Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

RfA candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report RfB candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report No RfXs since 12:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC).—cyberbot ITalk to my owner:Online

Current time: 03:50:55, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Recently closed RfAs and RfBs ()

Candidate	Type	Result	Date of close	Tally
				S	O	N	%
ToadetteEdit	RfA	Closed per WP:NOTNOW	30 Apr 2024	0	0	0	0
Sdkb	RfA	Successful	16 Feb 2024	265	2	0	99
The Night Watch	RfA	Successful	11 Feb 2024	215	63	13	77

Invitation to discussion

Please see Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Hog Farm#Responding to opposes. Aza24 (talk) 02:41, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Optional question heading

Somewhat in response to Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_257#Lots_of_questions, might it be a decent idea to rename "Additional question from <username>" to "Optional question from <username>" in {{Rfa-question}}? Mostly just as a slight nudge to make not answering optional questions more acceptable, and/or less helpful questions to be asked less? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:24, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

If you decline to answer a question in an RFA or RFB you will probably get opposes, OK maybe not in the last day or two of the seven days. I'm not sure that the number of questions is a real problem as opposed to a side effect of the small number of RFAs. If we can persuade more people to run, those who who are finding their feet at RFA and still at the stage of asking questions that aren't rooted in research on the candidate will be spread across more RFAs. It would be good if we could find ways to reduce the number of unresearched questions, but I don't see this nudge as doing that. Maybe a requirement that all questions include a diff showing the bit of the candidate's contributions that you are querying? ϢereSpielChequers 16:03, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

The clear positive thing I can say about when we did the grouped nomination at RfA in September 2020 is that those candidates, on the whole, received fewer questions than when candidates run one at a time. So some of it does appear to be a function of community attention. I would have no objection to PR's suggested renaming. It might not immediately change any of the culture but over time, as more new editors enter the arena, it might. And I don't see it doing harm. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:59, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm OK with changing the header too. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:19, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

It was proven at least ten years ago that an unhealthy number of questions are clearly inappropriate, borderline nonsense, or even trolling and the phenomenon has not relaxed. IMO a candidate has every right to ignore such questions, but the community will continue to treat RfA as some kind of bizarre playground. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:39, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

yeah. I agree with all the comments above. 1: no matter if we call it optional or additional, if somebody wants to ask a question then they will ask the Q anyhow. The question/candidate being well researched wont be affected by the heading. 2: number of questions is not an issue. Well suited/appropriate questions vs inappropriate vs trolling is the main issue. No matter what we call it, we cant stop the incoming questions. 3: currently, nobody bats an eye if the candidate ignored out of order/inappropriate cases. In most of the RfA's some other editor comments that the candidate should ignore the inappropriate questions. 4: currently, if a candidate doesnt answer an appropriate Q, then some editors go in neutral section with "waiting for candidates's response to Q #xyz" If it goes unanswered for a while, they switch to oppose. 5: I also agree with Barkeep: It might not immediately change any of the culture but over time, as more new editors enter the arena, it might. It might also reduce the opposes based on ignored valid questions, with thinking like "bleh. Its just an optional Q" But it will also affect the ability to gauge the candidate. Getting answers to appropriate questions in an RfA is absolutely necessary to gauge the candidate. I think we should keep it the way it is. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

My fear is that twenty or so of the questions in a typical RFA are little more than a distraction, my worry is that some of the participants at RFA are relying pretty much entirely on the contents of the RFA and not actually checking the candidate's contributions themselves. ϢereSpielChequers 15:03, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

In my recent RFA, I had the experience of answering 27 questions. And it felt like a lot of commenters didn't even read the questions - I feel like I answered the same sort of questions about the NPP kerfuffle about 3 times. But when it comes down to it, I think all but the two sock questions (26 and 27), and question 20 read like soapboxing to me, especially after reading the commenter's neutral statement. RFA was an unpleasant experience for me, and if I'd known exactly what to expect beforehand, I would not have run. I'm also aware of another editor who was considering RFA and I think is extremely well qualified but was at least partially scared off by the amount of questions in my RFA. It's almost like it's a problematic situation either way - most RFA questions are useful, IMO, but the sheer volume makes it a dreadful place for many candidates. Hog Farm _Talk 02:00, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

