AutomaticStrikeout (talk | contribs) |
KumiokoCleanStart (talk | contribs) →Can RfA become a due process?: Good Luck |
||
Line 320: | Line 320: | ||
:I always thought that the person running could request against SNOW closures. Lets open the thing back up and see how humiliating it can get before they accept it. --[[User:Onorem|Onorem]] ([[User talk:Onorem|talk]]) 02:51, 7 August 2013 (UTC) |
:I always thought that the person running could request against SNOW closures. Lets open the thing back up and see how humiliating it can get before they accept it. --[[User:Onorem|Onorem]] ([[User talk:Onorem|talk]]) 02:51, 7 August 2013 (UTC) |
||
::I did. <small><span class="nowrap" style="border:1px solid #000;padding:1px;">'''[[User:AutomaticStrikeout|AutomaticStrikeout]]''' [[User_talk:AutomaticStrikeout|<span style="color:#FFF;background:#0000fa;"> ? </span>]]</span></small> 02:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC) |
::I did. <small><span class="nowrap" style="border:1px solid #000;padding:1px;">'''[[User:AutomaticStrikeout|AutomaticStrikeout]]''' [[User_talk:AutomaticStrikeout|<span style="color:#FFF;background:#0000fa;"> ? </span>]]</span></small> 02:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC) |
||
:::Good luck, lets see if you can beat my third attempt [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/KumiokoCleanStart|here]]. ROFL, Few editors who are still allowed to edit are more despised than I. Lets see if you can meet the challenge. [[User:KumiokoCleanStart|Kumioko]] ([[User talk:KumiokoCleanStart|talk]]) 03:03, 7 August 2013 (UTC) |
Revision as of 03:03, 7 August 2013
Last updated by cyberbot ITalk to my owner:Online at 06:36, 25 May 2024 (UTC) |
2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2013
|
|||||||||||
This page has archives. Sections older than 10 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present. |
Current time: 06:55:57, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
let's make all desysopped admins re-run RFA (if they want the bit back)
Right now the Arbcom hands out periodic suspension of admin rights. But look, if you've lost your bit...why not have to face the community again? If you are likely to lose, so what? Let the community decide. Right now it is a sort of power structure game.
The other thing is people who resign. Make them re-run also. (1) It makes the gesture mean a lot more. (2) Gives the community a chance to re-examine candidates including their walking away. (3) If you just want a break, no big deal...just face the community to get it back. (What's the worst that happens? Your break is longer than you expected.)
The only possible exception might be some emergency desysop for a security breach...but even here, I'd be inclined to hold it against the admin for losing the keys.
TCO (talk) 05:03, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- I guess I'm confused. Desysopped admins have the opportunity to stand for reRFA whenever they like. Why force it? Is this meant to be a test of the community's concurrence with ArbCom? Someguy1221 (talk) 05:21, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Has arbcom ever desysopped someone for X amount of time and said they get resysopped automatically? Hot Stop talk-contribs 05:49, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Making those that take a voluntary (short) break, for example because they're busy and know they won't be editing for a bit, have to re-run RFA will just mean they won't resign the bit in the first place. -- KTC (talk) 06:29, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- A while back we had an admin who was about to be deployed overseas as part of the military. Understandably he did not expect to participate in Wikipedia during his deployment and asked to have his privileges removed as a security precaution on the remote chance that someone might try to hijack his account. Now tell me, why should we be forcing someone like that to repeat RFA? I think reconfirmation could be a good thing, but I don't think that everyone who ever chosen to relinquish the bit should necessarily be subjected to it. Dragons flight (talk) 06:40, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- If he is gone for a year, sure, let him re-run. If the deployment is less than a year, then no reason for him to resign. (He won't trip the activity barrier.) I think he would pass with flying colors based on sympathy for his service to the country.TCO (talk) 16:15, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Umm. We know for a fact that administrators on other projects, at least, have been forced by government agencies to use their admin tools or be imprisoned. There is a well documented event that occurred on the French Wikipedia, and there have certainly been indications of similar issues for administrators who live in or have been working in war zones and areas controlled by repressive regimes. Nobody should ever be criticized for asking for temporary desysop when they are at risk of being forced to use their tools in ways that are contrary to the policies of the project. What you are saying, essentially, is that anyone who puts the security of the project ahead of their own personal access to tools doesn't deserve to have those tools. Risker (talk) 17:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Those cases are very rare. In the event they do occur, the person can go through an election (and likely pass in flying colors). For that matter, your comment makes very little sense. If someone is truly under duress, what is to stop the agency from requiring them to keep (or get back) the bit to perform the action. A de-sysop with a higher hurdle to get it back, would actually keep the agency MORE at bay.TCO (talk) 17:55, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Also, you are bringing up edge cases rather than considering the more frequent cases (restricting the Arbcom/admin deal making and returning things to the community, making retirement gestures more meaningful).TCO (talk) 18:32, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Those cases are very rare. In the event they do occur, the person can go through an election (and likely pass in flying colors). For that matter, your comment makes very little sense. If someone is truly under duress, what is to stop the agency from requiring them to keep (or get back) the bit to perform the action. A de-sysop with a higher hurdle to get it back, would actually keep the agency MORE at bay.TCO (talk) 17:55, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- FWIW, it's been at least 18 months since the committee last temporarily desysopped anyone. That mostly happened in 2008 and it seemed to fizzle out after that if my memory serves correctly. Wizardman 16:35, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- That depends on the definition of "temporarily desysopped", though. