also be restricted to edits made in the past week or so (for practical reasons, because apparently logs aren't kept much longer than that, and also because a statute of limitations would be desirable).

The appeal of this idea is that it would not create privacy worries for ordinary users (or even garden-variety vandals); it would only affect the "privacy" of those who richly deserve to forfeit it. The Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy does appear to explicitly allow public release of IP information under such circumstances (item 5 in particular would apply).

The decision to "rip" a vandal would have to be made quickly (within a one-week time window, before the log information is lost), so prolonged debate, voting or committee discussion would not work. For this reason, such decisions would probably have to be made by individuals belonging to a restricted group of persons in position of high trust (bureaucrats? arbcom members? some new level with a "revealuser" privilege?). Next to each edit in a log file, such users would see a "revealuser" link, and clicking on it would flag that edit (or all edits by that user less than a week old) for IP reveal. Such "rips" (or "reveals") would be logged, and the logs would be publicly viewable the same way as blocks and page deletes, providing accountability.

The followup would be that once the IP addresses are public for all to see, anyone sufficiently motivated could use ARIN or RIPE or APNIC to contact the ISP abuse contact and notify them of a terms of service (ToS) violation by their customer (we could call this two-step process "ripping and ToSsing" vandals... for some reason, this violent imagery is oddly appealing at the moment). Each ISP knows the name, address, e-mail address and phone number of each of its customers and logs their Internet browsing activity: if we provide a list of IPs and timestamps from Wikipedia logs, that's all the information the ISP need to identify the customer in question. Note, we would not be subpoenaing the ISP to supply us with this information, we wouldn't engage in RIAA style litigation; we would simply ask them to apply their terms of service (ToS) to the customer in question, whose identity would remain unknown to us. The ISP could decide to boot their customer off or at least give the customer a stern warning by phone or e-mail.

On the other hand, we might discover that the IPs in question are open proxies... so much the better, we can then block them. Worst case, we might discover a zombie botnet, but I would hope that anyone who controls a resource like that would have enough plain common sense to stick to extorting companies and financial institutions and leave us alone... would anyone really be silly enough to risk getting Mitnicked with no possible reward (financial or otherwise) other than to annoy us? And in this case, the ISP would notify their innocent customer that they have a spam/spyware/virus-infected computer and encourage them to disinfect their machine, so a botnet puppetmaster wasting his time on us would end up losing resources as a result, a financial opportunity cost with respect to whatever other fun-and-profit activities he uses the botnet for.

Of course, this would require a SMOP ("small matter of programming"), to modify Mediawiki to allow flagging edits for retroactive IP reveal. But it might be considered worthwhile if it helps mitigate the vandalism problem without the privacy issues that would result from expanded Checkuser use. -- Curps 05:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

This would also appear to be compatible with the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy (item 5 in particular would apply, allowing for public release of IP information under the circumstances described above). -- Curps 07:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Why a technical solution? If this is ever justified, just request that a checkuserer do it. ~~ N (t/c) 12:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Concur with Nickptar on this; if there is cause for a vandal's IP to become a matter of public record the user who does the checkuser can add an appropriate template to their user page. No need for this, and the risk of accidental or malicious misuse is too high. Kelly Martin 15:35, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

There are a couple of reasons: I believe David Gerard mentioned that running checkuser is fairly slow as currently implemented, since it needs to do a rather involved database query looking for other edits and other users that may have used the same IP range (I will ask him to comment here). In yesterday's case where nearly 300 garbage accounts were created in the space of 20 minutes or so, I believe it would not be practically possible to run checkuser on them all or even a significant fraction of them. Yet it's precisely in the case of such high-volume vandalbot sock creation that we need IP information the most. There may be 300 open proxies that we'll never know about. By contrast, just revealing the IP addresses would be hardly any load on the database at all. Checkuser is a full-blown sockpuppet check, "revealuser" would not not be, it would just be making the IP address public, no more and no less.

Second, the followup once you know the IP address is just as important: you can do open proxy checking, you can check ARIN and RIPE and APNIC, and you can contact the ISP to report a ToS violation, you can block an IP address or an IP range. Doing all of that can be a quite labor intensive and time consuming operation, and does not scale well if there's only one person doing it. By contrast, if the IP information is public, other members of the Wikipedia community can effectively contribute to the followup. So there is much less of a burden on a single individual like David Gerard to handle the entire process from start to finish, which in practice means it is not done much of the time (especially any sort of ToS followup). He could investigate just enough to see that reveal-IP is warranted, then do so and leave the rest up to others.

The "revealuser" decision-making privilege would be limited to a limited number of highly trusted users (not admins, perhaps bureaucrats) and its usage would be logged. If we really have to worry about malicious misuse on the part of bureaucrat-level or higher persons, then we have far bigger problems to worry about.

The main reason for rIP (reveal IP) is to enable ToS followup. The latter (or just the threat to do so) can be surprisingly effective. After all, many vandals use their ISP for other non-Wikipedia activities and e-mail, and losing their e-mail address or having to explain loss of Internet connection to other family members (or their department head) can be a significant deterrent. It's had some modest success recently for extremely persistent anonymous IP vandals using a broad IP range, and this proposal would simply enable us to use it for extremely persistent sockpuppet vandals as well.

And note there's another safeguard: the ISP itself. With ToS followup, all we would do is hand a list of IP numbers and timestamps to the abuse contact at the ISP, namely a list of links to Wikipedia edits. The ISP itself would have to be satisfied that there was a significant ToS violation (according to its own definition and its own terms of service) before it lifted a finger. And in no case would the ISP be revealing any identity information to us; however, they know the names, phone numbers and e-mails of their own customers and will be in a position to take whatever steps they deem appropriate (the most severe penalty would simply be dropping the customer).

The likelihood of abusive use of "revealuser" would thus be very low: first of all, it doesn't even involve checking for sockpuppets (checkuser would still be used for that where warranted), so there's less of a privacy issue to begin with, and there are two levels of safeguards: a highly-trusted bureaucrat-level person with "revealuser" privilege would make the decision, and the vandal's ISP would also have to be satisfied for any real followup to take place.

Checkuser and "revealuser" are really two different things for different purposes. Checkuser was mostly designed, I believe, to detect whether two users are sockpuppets of one another and is an inefficient tool against large-scale automated vandal disruption (especially vandalbots). "Revealuser" on the other hand simply wants to stop large-scale disruption by enabling us to close open proxies or resort to ToS where necessary. And I believe that "revealuser" would be entirely compatible with the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy (especially point 5), whereas greatly expanded use of checkuser might not be. -- Curps 19:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

When you put it that way, it sounds like a good idea. ~~ N (t/c) 19:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Curps, just a quick comment to say I think this is a superb idea. Very neat and effective. And furthermore, the log and user limitations should allay all the PP concerns folks expressed about that other proposal. Very fine work. Now if only someone would code it :) encephalon 21:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, excellent idea. I particularly would like to see this done. Andre (talk) 21:44, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed also and well put. Implementation remains. Would existing bureaucrats be grand-fathered into it? Should it be a general vote or (heaven forbid) an essentially unilateral power granted? I actually favour the latter. I didn't like yesterday admins suddenly swarming to grant particular admins new abilities. Give it to stewards to start with perhaps, and work from there. Marskell 00:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)