• I persevered for a decade to get RfA cleaned up. Then I gave up. Hog Farm, who actually passed with an extremely healthy score of 95%, probably doesn't realise the enormous gravity of his statement: RFA was an unpleasant experience for me, and if I'd known exactly what to expect beforehand, I would not have run; and people are still unable to figure out why so few candidates of the right calibre are willing to come forward? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:45, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
• I think there's a rough consensus for the change I mention in my OP, so I've gone ahead and done that. There seems to be some skepticism regarding whether it'll actually do anything, but as some editors have said it cannot hurt. The template is not protected, so anyone who disagrees with my reading should feel free to revert. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:55, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I'll support that. One of the problems is that these discussions are perennial. Another is that since reforms allowed each RfA to be widely publicised, the number of voters has increased two- or even threefold, with many of the voters being new(ish) users possibly not having really much clue of what adminship is all about or what to look for. While they can be forgiven for not having the institutional memory of RfA regulars, they are not aware of pages such as this one with a list of discussions and articles in The Signpost. What they see is "Oh, I'm allowed to vote on something, so I will", which is commonplace on reader-contribuable web sites, fora, and blogs, thus each new RfA sets new precedents and hence the number of user questions continues to grow out of all proportion.

The December 2015 reforms were an excellent and bold attempt by Biblioworm to improve the situation by lowering the pass mark, restricting the number of questions per user, and broadcasting the RfAs, but none of them succeeded in encouraging more users to throw their hat in the ring or cleaning up the behaviour of the participants. So after 16 years (when the complaints first started) RfA is still at square one. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I think publicising the RfAs has improved the situation quite a bit in fact, in terms of "cleaning up the behaviour of the participants". Johnbod (talk) 04:59, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think it's possible to fix it, in the same manner as you can't stop 70 million people voting for a narcissistic racist misogynistic orange nut job (personal opinion). Asking around 200 people (and 200 different people every time) to agree on something when they all have diverging opinions is just not going to happen. As there's no correlation between the pass mark at RfA and how good an admin actually is; for example, MoneyTrees scraped through on a 'crat chat, yet seems to have done alright with the tools. You could full-protect RfA so only admins can participate (which would at least have some sort of qualification bar), but that's a terrible idea as it breeds cliques and closes ranks. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:21, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It can be fixed but there is not political will to do it. Everybody is kind of half in it, or half out of it and its really not that serious; it is kind of lightweight compared to what you would see in commercial or other collegiate organisation. Those kinds of organisations depend on their election system working, it is their lifeblood. Having read up on it, they seem to manage to deliver a set number of candidate every year and a set number of electees every year. Could wee not possibly copy one of these systems. The Royal Society has redesigned their system, several times in the last 300 years. Could we possibly ask them design a system, do some research for us, or look at using their system, see how it fits? Try and go around the problem instead of endlessly discussing it. Lets find an alternate approach. scope_creep^Talk 00:47, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I doubt that would help (having worked there). Their system is at least as onerous and probably nerve-wracking as ours, but the rewards of being an FRS are far greater. There's no "set number of candidates every year", but they do ration the elections. These days most plausible candidates pass RFA, the problem is that few such want to do it. Johnbod (talk) 04:59, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Nobody wants to run

These days most plausible candidates pass RFA, the problem is that few such want to do it, is indeed precisely where RfA is at nowadays, and here is Hog Farm's comment again which says it all: RFA was an unpleasant experience for me, and if I'd known exactly what to expect beforehand, I would not have run. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Kudpung, A few months back, I was in an online workshop with Shameran81, Megalibrarygirl and some other Wikipedians, talking about the gender imbalance on Wikipedia and what to do about it, and as there appeared to be a (virtual) room full of experienced editors, I decided to ask if any of them had ever thought about RfA. The response was pretty much unanimously negative, saying RfA was not a "safe space" and the environment was too hostile to make editors consider. I don't know what more I can say. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:31, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