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Umm. We know for a fact that administrators on other projects, at least, have been forced by government agencies to use their admin tools or be imprisoned. There is a well documented event that occurred on the French Wikipedia, and there have certainly been indications of similar issues for administrators who live in or have been working in war zones and areas controlled by repressive regimes. Nobody should ever be criticized for asking for temporary desysop when they are at risk of being forced to use their tools in ways that are contrary to the policies of the project. What you are saying, essentially, is that anyone who puts the security of the project ahead of their own personal access to tools doesn't deserve to have those tools. Risker (talk) 17:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- If he is gone for a year, sure, let him re-run. If the deployment is less than a year, then no reason for him to resign. (He won't trip the activity barrier.) I think he would pass with flying colors based on sympathy for his service to the country.TCO (talk) 16:15, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- @TCO-One of the worst ideas I've ever seen. They've already lost or given up their bit and you want to both rub their noses in it and make RFA more of circus than it already is? Horrible idea. Shame on you. PumpkinSky talk 17:24, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Not to mention, it's unenforceable. They refuse to rerun. What can you do. Ban them? You have no leverage. I myself refuse to participate in such a charade. So go ban me.PumpkinSky talk 17:27, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Although I understand te reasoning behind this proposal, I doubt it would serve any benefit as currently written. There is no reason to re-examinate any sysop who uncontroversially gives his bit away for external purposes. Back in April, I was about to hand away all of my sysop bits because of a big political crysis that was happening in my country, to prevent any issues if my account was hijacked. Does that merit a forced fresh RfA? No. Maybe different circumstances would apply, but the current wording makes me think that we'll face so much unnecessary RfAs that would be a waste of time. — ΛΧΣ21 17:38, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Yes but you forget that most admins gather enemies along the way. You block someone, and even if your block is accurate (which is most cases should be), that person will surely oppose your reconfirmation RfA. Now, if you have been a sysop for 3 years and usually work at AN/I, there is the same chance you'd pass a reconfirmation RfA than you have to pass an RfB. — ΛΧΣ21 20:53, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- So what? You'll loose the power to block others but you can still participate in the AN/I discussions and say what you think. Not a big deal. Or is the power to block someone so life important? Adminship is not holy grail and admins shoulnd't be "untouchable royalty". --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 06:37, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose. This proposal is basically "lets do this because we can". No indication that it actually solves an actual problem. Resolute 18:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- It's a small step but one to change the dynamic. This project has too much entrenched leveling up and power politics. We need more Cincinattus.TCO (talk) 18:31, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Comment I think the easiest way to achieve the desired result is to make resignation due to a hissy fit be treated as losing the bit under a cloud.—Kww(talk) 18:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Yup, that's pretty much all that needs to be said right there! --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 18:33, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Now that's a proposal I can support. Wizardman 18:44, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Wizardman, you know I love you like a brother, but how does one prove "hissy fit"? Also, Kww has proposed this as an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Administrators, where I responded at some length. Drmies (talk) 02:20, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- Now that's a proposal I can support. Wizardman 18:44, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- Yup, that's pretty much all that needs to be said right there! --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 18:33, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I have to oppose the proposal as originally framed. Earlier this year, the Arbitration Committee concluded that it was necessary to desysop an administrator temporarily because he did a particular thing, but was willing to return the bit once he committed not to do that thing again. (As it happens I didn't agree, but that is neither here nor there.) To the extent the proposal would disable the arbitrators from taking action in what they perceive as urgent circumstances, without the ability to reverse it once the issue is resolved, it is clearly undesirable.
