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(x emotion/weight/description) oppose/support !votes

They are seen everywhere: Relcutant oppose, Strong support, apologetic oppose, neutral leaning towards support/oppose... The list goes on; The various descriptors for the three basic types of !votes are staggering in number and in variation. My question is do these descriptors have any effect whatsoever on the weight of the !vote? Does the closing 'crat note these descriptors when making the final decision? Or are these descriptors simply elements of emphasis that could be integrated into the !vote comment? Ultimately, I just want to know whether putting these descriptors in front (or behind) my !vote will have an impact or not. Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

No, not much impact at all. Whether it is a reluctant oppose or not, it is still an oppose. These extra words added are used just for decoration, I guess. Sebi _[talk] 06:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Most of the time, in any sort of debate, I only use Support, Oppose or Neutral, because I think the qualifiers are worthless. Unless I'm trying to be funny [1]. In a large scale system like RfA that takes tons of votes, the weighting people put behind them is meaningless, really. However, were an RfA to have two strong supports and a weak oppose... well, I personally think that'd be a pass. But with so many votes, I don't think it really matters. --ɐuɐʞsəp (ʞɿɐʇ) 06:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone seemed to misunderstand what I had said here, and I think I worded this badly. I did not mean that the reason behind a vote is meaningless. "Oppose" is obviously less useful than "Oppose, candidate has x, y, z". I meant that there is very little practical difference between "Strong oppose candidate has x,y,z" and "Oppose candidate has x,y,z" because of the number of opinions that people put forth during an RfA. Like I said, they would make more of a difference if there were fewer opinions expressed, and would make more of a difference if all of the support was strong and all of the oppose was weak. Given that neither of these conditions happen more often than not, I don't think it makes a practical difference. --Deskana (talk) 16:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It really depends... Personally, I feel it just makes users pay more attention to the comments that go with it. A STRONG SUPPORT!!! will have more emphasis than a s. Highly doubtful that it makes a real difference to a 'crats decision on a rfa though, but it does influence some users' judgement... If a reputable admin puts a strong oppose, it makes you think... --Dark Falls ^talk 06:12, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

They're really only the result of people not confident of their argument against a person. And the utter, complete, absolute failure to understand what consensus is. ALTON .ıl 06:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... Seems like you have an utter, complete, absolute ignorance of the term nuance. Using "cautious support", "reluctant oppose" and such is actually more helpful to convey the subtlety of your position. That's what a discussion should be about. Pascal.Tesson 16:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what's wrong with them frankly. Since (In theory) RFA is a discussion rather than a vote, it makes sense that participants in that discussion have varying degrees of conviction with regards to their arguments of support or opposition. Now if you believe RFA is/should be a binary vote, then the qualifiers make no sense. Borisblue 07:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

(ec'd)With Respect do you therefore consider Moral Support (most common on RFA's doomed at outset) to be a comment given by editors unsure of their argument, and indeed unable to understand what consensus is? Phrases like Cautious Support, or Neutral leaning to Oppose actually seem to me to show that editors have thought hard before commenting, rather than just piling on. They also provide far more value to a discussion than just Support and a sig. Pedro |  Chat  07:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Didnt say there was anything wrong with them. Just wanted to see if they had any impact. Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

My comment was in response to User:Alton Pedro |  Chat  07:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The point of those markers is to headline the comment in a summary. If the argument is strong enough that person should not need those adjectives. It is much easier for whoever closes it to be able to read through the arguments and make his own decision, than be influenced by what weight a person believes his point should hold. Moral Support is given under different circumstances, as you mentioned, and doesn't fit under what I disprove of. To me, the most important part is the discussion, not the signature, as you also have said. ALTON .ıl 20:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Arguments are tallied, not votes. The difference between "Strong Oppose User ran over my cat" and "Weak Oppose User repeatedly applies incorrect db tags to articles" has nothing to do with the prefix. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't speak for other people, but I use modifiers like "Strong" in order to draw attention from other participants in the RfA, not to sway the closing bureaucrat. I tend to write very lengthy oppose comments in addition to the descriptor.

There was one RfA where I progressively changed the comment from "Oppose" to "Strong oppose" to "STRONGEST POSSIBLE OPPOSE" after the admin candidate deleted a number of people's opposes (mine included) and made a number of personal attacks in his own RfA. Did the descriptor make a difference? Maybe, maybe not. The RfA failed, in any case. --Kyoko 00:50, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

In that context, I think it makes sense. I still wonder -- does it actually make a difference to the crat? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

You'd have to ask a bureaucrat. I should also mention that in this "STRONGEST POSSIBLE OPPOSE" case, not only did I modify the word "oppose", I also added to my comments, which ended up being about half the size of this section. --Kyoko 20:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

When I add qualifiers to my comments, I don't expect that they will have a major effect on the bureaucrat's decision. They are, though, more communicative messages to the candidates, who definitely read every vote with as much or more interest than the closing 'crat. Dekimasuよ! 00:30, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, what exactly does "!vote" mean? J-stan ^Talk 19:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Is there a simple solution to rename backlog?

Maybe this is a perennial proposal or something, but why not just give admins the ability to rename accounts? Does this activity tend to be controversial? Does it require the exceptionally good judgment we apparently expect from crats? It seems pretty easy to me. It there some reason I'm missing why plain old admins wouldn't be trusted with this task? Friday (talk) 19:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I 100% agree with you, and was contemplating asking the same thing. Tho for the record, I think only experienced admins (6+ months of adminship) should be given that power. Black Harry • Go Red Sox

But nowhere in MediaWiki is an admin promotion's date stored. Perhaps by querying the logs, but that sounds quite expensive. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well my idea is that they basically that new admins shouldn't have that power. Perhaps when they feel ready they could ask for it in a less formal process than either RFA or RFB. Black Harry • Go Red Sox 19:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Its quite simply really when you think about it, take WjBscribe for example, he regularly helps out there and I do too, he could do it perfectly with rename and handling them, he really knowns what hes doing and hes an admin....I wouldn't do so good though. Qst 19:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

(ec) If we're worried about new admins doing this (I admit I'm not sure why we would be, but maybe there's a reason), why not just ask new admins to not do it? Much of Wikipedia already depends on this kind of "soft security", so I see no immediate problems with this approach. Friday (talk) 19:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Historically, the devs have been a bit hesitant to grant promotion privileges to admins, so I think a new class would be better. You could grant it to users/admins in good standing, but you run into the issue of not having an interface to do it. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm also in agreement about renaming not needing to be a "'crat-only" function. What about an additional permission level (such as Oversight and Checkuser), that admins could apply for (possibly using the requirements that Black Harry suggested)? I think that could do well, though I'd understand concerns about process creep. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work may help us here. Make it an admin function, and if someone starts using this ability unwisely, they get complained at and normal dispute resolution procedures solve the problem. A lot of admins maybe wouldn't even bother doing renames- people have their own areas of interest, and it works out fine. Friday (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I'd be tempted to put in bot flagging there, and just leave the 'crats as the ones that close RFA's, if we're willing to go that route. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Considering there seems not to be such a major problem with bot flagging, crats should still be the ones to handle it. Black Harry • Go Red Sox 19:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

No, I think six months is way too long, if the user had some experience there before they were sysopped they could do it easily straight away, I think they should be granted this for say one day and if they do OK then do not take the tools away and if they do bad then ask them to learn the ropes a bit more then re-apply for it, I think even I can probably handle it and I'm not an admin/bureaucrat or anything but have experience there. Qst 19:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe six months is a lil too drastic, but it shouldn't be given automatically to all new sysops. We could handle it the way we do checkusers and oversight. Black Harry • Go Red Sox 19:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the ArbCom will like the added paperwork... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

How is renaming accounts any more harder than blocking and deleting? That's some pretty serious stuff there. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 19:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I only think its harder and more serious since you have to be a crat to do it now. Don't know why that is tho. Black Harry • Go Red Sox 20:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was talking about the "way we do checkusers and oversight", which is the ArbCom having to petition to stewards to grant those privileges to a particular user. I don't think they'll like that added load. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It apparently is a strain on the server. Majorly (talk) 20:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

There's also the fact that stuff like block logs aren't transferred along with a name change. Between that and a working knowledge of WP:U, renaming does require a bit of discretion. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Technically it is a strain on the server. A script has to update all the entries in the revision table (and due to load issues, doesn't update the archive table where deleted edits are stored), which in some cases can lock the database. However, giving renameuser privs to a limited subset of other users, to remove some load off the 'crats is still viable. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait, so 'crats promote to admin (and to crat i believe) but arbcomm has to promote to checkuser? Why can't crats do that? Thats more confusing than the whole RFB process Black Harry • Go Red Sox 20:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Crats were created to promote users to sysops. Over the years their purpose has expanded to renaming users and flagging bots. Basically, except the renames, they are a local steward, just with the ability to +sysop, +bureaucrat and +/-bot. Checkuser is limited with good reason: only the very trusted users should be able to view IP addresses and other confidential information. Arbcom does it, probably because they are considered to be the most trusted users on the site. On other projects like Commons, there are requests for checkuser, much like requests for adminship. I don't know how that could work here though. Majorly (talk) 20:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Only Stewards can activate the CheckUser permission. Same as with Oversight, Boardvote and the Steward bit itself. Local Bureaucrats can only set two types of access level: admin and bureaucrat, and even so, they can only increase the access level (from none to admin and admin +bureaucrat). According to Foundation-wide policy, Arbcom decides who can be CheckUsers and/or Oversight users and inform Stewards, who set the bit. The Stewards do not decide. That's effective to all projects with an Arbitration Committee. Projects that do not have an ArbCom can select CheckUsers and "Oversighters" (bad word, I know) by means of a vote, but if there is an ArbCom, Foundation policy dictates that selecting CheckUsers and "Oversighters" falls within its exclusive competence.
The possibility of making username change a feature accessible to users other than Bureaucrats has been discussed, and turned down, before. Mainly, as Majorly just mentioned, this action puts significative strain on the servers, and should only be performed with discretion and restraint (and adhering to the username policy, obviously). Given the number of admins on this particular wiki currently, and even if we assume that most admins would not be performing renames regularly, having this many people performing renames could create a logistical problem. Furthermore, there is a degree of uncertainty regarding what will happen when the Single Login comes along. Some believe that when it happens, username change could become a function exclusive to Stewards, and no longer a local Bureaucrat job. Redux 20:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Single Login? does that mean by logging onto one wiki, you log onto to all? Black Harry • Go Red Sox 20:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

See m:H:UL. Majorly (talk) 20:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

On a side note, after flagged revs we will have: [bots] | blocked → unregistered → newly registered → autoconfirmed → editor → sysop → reviewer → crat → oversighter → checkuser → steward → siteadmin/dev erm... 13 access levels. Does anyone else thinks thats way too many? GDonato (talk) 20:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm more restrictive when listing access levels. A level of access means that a user has access to certain tools in the system that allow the performing of certain actions. In that conception, the roles of Administrator, Bureaucrat, CheckUser, and a couple of others do constitute different access levels, since each will give the user access to certain restricted tools. By the same token, however, I would not consider descriptions such as blocked, unregistered, newly registered, autoconfirmed and editor as distinct levels of access, but rather as just two levels: that of unregistered user, with no access to any of the restricted tools; and registered user, which gives access to tools that aren't really restricted (since all it takes to gain access to them is to take a minute to register), but are not made available to anonymous editors (Special:Watchlist, move tab, etc.). They do mean different "user levels" — although this expression sort of denotes a "hierarchy" of users that we really don't want to encourage — in terms of how they may be perceived within the community.
Note: the fact that unregistered users and newly registered users may be barred from editing by means of semi-protection (or soft-protection, in the case of unregistered users) does not represent an access level: but rather a restriction that can be imposed — one of the severest on-wiki: loss of the ability to edit any given page —. One might think of it like this: it is an unrestricted tool that gets disabled in a directed fashion, but there is no gain or loss of access to the system (stress on the word "system"). Redux 21:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, access levels isn't technically correct, but we can agree that there will be 13 different sets of functions users can have, depending on their access. I think this is too many regardless of whether they are distinct access levels in the technical sense or not. I could also provide ways this could be safely reduced, if you wish but will not do so here as it is not on-topic and would waste page-space. GDonato (talk) 21:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I suppose those kinds of distinctions come into being as the project grows and becomes more complex in the process. One might argue that they become necessary in order to manage the project more effectively and to better address the new problems and challenges that arise with said growth. For instance, the distinction between "newly registered" and "registered" only came into being effectively when the feature of semi-protection was created, which happened in order to address a typical, recurrent problem: vandalism from anonymous users (IPs) forced us to disable editing of the article to all except admins themselves. It wasn't really fair to the countless registered users who really had nothing to do with the ongoing vandalism. So we created a feature that allows us to prevent only IPs from editing; but since an obvious reaction to that would be to register a throw-away account in order to vandalize immediately, we created a parameter that disables editing of any given page by accounts with only a few days of existence, hence creating the technical distinction of "newly registered" and making autoconfirmation, which already existed, acquire a broader importance.
But if you have ideas as to how the current structure of users could be simplified, it is indeed true that it would be of little use to go into it here. Those ideas should be presented to members of the Board of Trustees and the Developers. Redux 22:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Um, it would actually be better to do it here, as here is a good place as any. I'm not sure where it says that the Foundation has to approve changes to a wiki's user permissions, as they usually try to avoid getting into that kind of stuff, claiming that it is the projects' prerogative to consider that in advance. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

But that's not what GDonato meant, unless I misunderstood. He mentioned a change in the general structure of user levels. He didn't expand on his ideas here, but if I were to create a for instance (and again, I have no idea of what his proposals would be, what follows is for the sake of argument only): it would not be about the criteria for making someone a CheckUser, but rather about merging the CheckUser and the Oversight flags into one single access "package", so that someone who is given that bit would have access to both Special:CheckUser and Special:Oversight/HideRevision.
If it were about changing criteria or procedure for granting, keeping or wielding any given tool or set of tools, then you're right: here is as good a place as any to discuss it. But the way I understood it, this would be about some kind of reestructing, possibly even involving some level of modification in existing flags and/or system features. And, sticking to my example, discussing whether or not CheckUser and Oversight should be merged into a single flag, which is something that, I presume, would need to be done Foundation-wide, on the WT:RfA of the en.wiki wouldn't be particularly fruitful. Redux 01:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

In that case, I do agree, with one caveat: trying to get the ball rolling on meta would be like trying to push a boulder up a hill. Foundation-l would be a more appropriate venue. I thought that we were discussing renames, which are still, AFAIK, under our blamejurisdiction. :) Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, renames are still on us, at least until the Single Login arrives, whenever that may be. ;) I agree: as I said, this would need to be brought up with Board members and the devs, but doing it on Meta exclusively would be rather difficult, and input from the Wikimedia community (and not just en.wiki or even just the Wikipedias) would certainly play a considerable role in any kind of decision. Redux 01:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I support the idea of democratizing the rename function to all admins. Experience has shown that only 10 to 20 admins will take up the new functionality regularly, but that's all we need.