If you volunteer for a grilling, the prize needs to be very good. RFA can be an awful week, and incredibly stressful. The actual intentions of the user, they are acting in good faith can be completely ignored and people will deep dive into their contributions. Not much fun at all. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:34, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, Ritchie333, I agree that the process is stressful. But I am very glad I have the tools it's given me. It's allowed me to help a lot of people. I don't get a lot of drama as an admin, probably because of the area I work in (women's history mostly) that's not overly controversial. At any rate, for what it's worth, I'm glad I ran and Ritchie encouraged me. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:16, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Megalibrarygirl that being an admin is a pretty sweet gig on the whole - there's a reason that so many admin become largely inactive in the project but stay active enough to avoid desysop. I think we don't do a good enough job of recognizing that point of view. Having this perspective play a bigger part in the discourse would be something helpful we could do in attracting candidates. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:31, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

To be honest, I do not see how one can emphasize this aspect without being understood by a significant part of the community by promoting the notion that admins want access to power over other users (in particular, to the block tool) and not to help the project by performing janitorial tasks.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'm well aware I'm in the minority here, but I was pleasantly surprised by how my RFA went. On the whole it wasn't a bad experience. Admittedly, I felt stressed out, but I enjoyed answering questions and felt well-prepared and ready for everything that came my way. I wouldn't choose to re-rfa here and now, but if I could tell my past self what it would be like I'd tell my past self to definitely go through the process. Cheers, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 18:02, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

  Mine went fine as well, even though I had an LTA asking questions.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:01, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

  Mine was basically hideous. In a debrief statement I used the words "horrifying" and "makes me want to vomit" and "I’ll just have to live with knowing at least one person thought that about me". And I consider myself to have a reasonably thick skin for criticism. So, yeah, even though mine was atypical for a fairly important reason, and I got over it very quickly after it ended, I do understand the reluctance. —valereee (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• I think the issue here is that there is no real alignment of what the problem is. Without alignment on what the issue is (or even if there is an issue) coming up with solutions is not going to happen - there simply won't be consensus for any given solution. To see more of what I'm talking about, I have been collecting every problem with RfA and idea I've seen (and some I've come up with) for RfA reform. But I think we see this issue playing out even in Ritchie's Lee's comments above where they take slightly different perspectives even while having some fundamental alignment compared to Eddie who has a whole different POV. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:04, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

  This, I'd agree with. There's at least two broad themes I've seen; people refusing to run because RFA is unpleasant, and people refusing to run because they have no interest in adminship. The problems are reasonably independent of one another, and though cultural problems within Wikipedia (of which there's a host, so I don't want to get into them here) impinge on both these issues, the more proximate solutions are likely to be different. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:39, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'd be tempted to run, I don't mind a bit of pressure (heck knows I've had a lot of that) but the problem is that I feel that my editing in controversial areas will be held against me and the fact I am currently handcuffed with a few TBANs would be an instant "no" in some people's eyes. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 19:00, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
• This thread must be a landmark in the history of discussions here at WT:RfA: It's certainly interesting to note, that finally after all these years, Ritchie333, people are at last agreeing that RfA is a particularly pernicious place, a notion I have strongly held for well over a decade but to which most of the rest of the community have buried their heads in the sand. The problem with RfA is NOT the process. It is the participants – User:Fetchcomms (former admin). Even Megalibrarygirl's RfA which scored the highest number of supports ever for a successful run - and only 3 opposes - turned out to be one of the most toxic on record.

Anyone who is really interested in finding out why so few users are prepared to go through RfA and/or getting more candidates to come forward, would do well to take 12 minutes to read through the talk page of that RfA and note well my comments there - which later got me into deep shit.

Those who claim their RfA was a walk in the park are very lucky, but they are in the minority - let that not colour the true facts surrounding the process that has always been the one playground where users are allowed to demonstrate their utter silliness in the user question section, and/or break all the bounds of common decency with impunity in the opposer department. Anyone who wants to have another stab at RfA reform has my blessing and moral support. I say 'moral' Barkeep49, because I no longer have any desire to be proactive on this project, but you have a wealth of research to draw on here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:58, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

You know Kudpung that I am inclined towards action and I have indeed read the work you, WSC, and others did in reforming RfA. However, I'm not too optimistic, at this point, about a way forward. I think more needs to be done still in order to reach some kind of alignment about what the problem is before we can have a fruitful process to consider what reforms might be helpful. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:14, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