Beyond that, I have occasionally voted as an arbitrator to restore adminship to an administrator we had desysopped. This has not happened for some time, and several arbitrators have stated (in their answers to election questions or elsewhere) that they would never cast such a vote, but again, I don't see the value of denying flexibility to the Committee.
The other situations in which administrators lose the bit and then request it back from the bureaucrats are in cases of voluntary resignation and in cases of inactivity. I see no evidence that restoration of adminship on request following non-controversial resignations has caused any problems. And our policy on deadminship based on inactivity is still relatively new, and has recently been amended, so I'd like to see a bit more time pass in which we can evaluate the current policy before proposing any further honing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
- A user who requests a temporary desysop as a security protection should necessarily be required to publicly re-apply. If the admin has explicitly stated that he is about to be gone for an extended undefined period and that his next edit may be the result of his account being compromised, you should not assume that the account is not compromised simply because it requests resysopping.
- Obviously, surely, per the request, the account controller needs to be subjected to some test. A public test, fielding random questions from old friends and other colleagues, is an excellent way to test that the user is the same person as previously. Functionary's testing privately whether the person has control of their old email or telephone number or some other password is good, but not sufficient, it all was possibly written down somewhere before the assignment. I think it absurd to suggest that such an identity-confirming reconfirmation RfA is too intimidating for a returning military person. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- You want to put someone through a 7-day RFA to confirm their identity, which could easily be deduced as effectively through a few questions on this board? Seriously? And you wonder why nobody wants to be an admin around here anymore... Risker (talk) 03:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- I have to agree with Risker, that idea, TCO's orignal post (which should have been ignored and closed--I tried but KWW edit warred to keep it open) and KWW's RFC on this are the worst ideas I've ever seen on wiki, and that is saying something. PumpkinSky talk 10:53, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- I would not demand 7 days. As the user has previously passed RfA, questions of experience should be moot. Why this assumption that a reconfirmation RfA for simple logical reasons should be as traumatic as one's initial RfA. Are all RfA's traumatic? Some RfAs look more like quite positive affirmations of trust. I would definitely prefer re-sysops to be recorded on a fresh, easily linkable page, than on a ProjectSpace Talk page with a massive history (you call WT:RFA a "board"?). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:03, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- Re: your last sentence: that page already exists. Graham87 10:41, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks Graham, I didn't know. Wikipedia:List of users resysopped by a bureaucrat. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:23, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- Re: your last sentence: that page already exists. Graham87 10:41, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- You want to put someone through a 7-day RFA to confirm their identity, which could easily be deduced as effectively through a few questions on this board? Seriously? And you wonder why nobody wants to be an admin around here anymore... Risker (talk) 03:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- Adminship is no big deal....the only former admins that should need to go through a Rfa are those desysopped by arbcom (like me) and those that turned in their tools knowing they were probably about to lose them anyway (Nixon syndrome). I do believe though that some admins that arbcom desysopped were given the opportunity to appeal directly to arbcom for readminning which was part of the final ruling in a few arbcom cases.--MONGO 14:04, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
- Too many admins already... 24.56.11.114 (talk) 04:56, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
- We've already had tow RfCs which was closed, by me, as having a different result. Is there any evidence that the community has changed their stance on that?05:16, 27 July 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberpower678 (talk • contribs)
