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Op-ed

AdminCom: A proposal for changing the way we select admins

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By Looie496
Looie496 is a neuroscientist specializing in learning and memory. He has been an English Wikipedia editor since 2008, where he writes articles about the nervous system and maintains WikiProject Neuroscience.
The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds at our opinion desk.

There is wide agreement among English Wikipedians that the administrator system is in some ways broken—but no consensus on how to fix it. Most suggestions have been relatively small in scope, and could at best produce small improvements. I would like to make a proposal to fundamentally restructure the administrator system, in a way that I believe would make it more effective and responsive. The proposal is to create an elected Administration Committee ("AdminCom") which would select, oversee, and deselect administrators.

What's wrong with the system we have now?

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Reforming RfA


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As I see it, there are two fundamental problems with the current system. The first is that it makes each admin into a sort of Lone Ranger. Each admin independently decides what to work on and how to handle it. Good admins seek advice and consent from the community, but nothing forces them to. Admins are selected using a chaotic process, and can only be removed for egregiously bad behavior—but even then the removal process is very arduous. There is no coordination or effective oversight. On television, the Lone Ranger is a hero; in real life, where people do not always share a common understanding of right and wrong, lone-rangering is an endless source of trouble.

The second problem is that the current system forces each admin to be a politician. The requests for adminship process (RfA), regardless of any propaganda to the contrary, is an election, and it is impossible to win an election without behaving like a politician. Furthermore, winning an election serves as a validation of the views that the candidate expresses, and therefore adminship, like political office, becomes a power base and a status symbol, rather than merely a way of serving the community. What we want are admins who behave like civil servants, such as a dogcatcher or police officer; what we get are admins who behave like politicians. We talk about our admins being merely editors with some extra buttons, but that is not what the RfA process gives us.

These problems amplify each other. Because bad admins are so difficult to remove, the community has become very strict in its examination of RfAs—but the more difficult it is to succeed with an RfA, the more candidates are forced to behave like politicians, carefully avoiding any action that might offend a significant group of voters and carefully hiding any views that might be controversial. And the more difficult it is to succeed with an RfA, the more status comes from success, making adminship a goal in its own right.

How can we fix it?

What we need is a system that accomplishes three goals: (1) the community is in charge; (2) adminship is easy to give and easy to take away; (3) admins do not need to be politicians.

Having an AdminCom would accomplish all of these goals. The community would ultimately be in charge, because the community would elect the members of AdminCom. We would simply replace direct democracy with a representative democracy. Handing out the buttons and taking them away would be as easy as AdminCom decides to make it. Admins would be directly answerable to AdminCom rather than to the editing public at large, and so would get clearer guidance than they currently do.

The primary power of AdminCom would be to give and remove adminship. Other powers, such as overseeing and advising admins, would naturally follow from this. I do not believe it would be a good idea to formalize internal procedures for AdminCom: the members should be able to decide for themselves how to make things work. Naturally they would express their beliefs about proper procedure when they run for office, and the Wikipedia community could make its choices accordingly.

Objections and answers to them

If having admins be politicians is bad, why is it good to have politicians choosing and overseeing them? The answer is that any effective organization requires politicians at the top. Consider, for example, a city government. The people who carry out primary duties are civil servants, and answer to their bosses. In order to have a responsive system, though, the bosses have to be answerable to the public. That way the very difficult task of making the public happy is left to people who are experts at it (the politicians), and is not directly imposed on people who would only be impeded by it. The advantage of an AdminCom is that it separates the political functions from the administrative functions. Doing away with the political functions entirely would only be possible in a dictatorship.

Another potential objection relates to bureaucrats: do they not already fulfill the AdminCom role? No. Bureaucrats, as they currently function, have far less decision-making power than admins. All they really do is count votes, with a strictly limited power to decide how votes should be weighted. Thus, turning our current bureaucrats into an AdminCom would give them powers and responsibilities that nobody had in mind when they were chosen.

In conclusion

I have been thinking about these issues for a long time, and this is meant as a serious proposal. Of course I am aware that many editors will react to the AdminCom idea with dismay, for a variety of reasons. What is not so clear is whether there is a substantial community who would be favorably disposed. If a large number of editors endorse the idea, it will encourage an effort to put the proposal into a specific form and then submit it to the community as a referendum.