One of the points I suggested in my essay Wikipedia:We need more bureaucrats was that I didn't see why WP:CHU is a high-security item more than standard admin work. I still don't see much difference, and I'd be willing to support a change in policy. Shalom ^Hello 02:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Backlog, what backlog? :D The simple solution is for some 'crats (myself included) to give WP:CHU a look-see periodically. Unlike RfA, it is easy for it to fall off personal radar screens (i.e., "I don't have to look at that, Secretlondon pretty much has it covered," etc. I cleared most all of the backlog in a couple of hours. It might be useful to have a box attached to the RfA tally thing which tells how many Name Changes are hanging fire at any particular moment. -- Cecropia 06:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Given the looming spectre of SUL, it seems prudent to figure a solution which requires only small changes -- it'll all be moot, soon enough. Spreading to all admins is another possibility (my first reaction is to recoil from the thought, but on reflection, it doesn't actually seem all that terrifying of an idea)... although creating a new usergroup and rolling it out just a tad more selectively might be an easier (and less chaotic) option, now that I've read Redux's post. Either way, something simple. Cecropia's solution appears to be the very simplest of the bunch. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Shalom, as I mentioned earlier, username change is considered a high[er]-security tool because of the strain that renames put on the servers. The more edits the account-to-be-renamed has, the harder it is on the servers. From a "historical" point of view, also, it can also be said that tasks that were once perfomed only by devs/Stewards and were later "branched out" to the projects are normally assigned to Bureaucrats (same as it was with bot flagging), because those users's numbers are normally far thiner than that of admins. I'm not totally sure, but if memory serves me well, I think that Brion was once consulted about the possibility of this kind of "tool reassignment". As it was reported, he was less than enthusiastic about it. I mean, bot flagging was only added to the Bureaucrat tool package after Essjay (yes, him) insisted with Jimbo for some time (months, I think it was) and committed to coding the Bureaucrat tool himself (a separate tool, different from how Stewards do it, since they use the same tool to adjust all rights, including bot status). So you see, this is not done lightly.
Besides, as Cecropia mentioned, a backlog on CHU can be cleared relatively fast, and it doesn't even form as long as at least 1 bcrat keeps an eye on it. Nichalp used to handle most of the renames, then Essjay did most of it, then Nichalp again and then Secretlondon recently. I used to do renames too, but as Cecropia said, I've been using the "excuse" that someone else has it covered already. That is easy to change. The point is: the need for a broader base of users with access to namechange is debatable on this wiki, and probably not even an issue in other projects (remember: tool reassignment would need to be done Foundation-wide), so it would be unlikely that this will be done failing the demonstration of an actual need for it to happen (as the Developers would see it). Redux 15:17, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

(This would be a development issue, but I don't know if there's a right place to comment on such things, so here it is..) Sounds like it would pay for the development team to use a flexible role/permission model for security then. There's no reason I can think of why a code change ought to be required to move a permission from one role to another. This would only need to be done once, and then different projects could have their own rules on which permissions go with which roles, no muss and no fuss. Friday (talk) 15:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I still haven't quite managed to figure out what the recently implemented feature request bugzilla:6711 does, but I think it might be what you just asked for. (I'm not sure, though; I thought it might have changed various things for 'crats, but I asked them and it hadn't, so it seems to have had no live effect on Wikipedia so far.) --ais523 15:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll have a look at that bugfix later today, and I'll get back to you on it. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There's one thing I don't agree with Redux: tool reassignment does not have to be done Foundation-wide. The only tools that are assigned separately are Oversight and CheckUser, due to the ways they affect the Privacy policy. Technically speaking, the only thing that is necessary is adding a line or two to LocalSettings.php for the English Wikipedia (and to be more precise, to modify the page's $wgGroupPermissions array), as actions are not associated with user groups anymore. Actions such as access to Special:Blockip and Special:Renameuser are assigned to privileges (block and renameuser, respectively), and those privileges are assigned to user groups (sysop and bureaucrat, respectively). While there are default permissions assigned to user groups via DefaultSettings.php, they can be easily overriden via the local settings page in each wiki (that's why fr.wikipedia and es.wikipedia have extra namespaces, for example). The point I'm getting at: developers won't consider changing that file unless we (en.wikipedia) decide to do it, so we don't need to worry about technical issues or interactions with other wikis. So Friday is indeed right about the need to have a permissions-based model. We already have it, though. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, we just need more 'crats. Renames can be a messy business and create quite a bit of server usage. Cbrown1023 talk 03:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

• True, we do need more bureaucrats, due to the fact that there are some inactive ones. The proposed "autoconfirmed" idea I don't agree with, as people are already autoconfirmed after a set period of time anyway, it shouldn't have to include a number of edits to be promoted. Renaming users isn't something to be done lightly, though, I think: the user has to be absolutely certain they want this username.

---

Question

I had an RfA two months ago. Since then, I have had 300 edits, including 50 Wikipedia namespace. Should I selfnom again? ¿SFGiДnts! ^{¿Complain! ¿Analyze! ¿Review!} 22:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Simple question: do you do any editing that would be easier if you were an administrator? Is not having administrator abilities dampening what you could do as an editor? If it isn't, There's little reason to apply again.
Now, that said, 300 edits in two months isn't that much, and won't do anything to address the complaints that you weren't active enough. They're just numbers, but you averaged about 5 edits a day; in June, I was able to hit about 53. I'm not saying you should try to edit that much, but even if you didn't quite approach that level, it'd show some dedication. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

EVula's right. Before requesting adminship, you have to think whether you have improved since your last rfa. And more importantly, you have to think whether the community realized the improvements. From a personal perspective, the amount of activity isn't enough for me to realize much change. --Dark Falls ^talk 23:24, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

But 323 is? What about 417? 576? Where's the edge? --Durin 03:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I think what's important, as far as guaging activity goes, is that if you aren't sure if you're active, you're not. I realize how potentially unhelpful this may be (what with the vagueness and all), but that's generally how I see it. When you're dedicated to the project, you know it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Not really an edge... It's dependent on the quality of the edits basically... 20,000 edits might not be enough if it doesn't show enough improvement. I really should make that clear. Sorry. --Dark Falls ^talk 05:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit count really shouldn't be the deciding factor, here... – Luna Santin (talk) 08:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The question people should ask themselves when running for RfA a second time isn't how long has passed or how many more edits they have. In my opinion it should simply be whether they have addressed the concerns of those who were neutral or opposed the first RfA. If unsure there is no harm in asking - a polite note to someone who opposed asking, "You opposed my recent RfA because you felt I lacked experience in area X or didn't understand policy Y, I have since done the following things - does that address your concerns or are there other things you think I should be doing?" I think we should all more willing to offer follow-up advice to those who fail RfA - especially where we opposed. Our aim should always be to help those editors learn so they can pass the second time. Similarly I think unsuccessful candidates shouldn't feel unable to (politely) chase up opposition and look for feedback as to whether they have improved - either from individual editors or through an Editor Review... WjBscribe 21:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Good grief, a discussion? What will they think of next on this wiki?? -- nae'blis 02:44, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Is persistence all it takes?

I see several RFAs recently of people who have prior unsuccessful RFAs. In some of these cases, most "voters" don't even appear to care whether the issues that lead to the previous opposes have been dealt with. What message are we trying to send here? It sounds a bit like "if you're persistent, you'll pass RFA." Have we abandoned all pretense of actually screening applicants? As Wikipedia matures and grows larger, and we see more and more problems caused by inappropriate use of admin function, it seems to me like we ought to be tightening standards, not loosening them. Friday (talk) 19:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Friday, !voters can !vote how they wish and so asking them to tighten standards is unlikely to work anyway, if people wish to disregard previous RfAs then they can. I do agree that we should make sure that the people who run through the process are trustworthy. Unless you know the candidate well, please study the contribs! GDonato (talk) 19:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with Friday, in that I've seen people respond "the event of concern happened before the previous RfA." when people say that issues still exist or haven't been meaningfully addressed. Waiting a few months and ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away, so a new RfA several months down the road shouldn't erase the concerns of previous RfAs. Leebo ^T/C 19:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Everyone makes mistakes, obviously, no one is perfect. Generally, a long gap between requests (usually 3 months) indicate concerns raised will possibly have been responded to. It's not productive to oppose without even checking to see if they have (and likewise to support without checking), but some people respond to these things quickly, some take time, some never follow advice. If an event that happened a year ago has been addressed and dealt with, I think the best way to go is to forgive those mistakes. Majorly (talk) 19:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't figure out where this notion that 3 months is a long time comes from. In terms of human behavior, unless you're talking about an infant, I think people are unlikely to change their behavior much in so short a time. Sure, it's possible to respond to concerns about problematic behavior in this time, but I see people assuming that this has happened, with no evidence at all to support such an assumption. Friday (talk) 19:21, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

In terms of time on Wikipedia, three months is a long enough time to fix the problems that appeared in the user's first RfA. I have seen great improvements from many users in three months time. It can and often does happen. Captain panda 19:25, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I guess what I'm suggesting is that people look for evidence that problem areas have improved, rather than just saying, "Well, problems might have been fixed in this time, that's good enough for me." Friday (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

STRONG OPPOSE! Insulted me once in early 2004!. --User:Longmemory

I think the point people are trying to make when they say "it happened before the previous RfA" is that it's a past event. If the candidate says they've overcome the problem that was being objected to, and have given us no recent evidence to the contrary, then it's rather difficult to justify an oppose based on a single past incident. We generally don't like grudge votes.

To reply to Friday's comment regarding 3 months being a short time, if you think 3 months is short, then consider how short 3 days, or 3 hours is. If a candidate failed based on one particularly bad instance of incivility, that might even be based on 3 minutes. --tjstrf talk 19:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I would say some persistence can be good, to a point. Some opposers aren't letting go of issues, some supporters aren't looking at things as closely as they should be. In other cases, User A might be unwilling to overlook whatever critical event(s), but if User B knows about them and supports, anyway, that appears to be a simple difference of opinion. As to three months being long or short, I think the more important issue is whether the interim has revealed that the negative events and behaviors were the user's modus operandi, or the exception to the rule. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

One difficulty, Friday, is that there is an inherent difficulty in proving a negative, which is an unavoidable part of a process like RfA. If a candidate fails because of literally one uncivil or otherwise unfortunate diff (a fairly common occurrence) how much time is enough to show that the candidate won't do such a thing again? (Even if they say they won't?) Three months seems to be a reasonably long time in wiki-time, and no-one should have poor behavior held over them forever if there's reasonable evidence of reform (not repeating the same mistakes.) Grandmasterka 08:07, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Incorectly filed?

Could someone look at this nom and tell me if its correctly filed or not? I have a feeling that it isnt, but I don't know how to fix it. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

No. I think it should be deleted and restarted, IMO. Клоун 22:50, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Nope, not done right. Just follow the steps at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate. Wizardman 01:09, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Ive handled it now. I apreciate the help and the speedy result. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

A banned user

On Wikipedia: Requests for adminship/Butseriouslyfolks, a sockpuppet of Molag Bal, Francisco Tevez, has said support. I removed it, but then I decided to revert myself, as I've never removed supports/opposes/neutrals from sockpuppets before, and not sure if I'm doing something wrong. Should the support from that user be removed? Acalamari 02:00, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

You could either remove it fully, or put a note under it, discounting the support comment. On the page, it states that "Certain comments may be discounted if there are suspicions of fraud; these may be the contributions of very new editors, sockpuppets, and meatpuppets". --Dark Falls ^talk 02:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I should have read that; haven't read the page in a while and should have done that before posting. Acalamari 02:07, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

It can be stricken right off (but not deleted). It would be helpful to add a link to the checkuser page or something. Majorly (talk) 02:10, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I indented the support and linked the checkuser case before I reverted myself. This is what I've done now. The support is there, just indented and not counted. Acalamari 02:12, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both DarkFalls and Majorly. Comments from SPA's, socks, accounts that are blocked only shortly after the !vote and other such users are usually either struck, or tagged with a message noting the corrupted comment, or both. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Striking all comments of Francisco would be a good course of action. I took the liberty of doing so on Cometstyles' RFA. Banned == No editing. Period. Sean William @ 02:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I found them on two RfAs, Cometstyles and Butseriouslyfolks; both have been struck out now. Acalamari 22:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Still "no big deal"?

The recent ArbCom decision in the badlydrawnjeff case found that "Any administrator, acting on their own judgment, may delete an article that is substantially a biography of a living person if they believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy... The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy." The finding itself has been argued to death, and I don't intend to reopen that particular can of worms. My question is this: can we really continue to maintain that adminship is "no big deal" when admins are now empowered to unilaterally delete pages, based on fairly subjective and often contentious grounds and without the burden of proof? That's a significant expansion of power beyond the tightly-worded speedy-deletion criteria and the consensus-gauging role of AfD closure. Given that admins are now entrusted with that power, can we really say with a straight face that adminship is still "no big deal"? MastCell ^Talk 19:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The "No big deal" quote does not relate to this. The tools themselves and how they are used are inherently a big deal, but the "aura of power" is the part that is no big deal. Adminship is important to the wiki, but it is not a trophy. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 19:09, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you 100%; that's how I interpret the "no big deal" thing. But "no big deal" is often used as a justification for supporting an RfA by default, because of a lack of red flags, rather than because of clear positive qualifications. Which is fine, but I wonder whether it's appropriate to continue to use this rationale in the current milieu. MastCell ^Talk 19:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't like to support, just because of the no big deal thing, but I'd support if there were no red flags maybe. If I can see they won't be a problem, I really don't see why not. Majorly (talk) 19:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that the deletion of BLPs if libelous is really a last resort thing if purging the POV from it is too convoluted. We can only hope this doesn't turn out to be a flame war between deletionists and inclusionists. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 19:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Admins have long been empowered to unilaterally delete pages, according to the policy of WP:CSD. Conscious 19:54, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The word "unilateral" has long been abused, but I've never seen WP:CSD called "unilateral". Please explain. Sean William @ 20:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I mean nothing more than deletion on sight. Conscious 04:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Then "unilateral" was a poor choice of words, I'm afraid. Sean William @ 15:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Deleting an article which fits a speedy category is not unilateral. The community as a whole has decided that such articles are always unacceptable and may be purged on-sight, rather than wasting time by putting in an AfD where the outcome would be obvious. That's not unilateral action, it's supported by the community. (Deleting an article which does not specifically fit a speedy category could be considered unilateral, on the other hand). Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - CSD are very narrowly defined - "These criteria are worded narrowly and such that in most cases reasonable editors will agree what does or does not fall under a given criterion." On the other hand, it's now established that an individual admin's interpretation of WP:BLP, which is very broadly worded ("basic human dignity"?), can acquire the force of law and require a burden of proof to be met, by editors who can't view the deleted article, in order to be overturned. That's fundamentally different from CSD. MastCell ^Talk 20:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't "deletion under BLP" a special case of application of WP:CSD#G10? Conscious 04:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Not really; at least, not in the way it's used. G10 is restricted to pages that disparage their subjects. Deletion "per BLP" is based on personal interpretations of whether the content in an article violates any portion of the BLP policy or personal ethical conceptions of general and controversial concepts such as "human dignitiy". It is inherently very subjective. As you can probably tell, I don't hold a positive view of out-of-process "deletions under BLP". -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

That is a very argued point for which there is no answer as yet. I believe so, and am set to be shown anything anywhere else that permits speedy deletion of articles under BLP for any other reason, however freeqeuently cited is a vague "do no harm" principle that some admins are insisting on applying that basically amounts to deleting anything that someone might not like (overstatigng the case slightly, but not that much). Viridae^Talk 04:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not my intention to debate the Rightness or Wrongness of the current situation, but I agree that the "basic human dignity" or "do no harm" principles are being applied in the deletion of content, and that this represents a significant departure from CSD. My question, really, is whether this unprecedented degree of admin discretion means that we should abandon the concept that adminship is "no big deal". MastCell ^Talk 04:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it certainly appears so. I am not ready to give the delete buttons to just anyone, now that any admin can delete based on subjective criteria. I will not be so free in giving away support comments in the future. Which is unfortunate. - TwoOars 08:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

If administrators did not have subjective criteria, then all we'd need are adminbots running around. Being an administrator requires judgment calls. If you suck at it, then ArbCom will take the bit away. No big deal. Sean William @ 15:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see many admins who suck being desysopped. And maybe there were a lot of subjective criteria earlier too, but they seem to be increasing. We seem to be reaching a stage when there will be a new policy written somewhere, "Thou shalt not question an admin. An admin knows all." - TwoOars 16:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

C'mon guys, I really don't think it's as big of a deal as you make it out to be. There are plenty of subjective things admins do already, one more isn't going to kill Wikipedia. Besides, we still have DRV. Adminship stopped being "no big deal" a long time ago. Grandmasterka 08:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Mainspace work. For god sake!