- We have far fewer admins than we used to have and we aren't recruiting enough to maintain their numbers, so losing some unnecessarily is a bad thing. People voluntarily giving up the bit for a period of time is a good thing, and we shouldn't ask them intrusive questions as to why they are doing so, or put a totally pointless barrier in the way of their doing so. For example, I've known people go on courses of methadone as a painkiller, if that happened to me or any admin I hope they'd have the sense to hand in the bit for the duration of that treatment. ϢereSpielChequers 07:13, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- I don't see any need to make admins who resigned not-under-a-cloud and who are requesting the bit back before wikiculture has significantly changed go through a full RFA. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:08, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I can't support this as written. There are essentially three ways in which admins can be required to undergo a new RfA prior to return of the tools. The first, and most obvious, is that they are involuntarily desysopped for misconduct by ArbCom. I don't think anyone would argue against a new RfA being required in this case. The second is that tools are resigned "under a cloud", either where the community has already expressed serious reservations about the admin's conduct or an ArbCom case examining such is underway. The third is when an admin has been absent for so long that the project may have dramatically changed since the last time they were here. In all these cases, reconfirmation is already required. But there are a lot of situations where an admin might uncontroversially renounce the tools for some period of time, generally when (s)he is expecting to be absent from the project for some period of time. This is a useful security measure against admin account compromise and a good thing, and what you propose would make admins much more reluctant to do so. The other case is when the admin would just like to take a break from administrative tasks or concentrate on something else for a while. If they're getting stressed and need a break from admin tools, or want to help in other ways for a while, it's also a good thing that they have the option to do so, and then come back without any drama when ready. Another, as brought up by Risker, while rare, is where the admin has reason to believe (s)he could be coerced to use tools inappropriately, and so wants to be able to answer truthfully "I'm not able to do that, as only admins can do that and I'm not an admin". What circumstance do you see, outside the three I listed above where reconfirmation is already required, that reconfirmation RfAs are more likely to do more good than harm? Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:42, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I'm still confused about the purpose of this. You're saying that a de-sysopped admin can override ArbCom by running through another RfA. But ArbCom can just take the tools away again. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:22, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
Would I make it?
I would like an opinion. Do you think I would make it through RfA? I asked on IRC and got a 50/50 split. The main reason is that most of my reasons are relating to coding and not content. What is you guys opinion? --Nathan2055talk - contribs 02:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Here's one blunt-instrument attempt to answer that question: Potential admin score for Nathan2055. A good score/potential administrator is around 500. Possible weaknesses in your application would be never having created an article, and not having participated much in article namespace or in Wikipedia areas. This is not to say that a person who primarily codes can't be an admin, but I have noticed that many commenters want to see content work - and most want to see examples of how you interact with others and how you deal with conflict. On the plus side, your record is clean (no blocks) and you have been here for several years. --MelanieN (talk) 02:41, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: The score doesn't matter. I have a 537 admin score (actually I should have more since I was incorrectly blocked once) and didn't make it ;) — ΛΧΣ21 05:41, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Little content work will make it harder, but as for Scottywong's tool, it's not worth the time it took to code it.PumpkinSky talk 02:49, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- One of the key qualifications for being an admin, not accounted for by Scottywong's tool, is having a special signature that looks very important. That might tip the balance between success and failure. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:21, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) I disagree with PumpkinSky, and I think his/her opinion about the tool is shortsighted (and, incidentally, not worth the time it took to type it out). Several current administrators were nominated directly as a result of coordinated searches that were done using this tool. Is it a magical "will User:xyz pass RfA?" prediction tool with 100% accuracy? No, and it was never intended to be. But it certainly is helpful in pointing out areas of weakness (as it did in this case), as well as for narrowing down a field of thousands of users to the few that have the highest chance of passing RfA. It takes a bit of creativity and intelligence to figure out how this tool can be used in a truly useful way. ‑Scottywong| gab _ 03:26, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- It fails to consider far too many intangibles and tries to reduce human factors to bean counting.PumpkinSky talk 12:05, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- I