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16 October 2012

  • Replacing direct democracy with representative democracy generates corruption. We have experienced this in the politics in all countries around the world. The nowadays social movements are asking for more direct democracy. I think it is a bad idea. emijrp (talk) 20:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose In any of this, I mean no disrespect whatsoever towards Looie496. Seems like another solution looking for a problem. There's multiple logical failures in this proposal. For example, "Because bad admins are so difficult to remove, the community has become very strict in its examination of RfA" This is not borne out by any evidence presented, nor in fact in existence. Removing the admin flag has been done by the same process (ArbCom) for many, many years. Yet, RfA standards continue to rise. The proposal suggests we should replace an election system because it causes people to be politicians. The solution to fixing that is to replace it....with another election system. Sure, this is addressed in the "Objections" section but in my opinion very inadequately. There are a multitude of problems that will erupt from this super election. Not the least of these problems is that the only people who will get voted to AdminCom will be...get ready for it...Admins. I.e., non-admin editors will have no say in the process whatsoever. The divisiveness this will induce will be extreme. Wikipedia doesn't need MORE layers of bureaucracy to fix what is wrong. It needs LESS bureaucracy. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, ish. Personally, I'd rather make decisions on the margin; we're not going to get a perfect system any time soon, so we should be happy with solutions that are less bad than the current system rather than rejecting them for being imperfect. I think the proposal is an improvement as it would remove most of the serious downsides of RfA and the culture which surrounds it. On the flipside, some people already have concerns about cliquiness, and having an AdminCom is only going to worsen those concerns. Pointing out that RfA selects politicians rather than drainage engineers is pretty insightful, but an AdminCom would have an even stronger tendency to select politicians, I fear. bobrayner (talk) 20:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's not missing. It's here: here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:33, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for providing the link to the way other Wikipedia's conduct their admn elections, Kudpung.
  • Taking the huge diverse community, I think the direct democracy system is almost broken on English Wikipedia. It might be a good idea to shift the current governance system into a representative democracy based system. This might help empowering the underrepresented community members if the new system was set in a good manner. --Ciphers (talk) 21:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is an excellent idea, and very well expressed as well. If you think about it, it's nuts to try to have direct democracy in a community as large as Wikipedia -- choices get made based on whatever tiny fraction of editors happen to show up for the discussion -- hence, almost at random. So I'd love to see this idea implemented, as a first step toward representative democracy across the whole Wikipedia. Opus33 (talk) 21:17, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Great that we're having this conversation. BTW, in case you didn't notice, September 2012 saw ZERO admins promoted in en. That's the first time that's happened since 2002, ten years ago. See: User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_by_month. That said, I'm skeptical of the AdminCom for many reasons, but agree that somehow we have to get back to the idea that it's "no big deal." I like David Gerard's idea of surveying the other top 20 wiki communities re: adminship. The German system (from what I researched a few years ago) is much more stringent: they have an admins-only email list, and discuss things in private. It very much is a cabal by design. Something that would never fly in en: but interesting to see how others have coped. And by the way, Wikipedia is not a democracy. WP:NOTDEMOCRACY -- Fuzheado | Talk 21:19, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This conversation is not new. There's one here, and one here where most possible solutions have been examined in depth. There's basically nothing wrong with the current system. The bar is about right although it is set anew for each RfA depending on who comes along to vote with their own criteria, and generally those who should pass are elected and those who are not ready for the tools generally don't. Although there may be some bad apples in the admin barrel, I consider them to be rare and concerns about available procedures for desysoping are an overreaction - too much propaganda has instilled the notion that every cop is a bad cop. There would be no guarantee that AdminCom would be any better at their job than Arbcom at theirs. The proposed system introduces more levels of hierarchy and would create more venues for polemic. In my opinion, the solution is to introduce more control over the voting such as practiced by other major Wikipedia, and to clerk the unpleasant attitudes displayed by them. It is this environment that is keeping candidates away - some people cannot resist turning not only very RfA into a dramafest, but also discussions about possible solutions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Check out the total participation in all RfAs except those that SNOW or are withdrawn by the candiate; participation has increased significantly over the years and the votes are often well over 100,in fact a 100+ 'support' pass is no longer a rarity - in fact it's quite commonplace nowadays. The results of an RfA represent the consensus of the majority who vote there - it's up to the rest of the 40,000 active editors to come along an express their opinions. They all know we have admins, and they can easily find out how they are made if they are interested. Have you checked your RfA votes recently Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm too busy to turn up at every RfA. I'd very much like the opportunity to democratically appoint someone who's clue and character I admire to vote on my behalf. I think most Wikipedians would appreciate that opportunity. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see how your block was remotely connected with RfA - or even your editing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:11, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • FYI, here's a graph of the active editors and active admins in en: that I presented at Wikimania. The number of active admins tracks pretty closely with the slow decline in the editing community. -- Fuzheado | Talk 22:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I hate to say this but at this point its a waste of time to even entertain the possibility of Change. No one will be open to it, no one will participate in it, and no one will support it. We have our system, and for better or worse its the only one Wikipedians will ever accept. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Potentially interesting idea. I would adapt it in two crucial ways: (i) AdminCom must have a majority of members who are not current admins (ii) AdminCom deliberation as a supplement to RFA/De-RFA, not a complete replacement. The case for (i) should be obvious. The case for (ii) is that trying to displace existing systems completely is much less likely to happen, and doesn't recognise what works about the current system. So: simply make RFA/De-RFA processes contingent on AdminCom first approving the candidates, but leave the ultimate decision up to the community as it is now (a new de-RFA process can be a mirror image of RFA if there is proper gatekeeping). Doing it this way would be much less of a shock, and more likely to be acceptable, and would give a base for improving the new system, instead of no change happening at all. Rd232 talk 23:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See #I disagree. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:32, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • We keep hearing about admin shortages - but where are the backlogs to prove it - I see only 1-2 days backlog in some categories. True, I do think it's getting a little harder to pass an RfA, but if one fails, then there if often good suggestions to the applicant on when to re-apply and what areas to concentrate on. The case for de-sysop has been brought up before - the problem is that some admins (probably the more busy ones) are likely to upset some editors (even though the admin's actions are fine), so then we'll have an election with a set of editors with an axe to grind - it's never going to be fair. I don't see many admins who need de-sysopping, if there was, then why is there not a backlog of de-sysop requests at ArbCom? AdminCom is going to introduce a new level of burocracy, probably staffed by a load of admins. I'll say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"  Ronhjones  (Talk) 23:42, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