Rather then write a long essay here, I'd simply like to ask if anyone has any rebuttals other then

“ OMG duh!111 WP:ENC. You have to make the 'pedia first, ZOMG!!11oneone ”

to the issues raised in this diff. I'll end this rant with a simple quote; "this is madness!" G1ggy ^Talk/_Contribs 06:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

You're linking to Captain panda's RfA. Captain panda points out, in his Q2 response, that he hardly does anything on Wikipedia except add tags and cast votes (in fact, he goes farther than that, saying that adding tags and casting votes are his "best contributions"). Suddenly he wants to branch out and block vandals, even though he's never so much as handled a content dispute before. Where should we look for evidence that he would use the mop responsibly, if we don't look for meaningful contributions? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

And blocking vandals has what relation to content disputes? I think Captain panda can recognise vandalism. G1ggy ^(t|c|p) 07:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

For an eloquent and convincing explanation of why admins with little or no experience in content writing is a bad idea, please see this diff. Pascal.Tesson 11:28, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I can really see both sides of the argument here. I agree with G1ggy, in principle, that adminship itself is more about maintenance than article-writing, and that we shouldn't oppose someone based on the fact that most of their edits are maintenance-related. This is particularly important given the maintenance backlogs that build up. On the other hand, I do accept the view that an RfA candidate should have a significant editcount in the mainspace, which shouldn't be all automated vandal-fighting (some wikifying or copyediting work is always good to see, for instance). I also agree that a pure vandal-fighter or wikignome is unlikely to have enough experience interacting with other editors. Nonetheless, I think that someone who combines extensive mainspace maintenance work with active policy discussion (as with R and Captain panda) should not be opposed for adminship on the basis of inadequate article-writing - if everyone spent all their time writing articles rather than doing maintenance, the encyclopedia would quickly disintegrate. Walton^talk 14:33, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Reductio ad absurdum: If Wikipedia had started with a pool of volunteers, with all the volunteers focusing on fighting vandalism, applying maintenance tags, casting RFA and AFD votes, and doing other administrative tasks, but none of the volunteers writing articles, then there wouldn't actually be a pool of articles to maintain, delete, or unvandalize. On the other hand, if nobody maintained articles, vandalism and crufty articles would accumulate over time. Both of these branches of volunteerism are important. You need to have the articles in the first place before you can start maintaining them. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 15:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much what I was trying to say. As such, at RfA, experience in either field should be valued equally, although the perfect candidate should have a balance of both. Walton^talk 16:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, the reason I look for quality mainspace contributions is simple. Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are very easy to cite and expound upon in the abstract, but quite difficult to apply in a practical sense, particularly in contentious areas. That goes for dispute resolution, but also for the deletion policy (both AfD's and speedys), page protection gray areas, and even blocking and dealing with vandalism. I want to see that an editor's been "in the trenches" enough to realize this. MastCell ^Talk 22:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah, recently I've noticed a lot of opposes for lack of "major mainspace contributions" and I think I saw a "1FA" oppose. I mean, sure we want some article-writing experience and the like, but I think it's coming back a lot stronger than it should be. Someone that does nothing but tagging and AWB edits is one thing, but someone helping out with a few articles and spending ther time elsewhere is a lot harder to oppose for mainspace edit reasons IMO. Wizardman 00:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

See the 25th oppose here. --Rory096 15:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

• I think a balance is preferred, but not neccesarily requisite. I, of course, have been here for over two years writing articles, and working on vandal fighting, and failed an RFA apparently due to editcountitis... no big deal, but logic should follow that if I had not spent the better part of my first year and a half working on actual article writing, rather than bolstering my edit count with automated edits, or just prodigious quantities of manual anti-vandal edits (which take a matter of seconds each), that I would have passed my rfa. I think more value needs to be given to editors who are building articles; One edit may represent the creation of a substantial article, with numerous "versions" eliminated because the editor in question was using the "show preview" button, instead of "save page". If you are making a limited number of robust, quality edits over a period of time, you probably have at least as good of an idea of how Wikipedia works, and what it takes to keep it going as someone who has made 10,000 edits in three months. Hiberniantears 15:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
• The problem isn't opposing for lack of mainspace contributions. Even I think that requesting mainspace edits is reasonable (although I disagree). What isn't reasonable is demanding a number of mainspace edits compared to other kinds. You can kinda make a convincing case that you need to have some mainspace editing experience; there is absolutely no reason that a certain percentage is needed to make a good admin. -Amarkov moo! 04:08, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Hey, I am planning a series of surveys relating to RfA's, and I have prepared one already at http://wpsurvey.100webspace.net/index.php?sid=1. If you are reading this, you are most likely a RfA contributor, so I would be very grateful if you could fill out the survey.

This may be perceived as advertising, but it is wiki-related, and all results will be posted on-wiki when the survey completes. If this is consider inappropriate, feel free to remove, however I decided this was better than spamming the talk pages of heaps of people.

I would like to thank in advance anyone that completes the survey, and I will make all results available as soon as I get enough responses. Raw data will be available privately to users on request. No personal information is collected during the survey. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 10:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

At quick glance, I think it is silly to believe that people can make judgments on the minimal amount of information that you have provided. Support and Opposition is determined based on contributions, not in a vacuum based on just the numbers. I suggest that you remove this, not because it is inappropriate, but rather, because it will add no value. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 12:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

• Concur with After Midnight. This survey is based on editcountitis. --Durin 12:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
• The link seems to have stopped working so I assume you have removed it. Camaron1 | Chris 14:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
• We had a survey similar to this a bit earlier, with somebody "nominating" Karmafist, Angela, and Jimbo Wales for adminship, but omitting their names and gave only the edit count. There's more to adminship than edits. Sean William @ 15:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Everyone, This is not about the specific criteria! I could have used any criteria! The idea is the releationships between the answers. I do not care about the answers to some questions, just how they relate to others. The first screen is the only one based entirely on editcount anyway. Also, the DB server on my host is down, so it isn't up right now. Stupid free host. ^{That was not a personal attack, just me merely expreessing hatred towards my host} Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 22:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

DB server is back online, host got it up. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 04:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Early results are in! See User:TheFearow/Survey_Results#RfA_Survey. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 01:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Good. I just did this survey now. Well constructed. I left comments all the way through. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 01:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Essay on factions

I've written an informal essay in userspace, User:Walton monarchist89/Adminship factions. Please take a look at it and add your comments on the talk page, or edit the essay. Walton^talk 16:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Since I fit the classification of the "article first faction", I'm going to elaborate on my RfA oppose reasons. I oppose due to lack of non-automated article work because I feel that a user learns a great deal about Wikipedia, and gains experience in discussion and handling disputes over articles. I sometimes oppose users for "bureaucratic" behavior. I also think that people who put Wikipedia namespace editing before article editing have their priorities all mixed up. Regardless of your writing skills, you should be here to help build an encyclopedia. For me personally, I'm just looking to see if a candidate has experience in handling himself in straightforward discussion. I sometimes see users who have demonstrated that in the Wikipedia namespace, and in those cases, I have supported them despite a lack of article work. Also, I don't think you need to be a genius to comprehend speedy deletion, but you should have a decent understanding of the whole process, and also be a good communicator. It's happened far too often that new users have left Wikipedia because they are frustrated with the speedy deletion treatment of their articles on Wikipedia. Some users are going to be stubborn when you explain Wikipedia policy to them, but there are others who clearly will listen to you if you explain policy and guidelines to them in a simple, civil and straightforward manner. This goes back to the communication/discussion skills that an editor learns while doing article writing and participating in disputes over articles. I think my RfA standards are not that high, but some users think otherwise. Nishkid64 (talk) 16:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, fair enough - I was trying to characterise each faction's views in a fairly balanced manner, so if you feel the essay's a little unfair, feel free to edit it. I myself fit more into the "no big deal" faction, so I may have unconsciously shown some bias in my description of different views. Walton^talk 17:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I fall into the no big deal faction as well as the trust faction. Adminship is no big deal, but I will only support if I trust the candidate (though I'm not really nit-picky if they do not have much experience in a certain area). Greeves ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I've rewritten that bit somewhat, as it occurred to me that "trust" is too broad a term, and isn't necessarily antithetical to "no big deal". What I was referring to there is those who are extremely careful about RfA nominations. Walton^talk 18:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that essay is a fair observation, though as the essay suggests I am one of those that do not fall into any specific group - perhaps the "adminship is about a lot of things" group. I think adminship is no big deal - and I think hard before casting an oppose comment - but I always feel I need to trust the candidate before supporting, and like to see some evidence of article writing and experience but I do not consider either essential. Camaron1 | Chris 18:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Some bits need rewriting I think. I know Walton is a strict vote counter - whilst this is not up for discussion, I believe the most common way of writing it is !vote. It also tends to be biased that way as well - which is obvious since Walton wrote it :) The footnote in particular, should be more neutral to both sides. Majorly (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

True. I was trying to stay out of the "vote vs discussion" thing with this essay, but I guess my strongly-held views probably show through. Feel free to rewrite it as required. Walton^talk 18:54, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Vote vs discussion is more of an RfB issue than an RfA one. Borisblue 19:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, exactly, so let's stay out of it here. Walton^talk 19:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this essay? Is it to simply describe your subjective observations of voting behaviours on RfX or does it have a broader purpose? (aeropagitica) 19:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

To an extent it's subjective, as are all essays (they're primarily opinion pieces). I kept this one in userspace because it is basically a personal set of observations, but I also thought it might be interesting to other editors, and is certainly relevant to some of the discussion taking place on this page. Walton^talk 19:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough - the spread of participants does break down broadly amongst the lines you suggest, although motives are harder to fathom. Should this be kept as purely observational as a snapshot of participation in the RfX process as it is currently structured or can something more substantial be done be done with the opinions expressed therein by interested parties? A basis for reform or a paper to influence future policymaking? (aeropagitica) 22:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting to note that most factions are those of opposers. --Rory096 21:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

One faction I believe is missing is the "No good reason" faction. I've seen people opposed for "lack of portal talk edits". That certainly needs its own faction. Probably 75% or over of candidates have no portal talk edits, and probably at least half the crats dont have any either. I think it's a reason used when you just dont like the candidate, but want it to sound like you have a good reason. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 22:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

TheFearow, those oppose reasons are supposed to be taken as jokes. That's why you sometimes see a user write Oppose lack of Portal talk edits.Support This guy rocks. Nishkid64 (talk) 22:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

In response to aeropagitica's earlier comments, it would be difficult to use this as a basis for reform - in the end, it's mainly an observation on people's opinions and behaviour, not an attempt to change them. The community's already decisively rejected the idea of fixed standards for RfA. And in response to Rory, the bias towards opposers is due to the fact that Oppose votes tend to be more controversial, and accompanied by a more detailed rationale. In general, people will support or abstain unless they have a definite reason to oppose; it's when they oppose that their "faction" becomes apparent. Walton^talk 10:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh this is fun! What about the "race to support!" group? RfAs and RfBs of popular users have dozens of support votes within an hour or two of being up. Virtually no vetting whatsoever goes into dozens of support votes like this on RfA every single day:

1. Lightning strike beat the nom support -- Señor Speedy 10:38.0001, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
2. speedy, but not as speedy as Señor SUPPORT (ec) -- RapidGirl _{holla at me!} 10:38.0003, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
3. I can't believe Koala and Senor beat me again, but Support! -- CheetahGuy 10:38.0012, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
4. Support Wow, four people with Beat the nom support, yay! -- User: Mikey Johnson 10:38.0018, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
5. Support as nom. -- TheNominatrix 10:38.0025, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Or what about "contra-oppose" votes, where an opposer says "This user has never edited an article on Wikipedia" and someone responds "Support, WP:Editcountitis votes are unconvincing!" Or what about the "no reason needed group":

34. Support --RainbowSigMan^{Pot 'o Gold} 10:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, that was fun! --JayHenry 19:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I think most of the "race to support" group would fit into the "no big deal" faction. There's nothing inherently wrong with casting a Support vote without a rationale; the implicit statement is "I believe adminship is no big deal, and that this candidate can be trusted with the tools". An Oppose vote, on the other hand, generally needs a rationale, because the presumption ought to be in favour of support. Walton^talk 12:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:AAAD may be of some interest here. Warofdreams talk 03:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

This essay is intended to be completely different from WP:AAAD - AAAD lists arguments to avoid, while my essay outlines different valid points of view. I think the problem with AAAD is that it's a bit subjective; to one person, mainspace count might be a stupid reason to oppose, while another might see it as a good indicator of article-writing experience, for instance. Walton^talk 12:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

That's why the additions I've made to AAAD focus on the need to explain, preferably with examples, why the objection leads to the belief that the candidate cannot be trusted with adminship. "Has only 100 mainspace edits, so cannot tell whether they can deal with disputes" is a decent reason; "Has only 2,990 mainspace edits and I don't support under 3,000" is not. Warofdreams talk 15:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The Problem I have with the essay is that it is a great "how to guide" every nutter on earth can forget about watching RfA and create a persona which will satisfy 5/4. From what I have perceived (ok a very short life on wikipedia), there just isn't these great cliques. Can you actually think of anybody who has failed RfA, continued with the knowledge that they can gain more insight and failed a 2nd RfA unless they dreamed about tools? Administrators are the backbone of Wikipedia, when something has gone wrong on wikipedia, a sysop has told an editor before they knew it. Caution is everything in Wikipedia, from the basics of source. You're a star Walton, but please: a how to guide? a critism of Afd? Either say in an essay what you are going to say and conclude, or don't write one. Open essays for the masses don't work. Mike33 04:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

None of the bureaucrat nominations are going to pass...?

I don't mean to jinx anything, or make a premature judgment, but it seems quite possible that none of the current bureaucrat nominations are going to pass. There doesn't seem to be consensus on the level required by precedent for bureaucrats that any of these candidates should be promoted, and it seems to be getting worse, not better. I think those of us who believe Wikipedia needs more bureaucrats need to develop a plan of action.

• Should there be a search for admins who seem active, qualified, and scandal-free enough to pass RfB?
  • What would the criteria for such a search be, and how would we go about convincing said admins to submit themselves (or allow us to nominate them)?
• Does the process itself need reform?
  • Should we instead emulate the process for stewards, board members, arbitrators, or mediators?
  • Should we actually just fabricate a whole new process?
• Is there in fact a desire for more bureaucrats in the community, or is this just a vocal minority?
  • Are the opinions of the WT:RFA community indicative of those of the community as a whole?
    • Are perhaps those who participate on WT:RFA self-selecting in that they, themselves, want to pave the way to become bureaucrats, and therefore are biased in favor of more bureaucrats?
  • Does the deluge of bureaucrat nominations signify community sentiment on the matter, or is it just a coincidental/random pile-on?

Thoughts? Andre (talk) 21:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, if nominations are from administrators who barely participate at RfA, are inactive, controversial or don't seem to understand what RfB is about, it is likely they will fail. I don't think the system is broken, just that people have sometimes high standards (in example, my thought that a bureaucrat should around a year of experience). We need to have a) better candidates; b) RfB reform; c) lowering standards; d) more people participating. Dismissing a. because any administrator should be able to become a bureaucrat, b. because, apparently, the system is not broken (it works for administrators, why not for bureaucrats?), and c. because you cannot ask others to be more lenients, we can try d., bringing more people to participate, "fresh" blood. -- ReyBrujo 22:04, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I would advocate lowering the percentage to, say, 85%. We have two conflicting sides that are irreconciliable but are powerful at the same time: those that want RfA to be a vote, and those that do not. Lowering the percentage just a bit would prevent these two camps (especially their extreme elements, whom I will not name) from holding the process and the candidates "hostage," for lack of a better term. —Kurykh 22:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

There would be no need to lower a percentage if bureaucrats could weight opinions. An "Oppose, fails 1FA" reason is not as strong as "Oppose, blocked for 3RR a few months ago", which in time is not stronger than "Oppose, user lacks understanding of consensus, usually imposing his own will through threats." and, therefore, it would be possible for a nomination with 80 support and 30 "oppose, fails 1FA" to pass, but a 80 support and 20 "oppose, uses threats to achieve his goals" would fail. Some people, though, want bureaucrats to just promote after reaching a magic number, as if they were bots. -- ReyBrujo 22:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that oftentimes it is the vote/not vote dichotomy that takes up most of the oppose votes, not the passé 1FA thing. —Kurykh 22:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Well how is an RfB ever supposed to pass any future candidates with the current split in views of how RfA should be run? If you say you'll promote at the magic number, you'll get opposed by the users that hate vote counting, if you say you'll promote by weighting views in the discussion, you'll get opposed by users that want it to be more of a vote. It's impossible to pass by that logic. We need some other method of promoting 'crats. Elections held twice a year may be the best bet..... Ryan Postlethwaite 22:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

You mean similar to the board elections, where you can only support, and the ones with most support pass? --Deskana (talk) 22:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Possibly, or the ArbCom elections - users can still oppose candidates which allows greater transparency - the users with the highest percentage get promoted, say 4 at each election. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:28, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

<random thought>How about conclave-style! Without the ceremony and sequestering, of course... </random thought>—Kurykh 22:25, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Ryan's thought about elections is an interesting idea. Does it follow that each 'crat elected has a finite period in office? Do they get to stand for a set number of elections or to miss out every other election in order that fresh blood is injected in to the mixture? (aeropagitica) 22:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of elections because you can only support, and simple majority wins. And if you make the elections to have support/oppose discussions, then you will end up with the current mechanism. -- ReyBrujo 22:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Ryan does bring up a good point. It is something that we could possibly implement here. Of course, this election method would be disapproved by people who want more discussion, and less of a vote. Nishkid64 (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

To answer (aeropagitica), there's a few possibilities, once 'crated, user could hold the position indefinately, or for a set period such as 18 month, after which they must stand for re-election - if they've done there job correctly, they'll easily pass through it again and that way we stop inactive 'crats having the tools. A support/oppose election would promote the candidates with the highest percentage of support. The problem comes with what to do with the current 'crats.... Ryan Postlethwaite 22:50, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Make them stand for re-election? Superannuate them if they choose not to participate? These and other possibilities lie a long way in the future once a reformed system can be agreed upon. (aeropagitica) 22:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

ReyBrujo - isn't the implication of Ryan's suggestion that the pass/fail situation is what we practically have at the moment in all but name? If this can be acknowledged then moving on to an electoral mechanism that has achieved consensus would potentially offer advantages that the current system lacks. The problem is that the Arbcom system may not suit RfBs. (aeropagitica) 22:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. But consider that this election approach acknowledges the system is broken. I am open, I accept different approaches, but personally would like someone to demonstrate me why the process works fine for RfAs but is broken for RfBs, when basically a bureaucrat has two or three additional features that, truth to be told, are used much less than the administrator features. -- ReyBrujo 22:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I would prefer a RfC format, where users give reasons why the user should or not be a bureaucrat, others support the point of view, and in the end the bureaucrats review the discussion and decide. However, bureaucrats are lazy and would not like it ;-) -- ReyBrujo 22:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Itsds very hard to judge consensus from and RfC unless it is very very clear. I suggest modifying Ryans proposal to iinclude a week of discussion beforehand, where all the issues get hashed out and then the vote. Viridae^Talk 22:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea in principle but in exectution it is all-but-impossible to sort through an establish the consensus of 100+ participants in an RfB. It was attempted back at the start of the year with some RfAs and the finished state of the discussions was far too confusing in comparision with what we currently have. (aeropagitica) 22:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I admit it is hard to judge consensus in RfCs. However, a) we have, maybe, one bureaucratship request per week; b) there is no need to promote someone right after the discussion ends, a week of waiting won't kill anyone; and c) since these discussions would be studied and closed by consensus between three or four bureaucrats, we would need many more of them. -- ReyBrujo 23:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

• I believe that Ryan's suggestion is very good. It makes sure some people can actually become crats and we get to de-crat the really inactive ones. GDonato (talk) 22:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll answer Andre's question without reading the whole thread. I do support additions to the bureaucrat roster, but I do not expect to become one myself. (I might not even become an admin.) I honestly think there are a hundred admins who could do a fine job with bureaucrat duties if only we would allow them. I have supported all b'crat candidacies without exception, though in fairness, I reviewed the nominations and I still consider them all good candidates. I can think of someone who has run for b'cratship in the past whom I would probably not support, so it's not a thoughtless process.

