User:Timmccloud/RfA review Recommend Phase

Welcome to the Recommendation phase of RfA Review. In this phase, you will be asked to offer suggestions and proposals to address specific concerns and problems with the current Requests for Adminship process.

The questions below are taken directly from the 209 responses from the Question phase, each of which offered editors' thoughts and concerns about RfA. Based on those concerns, we identified the most frequently mentioned problems and included them here. These are the elements of RfA that are currently under review.

Please take your time and read through the concerns below. For each item, you are invited to offer a proposal that addresses the concern. Where possible, you are encouraged to provide examples, references, diffs and so on in order to support your viewpoint. There isn't a limit on the scope of your proposals; the sky is the limit, here. The intent of this phase is to get ideas, not necessarily to write policy - recommendations that gain traction and community support will be refined during later phases.

Most importantly, Answer as few or as many questions as you wish. All responses are evaluated, so any information you provide is helpful.

If you prefer, you can submit your responses anonymously by emailing them to User:Ultraexactzz. Anonymous responses will be posted as subpages with the contributor's details removed. If you have any questions, please use the project talk page at Wikipedia talk:RfA Review.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. We stress that editors who didn't participate in the question phase are encouraged to participate now - more responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results.

Once again, thank you for taking part!

Questions

Selection and Nomination

A1. Editors note that the RfA process can be daunting to prospective administrators, and that the process itself may discourage otherwise qualified candidates from seeking adminship. How can this "Selection Bias" be countered?

• Response: Simplification and streamlining.

A2. Editors expressed concern over unprepared or unqualified candidates at RfA, noting that their candidacies result in NOTNOW and SNOW closures that can be discouraging. In lieu of minimum requirements for adminship, how can prospective candidates be educated about RfA and the community's expectations of its administrators?

• Response: Simply stating what is required of administrators, and some form of updated graphic display that shows metrics the number of RfA's approved on the first application, how many on the second, etc to set the expectations.

A3. 44 editors expressed concern over excessive co-nominations. Some of these editors advocated a limit on co-nominations, perhaps capping them at one or two per candidate; others recommended asking prospective co-nominators to post a Strong Support in lieu of an actual nomination statement. How can the concern over Co-nominations be addressed?

• Response: A limit of two is fine; Strong support can be counted better on a weighted scale. Having a numeric metric which represents a very specific scale from "strong support - strong opposition" and specific voting responses would eliminate a lot of bias and subjectivity for a more objective scale.

The RfA Debate (Questions, Election, Canvassing)

B1. 60 editors expressed concern over the number of questions asked of candidates, and indicated that questions should be limited in number. How can this be accomplished? What limits could be fairly imposed? Are there alternative means for the candidate to provide information about themselves without the prompting of questions?

• Response: A specific set of generic questions should be prepared, and every candidate should respond to those first. One or two "essay" type questions are not out of the question either - after all we are "editors", we should have a decent ability to express ourselves in the language in question. Once that is done, there should be a forum to select a dozen or so "follow-up" questions - with a moderator selecting a the final dozen proposed to the candidate. 48 hours to answer the questions, followed by a vote.

B2. Editors expressed concern over the content of questions, with 43 editors disapproving of "Trick questions", 8 disapproving of questions that require only a quotation from policy to answer, and 54 favoring questions that relate directly to the candidate and their experiences, contributions, conflicts, etc. How should the scope of possible questions be determined? Conversely, how would the decision to remove bad-faith or problematic questions be made, and by whom? What subjects should be specifically off-limits, and why?

• Response: As suggested above, having a forum to pick the follow-up questions would allow for the majority to get their questions answered, dirty trick questions would be eliminated in the transparency of the forum, and consensus questions would be proposed.

B3. Editors note that RfA is seen as a negative process, with issues such as badgering of opposes, personal attacks, and a general lack of civility being prominent concerns. How can the RfA process be changed to address these concerns?

• Response: Without rules, anything can become subjective. Clearly laid ground rules before the RFA begins will allow this to be dealt with appropriately. Also, it wouldn't hurt to elect/appoint a moderator from the existing admins at the very start of the process to shepherd it along and keep it a positive experience.

B4. The very nature of the RfA process was disputed. Some editors desire rationales with every vote, and favor a more discussion and consensus-based process similar to other processes on the English wikipedia. Other editors desire a more vote-based election, where the raw numbers of supports and opposes are the critical factor. Is there one of these methods that would provide a clearer consensus on the community's view of a candidate? Or, alternatively, is a hybrid of the two preferable, and how should that be structured?

• Response: Simple. Devise a specific voting scale that everyone can use - from +5 for a strong support, to 0 for neutral, to -5 for a strong oppose - one vote, one person. Anyone who ends up in positive numbers at the end of the voting, wins. That way people need discussion based decision making can use the "strong" to "weak" scales to make their preferences, and it still ends up a very objective vote counting exercise.

B5. The amount of discretion held by Bureaucrats to remove or discount problem votes was also discussed, with some editors favoring increased discretion for Bureaucrats. 25 editors also favored a detailed closing rationale from Bureaucrats, detailing the specific factors that resulted in the candidate being successful (or not successful). What changes to the RfA process or format could clarify community consensus on this issue? Should Bureaucrats take a more active role in managing (or clerking) ongoing RfAs?