* I suggested something similar last year: Rolling administrator elections --Surturz (talk) 23:47, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

17 October 2012

  • Question One of the objections to RfA (and expressed in the essay) is that the process is unduly political. As stated, a successful candidate needs to be able to woo (or at least not alienate) various blocs of !voters and ideologies. How would the creation of the AdminCom alleviate that? To be frank, it seems like a recipe for entrenching it solidly into the process. Matt Deres (talk) 01:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I tried to answer that. The idea is that even though the few members of AdminCom would still have to deal with politics, they would be able to shield the large mass of admins from it to at least some degree. Looie496 (talk) 03:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, I should have been more explicit. My question is, what would stop the AdminCom from being composed of the very same groups/blocs that already makes RfA such a nightmare? They obviously have a great interest in who becomes an Admin and they would very likely comprise a large percentage of the people who would run for AdminCom (on the "ticket", as it were, of being extremely well versed in the Admin processes). Then, instead of a hundred people all weighing in, potential admins would only face the very worst of those hundred. Matt Deres (talk) 10:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, if the community wanted to elect single-issue politicians, then it certainly could. But such candidates have generally failed quite miserably in recent ArbCom elections, so I believe them unlikely to succeed here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To all the people asking "where are the backlogs"--there are backlogs, bad backlogs, all of the time. As an admin, I check {{Admin dashboard}} regularly. There are always a large number of backlogs. But even if we look at only the time-sensitive ones, there are still major backlogs. With a functional administrative staff, AIV reports would be acted on in under 15 minutes. Every minute that goes by with an active vandals is sucking away that time from editors constantly reverting that person. Requests for page protection should be cleared in an hour or two, but they often linger for half a day or more. During that time, edit warring, BLP violations, and vandalism can persist. Some speedy deletions, like A7, don't have to be acted on immediately, but copyright violations and attack pages should be taken care of instantly, and promotional and hoax pages should be taken care of very quickly. AfDs shouldn't drag on forever, even when they're difficult to close. This doesn't even begin to touch on all of those admin-only activities that most admins like me never touch, like file issues or editing templates, because we simply don't know enough to do so. Many of us admins want to do other stuff on Wikipedia than cover the admin-critical areas, but I've certainly been drawn into long work on RFPP or other backlogs simply because no one else was doing it. The number of editors has declined, but the amount of vandalism, promotionalism, and POV pushing has not. We should be having a dozen successful RfAs every month for quite a while just to get up to a reasonable level. Alternatively, we should partially unbundle the tools, but for political reasons that will never happen. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but I don't see the backlogs. Anyway, I agree with adding more "admins" (I will explain the quotes a bit further) to the team. Instead of creating a new level above adminship (AdminCom), I would create a new level below adminship (semi-admins). Semi-admins could delete pages created in the last 7 days (for example), block anons and new accounts in the last 7 days and semi-protect pages (or other low-range desired actions by community). The 7 days range (or a bit higher) excludes the possibility to delete United States or to block User:Jimmy Wales which are surely more controversial decisions (proper for full admins) but it includes most of the CSD and new accounts created for vandalism. Every person who ask for semi-admin flag, is granted if he has over X edits and Y days in the project (in a similar way rollbacker is granted). If a semi-admin uses his flag for vandalism, he gets it removed and blocked or whatever. And in the same way, good semi-admins are promoted "automatically" to full admins. I think that this new flag can be "easily" developed in MediaWiki. Regards. emijrp (talk) 08:40, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are you looking for the backlogs? Category:Administrative backlog lists fifteen backlogged processes right now. There are 22 unblock issues waiting right now; ten is considered a backlog. There are more than two dozen RFPs open. Copyright problems is two months behind. SPI's so far behind that it's complicating AN. If you "don't see the backlogs", then I suggest you've got your eyes closed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments I can not understand "How can we fix it?" section. Some points of "What's wrong with the system we have now?" have been repeated here (like "admins don't need to be politician" etc). Discussing "Currently admins need to be politicians"– this is not entirely true but good point. We can say "Admins with excellent mass connect have better chances to become with less edits and experience" (for example candidate with 18,000 edits and 18 months experience). But, on the other hand if you are really a good candidate, you don't need these mass connect.