I think there needs to be some way that Wikipedia will gain at least two new bureaucrats per twelve-month period, come hell or high water. Ryan's suggestion is one way of doing that. If we lose bureaucrats who become inactive or retire for other reasons, we need to gain bureaucrats who will take over for them. The workload at WP:CHU is not becoming any smaller. Shalom ^Hello 00:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bureaucrat elections

A very quick proposal I've created at the page above - please modify it and expand as required. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Could be a good idea, but might prove a little bureaucratic. ---- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 23:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

What if the "three users with the highest support percentages" score below 50 or 60% (maybe it's a bad season)? The kind of system proposed seems warranted only if we are in desperate need of more bureaucrats. I don't think that's the case (yet). -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this might be more bureaucratic, but anything is better than the unpassable mess that RfB is now. Black Falcon, we are in dire need of new bureaucrats. The backlog at WP:CHU is (was) quite large. Sean William @ 01:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

There are good and bad parts to this, I'd say. It would make sure that we have active bureaucrats, yes, but it may also make it feel more as a privilege. We could use a few more bcrats, however this system would have us have 9 at a time, fewer than what we have now. Wizardman 02:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

True, but that'd be 9 ones elected recently, increasing their chances of being active. --Deskana (talk) 02:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The way to assure we have active bureaucrats isn't to keep making more until the job gets done, it's to have bureaucrats stand for affirmation annually (at least the new ones). Have a few people lose their bits for inactivity and see how participation improves among the sluggards. -- Cecropia 02:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Why are we limiting it to 18 month terms? If someone is trusted to be a bureaucrat do they cease to be so after a period of time? Its not like ArbCom where too many people might be counterproductive. Limiting the number seems to convert the position of bureaucrat into one of high status, rather than that of a functionary. On that principle Secretlondon wouldn't have been able to help out with the rename backlogs over the last few months as she had performed no crat actions for a long time previously. Surely the idea is to get more crats (albeit ones the community trusts to do the job), not reduce the number... WjBscribe 02:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

But those losing their bits for real inactivity (not in and out situations when other work or real life intrudes) could be treated as vacancies, increasing the likelihood of new bureaucrats being chosen. But, as you say, they should be qualified, not warm bodies. -- Cecropia 02:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Were it not for the Secretlondon example I would have agreed with you more. Prior to her performing renames from Apr '07 she has last promoted a user in July '04 and performed a rename in Jan '06 (see Bureaucrat statistics). I think most would see that as real inactivity. It doesn't take much for a few of the most active crats to be away for a while - having some extra users with those tools to step in isn't a bad thing. But it does result in an odd imbalance - we trust crats who were promoted back in 2004 even though we have little experience of them, but are reluctant to trust some of our most active admins now because we know them so well that we can find a flaw to make them less than ideal in our eyes. WjBscribe 02:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, so that's the way it is! :) OK, I'll see your Secretlondon and raise you one Danny. No not Danny the RfA candidate, Danny the former bureaucrat. He became a bureaucrat in June '04 and made exactly one promotion in September '04 and then disappeared from the radar screen until March '06. when he swooped in out of nowhere to close a disputed RfB without explanation. In the remaining year of his 'cratship he made two more promotions. He also did four renames. I'm very glad Secretlondon returned and has done such outstanding work, but it would not have been terrible if she had stood for reaffirmation after a long period of inactivity. I had my bit removed voluntarily and submitted myself to a new RfB. Do you think that was a bad thing? -- Cecropia 03:37, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure we need to go that far as to have regular elections and promote people even if nobody has say over 85%. But if approved, this would have the advantanges of removing inactive bureaucrats. From my experience some of them come back only occasionally to mess things up. If no new bureaucrats are elected by the end of the year, adopting this election proposal could be a good idea. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:27, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

New bureaucrats would still need to reach consensus. If a "vacancy" weren't filled by one or more RfBs, we could run more until one succeeded, 00 Cecropia 03:37, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Why not split up the renaming ability from the admin-promotion button? I think that the software would allow it. No one seems on RfB to be that concerned about giving too many people renaming rights and that's where the backlog is. Maybe either make it a new position or just give it to all admins? JoshuaZ 16:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

One of the concerns about allowing any admin to do it is that it is a severe drain on the servers for each rename (the more edits, the worse it is). That said, I've repeatedly said that I'd be all for the rename ability being spun off onto its own. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:18, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so is there any reason we shouldn't spin it off? JoshuaZ 16:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Create another level of access? editor, sysop, bcrat, changeuser, checkuser, steward, eh... And a whole new process to grant the access? I just don't even see the issue here. Is it really some sort of crisis if somebody has to wait a couple days for a username change? If anything there ought to be a waiting period anyways. Besides, I think Deskana's RfB will pass, and maybe one of the others. I think an RfB from WJBscribe would pass once he's been an admin for longer. But if we had people changing usernames as often as they change sigs? Gosh, it'd be impossible to even keep track of people. --JayHenry 17:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

For a position that is guarded with so much trust I think it better to have a re-election/review time period (I would even support yearly reviews for administrators). A year and a half is a decent length of time for review. However, may I suggest having quarterly bureaucrat nominations with only one being promoted? It could help keep a healthy discussion and focus on the roles, duties and expectations of bureaucrats. --Ozgod 20:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Problems of bureaucrat promotion

The first problem is that there is a significant movement that simply wants more bureaucrats as an end in itself. Whenever there is an anomaly in the jobs that bureaucrats cover (especially a backlog at WP:CHU) this is used as a springboard for the concept that there must be more bureaucrats now. Part of the problem is that bureaucrat candidacies appear to be self-selected and then discussed by many people (including some of the prospective bureaucrats) that have a poor concept of what bureaucrats need to be and do. Bureaucrat is a job not an honorary position like MBE. It is also a position that can do a lot of damage in bad decisions and in community confidence, much more so than in adminship. Almost everything a problem admin does can be reversed. Technically, so also with bureaucrats, but in practice it almost never happens (not should it). If we want to complain about the opposers, consider many of the supporters. How many "won't do any harm," "good admin, will be a good 'crat," "protesting pathetic opposes," "good choice," "seems to understand," etc. when considering what kind of 'crat someone may be. I believe it is going to be up to me to gather together some of the principles of the system (having been intimately involved with the process effectively from the beginning) for reading by the community and prospective 'crats and then we may not have so many failed RfBs. -- Cecropia 23:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

People use the bureaucratship backlogs as an excuse for nominating, yes. But lack of backlogs is used as an excuse for opposing.

I don't like the overall "bureaucratship is a privilege for very few" you left in the air. Bureaucratship should not be a cabal. If someone is a good administrator, knows what bureaucratship is about, and has consensus, why should we care if his application stated he wanted to help with the backlogs as main reason? -- ReyBrujo 00:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Your problem of perception is that you view bureaucratship as a "privilege." How many others calling for "more 'crats" view it the same way? It is simply a job on Wikipedia; if it has any further panache that would come from the job being done well. Considering it a privilege makes it seems desirable as an achievement in itself, which may explain why some seek it without a clear concept of how it runs. As I stated sometime earlier, there is no such thing as an RfA 'crat and a rename 'crat. I would hope the community views each nominee as though he or she will be making the most controversial decisions and having to engage the community intimately. I am pleased that most of the community seems to view by bureaucrat work positively, but I also know that there are no "laurels" to rest on. The expressed confidence of the majority of the community in the bureaucrat system is my main reward insofar as I have contributed to that. Confidence in how RfA is run can be destroyed by bad decisions and poor engagement, and that burden falls on all the 'crats -- Cecropia 01:37, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Inherently positions with perceived 'power' will be seen as a privilege by a good portion of those judging it. This is doubly true for cratship, since Bureaucrat's actions are almost never undone. Prodego ^talk 01:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

There might be a higher confidence level in making new 'crats if they had to stand for affirmation after 90 days, say, or earlier if there were significant demand to do so, and then annually. -- Cecropia 01:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... I already stated I would like to see at least one new bureaucrat per month, and point out that the Spanish Wikipedia has no administrators, everyone is bureaucrat, and they don't have any problem with that. How is that I see the position as a privilege? My motto is that bureaucratship is not a big thing :-) -- ReyBrujo 02:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The issue is that due to the position's rarity, it has been elevated as a privilege, at least in the perception of a considerable portion of the community. Hence my badly-worded "technical position" comment a week ago or so. Bureaucrats' rarity makes the position seem like a big deal, which then makes bureaucratship a goal, which then makes it seem like a bigger deal, and since it appears to be a big deal, the community tries to limit bureaucratship as much as possible, making it rarer, and so on, and so on. It is a negative feedback loop, and I'm not sure it is a good thing for Wikipedia. I'm interested in all suggestions, including reconfirmation, as Cecropia put forward. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I recommend people have a read of User:NoSeptember/bureaucrat. NoSeptember's thoughts are perceptive in a number of ways and most were made about a year ago. At the moment the work is being done. It could be done more quickly and more importantly it could be done without the workload falling on a particular crat. The burden of doing most renames each month has usually been on the shoulders of a single crat (take a look at Crat rename stats). Sharing out the workload seems in the interests of keeping some crats who regularly do renames without burning them out every few months. If no one passes RfB this will be because of either (a) the candidates, (b) the participants or (c) the process. If (a) then the outcome is correct, if (b) one should work on changing attitudes. Only where one is certain that (a) and (b) are not the problem can we conclude (c) is at fault. One of the problems that seems to be arising is that some are supporting or opposing based on how they would like RfA to change - i.e. that it should be more like a vote or less like a vote. But it is not for the crats to reform RfA - merely to administer the system the community chooses. If a discussion results in the consensus that we should elect admins - crats should be willing to promote on vote outcomes. If a discussion results in the conclusion that RfAs should be pure discussion and that the number of people expressing an opinion is irrelevant crats should be able to work within that system. Should the community decide to appoint admins by random lottery, crats should administer the lottery and promote accordingly. In my opinion it is important to try and keep RfA reform and crat appointment separate. Whether people like it or not RfA is a hybird between a vote and a discussion with crats given discretion to evaluate consensus outside counting comments in borderline cases. It is not for crats (or crat candidates) to determine which way the system should swing (or if it should be replaced altogether) - that is a matter for the community. In appointing crats we need to look for those who will apply the community consensus as to how RfAs can be closed regardless of how that the community's views may change in the future. WjBscribe 02:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Voting symbols

At the risk of restarting the whole !vote vs. vote discussion, I have seen what I believe to be an increase of the use of voting symbols, such as appearing attached to comments on the RFA. It is my opinion that the use of these is just silly. The comments are already broken into support and oppose, so it is obvious which is intended by the commenter, as opposed to a standard conversation where each successive comment may alternate opinions. Does anyone, other than me, support the depreciation of these symbols on the page? Is it reasonable for us to restrict their use here or remove them when used? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 17:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. They really are not necessary here. They have a purpose at voting processes at other Wikimedia projects (like RfAs on Meta-Wiki, for example), but they don't really have a purpose here. We already have split the sections into Support, Oppose and Neutral, so the symbols are not needed. I don't think it's necessary to remove the symbols, but it's probably best to advise users who do use the symbols that it really isn't needed. Nishkid64 (talk) 18:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Those again? This has been discussed ad nauseam here: they're useful in Commons, Meta, or other multilinguistic projects, but here they just are a resource hog. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:16, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As far as I'm aware, the only projects where the voting symbols are officially endorsed are multi-language projects where people may vote in their native langauge. There they are helpful, if not extremely important. On the English Wikipedia, I'm not sure they're necessary at all. This is irrespective of the "vote vs discussion" debate. --Deskana (talk) 18:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I've seen them start cropping up. I tend to just ignore them and get on with life. Until the page is full of green and red symbols taking ages to load and hurting my eyes, there are more important things to be worried about. Majorly (talk) 19:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, the server only loads them once for all the times they appear on the page. So if there's fifty thousand, it'll only use the bandwidth of one but display them all. Still, I don't think they're necessary. --Deskana (talk) 19:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

If they can't read English, they shouldn't be participating in the English Wikipedia's RfA process. :) I say remove them on sight in RfAs. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Voting images are a useless addition to our already overused "bold votes". We all speak English, so let's avoid them. Sean William @ 19:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Not needed. The only need for these is Commons, Meta and obscure language projects when a steward has to do the promotion. GDonato (talk) 19:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, these serve no useful purpose in an editor giving of their opinion and merely add to the page load time. Their use should be discouraged as these policy pages are utilitarian and supposed to be practical rather than pretty. (aeropagitica) 20:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I use them for various voting proccesses, usually on ones that have all mixed in (AfD's etc). I have some custom toolbar icons I use for voting, which automatically adds the symbols anyway. What is wrong with using the symbols? They don't wreck anything, and the bandwidth is only a tiny amount. If everyone used the same symbols, there would only be three images needing to be loaded, so there is not bandwidth issue. I think it is just personal preferrence. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 21:38, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

What is wrong is that they are pointless, and we already have a lot of cruft floating around ;) Seriously, you're welcome to use them, but they're likely to be removed, whilst the S/O/N headings survive. The whole purpose of those sections is to determine your position without any fancy images/bold type. Giggy _U^CP 22:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that they don't "wreck" anything and I don't have bandwidth concerns. Still, I think consensus is towards not having the symbols rather than having a continuous column of identical green followed by a column of red icons on the pages. There is no reason to use them, and RFA should be about judging the candidates, not about expressing personal preferences for icons. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 22:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

(<--)Adding voting images is like removing the support/oppose/neutral section headings. It's pointless. Applause to Sean William on removing them (no doubt it happened in others too, but I only noticed it here). Giggy _U^CP 22:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

They are silly, but harmless. I don't think we really need to take a stand either way. Andre (talk) 22:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

IMO, this issue does not warrant discussion. It is like discussing how many people simply start typing and do not actually specify in their comment whether they are support or oppose. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think they are necessary, as they just mark what is already clear - but I don't think they are that much of a big deal either. I have seen them in use and I have just treated them as a personal preference. They can be discouraged, but I think there are better things that can be done than police RfA comments over trivial issues. Camaron1 | Chris 11:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Prior discussion.--Chaser - T 00:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind that each use of an icon adds about 300 bytes to the raw size of the HTML markup of a Wikipedia page. Multiplied by several hundreds of votes, that represents a non-trivial increase in the size of this already very large page. Go easy on the dial-up users, who suffer so much as it is. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I'm not bothered one way or the other on the images, I don't think it makes a huge difference to page load in this instance. The image will only be loaded once and then called each time in the html by your browser, so it will only be a few bytes each time. Of course there is also the issue that for partially sighted people the image will be meaningless, and some readers will just read the raw image description (as I don't think it has an <alt> tag) each time making it very irritating. Pedro |  Chat  14:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about the HTML calls, actually. Check the source (HTML, not wikimarkup) for this page--the image call earlier in this section costs nearly 300 bytes. At the moment there are about eight hundred !votes on the RfA page; that starts to add up. I'd much prefer to see people use the extra 300 bytes to give a descriptive, useful comment. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

So I see, it's a monstrous call in raw html alone, and as I guessed the <alt> tag is empty. So for vision impaired people those icons are going to be a serious irritation. I've never used them, but I think it's clear their value is minimal at best. Pedro |  Chat  07:17, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

• Templates with those symbols have been persistently deleted via TFD. We should strongly discourage their use in RFA. >Radiant< 09:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
• Community Consensus is that they have no place/add no value at RFA/RFB, and that editors using them should be advised accordingly? Pedro |  Chat  11:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