What is needed, Barkeep49, is not rocket science nor does it need years more research. The glaring issues were all thorouly identified and well documented at WP:RFA2011 (which I and Scottywong with the help of a few others invested 100s of hours of our time into.) If anyone is wondering why we never got around to launching any RfC for the suggested reforms, the answer is easy: we got so pissed off by trolling by well klnown adminship detractors (most of whom finally got banned years later), that we shut the project down. Getting consensus for anything here on Wikipedia, as you know, is a weird process, and as long as the trolls who like to play silly-buggers at RfA will vote against reforms, serious reformists will continue to bang their heads against the wall. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Let me repeat what I've said a few times before, although nobody ever seems to listen. IMO, the "problems" at RfA have little to do with the RfA process itself. The real problems are: 1) The diminishing supply of new regular WP editors, and 2) the constantly and essentially exponentially growing complexity of WP as a project. Issue 1) presents a significant problem since it constrains the supply of editors who become viable admin candidates. The only way to seriously address this problem is through some kind of genuinely innovative outreach efforts by WMF. Issue 2) is a problem since it creates a perception (I think largely a correct one) among the possible admin candidates that they need to possess ever greater knowledge, technical proficiency and experience in order to qualify. In the long run issue 2) will dominate issue 1), and perhaps we are already there. It is probably infeasible to expect that Wikipedia will ever again experience the influx of new editors (who come and actually stick around) similar to what it saw during the period of 2002-2006. The only realistic way to address 2) is through significant unbundling of admin tools, via creation of various additional user rights. Other than that, tinkering with the RfA format and various other RfA reform attempts will produce marginal results, at the most. Nsk92 (talk) 13:14, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the point I was trying to make upthread was somewhat missed, which is how RfA is perceived by other people working on Wikimedia projects. I know how I feel about it (the bar is about right, most RfA seem better in hindsight, changing stuff isn't really beneficial), but was trying to get views from "outside the box" (if you'll pardon the jargon). I also think the project would probably benefit from having a few more editors like Megalibrarygirl as admins, who are not the usual "collect 100 AIV reports and become an admin" type of candidates. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

You're right that RfA is not really the problem. One issue is that being an admin is seen by some as some sort of badge to be collected, leading to some sort of higher status, when in reality it's just a different role. I agree with you that more unbundling is a partial solution. We don't actually want good content creators to turn into full-time admins. What's most important about an admin is their attitude, whether they're experts in the tools is much less important. And probably, like the old adage, the ones that are most keen to become admins are almost certainly the least suitable. Also I disagree that the project is getting more complex, it seems much the same from where I sit. Nigej (talk) 14:26, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I know that people complain about the climate at the RfA, but, IMO, in reality, something else is going on. The rapidly decreasing entropy of Wikipedia as a project is the issue. Most regular WP editors don't spend much, if any time at RfA and don't really know what's going on there. But they do see how complicated Wikipedia has become and they assume, not unreasonably so, that in order to be an admin one needs to have a pretty good knowlege and understanding of this giant maze. The prospect must seem daunting and the job itself likely seems more and more unattractive. If some limited admin user rights were offered (such as some version of a "vandal blocker"), I am sure we would get a lot more takers. Nsk92 (talk) 15:08, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I think I'd consider myself a "regular WP editor" as described and I second this. Something that seems to come up regularly in RfAs is that candidates only have experience in certain areas of admin work and this is often given as a reason to oppose their candidacy. Robby.is.on (talk) 15:15, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Nsk92, A lot of stuff has been unbundled already (such as page mover, template editor, allowing non-admin AfD closures) that there really isn't much left. A "vandal blocker" role would cause serious problems the minute they make a mistake and can't explain themselves out of a situation. That's why I think trustworthiness in that tool has to sit with people who can convince everybody they are able to communicate to a high enough standard, which requires an RfA. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:41, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Here's the radical reality.... It doesn't matter if you fix RfA or not, even if you could figure out how to fix it. WP:RBM clearly shows that the decline in adminship is an extremely long term trend. We are 13+ years past peak. Any reforms that are made are going to be incremental at best in increasing the number of successful RfAs.

What has to happen is that there needs to be a long term vision of where the project is going to be in 20 years. We're at 20 years now; what does the next 20 look like and how do we get there? Part of that vision is the reality that if the current trend of declining adminship continues, in 20 years we will have 216 administrators of whom 101 will be relatively active. If the pattern of the last 9 years holds (I excluded 2011 in this data as it skews the results towards more dramatic decline)), in 20 years it is possible we will go an entire year without a successful RfA. In short, we WILL run out of administrators.