    I have seen the questions an admin is asked is often repeated. I have never seen any candidate giving answer like "the question you have asked have already been asked in "this", "this", "this" Rfa noms and "this" answer was perfect. I agree with this, and that is my answer too". No one will give an answer like this, since it'll increase chances of getting some opposes and (s)he will repeat the same answer/points. But, I don't see any problem in this answer. And will you call this careful approach "political"? I am not sure!
    I don't like "adminship is easy to give and easy to take away". Yes, adminship is reward or achievement for many editors. And a thing too common is not valuable! --Tito Dutta (talk) 05:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems like a fair idea to me. Corruption is a danger, but still seems like a better alternative than what we have now. Cla68 (talk) 05:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think an AdminCom for giving adminship is a good idea - and people should be aware of the current active round of discussions on RfA reform - but I do think one for removing it is. Getting that done by ArbCom requires a whole arbitration process; there needs to be a quicker way, made possible by direct overseeing of the use/abuse of admin tools. — Hex (❝?!❞) 08:54, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The community is already bogged down in bureaucracy. We don't need another committee, what we need is clearly defined policy so that we can remove administrators just as easily as we install them. In so doing, the community would be able to call for the removal of administrators when there is clear misconduct as defined by policy. The incident involving La goutte de pluie comes to mind - that former administrator was open to recall, yet when they were called out on their misconduct, they refused to go through with recall. It was only after much heated discussion that the user stood down. In fact, this user is one of many sockpuppeteers that managed to pass the RfA process. I'd be so bold as to suggest all RfA candidates undergo a CheckUser search upon accepting or submitting their nomination and upon completion of the RfA, if successful, so as to avoid a repeat of these incidents. Only users who violate policy and community faith should worry. Else, there is no reason to object, but I digress. James (Talk • Contribs) • 6:59pm • 08:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I prefer a direct "do ocracy" over a representative "do ocracy". Wikipedia functions by doing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I could be wrong, I'm not a political historian, but I think Athens lost to Sparta because of its cumbersome direct democracy. I think direct democracy is efficient for bands and small tribes, but in larger societies representative democracy is a more efficient strategy than direct democracy, and a more humane one than autocracy. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC) Edited 14:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting idea, because the present system is not working anymore. Could it be a possibility to merge the "Administration Committee" with the "Arbitration Committee"? Their members have already been chosen on tough qualifications and they deal with a lot of personal information. I have noticed that they already kick out administrators in due course, so why don't give them the power to appoint them too? The Banner talk 14:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the admins are chosen well, the Arbitration Committee may find it has a lot less arbitrating to do. If this proposal is adopted and the panel is separate from ArbCom (my preferred outcome), perhaps admins should be expected to enjoy the confidence of both ArbCom and AdminCom - otherwise we'll need to decide which body has the last word. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)Edited 06:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like the idea, and I also have another suggestion: How about provisional/trial adminship? The reason the bar is so high now is that adminship is permanent, and is removed only for exceedingly egregious errors. How about lowering the bar for adminship significantly, but then having a three month's review by the community afterward to confirm the permanency of adminship? This way there's less risk in giving the tools to a bad egg, because there's a very easy way to get rid of someone who it turns out can't be trusted with the mop (rather than the much more arduous process of going through arbitration). --Cyde Weys 14:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • +1. This is the best idea so far and would require the least amount of process adjustment. There's no guarantee that voters and questioners who dwell on RfA would let up because of this. But it seems to be the best hope for some type of cultural change. We've seen that RfA has gone from "no big deal" to a complete grilling on fair use, dispute resolution, including hypothetical scenarios and complex litmus test questions. Something's gotta change, and putting every successfully admitted admin on a "provisional" status helps dispel the idea that this is lifelong tenure. -- Fuzheado | Talk 19:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I disagree. The point of this proposed change is to delegate the recruitment and management of admins to a panel of elected representatives. If we have a "community" veto, we're back where we started, with an unrepresentative cluster of self-selected editors of disparate IQ and sensibility deciding who's an admin. Anyway, all admins will be on probation all the time: the panel can take admin tools away if an admin demonstrates intractable poor judgment or character. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:21, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Any departure from direct democracy at Wikipedia would be unfortunate, and could only be justified by a true emergency. Everyone agrees there are fewer admins, but judging by backlogs, they are working more efficiently. This is a desirable outcome, not an undesirable one. The less we need people with special privileges, the better we are as a group. The fewer elected or appointed committees, the fewer functions that all cannot participate in, the better. Certainly sometimes the wrong decisions are made, but all systems will, and no new system could be known in advance to reduce them. Certainly it can be subject to mobbing, but any committee would be subject to cliquishness and gradual separation of its own criteria and concerns from the community. Every experiment here in anything indirect has produced general dissatisfaction. The best way to improve the quality of elections is the same as for all other democratic processes at Wikipedia: greater participation, which would inherently include more people with prior views about any particular candidate. DGG ( talk ) 18:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • DGG, I'd disagree with something slightly and wondering if it makes any difference to you. If we view admins as having a "technical capability" rather than a "privilege" would that change things? At least this was the original conception of adminship -- a mop and bucket. It was the technical capability to block users and lock articles, in accordance to community requests and standards. Admins were never meant to have any extra authority above others. Over the last 5+ years adminship has been imbued with more and more irrevocable status within the community, even though that was never meant to be the case. What I worry about is not the admin "bit" that allows for these technical functions. What I worry about is that it creates a ceiling of participation that creates disaffected volunteers who would otherwise want to be more engaged. Because it is so hard to pass the admin bar, it may be a turn off for folks who view the exclusivity of the admin "club" very much at odds with the radical inclusion wikis are supposed to stand for. If I hadn't been involved with Wikipedia for a decade, I'd very much be in the land of cognitive dissonance on this matter. -- Fuzheado | Talk 19:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I appreciate where you are coming from, but when you say, It was the technical capability to block users and lock articles, in accordance to community requests and standards. Admins were never meant to have any extra authority above others. – then I have to say that in my experience, human psychology just does not work that way. Imagine seeing a police car in your rearview mirror, with the blue light going, and gesturing for you to pull over; or imagine you are Professor Gates, trying to break into your own home because the front door is jammed ... and then think to yourself, "Policemen have the technical ability to shoot me and throw me in jail; but they were never meant to have any extra authority over me." They simply do have that extra authority. Admins are cops, and like cops, they often act as a group, are sometimes crooked, and they all carry a weapon – a jail button. In key venues, like AE and ANI, they can be both judge and executioner at the same time, pronouncing and enforcing jail terms or even life sentences for people who can't do the same thing to them in return. That fundamental asymmetry will always be there, and I don't know that – or how – one could abolish it. AndreasKolbe JN466 15:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Fuzheado: It's more than a technical capability. Yes, some of it is utterly routine, but at least the parts I do (deletion/undeletion and related blocks) is extremely sensitive. It can be done routinely--one can for example remove all the expired BLP Prods without looking if they can be easily sourced, or delete promotional speedies without considering if more than the templated advice is need to either help an editor improve or remove one who clearly won't. I don't do them that way. It affects both the content and the new user recruitment, & the new user recruitment in the long run is the most important thing we do. I agree with Jayen466: It is a big deal if done right. What we need is a practical way to first warn & if necessary deadmin those admins who do things carelessly. DGG ( talk ) 00:17, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I suggest repackaging some of the tools as a "Vandal Fighter's toolset." Anti-vandalism volunteers probably need some things without necessarily needing all of them. Restrict the full tool set, with revision deletion and such, to a smaller, carefully vetted group and come up with a mechanism that gives the legit vandal fighters all the gear they need. I am purposely being vague on who needs what — the idea is to let janitors be janitors without having to perform acrobatics through flaming hoops to get buttons. Carrite (talk) 21:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another idea: make the confirmation process less painful by coming up with a fixed set of 10 questions and move optional questions and discussion about them off the voting page to talk. Carrite (talk) 21:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Make it less painful by disallowing the flaming hoops. Just moving the bad faith to another page just, well, moves the bad faith to another page. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