To people who like "voting symbols": go and install User:ais523/votesymbols.js, and you can have your symbols without inflicting them on the rest of us. (Bear in mind that the majority of Wikipedia processes are not votes even when they have bolded recommendations, although it is not clear whether RfA is a vote.) --ais523 17:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I've just removed a handful of these which TheFearow uses, I've asked him not to but he doesn't seem to want to stop so I've linked to a few discusions when using the vote images have cropped up. Rlest 12:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I have been watching the discussions, but it seemed like no consensus either way, and I believe they look good. I have now removed them from my scripts, although I object to removing them for AFD's where the D/K/C's are mixed. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 09:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Batistadx

I came accross this orphaned, and rather futile RfA whcih isn't ranscluded to the main RfA page. Just thought you'd like to know. --Edokter (Talk) 19:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• There isn't anything to do with it. We do not close RfAs that have never been transcluded to WP:RFA. --Durin 19:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I deleted it... there's no point in letting it hang around. Клоун 19:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The first "real" bureaucrat promotion in more than a year

Hats off to Deskana (talk · contribs) for becoming the first bureaucrat promotion (Cecropia's was more of a re-confirmation) in over a year. :) Nishkid64 (talk) 23:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm very happy and relieved. The pressure's off now. Andre (talk) 23:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

And it's possible that there will be more bureaucrat promotions in the next day or two. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, "today" -- in UTC time that is. Andre (talk) 00:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I am estimating that we will at least have 1 more bcrat by the time these RFBs close (I am guessing it will be Andrevan or Ral315 if anyone else gets promoted). FunPika 00:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be funny if Deskana promoted! Ryan Postlethwaite 00:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I asked Deskana but he said he won't close an RFB because he voted in most (but not Andrevan's I think). FunPika 00:35, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

No, he didn't vote in mine. I'd be honored to have him perform his first closing on my RfB. Andre (talk) 00:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I put a message on his talk page about your statement Andrevan. Maybe now he will consider handling yours. FunPika 00:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That said, he may not want to, as my RfB might be close and potentially controversial. Andre (talk) 00:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Given my n00bishness, I'd prefer to avoid closing any RfBs for the time being. --Deskana (talk) 00:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Especially after that incident at WP:CHU (check his talk). :-P Nishkid64 (talk) 00:53, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Ack! Such carelessness is unbecoming for a bureaucrat. De-'crat him! :P Borisblue 01:10, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Congrats Deskana! -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 01:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Borisblue:That would be a record, surely! Giggy _U^CP 01:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I think all of the admins who recently tried to get the crat tools should be congratulated. It is, in some cases, perhaps a little unfortunate that Deskana and Andrevan were the only people who got promoted. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Not true, so did Andrevan. Prodego ^talk 02:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Really? Dear, sorry. I havent been around because of my holiday, so I'm not exactly "in the know" atm. Oh well, I'll change that. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 03:00, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you weren't that behind; Andrevan was promoted 6 minutes ago as of this post. —Kurykh 03:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually you probably didn't know because it happened a few seconds ago. :) Prodego ^talk 03:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, specifically 3600 seconds. Very few, huh? :) —Kurykh 03:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Well it depends how you look at it. Besides, Mediawiki stores lots of times in seconds, for example, you aren't auto-confirmed after 4 days, you are auto-confirmed after 4*24*3600 seconds. Prodego ^talk 03:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Right. Well, I do try to keep an eagle eye on my watchlist, but maybe I just wasnt checking it every 30 seconds, as seems to be my usual custom. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 03:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Error! It would be 4*24*10*360 seconds, giving a grand total of 345,600 seconds. And I corrected my mathematical error above; it is supposed to be 360 seconds, not 3600. —Kurykh 03:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I had just noticed that myself. I think this clearly proves that we are both very bad at math. Prodego ^talk 03:11, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

No wonder only two passed...I bet they aren't that great at maths easier. Obviously it's the only criteria :P Giggy _U^CP 04:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, obviously, when so much mathematical emphasis is placed on a detail as minor as the closing time. ;) -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:50, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Archiving again

Resolved

Just since I don't have the time to figure this out right now, I wonder if someone can go through and pull out posts to WT:RFA from June 16 to July 1, which are missing from the archives. Depending on the length, it seems it would be easiest just to add them to the end of Archive 96. It might also be helpful to remind whoever deleted the posts without archiving that we keep a record of what goes on here. Thanks in advance for some helpful detective work.... Dekimasuよ! 11:45, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

• Just a note to say I'm having a look to save duplicated efforts. Hiding Talk 12:28, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
• There were no deleted sections, they were archived to 97. I think a top poster confused the issue when it came to adding dates to the archive index, as the top section in archive 97 was dated July 2nd, and then after that came the sections from June 16 to July 1. I've rebalanced the archives as suggested though, and would just like to point out the perils of jumping to conclusions and note that we assume good faith around here. ;) Hiding Talk 12:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Assuming good faith doesn't mean thinking no one makes mistakes! I didn't think anyone did anything negative on purpose; I just failed to realize that the mistake was so minor, since Archive 96 was so short and the dates at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archives also excluded the interim. Thanks for checking it out and balancing it. Dekimasuよ! 13:00, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I figure an assumption of good faith would allow the possibility that there was a simple mistake and helpfully reminded you of that in the spirit of your request for a friendly reminder. ;) Hiding Talk 13:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Relax, you two. You're acting like an old married couple. Andre (talk) 21:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

A married couple wouldn't declare it as resolved though...they'd bicker for eternity :P Giggy _U^CP 22:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Some prefer nettles (蓼くう虫も好き好き, tade kū mushi mo sukizuki).... Dekimasuよ! 00:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

He's back....

Kurt Weber is still attacking self-noms. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ishikawa Minoru. Giggy _U^CP 02:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I say ignore it. His opinion will not reflect the outcome of the request, but if anyone starts going "per Kurt..." then that will be a problem :P Majorly (talk) 02:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey, he supported a self nom! To bad it was a joke... Giggy _U^CP 05:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Support per Kurt. I view self-noms as prima facie evidence of power-hunger. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 05:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC) ... What?!? Power-hungry people can be reasoned and bargained with. There's nothing worse than trying to deal with someone with morals ... ugh!

The next time someone self-nominates, they should make sure to include: "I don't want power at all! I really don't care if I'm made an admin or if I believe that I could use the tools to benefit Wikipedia; I just hope you guys'll humor me for a week." Gracenotes^T § 05:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I actually tried this in the face of honesty (hey I must be so naive) Rfa Mike33 Rfa is broken no honesty will ever work. (cram up on answers and supplementaries, its better than an oral) Mike33 14:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, if his comment at the recently closed request that is discussed in the following post, Kurt has finally decided to abandon what seems to be a vendetta against self-nominations. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The post below doesn't make the best example though... Giggy _U^CP 21:59, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Try this: #Support — I view self-noms as prima facie evidence of wanting to help better the encyclopedia. I used on carlossuarez46's RfA, which Kurt "attacked". Клоун 22:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Not Wikipedia Administrator

Could someone else close this please? It's being re-opened but is obviously a joke, or a snow closure in any case. Giggy _U^CP 05:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Please stop closing it. You are absurdly abusing WP:SNOW. It has probably never before been used in such a ridiculously inapplicable situation. See "What the snowball clause is not." What you are doing is wrong and I can't even understand it. "Allowing a process to continue to its conclusion may allow for a more reasoned discourse, ensures that all arguments are fully examined, and maintains a sense of fairness." I just don't understand this! Not Wikipedia Administrator 05:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Just leave it be. If it gets opened again, I'd have to oppose for your lack of history. You have a handful of edits and a 2.5 year hiatus before your self-nom. --健次(derumi)^talk 05:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Look, while this may not have reached SNOW proportions yet, there is absolutely no chance that it wont should it remain open. I promise you, you will not pass with only 50 edits to that account. Viridae^Talk 05:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

We're sparing you the inevitable sledgehammer of opposition. More constructive efforts can be devoting to editing the encyclopedia. In case you didn't know, foresight is one of the most important requirements in being an administrator. —Kurykh 05:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

All of those are good reasoned arguments. And their proper place to appear upon is on the RfA. Not Wikipedia Administrator 05:20, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Let it run through, it'll be SNOWed within a few hours. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 05:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

That was what I was going to suggest. Viridae^Talk 05:33, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Note that this user is now indefinitely blocked. Chick Bowen 05:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

From the deleted history of User:Not Wikipedia Administrator, it appears that this account was created or used almost three years ago for the purpose of harassing Andrevan. Newyorkbrad 05:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Just a reminder about one of our newer extensions: admins can also view Special:DeletedContributions/Not Wikipedia Administrator, which may complement evidence such as that which Newyorkbrad mentioned above. (Don't have too much fun with it, though!) Gracenotes^T § 06:10, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow! i was not aware of that special page. What a useful tool. Anyway - it seems good that this RFA has been closed, and this account blocked. The last thing we want is an account created for harassment, let alone an admin! -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose the RfBs of any editors who redirect to my mom. Dekimasuよ! 07:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Yo' momma's so fat, she has her own namespace. See also Dekimasu'smom: Main Page. Andre (talk) 07:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Just how many accounts do you have? Dekimasuよ! 10:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is an old account of User:DG, a ridiculous but harmless friend of mine from elsewhere who occasionally contributes productively to the encyclopedia, but mostly does silliness. That account was username blocked ages ago, I thought indefinitely, prompting him to create the DG account. Feel free to block him if he acts up. Andre (talk) 06:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

In fact, I have no idea how that account became unblocked to begin with. There's no record of the block in the log, but it does predate the block log's existence. Did indefinite blocks get wiped at some point in the past? Andre (talk) 06:29, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure it was ever blocked. In those days the practice was to try to convince people to change their username first, and it seems no one followed up in this case. If this was DG, Andrevan, please let him know we're getting tired of his antics. Harmless he may be, but he has now committed pagemove vandalism, made inappropriate comments at your RfB, added and re-added several times a fake message bar to his userpage that links to a shock image, trolled RfA, and generally made of a nuisance of himself. Is he, perhaps, interested in editing some articles? Chick Bowen 13:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure it was blocked at one point, by Guanaco I think, and the block was active as recent as February when this happened: "20:49, February 7, 2007 Mets501 (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "User:Not Wikipedia Administrator" (userpage of an indefinitely blocked user)" At any rate, check the "Wikivacation" message on his user page, I spoke to him. Andre (talk) 19:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Understood. I'd far rather he settled down and contributed than that he leave, of course. Chick Bowen 22:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed trial of new way of running RfA

I think we should remove the support, oppose and neutral sections from RfA - it turns the whole process into a vote, which goes against the way we operate just about every other process on wikipedia. We don't need the numbers, we don't need the sections - what we need is an organised discussion to decide if consensus shows that someone can be an administrator. Where did the 75%, 80% numbers come from? AfD runs perfectly well without individual sections - it gets a healthy debate for 5 days, then an administrator pops along and judges the consensus of it. Our 'crats are trusted members of the community who have shown to be able to judge well the consensus of debates. I'm sorry to go back to numbers, but an AfD discussion can show that with 60% of users wishing to delete an article, it can be deleted - so why is consensus so different at RfA? So what do I propose?

• We remove the sections from the RfA template for one week and evaluate what has happens, is it a fairer process? Have the 'crats shown they are able to judge consensus or has WWIII broken out on wikipedia? Take a look at my proposed template [2], see it's a tiny change! ......
• If it's a better way, we keep it, if not, we go back to the present way.

At present, we might as well just have Crat Bot come along and promote all candidates that have over 75 % supports - Don't forget, Wikipedia is about consensus, not numbers......... Ryan Postlethwaite 22:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The only problem with this type of method is that people will perceive an unfairness in the decisions, as judging consensus is much more subjective then 'judging' majority. Prodego ^talk 22:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

But, that could be what we need.... Ryan Postlethwaite 22:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

We did try it recently with Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Moralis. Frankly the only real outcome I see is a mess - it seems to me changes to RfA should be about the attitudes of those express opinions, not cosmetic changes to the page. WjBscribe 22:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

If RfA is broken, this won't fix it. And if you look at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Moralis, judging consensus will a be a good deal more difficult then in an AfD with 10 comments, where you can see all of them on the screen. Giggy _U^CP 22:31, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't support this at all, and agree that it creates nothing but a mess. It you wish to discuss, do it. Having sections to separate those who support a nomination or oppose it do not stop discussion; it simply makes it easier to see the level of support/opposition. - auburnpilot talk 22:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry guys, I forgot that RfA is a vote - oh well, if that's how users want it to be, then cool - let's just have a little more consistancy. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The 'crat that closed the Moralis RfA, which had the format you are advocating, found that the format "wasn't particularly helpful in determining consensus. On the plus side, it did encourage users to explain their reasons for support or objection, but on the negative side, it led to a large number of comments mixed throughout the discussion repeating issues which had appeared earlier. This made it far more time-consuming than an ordinary RfA to determine which issues had been raised and how many users felt that these were serious concerns." original diff. Plenty of contributors objected to the format; see the WT:RFA and WT:BN archives. Since it didn't help the closer, and made it worse for the participants, I don't see how we can call it a better format. GRBerry 23:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The support, oppose, neutral headings don't make the process a vote any more than the tallies do. RfA is not a vote, but numerical strength is a large part of determining consensus, and organization of the page into headings and categories is useful and important. They don't prevent a discussion from happening within the headings, and we don't have a rule that says not to respond to comments. And as far as the comparison to AfD, AfD hardly ever has as many comments as RfA, and when it does it often DOES cut the page up into keep and delete sections. The divisions are a matter of scale and convenience, not whether or not the process is a vote. Andre (talk) 22:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I have to disagree - the whole process at present is a vote. Further to that, if we reject candidates with 70% support, then we're going against the consensus, which is most probably saying to promote - but then again, that 75% post or whatever it is, clearly is an important figure when the crats decide the result. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this whole "anti-number" thing is silly. 75-80% is a rule of thumb, it's not the end-all be-all and RfA is not an exercise in vote counting, but 75-80% is a rule of thumb that represents the amount of approval required. I recommend you read and re-read Wikipedia:Consensus and User:Voice of All/Consensus. If we reject candidates with 70% support, it is because we have judged there to not be consensus based on the particulars of the nomination. The support percentage isn't the prime decision value, but neither is it unimportant. Andre (talk) 22:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Ryan, do you actually understand what consensus is? Anything under 70% is not a consensus. It's a majority, perhaps, but it's not a sign that people generally agree. 86.137.57.73 22:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

But it is an exercise in vote counting. The bureaucrats do not take into account the weight or even validity of arguments. They just count the votes. They don't even pick out votes from sockpuppets or very new users, or comments by users who have blatantly mistaken the candidate for someone else – Gurch 22:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I know for a fact that that is totally untrue. Sockpuppet votes or simply untrue votes are discounted by nearly all bureaucrats, and most bureaucrats do a lot more. UninvitedCompany, for example, once described to me his thought process in closing a controversial nomination. Plus, you don't seem to realize that as of a few days ago, I am a bureaucrat. In the RfA I closed of R, I took everything into account, and intend to continue to do so. Andre (talk) 23:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Those are some fairly definite claims. Anything to back them up, or are we just going on a hunch? I can't say I've ever seen a case where any of the above affected the outcome. - auburnpilot talk 22:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

In the two RfAs I've closed, I've read every single comment. Yes, I did calculate a support percentage, but I did that after I read the RfA and already had an idea as to how I would close those RfAs. I don't think RfA is an exercise in vote counting. --Deskana (talk) 23:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Complete and utter nonsense. Go and read through the comments on Gracenotes' RfA and pick out the ones who thought they were voting for Grace Note. (It's not hard). Then go read the bureaucrat chat and see how Cecropia whines about how every vote must count – Gurch 15:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Whines? Oh, dear! -- Cecropia 01:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

(e.c.) I can't remember who pointed it out, but I agreed that the AFD format breaks down when subjected to the stresses of extremely controversial cases, such as Daniel Brandt and Essjay controversy. After a random selection of keep, delete, delete, keep, merge, comment, response, BJAODN, nuke it from orbit!!, etc. etc. it's hard to see what's flying. I like how the numbered format keeps the comments organized.