The WMF hasn't provided a vision for the next 20 years, and they won't as the WMF is wildly incompetent. The WMF painfully missed a golden opportunity to use the 20 years anniversary to roll out its vision for the next 20. But, the WMF doesn't have such a vision. It won't come from the WMF. Maher's resigned, and her position wasn't a real CEO position anyway. Her replacement won't be in any better position to change things either. The issues with the WMF are systemic and will require somebody with considerable power and influence to change. Such a position or person does not exist at the WMF now, nor will it likely exist in the foreseeable future. Barring a dramatic turn around, it is up to us here on this project to save the project. And yes, I do mean save the project.

So put on your thinking caps, and start looking at the more abstract situation rather than the symptom of RfA. That's a project people need to get behind; what is our vision for en.wikipedia 20 years from now? How do we build to that? What assets do we have now? What assets will we not have in 20 years? What assets can we reasonably hope to acquire in 20 years? What threats do we have now? What threats will we have in 20 years? Think of SWOT analysis as a place to mentally start with this. Stop worrying about RfA; it's just a symptom. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:46, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@Hammersoft: Have you missed the community-led Wikimedia 2030 recommendations? I'll grant that it's looking at the next nine years, not twenty, but it's pretty disingenuous to say that no forward-looking vision exists. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:06, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'm aware of it. The WMF did miss a golden opportunity. Their 'vision' isn't going to be a vision at all, and what is there is dramatically lacking. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:07, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Maher's resigned, and her position wasn't a real CEO position anyway, be careful what you say Hammersoft, making comments like that was partially the reason for my desysoping. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see you agreeing with me for once ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:31, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

One of the problems is that Admins are still seen, by some, as some sort of superior beings, directing the plebs below (ie ordinary editors). We need to be more like a club, where everyone is treated equally and fairly, with members electing committees (eg admins) to do certain roles, they being held responsible to the membership as a whole. Thankfully post-Framgate my impression is that there's less hectoring and bullying from admins (and would-be admins) but we need to go further in that direction too. Nigej (talk) 16:04, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I think, on one hand, this analysis by Hammersoft is spot on. Indeed, we clearly lack a long-term vision as a project, and this is in particular one of the reason why all innovations get blanket rejected if put on vote. On the other hand, my experience with the 2030 strategy exercise (when the projects were essentially disregarded at the first stage, and then on the second, implementation stage I was included to the committee because they wanted to have more connections with the projects) showed that there is very little interest in discussions which do not have any immediate consequences - despite all the efforts, very few users got engaged in the discussions, and most of these have been already associated with affiliates or knew each other via meetups or Wikimanias. I do not expect this possible SWOT / strategy discussion to come out any different — there will be very low engagement, and even if someone takes time to push it through and write down some result, there will be no interest to this result, not in the community, nor from the WMF which would consider it a personal pet project.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:03, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Honestly I think maybe some official clerk needs to be appointed for each RfA to just remove any question that seriously no reasonable person would factor into their vote. The nominators can't clerk without getting people's backs up. And clearly the candidate can't just ignore the sillier questions, as multiple people will defend apparently any question just on principle. I collected some questionable questions last year. Some of it was just silliness. —valereee (talk) 16:49, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Thet's one of three changes I've seen suggested that wouldn't require an RfC to do, just the desire among editors to do it. But as I've said during the recent discussions about more assertive ArbCom clerking, more assertive clerking in general is easier to desire (especially when it's someone else doing it) and harder to implement. "Do I want to handle the pushback that will come from doing this?" is a question I think people ask themselves either explicitly or implicitly and, on a volunteer project like ours, the answer frequently will be no. So I certainly support this but want to recognize the somewhat hidden complexities of actually doing it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:55, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

You've obviously given a lot of thought recently to what's wrong with RfA and what can be done about it, Barkeep49. I realise you don't necessarily support all the items on your list - and that's also the way I worked in 2011 and the way Biblioworm prepared for his December 2015 reforms - indeed I did a double-take when reading your list because I thought I had inadvertently landed on one of his pages!