certainly find it valuable (although as you yourself point out, it's not a substitute for thoughtful evaluation of the individual). For example, I took note of someone who I thought had a lot of clue and I was considering suggesting RfA to them, but a run through the tool showed that they had been blocked ten times, including within the past year, so I dropped the idea. Some of us do find this tool useful, and I'd like to thank you for creating it. --MelanieN (talk) 03:36, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Once again, it looks like a 50/50 split. I believe I'll try and make/improve one or two articles before going for it. Thanks for the help everyone! --Nathan2055talk - contribs 03:46, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Oooo...and an unbelievably horrendous WP:NAC suddenly drops your score to the "below zero" range. Reset the stopwatch for 8-12 months (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:53, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
- Don't forget the signature. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:53, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Once again, it looks like a 50/50 split. I believe I'll try and make/improve one or two articles before going for it. Thanks for the help everyone! --Nathan2055talk - contribs 03:46, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Since this has been brought up, I wonder what my chances would be... Here is my "potential admin score" and I am asking as the idea of my being an admin was mentioned here recently. I know the breaks in contributions would be an obstacle, but are there other areas that are obvious problems to anyone here? Thanks. EdChem (talk) 04:12, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Kudpung, I certainly agree that canvassing would be highly inappropriate, but given that RfA is a process which is regularly criticised and described as broken there is more to consider than self-assessment. I am not planning to run, I was simply surprised by comments from Risker at NYB's talk page and later noticed this thread and wondered how I might be seen by those with much more experience of RfA's. I'll accept if I get no feedback, no one is obligated to have a look unless an RfA is running and s/he wants to offer an informed !vote on an unfamiliar candidate. EdChem (talk) 11:49, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
- Nathan, I would guard against discussing your possible candidacy on IRC - or anywhere in fact, including here - there is a possible risk of it being construed as canvassing however unintentional. If you haven't approached a potential nominator (with whom you are free to discuss your candidacy him/her off line), your best resort is to self-evaluation. One aid towards this is Wikipedia:Editor review, but you will also gain significant insight by reading WP:Advice for RfA candidates and this. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:41, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Simply asking the question in the manner you have is sufficient to make my mind up and, I suspect, several others. Maturity and judgement are fundamental requirements and asking "what is you guys opinion" shows a deficit in both. If you were suitable you really would not need to ask. As for that tool, it's largely worthless. Leaky Caldron 13:24, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Harsh. The question may or may not be politic, but you have mistaken the implication, it was about the process of the matter, not about the worth of the user. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:43, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- The question was "Do you think I would make it through RFA?" Nothing to do with process, everything to do with "am I good enough". Leaky Caldron 14:08, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Hmm? RfA is a process. Making it through, is going through the process. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- When the question is asked, "Do you think I would make it through RfA" they are not asking if they will survive, they are asking if they will pass. You can nitpick all you like. The answer is yes, they would make it through RfA, at the end of which they would either be approved in their desire to be an Admin. or the would remain as they are. Leaky Caldron 16:10, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Nitpick? Mirror. Would anyone honestly support someone who has not asked the question, as to whether they would succeed? Any applicant who did not ask that question (whether out loud or not) would show such an abysmal lack of judgment, curiosity, maturity, and sanity as to warrant a snow close. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:01, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- When the question is asked, "Do you think I would make it through RfA" they are not asking if they will survive, they are asking if they will pass. You can nitpick all you like. The answer is yes, they would make it through RfA, at the end of which they would either be approved in their desire to be an Admin. or the would remain as they are. Leaky Caldron 16:10, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Hmm? RfA is a process. Making it through, is going through the process. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- The question was "Do you think I would make it through RFA?" Nothing to do with process, everything to do with "am I good enough". Leaky Caldron 14:08, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Leaky caldron, I do not believe that RfA selects solely for suitability, maturity, and judgement. I, for one, am quite comfortable with my maturity and judgement and do not doubt my own capabilities. How I evaluate myself has nothing to do with how I may or may not be seen by other editors here. However, with RfA a broken process and the admin community having plenty of examples of people unsuited to responsibly using the tools, I am of the view that RfA responses to candidates are unpredictable. That being the case, informally asking not whether someone will pass but whether there is anything notable that would be problematic strikes me as reasonable, so long as it is not canvassing. In my case, if I were seriously considering running I would have a private discussion with a nominator, but as the idea came as a surprise and I don't plan on running at present, I just saw this thread and wondered what response I might get. If I get no response, fine. EdChem (talk) 12:01, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
- Asking an editor in good standing on their talk page for an informal opinion is one thing, requesting an opinion on a public page known for drama appears to me to show a lack of judgement. I don't see how you can expect anything other than a polarised & generalised set of views here. Why should RfA regulars who often put a lot of effort in do potentially hours of research on a candidate who lacks the confidence to apply or be nominated? Leaky Caldron 14:05, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
- I disagree. Rather than jump straight into the vipers nest, they asked an honest question, got honest feedback, and have stated a desire to take some time and continue to develop their skills as a Wikipedian. I would argue that plays to their favour. As to Scottywong's tool, I think it is interesting (and I'm a little sad it rejects editors who are already admins). It is, of course, not something I would use as my primary method of judging a potential admin - it cannot account for direct experience and understanding of their overall habits, particularly habits of engaging others - but it does create a rather interesting statistical picture of pure editing habits. Resolute 13:47, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Harsh. The question may or may not be politic, but you have mistaken the implication, it was about the process of the matter, not about the worth of the user. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:43, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- I for one am very confident that I will not pass. I still make judgementsl mistakes, and haven't demonstrated my knowledge of policies. Sure I maintain the widely used edit counter and Cyberbot I, but that doesn't make up for what I lack, or what the community thinks I lack.—cyberpower ChatOnline —Preceding undated comment added 16:58, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Some non-admin bot expert (maybe you) should try running for cratship. It would be interesting to watch. After all, while the crat position is viewed as a higher tier than adminship, a non-admin crat would not really have that many powers. If this person promised not to close RfX, why couldn't they allowed to approve bots, their area of expertise? AutomaticStrikeout ? 21:30, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- That will never work. But, we can propose a new user right called BAG that allows granting of bot status.—cyberpower ChatOnline 23:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- That would become problematic if Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Desysop / reconfirmation RfA proposal were to pass. Resolute 23:09, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
- Some non-admin bot expert (maybe you) should try running for cratship. It would be interesting to watch. After all, while the crat position is viewed as a higher tier than adminship, a non-admin crat would not really have that many powers. If this person promised not to close RfX, why couldn't they allowed to approve bots, their area of expertise? AutomaticStrikeout ? 21:30, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Bureaucrat tools
As far as I know, crats are now doing two things: closing RfX and approving bot requests. While both involve making userright changes (I believe bot is a userright), WP:RfA and WP:BRFA are two very different things. Does it really make sense for the crats to be given two seemingly unrelated tools, or should the crat position be split up? There are undoubtedly those who would do quite well in reviewing and approving bots, but wouldn't pass RfB because of the RfX closures aspect. Also, I suspect there are those who would do well at closing the RfX, but know nothing about bots. Is it really best for these two tools to be combined in such a way? AutomaticStrikeout ? 17:49, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- It's be silly in a way to do it, just because the RfA tool is used so infrequently.