However, I do think RFA could become more of a discussion if people started threads on specific issues. It is easy to recall RFAs that broke down because of a single issue: Gracenotes (external links), CharlotteWebb (Tor), my first RFA as YechielMan (vandalism). I sometimes think it might be more productive to establish specific issues of concern and discuss those. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Matt Britt was overkill, but I wonder if there's a sane way to do this while preserving the support/oppose/neutral format that everyone is comfortable with. Shalom ^Hello 22:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

At base, this looks like a suggestion to make the closing of RfAs even harder. The first thing a 'crat would have to do is to figure out the raw sentiment that is now pre-sorted. If there is no sorting at all, then you are empowering the bureaucrat not to determine consensus, but to try to figure out where each participant stands and to make more subjective decisions based on being swayed one way or another by the arguments presented. -- Cecropia 01:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

How about this

This has been proposed before, but I think the idea has its merits, far more so than the above. How about RfAs run for 8 days. 5 days of discussion before the !vote opens, then 3 days when the !votes open. The 5 days of discussion allow all the pros and cons of the candidate to be discussed fully, and a consensus to develop more fully, then the !votes are cast, with people hopefully citing their reasoning why or why not more often because it is more of a debate. Viridae^Talk 01:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the concept, but I'd say 4 and 4 (or 4 and 3) days at most. Giggy _U^CP 01:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I would DEFINATELY support this idea. A 4/5 day discussion period, then a 2/3 day voting period. That way, it also eliminates premature candidates gettings opposed :). This is something I would definately support (during the proper voting period, of course). Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind a blind vote system after the discussion period - where you right click to cast your "consensus vote", it is then added to the consensus subpage of the RFA and is tabulated when the RFA is finished. I.e. when it comes time to say your piece you do not see what others have voiced previously so you are not influenced by their decision (i.e. snowballing). --Ozgod 03:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a very interesting proposal. Personally, I'd be too impatient to wait 3 days to support a good candidate, but I do suppose it would allow us to more easily SNOW more inexperienced users. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 03:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it's unnecessarily complicated, and just adds more bureaucracy to the process. Andre (talk) 03:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind a discussion time before the decision time, but the decision time should be at least 5 days, not every editor gets on everyday and a shorter period would disenfranchise them. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with a longer discussion time, minimum of 5 days. Viridae^Talk 03:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is it either? It promotes discussion, allows people to make up their minds/express their opinion and then when there is a cleaer picture of what the community thinks of the candidate, everyone expresses their opinion as to why they think the candidate is either suitable or unsuitable for the position. Viridae^Talk 03:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

They can do all of those things anyway. !voting comes from the symbol "!" meaning not in programming languages: it's not a vote. It's a structured discussion, and minds can be made up, opinions expressed, and so on. With the system you propose, someone who just wants to drop in and say "I support" has to visit the page twice to say the same thing. Andre (talk) 04:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the current procedure has worked well enough, but if we have a discussion followed by a voting period, I would only personally consider that if the vote were secret, at least until the voting was finished. You realize that would turn RfA into a pure vote, which would mean that a fixed percentage would equal promotion. -- Cecropia 04:11, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

A blind vote would be a very good idea, and although it would be based on numbers, crats would still have some discretion, as they do currently. Someone with 70% support, but all the reasons people dont like them on the discussion page is because of something like editcount, or some other single reason, then the crat can still pass the RfA. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 05:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• The idea of discussing then voting has been proposed multiple times. It's been shot down repeatedly before. See WP:DFA for one attempt at this proposal. --Durin 15:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Blind voting would help because it would stop users mindlessly copying SlimVi... sorry, other users' rationales just to fit in. However, people would still oppose for stupid reasons and the bureaucrats would continue to count the votes without taking the reasons into account, so it wouldn't really solve much – Gurch 15:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Here's a thought: Keep the sections, but remove the individual comments. Thusly, we would still have a Support section, which has a paragraph or two (or forty), explaining why the community thinks a given individual should be supported. Next we have an oppose section, followed by a neutral section. When viewing the request, you would simply edit the section you wish to add your opinion to. Idealy, this would make each of the three sections more like an actual Wikipedia article. Just as we don't sign our contributions to an article, we would not sign our discussion. A casual observer viewing the RFA would not be confronted with a suspiciously vote-like "discussion", but rather essays in varying degrees of development. Ostensibly, someone with strong support would receive a series of well reasoned contributions to the "support" section, yielding a larger number of reasons why this person would make a fine admin. While the oppose section could in fact be well written by one user, it would not as well developed, and would theoretically not feature as many dif's demonstrating why the user should not gain the mop.

The aim would be that someone viewing "support" would see only one statement (whether 10 words, or 10,000 words), and so on for the other three sections. A 'crat could still look at the page history to discern numerical consensus if neccesary, and to verify the legitimacy of the editors, but this style would make the page more clearly a discussion, and remove any appearance of voting (for example, you wouldn't be able to say "support, per"). If there are four reasons to support someone, these four reasons will each be stated just once. Likewise for opposition. Hiberniantears 19:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

If we want numbers to be preserved, we'd have to allow "Agree with the above"-type comments, which are not much different from "Support/Oppose per"-type statements. The converse – getting rid of numbers by having one coherent paragraph for "support", "oppose", and "neutral" – is neither feasible or desirable, I think. It's not feasible because of the sheer number of reasons that exist to support or oppose a candidate. The fact that a lot of people strongly reject many of these reasons suggests that such a system will be prone to edit wars about how to phrase the paragraphs and what to include or exclude. It's not desirable, I think, because it will make RfA more time-consuming and will significantly increase the discretion given to bureaucrats. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

However, it really is not neccesary for many people to re-state the same reason forty times (or three reasons, forty times each). I realize this means that if User A opposes because of "prima facie power mongering" and then User B edits this to read "this user just hungers for power", that you can find yourself in an edit war... however, the reason still remains. Heck, we could even come up with some groundrules for not edit warring a well stated argument. Of course, this leads to the inevitable argument about what "well stated" means... I see it working as follows:

• User A creates a paragraph on a reason for supporting a candidate.
• User B comes along, agrees with the reason, and demonstrates this by adding some difs which support the point, instead of creating a second paragraph which simply says "yeah, me too". Hiberniantears 20:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think I see now what you meant. If I understood correctly, it would be similar to an RfC except without the explicit endorsement of views. If the process operates as you've outlined above, that would not make RfA more time-consuming and would have the added benefit of placing greater emphasis on the actual actions (captured via diffs) of the candidate. However, I think the key issue remains: who judges which argument is important/valid and which is not? Under the current semi-vote/semi-discussion system, RfA participants do the judging with bureaucrats having discretion in borderline (70-80%) cases. Without having some kind of means of knowing in general what participants in the RfA think about a candidate, your proposed system significantly expands bureaucrats' discretion to the point where RfA essentially becomes a petition to bureaucrats. Since early this year (when I started monitoring this talk page), numerous similar proposals that involve a significant expansion of bureaucrat discretion have been unable to gather consensus support. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You could have it judged on the amount of reasons for both support and oppose, and discretionary range slightly larger to count for bad supports/opposes and great supports/opposes. Another option would be to have a two-crat closing: Each crat votes, and if they are not the same result, then another one breaks the tie. Simple, and it stops one crat from promoting a friend. This would create slightly more crat work, but, we do have enough crats right (taken from many comments, not my opinion)? If not, great time to use our new ones :) Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 22:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

All of the variations still constitute a significant expansion of bureaucrat discretion by allowing bureaucrats to close according to their personal judgment in all cases, rather than only controversial cases that fall in the 70-80% range. This applies both when crats start judging the "goodness" and "badness" of support/oppose reasons and when the deciding factor becomes crat votes rather than the inclinations of RfA participants. Of course, that's just my view and others may disagree. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This is true... as I have proposed it, there would be a significant boost in the reliance on bureaucrat's to make sound judgments. The Fearow makes a good point above, wherein some variation on checking the power of any individual 'crat would probably diminish a rash, or corrupt decision (such as promoting your friend). I think that what we need to at least think about is creating a system that truly emphasizes the "adminship is no big deal" side of things. If there is substantial evidence that an editor makes damaging, disruptive edits, then listing the difs should be substantial enough to reveal to a 'crat that granting the tools may not be such a great idea. The discussion as it is right now is a vote, the soundness of which still has to be judged by a 'crat: If 20 respected editors supported, and 100 brand new users objected to adminship for a highly respected editor who had demonstrated a genuine need for tools, its in the 'crat's hand to realize that denying this editor adminship would be absurd. Hiberniantears 16:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the sound if this, who wants to try this out? Anyone (I might try it when I run again) --Chris ^g 06:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm game (eventually). ¿SFGiДnts! ^{¿Complain! ¿Analyze! ¿Review!} 00:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Opposing for philosophy is stupid

Yes, it's time for a random unsolvable rant again.

People keep opposing RfAs for ideological differences. If someone is too inclusionist, oppose. If someone is too deletionist, oppose. If someone has the wrong opinion on some policy, oppose.

Now, to some extent, this is fine. If you think someone is going to cause serious additional damage to the project by having admin tools and this wrong interpretation of policy, fine, oppose. But keep in mind, most such opinions are not obtainable unless the user tells you, and there is no way to ascertain if they are lying. It hasn't been a big problem yet, but we're opposing for too many opinions, thus teaching everyone who joined less than a year ago to lie about their opinions on policies, and to act on no controversial opinion until they gain adminship. Because no matter what we force people to say if they wish any chance to pass, adminship is a trophy to some. -Amarkov moo! 04:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with you that this does happen and has happened before, I don't see it recently. Hence the random rant? Giggy _U^CP 04:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep. -Amarkov moo! 16:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that opposing for philosophy is usually a bad thing, but it can depend on circumstances. For example, I'd have trouble supporting someone who didn't understand or accept IAR. If someone was inclusionist to the point of rejecting the concept of verifiability, I couldn't support that either. Friday (talk) 17:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Is someone, as an administrator, going to do harm to the project if they do not understand or accept IAR? --Iamunknown 22:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Umm, yes? Remember one time when an admin deleted the entire VfD page without discussion, citing IAR? Borisblue 22:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure my question came out the right way. Your point is valid that if an administrator simply does not understand IAR and, as such, deletes a bunch of things citing IAR, that would do harm. I mean my question more as the following: Is someone, as an administrator, going to do harm to the project if they reject IAR? I think it is somewhat different than the question: Is someone ... if they do not understand IAR? --Iamunknown 22:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

No, there is a difference between "does not understand" IAR and "does not like" IAR. Hmm... but why abstractize it. I understand IAR, for example, yet I rarely apply it. Am I a risk to Wikipedia? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose I should be less abstract about it. :P My point is that, to some extent (I am not sure how much), I agree with Amarkov. I think that, generally, opposing based upon philosophy is silly (I admit that I have done it before :\). I am not sure why I posed the IAR-related question. What I should have said in response to Friday's post is that I disagree with her assessment that those who reject IAR should not become administrators. That someone rejects IAR indicates that they will follow policy. It also seems that most of the drama that happens around here happens when someone does not follow policy. Reject IAR = no drama = good (in some respects) for Wikipedia. (Though I do not endorse rejecting IAR.) --Iamunknown 22:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That appears to assume, however, that following policy to the most exacting detail possible will always, without fail, produce the very best result with the absolute minimum amount of drama. The true application is not in ignoring rules without cause, I would say, but in being able to recognize situations where current policy will produce a substantially suboptimal (or even negative) result, and to act accordingly. Or, in short, recognizing that written policy is not a suicide pact. – Luna Santin (talk) 04:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, true. Following policy does not always equal "no drama"; it, in fact, sometimes equals "zomg drama". (:P) --Iamunknown 04:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

IAR is best applied in conjunction with another policy or guiding principle, like the Foundation issues. Otherwise, it doesn't have a leg to stand on, because IAR can be IAR'd itself. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Ed Poor, yes. How could you forget that. But then, if your only argument is IAR, then you need a better argument. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

A question I usually end up asking myself is "are these opposes due to the candidate's weaknesses, or are they because he doesn't agree with others' view of WP:IAR/WP:CSD/WP:PRO/WP:RD/WP:ILIKEMONKEYS?" This is particularly poignant in RFB's; in both Andrevan's and Deskana's, we had several users ignoring the merits and flaws of the candidates, and opposing solely on the Danny question. I guess that is one of the elephants in the room Amarkov talks about. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:36, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Opposing for philosophy at RfB is not stupid. I supported or opposed candidates based solely on the Danny question, and I believe I was right in doing so. This is because, at RfB, it's not just about whether I trust the candidate as an admin; it's about whether I trust them to close RfBs according to the opinion of the community, expressed through a fair and equal vote, rather than according to their opinion. As such, even though I have the greatest personal respect for RyanGerbil and Andrevan, I opposed them because they advocated the "discussion not vote" model of RfA closure, which I believe is wrong. See m:wikidemocratism for my thoughts on consensus; basically, every good-faith user's opinion should be treated equally, regardless of whether the closing bureaucrat agrees with their rationale. The only thing that counts in an RfB is whether the candidate is wikidemocratic or wikithoritarian. Experience and character are less important; if we're relying on bureaucrats to make the right decisions all the time, that just shows that they have too much power. Walton^One 11:59, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait, is RfA/B governed by consensus, or is it not? Democracy is not based upon consensus, it is based upon majority and the polls. That said, I agree with you that bureaucrats should not summarily discount a specific editor's concerns (unless they say some patently wrong argument like, "Oppose based on block record", when the candidate has no blocks). What bureaucrats should do is, instead, note how many editors commented about that another's comment. For example, three editors comment, "Oppose based upon lack of experience", but twenty or more editors comment, "Support. Lack of experience is not a problem IMO.", then it appears that the consensus is that lack of experience is not a problem. On the contrary, if three editors say, "Support, good XFD contributor", but twenty editors say, "Oppose, uncivil and confrontational at XFD, does not understand CSD", then it is reasonable to assume that the consensus is that the consensus is that the candidate is not a good XFD contributor. These essential judgment calls would be totally lost in any "wikidemocratic" model. --Iamunknown 04:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Iamunknown, that's definitely what bureaucrats do, in many cases. Andre (talk) 20:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

" I opposed them because they advocated the "discussion not vote" model of RfA closure, which I believe is wrong." - but is that belief of yours shared by the majority of the community? If it is so, why do we have an increasing push for discussions to be decided less on votes, but more on arguments? Is it fundamentally fair for a candidate to be opposed simply because someone doesn't agree with what the rest of the community indicates it is their preference? Bureaucrats cannot decide whether they want to implement a wikidemocratic system. They only follow the community's mandate. As a result, it is not their prerogative to enact change, but it is yours, and opposing them accomplishes nothing. So, I stand by my original point. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Are our admins getting better?

When I first joined wikipedia (way back in Jan '05) 1000 edits was considered more than enough to evaluate a candidate. When I ran for adminship (Sept '06) my 3000 edit-count was considered barely acceptable. I'm a bit curious, are our newer admins better than our admins back when, who were judged only on hundreds of edits? Is there any objective measure we can use? Desysoppings, times tools were used, etc.?Borisblue 05:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Whether an admin is "good" or not is very subjective. Many good admins would be less popular because they come across trolls more often. Admins that barely use their tools and are otherwise good editors will be much more popular despite rarely using their tools. And how would you compare admins who solve dispute resolution with admins who only delete CSDs? Gizza^{Discuss ©} 05:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I became admin in September 2004 at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Andrevan. I started out with around 1300 edits, blankfaze (one of the earlier edit-counter RfA frequenters) said he would not support until 1800, so I just sat around editing for a few hours a day until I had enough. At that time Kate's tool didn't exist, and the edit counting method was to go into contributions, copy and paste every line, and count the number of lines in Notepad. At the time, blankfaze would routinely oppose for any user with under 2000 edits. So I'm not sure where you're getting that 1000 was always enough. Andre (talk) 05:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty certain that 1000 was always enough when I first started participating in RFA. You had one user with unusual standards, at least for that time. Borisblue 06:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] To continue my point, many non-admins have enough experience to delete speedies but most won't be considered patient or mature enough to handle disputes, especially controversial ones. Even comparing civility is difficult because many admins can be very kind when they perform trivial tasks. It is much harder for admins who do the dirty work to keep their cool. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 05:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is any one standard for "good" or "bad" admins. If an admin only rarely uses their tools, and only for uncontroversial tasks (vandalism cleanup, history merges, etc.), most everyone will probably agree they're a good one. If they wade into more controversial areas, even if they do so well, they'll probably find themself with some enemies—you just can't please everyone in a lot of those cases. Any admin that's ever made a 3RR block has at least one person who doesn't like them very well. And so on, and so on. There really isn't any one definable standard, not even popularity. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what has been said. It would be very hard to evaluate an admin, especially when there are only two labells of either "good" or "bad". For such a narrow survey, a definition of what a "good" admin is, and in doing so, what "the perfect" admin is, would need to be made, and we can all imagine how hard that would be to do, and how much scrutiny and outrage the process would undoubtedly endure. No, one will have to make their own decisions on who they respect as admins, and who they feel uses the tools well, and who perhaps does not use them as well. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