Clerking was one of the major points of both RFA2011 and Biblioworm's reforms, but sadly the suggestions to ramp up the removal of inappropriate questions, votes, and behaviour received the least support from the community which leads me again, anecdotally, to assume the community does not want their playground to be governed by the 5 Pillars or Hammersoft's user page (which BTW ought to be an essay). There are two other points on your list that are very appropriate and worth starting a RfC for, but perhaps the lack of support for many of Biblioworm's reforms was because he brought so many to the table in one go rather than space them out. Perhaps he just didn't have a lot of time - he retired immediately his successful reform ideas were rolled out. Over the years, my former (unwitting) mentor, WereSpielChequers drummed into me: 'Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey'. He was right, it took 6 long years to get ACTRIAL .Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:12, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd totally be willing to offer 'won't !vote this time, I'll clerk," but of course one of the problems is always that someone not-experienced-enough will appoint themselves first. Which then gets into the bureaucratic issues of becoming an official RfA clerk... —valereee (talk) 19:43, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Put it on the crats. They don't have much else to do since SUL and monitoring RFA is certainly in their wheelhouse given their existing responsibilities for crat chats and bit flipping. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Precisely, Wugapodes - in recent years there have been several suggestions of new tasks for the Bureaucrats in order to give them something to do. The general consensus has been that they would not accept tasks they did not sign up for. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

This is a classic case of where the process has distorted the reality. The bureaucrat bit gives one the ability to confer rights. As every bureaucrat will tell you, that isn't much work, and therefore there is no shortage of bureaucrats because the workload as such is so small. Strictly speaking, a bureaucrat doesn't have to be an admin, but it makes little sense to give the right to confer the admin bit to a non-admin. But the only obligation they have is to write articles. it is our process that sets a high bar for bureaucratship, which creates a false impression of an elite corps. A simple reform would be to change the threshold to match that of admins. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

If existing crats don't want to do it they don't have to, but imo expanding their mandate shouldn't be conditioned on them accepting it. We hand out tools all the time that people never use them or never ask (cough auto/extended confirmed cough). Like Hawkeye is getting at, it's really weird that crats are the only group that functionally has veto power over the community expanding their role. Some crats already clerk RFAs (I believe I've seen Primefac and Amanda stepping up in that role over the last few months, but there are no doubt others). Even if it's only a handful who are willing to do it, giving them guidelines and a mandate is a net positive considering the flak they sometimes get for making judgment calls. In the absolute worst case, we can just elect editors like Valereee who do want to perform the additional clerical roles to cratship with the added benefit of revitalizing that moribund permission. Quite honestly, if we can't find something meaningful for crats to do, we should abolish the group and just have stewards flip bits for us like they do on other projects. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:29, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

The decline has bottomed out

Over a decade ago I started compiling Wikipedia:RFA by month, partly to try and prove to everyone that RFA was in a drought. It took a while, there were some who thought it was some sort of seasonal glitch that had just got worse than usual. But the number of successful RFAs continued to fall by between a third and a half every year and eventually everyone accepted that there was a drought and that RFA had problems. We had 408 succesful RFAs in 2007 and 28 in 2012 that was an era of precipitous decline only partly accounted for by the unbundling of rollback in 2008. In 2014 we had 22 successful RFAs, in 2019 we also had 22. Last year we had 17, not a sustainable number but more than in either 2018 or 2016. The 2014-2020 era of RFA is not one of continual decline, more of a fairly steady trickle. Given that the community peaked in size in 2007, declined until the end of 2014, but subsequently rallied and through 2015 to 2020 has been consistently larger than in 2014, I think that the trickle at RFA is sustainable as long as the editing community continues to be stable or slowly growing.

I think it unhealthy for the community that most of our admins are from a much earlier Wikigeneration than much of the currently editing community, and I would like to see more candidates emerging, especially from among those who joined the community in the 2013-2019 era (we still only have 7 admins who first edited in 2013, and two of them are bots). Given that many admins stay active for very long periods of time, and most of our current admins have been admins for over a decade, we are not far from a stable situation in the admin cadre, without change there will be fewer admins in another decade, but numbers of admins have not dropped as sharply as we expected they would when we saw the number of new admins collapse from over 400 a year to a low of 10.