Crats are still changing usernames for the time being, so it's perhaps premature to be looking at this anyway.Wizardman 19:07, 18 July 2013 (UTC)- I think today the new login system was supposed to be switched on, and than the account renaming would become redundant.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:10, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- It was switched on yesterday, actually. :) Theopolisme (talk) 20:28, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- Which means that this discussion isn't premature. AutomaticStrikeout ? 20:30, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- It was switched on yesterday, actually. :) Theopolisme (talk) 20:28, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- I think today the new login system was supposed to be switched on, and than the account renaming would become redundant.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:10, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- I think the vast majority of our bureaucrats (myself included) were promoted without knowing anything about bots, so I have trouble believing that that is a particular hurdle at RfB. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:58, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- Perhaps not, but what about those who could easily handle the bot requests, but would be hindered because RfX closures are part of the package? Is there really any need for two dissimilar tools to be grouped together like this? AutomaticStrikeout ? 21:13, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- By-and-large, it is WP:BAG that handles reviewing and approving bots. Bureaucrats generally only rubber-stamp bots (by adding the flag) after a brief review of approved BRFAs. –xenotalk 21:19, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- Ah. I didn't realize that was how it worked. AutomaticStrikeout ? 21:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- We could split off bot approval into a separate user right and give it to all BAG members. That would make more sense if their decisions are rubber-stamped anyway. Hut 8.5 19:18, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
- Theoretically yes, but how much support would that idea garner? AutomaticStrikeout ? 01:16, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
- Well, is it worth a try? AutomaticStrikeout ? 20:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- Theoretically yes, but how much support would that idea garner? AutomaticStrikeout ? 01:16, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
- We could split off bot approval into a separate user right and give it to all BAG members. That would make more sense if their decisions are rubber-stamped anyway. Hut 8.5 19:18, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
- Ah. I didn't realize that was how it worked. AutomaticStrikeout ? 21:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- By-and-large, it is WP:BAG that handles reviewing and approving bots. Bureaucrats generally only rubber-stamp bots (by adding the flag) after a brief review of approved BRFAs. –xenotalk 21:19, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- Perhaps not, but what about those who could easily handle the bot requests, but would be hindered because RfX closures are part of the package? Is there really any need for two dissimilar tools to be grouped together like this? AutomaticStrikeout ? 21:13, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
- As I am not getting any further input, I have opened a discussion here. AutomaticStrikeout ? 17:02, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Proposed addition to "Expressing opinions"
Under the "Expressing opinions" section of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship should there be additional wording placed to discourage any perception of canvassing? I would like to propose text to be added, discussed, improved if needed and added, to our current guide if consensus agrees.
Perhaps:(bolded section is new)
:The 'requests for adminship' process attracts many Wikipedians. Some editors may routinely oppose many, or even most, requests; other editors routinely support many, or even most requests. Although the community currently endorses the right of every Wikipedian with an account to participate, one-sided approaches to RfA !voting have been labeled as "trolling" by some. Before commenting or responding to comments in an RfA, especially 'oppose' comments on an uncommon principle or which may feel like "baiting", consider whether other users are likely to treat it as influential or take it very seriously and whether RfA is an appropriate forum for what you have to say. Additionally, editors are discouraged from contacting others based on their !vote, or comments made with their !vote in an attempt to persuade them to change that !vote. At the very least, not fanning the fire will avoid making the situation worse. Remember, the bureaucrats who close the discussions have considerable experience, and give more weight to constructive comments over unproductive comments.
--Amadscientist (talk) 05:35, 29 July 2013 (UTC) t
- I don't think this would be an ideal solution. For one thing, it doesn't happen very often. For another, it is not true and has never had a consensus. Finally, in actual fact users often quite legitimately post a message to a user concerning his/or vote, and many recommend doing so in order to avoid drama on the actual RfA page and have everyone else chiming in too. The recent event that sparked your suggestion specifically concerned the mass canvassing of participants to change their vote which is not quite the same thing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:50, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- Some had expressed a desire to add something to the guide but the wording above is not ideal, as you mention. If the idea itself is not worth discussing further I won't disagree.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:49, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I don't think that this would be an improvement to the current situation. Taking one not unheard of scenario, one or more people !vote per another editor who then changes their !vote. If there is time to do so it would be useful to inform those editors so they can either reaffirm their !vote but give a different rationale such as "per ....s initial stance. Otherwise it is difficult to know how to weigh such !votes. It is also unnecessary extra complication to the rules at a time when we should really be trying to simplify and de-bloat them. ϢereSpielChequers 08:00, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Drought stabilising?