A "good" admin would surely be one that benefits the community as a whole; it shouldn't matter how many admin edits they have as long as they do that. If everyone could be trusted, then we'd all have the tools even if we didn't use them. For example, there must be many admins who have not used a particular tool such as 'protect', 'delete', or 'block' but they still have the tools. An admin (in my opinion) is someone who can be trusted with the tools. -- Casmith_789 (talk) 11:43, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The average quality of admins has declined relative to other wikipedia posts. Where before being an admin was considered a requirement to be on arbcom or medcom (or even medcab), this is no longer a consideration. --Kim Bruning 13:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I certainly don't believe that editcountitis has improved admin quality. It is a lazy way of evaluating a candidate. If you don't know a candidate, you can learn way more about them by visiting their user and talk pages, and by looking over their contribution history and checking out some of their edits. Remember, the only difference between a 1,000 edit contributor and a 10,000 editing contributor may be how often they use the Preview Button and whether they edit incrementally a lot of a little. Editors who prepare major additions to articles (especially new ones) offline (as I like to do) are going to show lower edit counts, as well. I became an admin with fewer than 1,000 edits. -- Cecropia 14:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The thing is we don't have that many tools, let alone good ones, to really measure how good a job an admin is doing or how good a job the admin corps as a whole is doing. How are you going to know if an admin drove away a valuable editor by, say, being a bit too trigger-happy or not communicating so well with them? How are we to measure how well the admin corps is doing with an appropriate choice of block lengths? It's not easy to determine what a "good" admin is, unless all we measure are objective things which don't really tell the whole story. Sound judgment and communication skills are much more important for candidate admins than actual knowledge of policy because things like the speedy deletion criteria are not incredibly subtle things that requires years of experience to understand. Pascal.Tesson 15:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Editcount for new admin candidates goes way up because of automated tools like AWB and TW. Tools can help process several hundred edits in an afternoon. The old guard of admins did edits the old fashioned way, so a thousand edits over several months indicated dedication. High edit count has never had a correlation to editor quality, but low edit count has always been seen as indicative of someone who hadn't had enough exposure to the entirety of the project. The definition of low just keeps getting higher because the new tools skew expectations. SchmuckyTheCat

The admin population got better once I became one. It was severely lacking before then. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Eh. It's impossible to quantify how "good" an admin is. Much easier, though, to identify bad ones. Basically, there are two kinds of admins: those who use the tools with an adequate degree of responsibility and those who do not. It's difficult to define gradations within the "adequate" category, which is obviously by far the larger of the two. But if the question is whether higher edit count thresholds == better admins, then I have to agree with everyone else: no. MastCell ^Talk 16:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thing is, we don't offer annual performance review here. Unless you are stripped of your mop (which makes it obvious), it is really up to individuals' perspective on individual admins. - Mailer Diablo 16:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

It is impossible to say whether admins are getting "better" or "worse", but it does seem to me that there are more admins that appear to misunderstand policy. Some of that is surely due to the fact that there are simply more admins, which means more "good" ones and more "not-so-good" ones. Some of it is due to the fact that the policies and guidelines continue to get more complicated. When I started, WP:CSD was much more limited (before the days of #A7) and WP:PROD did not exist. In order to make VfD (as AfD was then known) more scalable, first WP:CSD was expanded and then WP:PROD was created to pick up a few articles that did not meet the CSD criteria but seemed almost certain to fail AfD. That meant that an admin needed to do much more than monitor consensus and be trusted to wield the mop to clean up - he or she had to exercise judgment. Many do a fine job with the judgment that now comes with the mop but I seem to see far more cases, particularly in cases of speedy deletions, where the admin makes a decision that seems "wrong". First of all, I will admit that "wrong" is subjective here, and that I may be the one who is wrong. Even if the admin is wrong, it is impossible to tell whether the admin deleted the article in error: (1) because he/she did understand that "asserting" the importance or significance of the subject does not mean "proving" it; (2) that he/she did not understand the relevant standards for "importance or significance" (i.e., WP:N) in the particular topical area (bios, actors, companies, etc...); (3) that he/she did not read the article closely enough to recognize the assertion of significance; or (4) that he/she is simply intentionally imposing his or her own more restrictive standards to delete articles. As one who continues to apply a relatively liberal test in RFA, I also think the quality problem is a bigger issue today, in part because CSD and to some extent PROD lack the transparency of AfD (for example, non-admins like me cannot review deleted articles, so the chances of catching errors are much more limited) and the Deletion Review process gives a lot of deference to admin action, so fixing errors is also limited. But even if there are more "not-so-good" admins, how do you weed them out without making it too difficult to bring in new "good" ones? I don't have that answer. -- DS1953 ^talk 17:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Even though being an "admin" is not a job, it does come with a set of important responsibilities. I think a yearly or bi-yearly review is essential in maintaining not only the integrity of the position, but insuring that those who are entrusted with the tools continue to understand and keep abreast of the guidelines and policies of Wikipedia. Part of this should rest on the review of their admin actions the year prior - are they continuing to use the tools? Are they using them correctly? Can they be questioned and show that they are current on policies, issues, etc.? Not to say this is the case with anyone in particular but with any position like this people get promoted and tend to go lax - thus you have people "filling" in the ranks. With my job I face monthly, quarterly and yearly reviews - if I were not to perform to my companies' standard I would be let go so they could have someone more competent or efficient in that position. --Ozgod 21:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps to the extent of editor review? Reconfirmation was previously rejected. - Mailer Diablo 18:11, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

and I came up with the idea of admins being peer reviewed every 18 months about a month ago onthis very page, but it too was shot down. New England 18:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to admit that I wouldn't look forward to peer-reviewing 70+ admins every month. And there might be a high turnover on admins who are willing to do the thankless dirty work that needs to be done. --健次(derumi)^talk 18:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, there's that. The way I look at it is that admins are reviewed constantly- as they do their work, people may leave them feedback. As long as an admin (and this goes for any editor, really) is reasonably responsive to feedback, no further review is necessary in my opinion. If an admin is doing questionable things and is not responsive enough to other editor's concerns, we have dispute resolution for that. Friday (talk) 18:45, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry either way, and there's no empirical way of telling that's practical. Admins are not be feared. Moreschi ^Talk 18:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the quality is about the same. It's an imperfect system... but it does work sometimes. In 2005 it promoted people who ended up being gigantic problems, it does the same in 2007. It also promoted people who quietly do thousands of tasks and keep the project going in 2005 and still does in 2007. RFA is just 20 to 100 people trying to decide if someone will make a good admin, it's nothing more. In 2005 people tended to have fewer edits in general so the threshold was a lot lower in a numeric sense. --W.marsh 04:15, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Ponderings on the essence of adminship

The question that needs to be asked is this: is adminship becoming a more political than technical status? Wikipedia's internal political core is spearheaded by admins, naturally. But we find this political core to strengthen and grow more diverse and complex as it attempts to interface with the Wikipedia community, while the techincal functions and accesses that are entrusted to and bestowed upon these system operators have not as substantially evolved, in my short time here (5, 6 months for people who dont know me) as the political aspects of the status, and many of the changes that have occured, at least in my stay, in regards to the technical tools have been stapled by this political aspect. That said, whether we want this or not has to be called into question: is adminship more political than technical, really? And in the previous post this question would exist with relevancy - which would be a good, a better admin?: one who knows policy to the anal degree, and who manipulates adminship from a political standpoint or a sysop who is out in the field making deletions, blocking, protecting? Are the two intertwined in a perfect admin? Right here I'd like to take note of these two terms which are, here, on Wikipedia, taken as one of the same: Sysop (system operator) and admin (administrator). When considered, they both hold different meanings. The technical side and the political side, respectively. An operator, and an administrator. Perhaps it is time to actually properly ponder on what adminship is, in every aspect, even if it means looking at the term in an external sense. To have a look at whether admins nowadays are more politically or technically based. To discover if, contrary to the wiki-cliche'd expectancy that adminship is a fairly equal combination of these two functions, adminship is proving either a more political or technical job, and whether, at the end of the day, the community is comfortable with what we see. I think I've said my piece, and I dont know where it came from. Feel free now to ravage it, to ponder on it, to scrutanise it, to think on what I'm saying, to pass it off as rubbish if you so desire. What do people think? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 16:43, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• Adminship is purely a technical matter. Being granted admin status is increasingly a political matter. Pedro |  Chat  17:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• True, but thats what adminship is supposed to be. I think adminship is becoming more political. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 17:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I know for a fact that mines was more political than most RfAs, considering mines was right after the state highways mess last year. —Kurykh 22:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think adminship comes with any political power at all. In my opinion, when it comes to 'political' discussion', we tend to give weight to people who contribute a lot to the project. It just so happens that people who contribute to the project tend to be admins. Think about it: imagine that a policy discussion pops up, say on Featured article policy. An editor non-admin who says "I've gotten five articles featured" is more likely to exert political pull on the discussion than an admin who simply says "I'm an admin, so listen to me". (Given both have been editing for roughly the same amount of time, and participate in community discussions equally often) Borisblue 23:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I honestly can't agree. A lot of good article editors tend to be "single issue" editors who apart from project work spend most of their time actually making Wikipedia work. You don't find them bogged down in BLP debates or struggling to make a point in Afd. As long as the structure of GA is behind them they never get involved. Adminship is political and the fact that admins have gained the support of the community to "trusted status" plus the fact that they have contributed to Wikipedia outside of mainspace, gives them a status higher than what adminship should be about. If we did a straw poll of regular editors of GA articles, I think we'd honestly find that (a) they didn't have time. (b) adminship is so much about wikilawyering that it would distract them from their actual goal - creating a GA, maintaining its status and watching out for subtle petty vandalism. Mike33 00:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure, some valuable content editors shy away from WP-space (I won't admit that all, or even most do so)- but just because those content editors rarely choose to excercise their 'power', that doesn't mean that they don't have it. On the occasions where they do contribute to policy discussions, particularly in their area of expertise, their opinions hold greater weight. How about an example? Durin's opinions hold a lot of weight here, even though he is not an admin. Durin gained this 'power' through contributing a lot to the RFA process; in particular, his thorough analysis about discussion patterns (here) have been invaluable in understanding the RFA process. Durin also tends to be a very careful RFA contributor, as you can see by any of his !votes on RFA, he researches candidates more thoroughly than anybody. Thus, when Durin makes his voice heard, whether in an RFA or on this talk page, people tend to listen more than if he is just a random admin. Look at any RFA that Durin participates in, and you'll see a disproportionate number of !votes go "per Durin". Borisblue 00:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Adminship is technical, but an admin action such as a debated deletion, protection, or block can quickly turn political. Captain panda 00:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Durin was an admin until this March. See Wikipedia:Former_administrators.--Chaser - T 00:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Did he lose his influence when he gave up his adminship? Borisblue 00:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't know that; I treat his comments the same.--Chaser - T 01:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

To properly emphasis - I meant that while adminship might not be actually given for political purposes at the time for promotion, the role is increasinglg political, so adminship is technical, with political attachments that are not strictly defined in Wikipedias adminship policy, or even present in regards to some aspects. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 01:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

mmmmmm repete SVP? verbum sap..... Mike33 01:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you were clear enough the first time. Did we misunderstand you? I feel you are mistaken, simply because it is contributions, rather than adminship which brings about political influence. It just seems that admins have political power because RFA filters out editors who (a) Don't contribute a lot to Wikipedia (b) Don't involve themselves in WP-space (c) Lack tact or civility. Thus admins tend to be editors who have contributed substantially to Wikipedia in one way or another, like to involve themselves in policy discussions, and tend to have nice-ish dispositions. These are the qualities that cause an editor to have political clout, not adminship itself. You can see this is true by admins who have given up the mop- they still retain their influence, even after losing adminship (Durin is a good example). Another example is SandyGeorgia- a tireless, thorough non-admin contributor who has become the most "powerful" editor on FAC, excepting Raul654 the FA director. Borisblue 01:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand your point, but dont you think admins inherently carry any political weight at all? If one user you dont know is propped next to an admin you dont know, your going to trust the admin more, even though you dont know him/her, because of status. See the point? Thats how adminship runs with a political core. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 01:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. You may trust an admin slightly more than a non-admin because you can correlate "adminship" with "this dude was reviewed, and he was deemed at least marginally sane." However, you can only take that assumption so far - indeed, that assumption is one of the bases of the eternal RFA cliché, "But I thought he already was one!" In fact, I can assure you that the vast majority of users don't care to look whether someone is an admin or not; they just evaluate someone on his or her behavior, not on the number of entries he has on the user groups table. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't. I believe most editors don't. How many admins use "I'm an admin" to derive political mileage? When was the last time in RFA you see a user flaunt their adminship in a debate to gain credibility in an argument? More commonly, a user will say "Having worked tirelessly to combat the image backlog, I think that the current fair use rationale policy is too strict" or "I've done a lot of RC-patrol, and I believe that anon edits to main page articles tend to be mostly harmful- we need to semiprotect them". Whereas if an admin were just to use his admin status as leverage in a policy debate, he would most likely be viewed with resentment. Borisblue 01:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Well then, the consensus reached is within the limits of satisfaction, as far as what I was wanting to achieve in this post - the consensus seems to be adminship is not political. Interesting. Thanks for your comments, it has taught me something. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 01:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

One brief comment: the difference between power and authority is interesting here, at least to me. Admins have power, which is aptly defined by Merriam-Webster (sorry Wiktionary) as the "ability to act or produce an effect". The ability to edit is itself a power. Authority is a different issue; it is defined, also by M-W, as the "power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior" (emphasis mine). So while authority (which is social, or political) can only be backed up by power (which is, in this case, technical), admins should not use their power to create their own authority. This is generally called "admin abuse": an admin uses his/her technical powers to gain a social advantage in a situation and unfairly block a user. The only authority we all have is from policy, and admins may use their power to enforce that authority: but not create authority merely because they have power. Alternatively, this may be too esoteric to apply to anything ;) Gracenotes^T § 04:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

You forgot WP:IAR, which...eh...might complicate your above detailed hypothesis. Let's call your above definition the "special theory hypothesis of adminship." :)—Kurykh 04:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not esoteric, it's just confused, and you've got things the wrong way round. Admins should very precisely act with authority, which carries with it the sense of thoughtful action based on experience, with the agreement of the community. The word needn't mean these things (which is why dicdefs aren't helpful), but as a matter of fact, it tends to imply them. Against this, admins should not go around using the technical "power" without at least trying to be authoritative. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Admins who understand adminship will never justify their views with the "I'm an admin" argument. Of course, all admins may not truly understand the point of being an administrator. On the other side, non-admins often accuse admins in debates of abusing their powers when they have 1) never used their tools (protection, deletion, blocks) or 2) never mentioned that they are an admin during the debate. I definitely am not saying all non-admins do this, just certain ones. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 05:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit-conflict, response to Kurykh) Not so much a hypothesis as an attempted explanation. It turned out to be a bit more prescriptive than I intended. Regardless of the details, power and authority are different items, and it is generally agreed that, in general, admins have no more authority than other editors in a decision-making process. The only really useful item from my "hypothesis" is the basic idea that admins do have power, but this doesn't make adminship a completely political role. In addition to WP:IAR, I probably forget WP:POLAND as well :) (sorry, couldn't resist).

In response to the edit conflicter (which makes me an edit-conflictee, I assume), I was trying to get across ideas rather than words. The Greeks were much better with diction than English-speakers are, so you can compare my power/authority duo with the dunamus/exhousia pair. (Or failing these annoying connotations, I could just make up my own words.) Now, when you say that admins should act with authority, that definition seems portable to the authority all editors should use in being bold by editing pages. Admins can be bold and introduce processes, ignore rules, whatever, just like normal editors; but in the end, the only absolute authority (as I meant the word) is consensus, and to a lesser extent, policy (produced by consensus). That's a tangent not strictly related to adminship. But enough rambling, and more sleeping! Good night, Gracenotes^T § 05:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to note that adminship has been more powerful than it used to be - What is previously a simple mop is now one that more functionality (when I got mine, semi-protection didn't even exist). Even then, so long admins have the right mindset (that the mop is of the janitor, not something meant to be flung around), the role would not appear to be political.