I had thought that RFA was now a much safer space than its reputation, and indeed its past. But what seems a safe space to me, may not be a safe space for others. So I'm curious to learn what the behaviours are that others consider problematic, I know that one recent RFA participant found the sheer number of questions excessive, even if it was difficult to point out any one question as hostile. ϢereSpielChequers 08:43, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Q6 in the current RfA has got nothing to do with adminship per se. IMO it's yet another classic example of 'I'm new here; oh, there's an election going on and oh, we can ask questions! I'll think of a question to ask.' Or is it perfectly normal for one of a new user's first edits to be a vote at RfA? It certainly caused quite a flutter in the comments section. Time to take a serious look at Barkeep49's list... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:00, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Or is it perfectly normal for one of a new user's first edits to be a vote at RfA Yes; there's a watchlist notice where we invite them to contributem, so it's not a stretch to imagine new editors would take us up on the offer. We should welcome new contributors to learn about project governance in the hopes that they help steward it in the future. Biting newcomers interested in RFA is a sure-fire way to ensure they find the place unwelcoming and never want to run. To WereSpielChequer's OP, I appreciate the contrary perspective and agree that we have made serious progress even just in the few years I've been around. Taking up Barkeep's proposals and recognizing what we've been doing well are not mutually exclusive. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:32, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Question for the dataminers: How big is the pool, really?

The 10000th most active editor currently has 9395 edits, which (ignoring the exceptional Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GoldenRing) is round about where edit count starts to be considered as sufficient. How many of the top 10000 editors meet the following criteria:

1. Not currently an admin
2. Not previously an admin removed for cause
3. Not blocked currently or within the last 2 years
4. Made at least 100 edits per month in at least 6 of the last 7 months
5. Made at least 12 edits in the last 7 months in the WP space

That should give a significant overcount of the potential admin pool (and what's the count when each of the numbers used are more realistically doubled or tripled?). And that's before you remove those with perceived or real non-blocked behavioural or attitudinal or editing issues, those with AFD and CSD quality problems, those with perceived insufficient mainspace work, etc, much less those for whom disinclination to run (again) is factor. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 10:19, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Generally, I look for admins to have double that edit count! Anything over 20,000 is fine, but there is always exceptions if they are a great candidate. That would mean you'd actually have to be in the top 5,000. Looking at that list, there's plenty who aren't admins, but it would take some work to see who is active, who meets those above criteria. The question would then be - do these users want to run. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:05, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Hopefully most don't want to be admins. There's a strange idea in some of the posts here, that we should be encouraging good content producers to become admins. To me, that's like asking Albert Einstein to deliver the post. We need many more people editing Wikipedia, and hopefully some of those, with the aptitude for it, will become admins. Nigej (talk) 14:18, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Nigej, But generally editors can't become admins until they've got a bit of content experience under their belt. Look at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji, who had a genuine need for the tools in a specific area that is frequently backlogged and starved of admins, but had a heck of a lot of opposition over "content creation". Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:42, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

This where the system needs a shake-up. I spent my whole career in science thinking that the "admin department" was somewhere I didn't want to be. They do important roles, looking after the money, contracts, etc. but not my cup of tea. Somehow in Wikipedia the admin role has become seen (by the admins and would-be admins) as somehow superior to what is the really important role - creating content. Nigej (talk) 15:05, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

For all some people dislike the topicons, I've always personally found a long line of FA icons far more admirable than being in the sysop user group. Perhaps it's because I have no idea how people repeatedly push out prose at that quality level, and go through the (tough-looking!) peer review process that is WP:FAC. Even more-so when it's a large topic matter; seems impressive meeting the comprehensive criteria. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:26, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

(EC) 9,395 is way too high a threshold. People have passed on much lower edit counts, I think 3,500 is about the lower limit of someone being likely to pass nowadays - though in that case they'd need to be mainly manual edits. I'm less sure about the block log, we used to advise people to wait 12 months, but it depends on the reason, the explanation and the rest of the block log. That one's really worth discussing with an experienced nominator. More to the point, we know there are lots of people out there who could pass, the difficulty is in getting them to stand. ϢereSpielChequers 16:08, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if 9395 is too high, but I am sure Lee's suggestion of 20,000 is. I think it does us no good if our editors who are actively trying to find new candidates are too exclusive in their screening. We don't want candidates to fail, but I think it does us no good to have candidates wait who don't have to. We have enough issue in getting people who could run and pass to do so, that we need to think very carefully about how we can nurture those who are willing but might need some guidance to be ready. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:42, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Barkeep49, I can't remember an RfA failing because of edit counts, unless it's accompanied by a truckload of other issues that make it a moot point. Sure, I can remember the odd oppose over them, but they tend to get short shrift. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:52, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm happy to actually run a query / some datamining based on whatever parameters people come up with, for what it's worth. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 17:42, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