• Response: There should absolutely be a moderator/monitor in place at the beginning of the process. Definitely they should be neutral, and have not interacted with the candidate. After that, it's their call as ref. Also, they should be scored at the end of the process by the involved parties, so that good moderators remain, bad ones aren't involved in the future. And there should absolutely be a rationale at the end - how could a candidate who loses the proposition learn to be better without feedback?

B6. 68 editors noted that a limited form of Canvassing or advertising would be acceptable, if such canvassing was done on-site and in a neutral fashion. How could a candidate advertise the fact that he or she is a candidate for adminship, while being completely neutral in the audience to which he or she advertises?

• Response: I have problems with the prohibition against canvassing in general. I don't feel that it's inherently wrong, nor can I EVER believe that it's really neutral - there is no such thing. Without some form of advertising, the RfA's develop their own "trolls" which could skew the process. How about this? Somehow programmatically announce to everyone that has had interaction with the candidate in the last 6 months - anyone who edited a page they edited in the last 6 months gets a message that a RfA is going on for that person. Give people an "opt in/opt out" option, just like with the surveys.

Training and Education

C1. Though 73 editors responded favorably to the Admin Coaching programme, 39 were critical of the process for "Teaching for the test", or for being an RfA preparation programme rather than an Adminship preparation programme. In what ways could Admin Coaching be improved to focus more on adminship itself?

• Response: Back to my suggestion of a forum for the follow up questions - have consensus pick a dozen or so questions to follow up on the "generic" questions. You can teach the standard questions, but the followups will almost always be unique to the candidate, and you can't teach for that. If a followup question becomes common, then it gets added to the "standard applicataion" questions.

C2. In evaluating New Admin School, some editors noted that a Mentorship element would be of great benefit to newly minted administrators - something that Admin Coaching provides in a direct one-on-one coach-coachee team. Similarly, 15 editors characterized Admin Coaching, a primarily pre-adminship process, as being invaluable after the RfA, which is traditionally when New Admin School is used for training. Are there areas where the two processes overlap, and can be made more complementary? Are there common themes or elements that could be shared between the two processes, in order to improve the effectiveness of both?

• Response: dunno. Not an admin, no comment for this one.

Adminship (Removal of)

D1. Editors noted that the current voluntary Admins open to Recall process is redundant to Dispute Resolution process such as Requests for Comment and Arbitration. In the absence of Recall (i.e. if it were removed altogether), how could existing processes be adapted to more effectively deal with issues of administrator abuse?

• Response: pass.

D2. Editors cited the voluntary nature of the Admins open to Recall process as problematic, and 40 went as far as to recommend a mandatory process for all administrators, either as a mandatory form of Admins open to Recall, or a more formal version of the process administered by Bureaucrats. As a separate process from WP:DR, how could the current recall process be standardized for use as a mandatory process? Who would be responsible for such a process?

• Response: pass.

D3. 44 editors criticized the recall process for being too open to abuse, both through spurious or bad-faith calls for an admin to be recalled, or through administrators who fail to follow through on a commitment to stand for recall. How can the recall process be amended to address these concerns?

• Response: pass

D4. Some editors recommended that administrators be required to stand for some form of reconfirmation after a given period of time. How would such reconfirmation be structured? How long would an admin have before such reconfirmation would be required? Could such reconfirmation be triggered by an effort to recall an admin, and how would that be handled? What form would such reconfirmation take (RfA, Straw Poll, etc)?

• Response: I see no reason that after a 6 month probation period, an admin should expect to repeat the whole process over again (once it's simplified) After 6 months, editors and other admins would have an idea how that person used the power they were presented with, and certainly the new admin would have the opportunity to better answer the questions given. After the second RfA, an admin should then be considered "tenured".

Overall Process

E1. The earliest version of the RfA policy states that adminship is granted to "anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community." Current policy leaves the definition of a "trusted editor" to the community. Editors offered a wide range of basic characteristics desirable of administrators, including Trustworthiness, competence, and communication skills. How could the RfA process be amended to either A) more fully ensure that editors selected as admins do indeed have the full trust of the community, or B) more fully fit the community's expectations for administrators?

• Response: You will never get this unless the whole community is made aware of the process - though some type of automated notification system that x is up for adminship. As far as B) is concerned, I'll pass.

E2. Editors expressed concern over the format of the Requests for Adminship process. Some suggested that RfA has become a form of high-impact editor review, while others expressed concern over the view of Adminship itself as a goal or "trophy" that all editors should attain after a certain period of time. In taking the RfA process as a whole, what elements work well? What elements should be removed or amended?

• Response: It should not be a "trophy", if you are interested in it you should be considered, if not, just go on your merry way as an editor. It's always going to be a editor review - actions speak louder than (in?) words? LOL.

Once you're finished...

Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process.

Your responses will be added to Category:Wikipedian Recommendations to RfA Review, which will be used to review the responses after this phase is concluded.

Footnote

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 18:27 on 23 September 2008.