Also, the more controversy created with one's use (or rather, misuse) of the mop, the more political it appears to be. This in turn would directly, indirectly upset the standards of RfA. You may want to consider the standards of RfB now and three years ago to understand this relationship. - Mailer Diablo 12:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Adminship and bureaucratship have become more political; the people to blame here are the "discussion not vote" crowd. Looking at archived stuff from several years ago, deletions and RfAs were basically just simple votes. In such a situation, the admin or bureaucrat would have had no political power at all; they'd just have been there to count the votes and close accordingly. (This was before I was a Wikipedian, so I don't know to what extent this was actually the case.) But because some users have been aggressively pushing this agenda of "we must not vote on anything", admins and bureaucrats now weigh up the arguments and come to a decision. By definition, that creates a position of power. I'm not saying we should go back to voting on everything (especially not XfDs, where a compromise is often more helpful than the most popular option), but a move back towards majoritarian voting would reduce the politicisation of adminship. Walton^One 13:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a bit of a tangent isn't it? Admins don't get to promote other admins. So why would RFA being more discussion based give admins more political power? Borisblue 14:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

RFA being discussion-based don't give admins more power, but RFA being discussion-based gives bureaucrats much more power. - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 17:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't recall who originally proposed the definition of politics as "the authoritative allocation of values," but that's more or less the definition I follow. In that sense, the admins are the people holding the keys -- whether the authority to use (or not use) those keys derives from the admins themselves, from the foundation, or from the community at large, seems to be the crux of the issue. In an idealistic sense, there is a strong expectation that admins will heed the will and decisions of the community; in a realistic sense, however, it's apparently fairly rare for an admin to run into trouble if they go against this will, except in extreme or prolonged cases, or if they do so regularly. As a culture, Wikipedia has often been described as a "clueocracy," where one's political power is determined by the number of people willing to listen to you. It is true that people tend to listen to admins and long-time members, I suppose, but the greater emphasis is (and should be) on making good points in good discussions. – Luna Santin (talk) 04:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The quote is by David Easton.--Chaser - T 04:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, thanks much! :) – Luna Santin (talk) 07:48, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Something peeving my insides

RFA has many flaws — anyone with common sense knows that — but opposing based off of lack of content contributions seems a bit absurd after thinking about it. Administrative duties will call on RC and New page patrol, and while it may call on article-writing sometimes, it is not important enough to oppose. Sorry, I just wanted to get this off my chest; if you don't want to respond, please don't. —« ANIMUM » 04:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Your point, Animum, will swiftly become controversial, and I'm glad that I am able to comment first. Opposing for this reason is logical or illogical dependant on what exists as important to the person who casts their !vote. Many people believe different things, often independant on the policy which all users are supposed to interface with, and the various conceptions born of policy. The power for a user to administrate is not something which can be measured easily in a pure article writer, but perhaps more easily in someone who combats vandalism and maintains. However, people will oppose either depending on what is important to them in an administrator. Many feel that crucial administrative experience is gained through content contribs. And your assertion that a lack of article writing and mainspace contribs is not a reason to oppose is violently untrue to many editors, and does contradict the actual point of being here: to build an encyclopedia. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Now you know how I feel, Magnus. And, no doubt, you'll soon find out how I feel when I say such things in public, because the onslaught is surely on its way. Giggy _U^CP 04:59, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

It is controversial... and I'm not sure where I stand on it totally, but I wouldn't dismiss the concern. People who want to administrate the writing of encyclopedia articles should know how to write encyclopedia articles. It's not something you can really fake. I'm sure some of us have had a boss who has never actually done the work we were doing, and makes poor decisions out of ignorance... I know I did at one point. I think there's some connection between that and admins who can't write articles. But then again in the recent case of Butseriouslyfolks his content contributions weren't all that impressive but he'd dealt with 1,000+ copyvios and it was pretty obvious he'd make a good admin. So I dunno. It'd be nice if all supposed editors knew how to make good content edits... sometimes it seems like some people forget we're writing an encyclopedia here, not just administrating some ginormous project because it's fun to administrate things. --W.marsh 09:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. i think for some it is hard to see over the hill of administration into the light of the reality that we are actually building an encylopedia here. Nothing more. If some things need administration, it should come as second priority, done just for the good of the encyclopedia, so you can start building it again. No-one should dedicate their whole time on wikipedia to that. Thats losing sight. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind everyone that there's a difference between opposing per almost no article writing/mainspace edits at all, and opposing because they don't have enough well-written articles under their belt. It seems like people are starting to oppose per the latter, and that may be a problem down the line. Wizardman 15:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that !votes are always highly dependant on the candidate and the situation, and therefore it is hard to both generalise or to make specific assumptions. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 15:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this exposes the deaper seeted problem with the current RFA process, that there is no standard or guidelines on how to vote. Right now, I see it as nothing more than a popularity contest. I've looked back and I've seen many great potential admins declined for the position simply because they have a controversial viewpoint (often something that doesn't even relate to wikipedia, such as their political stance) or something equally absurd. I also think people are forgetting that administrative work doesn't involve writing articles at all. I've seen many admins complain about how they no longer have as much time to actually write articles anymore since they stepped up to the admin position, which is why I don't think it is necessary to have strong experience in writing articles to take on admin responsibilities. --Android Mouse 18:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I've said it before, I expect to say it again: in a general sense, we need a variety of contributors -- we need people generating and improving content, we need people organizing content, we need people protecting content from vandals and opportunists, we need people minding infrastructure and dispute resolution, we need people to calm down disputes and keep a sense of community going, at least enough that we don't fracture as a project. We need people working on communication. Especially with any project that reaches this scale, the notion of only one area becoming the sole important task seems patently absurd. Some may be more important than others, some may need more attention than others (and this will vary), but there's no end to the number of important things to be done, really, and our sense of community would do well to reflect that, in my opinion. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to agree. Which is why I don't think voters should insist candidates be a Jack of all trades, master of none. --Android Mouse 14:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth. The main use of "oppose - doesn't write articles" tends to be followed up with - "and article writing/building an encyclopedia is what it's all about". When Wikipedia had a hundred thousand articles it probably was all about. We now have 1.8 million +. Take a look at the article on Wikipedia specifically [[3]] and you will see that 10,000 - 30,000 page requests are made per second. Let's assume half of these are to en.wikipedia - low estimate 5,000 per second. Now go to recent changes. Click for 500 and see if they all happened in the last minute - unlikely. So the practical upshot is that the massive majority of what goes on here is not maintenance, not writing, not vandal fighting but simply people around the world reading this encyclopedia. Now if we all stopped copy editing / vandal fighting etc etc then (fairly quickly) the whole thing would become a mess and without any value at all. The simple fact is that without maintenance this project would fall apart, but if not one single constructive word was added to wikipedia in the next year it would still be an excellent reference point. I'm not denying we need more FA's (certainly in the hard sciences) and we need to expand stubs but we have to be honest and see that maintenance (i.e. keeping the place tidy) is becoming as (indeed possibly more) important as article writing. Pedro |  Chat  13:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if it feels like I keep repeating the same thing over and over but here goes any way. I have in certain cases opposed on grounds of insufficient experience in mainspace. My reasons for doing so is not as simple-minded as "article writing is what it's all about" and I suspect that most who criticize a candidate for lack in writing feel the same. You see the potential damage an admin can do is not as some may think in deleting the mainpage but rather in an accumulation of small mistakes that go unnoticed to most. The trickiest part in admin chores is more often than not in communicating about one's actions. Admins who have no experience in writing are likely to lack an understanding of how a content writer feels when the article he's working on is deleted or suddenly turns into a battlefield. And in turn he is likely to make poor decisions that are poorly motivated and based on blindly applying rules rather than common sense gained from his experience as a writer. Slowly but surely, this will drive away potential contributors. Pascal.Tesson 15:58, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Good points from both of you. One more thing to add, I've seen 1FA (and similar standards) toted as defenses against the Trojan admin; I don't know quite how much I buy into the idea, but I'm sure it's something a lot of people (myself included) consider when evaluating the amount of time and effort somebody's put into the project, before running for a position of trust. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I quite agree Luna. An editor dedicating his/her time (free of charge lest we all forget) to get an article up to FA standard would seem trustworthy. An editor banging away for seven months reverting vandalism would seem equally trustworthy. Good writers may well progress to using admin tools well. Good maintenance editors may well progress to be good writers. Either way, the issue is trust. Either way there is nothing an admin can do that cannot be undone. Pedro |  Chat  20:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

A user plans to help by blocking vandals at AIV. Does he need article writing? No. A user plans to help by determining consensus. Does he need article writing? No. He needs common sense, and thats it. Other places may need some knowledge of article writing, but did he say he planned on helping out in those places? --(Review Me) R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 22:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

How would that theoretical admin recognize the difference between subtle vandalism and legitimate editing, if he didn't write articles? How would an admin evaluate arguments based on content policies, if he hasn't had hands-on experience with those policies? I'm not saying 1FA, but that hypothetical administrator should have at least some knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes to be able to do his !job properly. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:30, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to reiterate. People need to realise that it doesnt matter what they think, as a singular. Everyone has their own opinion, which is coagulated with the rest of the !votes. Nothing said here will change anyones minds, its just repeating everyone's opinions to no avail. Those who are stubborn to the need of article writing will still oppose pure vandal fighters, and vice versa. Those who still oppose for low space edits will still oppose for low space edits. Its called freedom of speech, and no-one can regulate that, as decreed by the standards of RFA. Thats my 2c anyway. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 22:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

One problem is that the standards are applied in a seemingly arbitrary way, however. I had a clearly deserving candidate voted down last week for "insufficient article writing," while a dozen admins with comparable records of writing have been promoted in the past few months and are doing fine jobs. I suppose I'll have more to say about this when I nominate the candidate again at the appropriate time, because for some reason he has become a lightning rod for this issue. In the meantime other administrators, who would prefer to be spending their time on tasks more suited for them, have to cover the admin tasks that would have been performed by candidates rejected on what I consider to be questionable grounds. Newyorkbrad 22:27, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I assume you are refering to R, previously known as TechWiz. NYB, what would you deem 'the appropriate time', for this candidate to try again? I'm just wondering about something... -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:03, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I haven't given that too much thought yet, and I doubt that the candidate has either. Generally, unsuccessful candidates are advised to wait a couple of months before trying again, at a minimum, and those who have been rejected more than once are advised to wait longer, although it's also relevant whether the candidate's previous RfA came reasonably close to passing, as this one did. Newyorkbrad 06:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Question on Canvassing

If a nominator asks a user to "take a look" at the RFA of the candidate he nominated, does that violate WP:CANVASS. New England 17:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it depends on if the nominator knew you had a positive relationship with the candidate and would likely support. --Android Mouse 18:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Asking specific people or specific groups of people to participate in an RfA is typically viewed as canvassing. Either way, if a user is seen to be asking other users to vote on a specific RfA, that RfA is likely to get a lot of opposes because people will view it as canvassing. In short, don't mention RfAs to anyone or any group of people. --Deskana (talk) 18:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

If he asks a large and unbalanced (mostly 'for') group, yes, but on average I'd say not. The more people are made aware of an issue, the better the discussion will be. For example, I don't scan this page often, but I'd like to know whenever an editor I know is nominated, and I'd appreciate the info; sometimes I may be 'for', sometimes 'against' - but if somebody informs of the vote, to say he is 'canvassing' is simply offensive.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh my...has anyone read Wikipedia:Canvassing lately? Reasonable communication with someone is not canvassing. Asking one person to look at an RfA, even if you are the nom or the person being considered, is not canvassing. --Iamunknown 20:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but I can see people flipping out about it. --Deskana (talk) 20:02, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

My own opinion is that canvassing is a pattern. Asking one or two people to look at your RFA may be perceived as "just saying hello"; asking three or more people to look at the RFA is definitely canvassing. Shalom ^Hello 22:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Per Shalom. Asking one or two person to view your RfA is not canvassing, especially if you don't say "vote for moi, yo." Giggy _U^CP 22:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Shalom, if someone asks a few people to look at their RfA, I'm not gonna get upset about canvassing, but when they ask a bunch of people, or their message is not nuetral (ex. "OMG vote for me!!") I would think of it as canvassing. --Malevious Userpage •Talk Page• Contributions 22:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts in regards to canvassing, anything related to canvassing: dont do it. Its one of the best ways to send your RFA errr.... lets say.... wiki-insolvent (thats a new one). -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'd be interested in the dividing line between keeping the community (and interested users) informed, and spamming. That's probably subjective, though. I think Shalom brings up a good point -- if we can recognize a strong pattern of mentioning the discussion where it may be entirely relevant, we're probably edging closer to canvassing. – Luna Santin (talk) 04:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the nom in question left three comments to two users, two of which were left with other comments on content. New England 04:27, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the message being neutral or not plays a large part. -- Ned Scott 04:46, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not canvassing if it a neutral message and its only send to a few people, but don't do it some people will use anything as a good reason to oppose. --Chris ^g 05:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

While what everyone says is true, about the neutrality of a statement in question, it proves better to not take the risk of asking someone to participate, or even informing them of the RFA, because many people will automatically assume canvassing, regardless of the neutrality of the statement, and oppose the RFA. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to throw in my two cents, I don't consider anything canvassing if it is not aggressively cross-posted and the message is not asking for a specific vote to be cast. But that's just me. :-) —« ANIMUM » 23:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I was so worried about being accused of canvassing that I didn't even tell my admin coach that I had been nominated and, as a result, he missed the opportunity to vote on my RFA. What is clearly permissible is putting a discreet notice on your user page that your RFA is being considered. If you are an active editor, there will be a number of people watching your user page. I think you might also be justified in notifying admin coaches or other people who have offered to nominate you. More than that? Well, more than that, you takes your chances with the RFA mafia. --Richard 23:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Small change in RFA format

I have read a lot of people complain that RFA is not a vote or consensus - perhaps then we should switch from using numbers (#) to bullets (*) and let the bot calculate the totals. --Ozgod 13:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I.e. going from this:

1. Support blah blah blah blah
2. Support yada yada yada yada
3. Support potato potato potato

to:

• Support blah blah blah blah
• Support yada yada yada yada
• Support potato radish potato

They would still get counted and the numbers make that easier.Rlevse 15:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

• All the more reason to get rid of the numbers. They are meaningless. --Durin 15:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they would still be counted, but to editors coming to the discussion to contribute it may help deter them from voting on the "larger" side. I mean, clearly, yes, in some cases they will see if Support has more than Oppose but not having the numbers there tallying it up in front of them it could help drive the discussion from !votes to consensus. For instance, AfD's, although entirely different from RFA's, don't break up the discussion by Keep or Delete, but the input is bulleted. While I we remove the areas in RFA for Support/Oppose/Neutral, to cure the !vote argument we move to replace the # to *. --Ozgod 15:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The numbers aren't meaningless, you still need to know something about numerical strength to determine consensus. This would just make more work for bureaucrats like me. Andre (talk) 20:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Andre. Rlest 20:33, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

An interesting idea, thanks for bringing it up. As to my particular opinion, one need not reject the idea of consensus to acknowledge that numbers do have a use. Why should we hide relevant data from ourselves? – Luna Santin (talk) 20:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Andre is right. I agree. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 21:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You mean you're a bureaucrat for just a few days, Andre, and you're already complaining about overwork? :) -- Cecropia 01:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

My back is killing me from all this heavy lifting. Contributions are heavy. Andre (talk) 01:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't you know we get time-and-a-half for overtime? -- Cecropia 01:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Huh? I thought they paid you in t-shirts... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

RFA has always been a vote as long as I can remember. It is not the same as AFD, etc. because the nominated is not an article but a Wikipedian that people interact directly with here. Thus, numbers are relevant here, as they are (ideally) a measure of how many people know the person being nominated. Why do we have WP:100, WP:200, etc. anyways? Tuxide 01:22, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not a vote, but it's not the same system as AFD either (which used to be called Votes for deletion). Andre (talk) 01:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions like this, while well intended, are WikiCorrectness. We're trying to alter the expression of the process to try to alter the fact of the process.-- Cecropia 01:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

RfA has never, ever, ever been a vote. It, unfortunately, certainly appears to be one, especially with the numbers. I agree with Cecropia that changing them would be superficial; I would, however, be in support of the change regardless the superficiality. ---Iamunknown 01:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

• RfA must be a vote to some degree. Not must as in it's inevitable, must as in it should be. In an AfD, we're just evaluating whether or not the article should be deleted. That isn't and shouldn't be a vote, definitely. But for an RfA, it's not just an issue of if someone is qualified to be an admin, the community has to trust them with admin tools. If a large part of the community doesn't trust them, it is irrelevant why the lack of trust exists, or if everyone else thinks the lack of trust is for a stupid reason. People who are not trusted by the community should not become admins. -Amarkov moo! 05:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

If only there way a way to crack open everyone's skulls to see if they trust the user or not! --Chris ^g 05:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

• Numbers != consensus. However, numbers !(!=) consensus. Numbers are an element of consensus. If thirty explicitly state that they do not agree with an user's opinion of a candidate, be it negative or positive, then the number is important, because it demonstrates that the dissenting opinion is a statistical outlier. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

  In your first equation, do you perhaps possibly mean "Numbers !(==) Consensus"? Because as it is, you contradicted yourself ;) -- Renesis (talk) 07:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

  Darn assignment statements. Well, in PHP, inequality is !=, in C/C++/Java it is !(==), in MATLAB it is ~=, and in BASIC it is ><. I don't even know what to believe anymore... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 07:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Lets just go with perl :

• == is equal
• != is not equal and
• =~ is sort of equal. --Chris ^g 08:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

What consensus actually means, in the real world, is that most people agree on something. That's why we have traditionally had the 75% threshold; a simple majority doesn't demonstrate consensus, but a 75% supermajority does, generally. However, there are reasons for having the bureaucrat discretion between 70 and 80%; sometimes the total may be distorted by trolls, or even by good-faith users casting ill-thought-out votes based on a misapprehension of the facts (as described in the threat below). Nonetheless, the numbers are important. Amarkov hit the nail on the head above when he pointed out that RfA is about whether the community trusts someone. If a large percentage of participants have clearly stated that they do not trust someone with the admin tools, then it's clearly wrong for that person to become an admin. Whether their reasoning is "strong" or "weak" is irrelevant; RfA is a community decision. Walton^One 09:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. The numbers can be tainted by trolls or by users who are simply factually wrong. As a result, numbers cannot be solely responsible for determining the consensus in an RFA/RFB. However, saying that numbers are meaningless or do not matter at all misses the point by an equal margin as saying that they are all that matters. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)