A place to start might be the fairly the fairly comprehensive list of voters' criteria. It's interesting to note that my own criteria, often lampooned as a 'laundry list', is one of the most tolerant sets of conditions out there; it's just the detail that frightens anyone who doesn't have the patience to read it properly. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:03, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Edits to tables?

Two proposals.

1. Right now the headers for the table aren't explained anywhere. Also I have no clue what a "dup" is.

Current:

RfA candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report

TJMSmith 118 1 2 99 13:53, 22 February 2021 4 days, 1 hour no report

RfB candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report

Proposed:

RfA candidate Support Oppose Neutral % Support Deadline (UTC) Time left [whatever "dups" is] Report

TJMSmith 118 1 2 99 13:53, 22 February 2021 4 days, 1 hour no report

RfB candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report

[blank row]

Or, if space is an issue, put a note underneath:

• S = support, N =neutral, etc.

2. There's a table that says "Recently closed RfXs"; can this be changed to "Recently closed RfAs and RfBs" to make it less confusing?

Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 12:51, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

"dup" means "duplicate" ie: one more editor has voted twice or more in that RfA. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:54, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I think clarifying RfX as suggested makes sense to make it a bit less "insidery". Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:14, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Barkeep49, I thought about that, too, but is RfX any more insidery than RfA and especially RfB? Anyone who knows what RfB is probably has no problem interpreting RfX? That is, we could rehead the table to "Recently closed RfXs (RfAs and RfBs)" which would help newer editors understand our lingo, but why would we expect anyone who didn't understand RfX to understand RfB? So is it really helpful except to someone in that minute space between understanding RfB and not yet understanding RfX? —valereee (talk) 19:13, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Valereee for me the answer would be because RfA and RfB are defined on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship and RfX is not. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:30, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Is now. :D —valereee (talk) 19:54, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I suggest just titling the table "Recently closed requests" as there's no need to introduce unnecessary jargon. I know some people think jargon is something that forms a common culture for a community. I just like it to also provide greater concision in communication, so it has a purpose beyond being a shibboleth. (In isolation I'd also propose replacing RfA and RfB in the table with something like "Admin" and "Bureaucrat", but I imagine anyone reading this page or choosing to transclude the table elsewhere will have learned the terms, plus I assume some people won't want the table to grow wider.) A legend for the current status table would be nice to have (I never thought much about the "Dups?" column so not sure I knew what it was), though some of the transcluders might complain (it could be displayed only when an appropriate parameter is displayed, I suppose). However I imagine most people can infer what the other headings mean. isaacl (talk) 20:23, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The bot operator for the bot that performs the task of keeping that table up to date has no time for even the most trivial of changes (one such has been requested some 3-5 times on his talk page over the past year and a half). Good luck team getting it changed. --Izno (talk) 06:13, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

What, CyberbotII? ——Serial 10:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Cyberpower678 has always been responsive to change such things in the past - I find it hard to believe he'd not have time for a trivial change simply due to time. Worm^TT(talk) 12:33, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for saying what I didn't want to, WTT; that's what I thought. Cyberpower is always helpful, and, well—if they're not responsive there's probably a good reason for it. Izno, were you by any chance thinking of the Citationbot, perhaps? (Which, IIRC, at some point at least had a notice on its talk telling would-be reporters that the owner would only talk to them on Github!) ——Serial 12:42, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

No, decidedly not. In this very task too, as it happens. --Izno (talk) 17:15, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

And in fact contrary to Anom's count of "3", the issue has been reported several times in the past few years. It amounts to a 2 or 3 line change and the addition of 2 character per line. --Izno (talk) 17:24, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Worm That Turned, you rang? —CYBERPOWER (Around) 12:53, 19 February 2021 (UTC)