18 October 2012

  • I love this idea. The community can be trusted to appoint prudent, intelligent, unbiased recruiters. We do a pretty good job of selecting prudent, intelligent, unbiased arbitrators. I'd want this panel to not only accept or decline nominations but actively recruit when they see a talented editor. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:40, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • During the 2011 attempts at RfA reform clerking of RfA comments was proposed, and I think it's an idea that deserves more attention. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#We should look at clerking again. — Hex (❝?!❞) 12:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I have suggested similar things before, and having used such a system elsewhere, the key would be to make it simple without a power base - that in turn means straight forward criteria for selection and deselection, both of which are quite easy once you get past the personalisation processes currently in place. Great points about power and the politician. It seems that most of those opposing change are those same people that have a vested interested/conflict of interest in the existing power structure. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 15:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support the idea as well. Wikipedia's arbitrators have, at least in recent years, mostly been conscientious and capable people, which proves that elections with a large-enough electorate do yield a reasonable result, even in Wikipedia. AndreasKolbe JN466 15:51, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support this idea. I think it makes sense to have a limited test run, e.g., for two months, RFA candidates may choose whether to do traditional RFA or the new AdminCom process. At the end of that, we see who promoted how many admins and of what quality, and then we decide whether those results indicate that continuing it is worthwhile. If yes, then we have an improvement. If no, then we have a valuable data point that should stop people from making this kind of proposal for years to come. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd probably be willing to give this idea a try, in theory. I agree that one of the primary problems with RfA currently is that it is a political election. People will oppose because of the person's personal views, and I have done the same in the past, but I now find it inappropriate. Whether someone is deletionist or inclusionist, conservative or liberal, gay or straight, young or old (within reason), agrees/disagrees with proposal X... none of this matters for adminship. What matters is whether or not the person is working in the best interest of the project, has sufficient technical and policy experience, and sufficient maturity/self-control for the role. Even if an admin is a staunch deletionist, as long as they can separate their personal beliefs from their application of policy, then there is no problem. If an admin is an avid conservative and they use their admin powers to win a content dispute on Mitt Romney, then I seriously doubt that it would take much effort to desysop them. -Scottywong| squeal _ 16:40, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I strongly disagree with the need for traditional representative government. Yes, it was needed - till we invented to Internet. Implementing this would be a step backwards. Now, if there was a proposal that suggest something innovative, for example, the implementation of liquid democracy, I'd be quite on board with that. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • No thank you Too much power in too few hands. This is exactly the kind of thing that could push someone into leaving Wikipedia as it puts yet more power into fewer hands. If you think we have problems with accusations of "admin cabal" now, wait until you concentrate all that power into a few hands. Then, only the best politicians will be able to join that crew, after you have proven your loyalty to them. If this goes into effect, please strip me of my admin bit and indef block me with no talk page access, as an act of kindness. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 17:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are ways to safeguard against that concentration of power you're worried about. First, the panel is elected by the community. If they're thought to be making ill-judged appointments we can change the panel. Second, we could give the Arbitration Committee the power to sack the panel and call a new election. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:24, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Arbcom already has to much authority and thus we have a small group making some decisions that should be made by the community at large. Not convinced that other groups with this authority are needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very interesting ideas and I'm glad that people are thinking and discussing radical changes like this. Yes I think the system is broken and we should be trying to fix it. Personally I would like to second User:Cyde's suggestion of temporary admins. I've been on Wikipedia for years now, have thousands of edits and hundreds of new articles to my name. I've also had experience of being a chapter board member and given public talks promoting Wikipedia. I still don't think I would apply for adminship under the current RfA. Most of the things I do simply don't need the admin tools and I don't have a strong enough reason to do so. Who knows, with a temporary admin concept I might give it a go! AndrewRT(Talk) 20:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

19 October 2012+

I am not sure what you are saying - are you being facetious? Ottawahitech (talk) 23:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Given this was T. t's second edit, you have to wonder who they were previously and what their interaction with ArbCom was. — Hex (❝?!❞) 13:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It appears to more or less have been an RfC inadvertently disguised as an article. The response certainly seems to show it. However it's certainly too vague to take any constructive action on, and after all the negative comments I suspect an actual RfC on the topic may not be forthcoming. — Hex (❝?!❞) 13:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see it as somewhere in between. It is an opinion piece that asks for reactions. As I tried to make clear in the last paragraph, the only concrete action that could result from this would be to encourage (or discourage) an effort to formulate the idea more specifically. I didn't really expect to get a strongly positive response, but I believe that ultimately this is the only approach that can possibly work, so I thought it would be useful to present the idea in a coherent way in a widely-read forum. I never expected anything to happen quickly. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 16:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what you mean - that wasn't meant to have been disparaging, by the way, apologies if that's how it came across! — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:59, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I personally would like to thank Looie496 for bringing this discussion to the masses. As one of the masses I usually stay away from discussions where I feel intimidated by more experienced wikipedians. Ottawahitech (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's a good analogy. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Better ideas always arise?

Like here (✉→BWilkins←✎) 15:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's a bit patronising, BWilkins. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:41, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oct 22, 2012

Oct 23, 2012

  • Strongly Oppose - The "Lone Ranger" mentality described as a problem is, to me, one of the best things about the current system. While I'm sure there are admins who would like to have bosses placed over them and telling them what to do, most people prefer to work on the things that interest them, even as those interests change. And why would we want to implement a tiny group of supreme admins who wield the power to "hire" and "fire" admins at will? Wikipedia is about consensus and participation. This op-ed proposal would implement a needless level of political bureaucrats, force admins to be even more politically savvy (i.e., kiss butts) to keep their jobs, and would do little or nothing to improve the situation, and much more likely, cause many new and horrible problems that would be quite difficult to fix (ever try to oust an entrenched government of power-mongers from their leadership once they get in power? look to Cold War Russia, the Arab Spring, or the French Revolution for examples). We do not need or want a new level of power. If anything, the power should be more distributed and divided so that people can specialize if they like (cleaner-uppers, templaters, move and merge specialists, etc.) or serve at admins at large. I've often seen it pondered why adminship is an all-or-nothing sort of thing. But creating a new level of super-admins (or would they be lesser-bureaucrats?) is completely the wrong way to go. It would greatly harm the collaborative and consensual nature of Wikipedia. A very bad idea for nearly all, but a nifty power grab for an elite few. —Willscrlt ( “Talk” ) 11:26, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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