For the last five years RFA has been going through a drought, with each year from 2008 to 2012 seeing between half and two thirds as many admins appointed as the year before. But finally in 2013 it seems to be bottoming out - so far this year we have 24 new admins compared to 28 last year, and there are five months yet to come.
Year | Month | Mean | Passes | Fails[N 1] | RfAs[N 2] | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |||||
2024 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 6 | ||||||||
2023 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 7 | 19 |
2022 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1.2 | 14 | 6 | 20 |
2021 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.6 | 7 | 4 | 11 |
2020 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1.4 | 17 | 8 | 25 |
2019 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1.8 | 22 | 9 | 31 |
2018 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0.8 | 10 | 8 | 18 |
2017 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1.8 | 21 | 20 | 41 |
2016 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1.3 | 16 | 20 | 36 |
2015 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1.8 | 21 | 32 | 53 |
2014 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 1.8 | 22 | 38 | 60 |
2013 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2.8 | 34 | 39 | 73 |
2012 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2.3 | 28 | 64 | 92 |
2011 | 3 | 9 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4.3 | 52 | 87 | 139 |
2010 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 13 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 6.3 | 75 | 155 | 230 |
2009 | 6 | 9 | 13 | 14 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 8 | 7 | 13 | 6 | 10.1 | 121 | 234 | 355 |
2008 | 36 | 27 | 22 | 12 | 16 | 18 | 16 | 12 | 6 | 16 | 11 | 9 | 16.8 | 201 | 392 | 593 |
2007 | 23 | 35 | 31 | 30 | 54 | 35 | 31 | 18 | 34 | 27 | 56 | 34 | 34.0 | 408 | 512 | 920 |
2006 | 44 | 28 | 34 | 36 | 30 | 28 | 26 | 26 | 22 | 27 | 33 | 19 | 29.5 | 353 | 543 | 896 |
2005 | 14 | 9 | 16 | 25 | 17 | 28 | 31 | 39 | 32 | 67 | 41 | 68 | 32.3 | 387 | 213 | 600 |
2004 | 13 | 14 | 31 | 20 | 23 | 13 | 17 | 12 | 29 | 16 | 27 | 25 | 20.0 | 240 | 63 | 303 |
2003 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 10 | 24 | 11 | 9 | 17 | 10 | 9 | 15 | 10.3 | 123 | n/a[N 3] | 123 |
2002 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3.7 | 44 | n/a[N 3] | 44 | ||||||
Totals | 2233 | 2454 | 4687[N 5] |
Key | |
---|---|
0 successful RFAs
|
26–30 successful RFAs
|
1–5 successful RFAs
|
31–35 successful RFAs
|
6–10 successful RFAs
|
36–40 successful RFAs
|
11–15 successful RFAs
|
41–50 successful RFAs
|
16–20 successful RFAs
|
51–60 successful RFAs
|
21–25 successful RFAs
|
More than 60 successful RFAs
|
- Notes
- Early 2003 from User:NoSeptember/RfA_chronological
- Notes
- ^ Online only. By 2015 admins had started deleting "NotNow" RFAs which artificially reduces the unsuccessful figure
- ^ Except unsuccessful ones by email.
- ^ a b Early RFAs were done by email and only the successes are known
- ^ 33 had been appointed in early 2002
- ^ Figures for unsuccessfuls for 2002 to 2003 are not available
- References
- See also
- Wikipedia:Desysoppings by month - similar list but for number of desysops per month
Of course these numbers are insufficient to maintain our current admin cadre, let alone appoint enough to tackle the consequences of the drought such as the wikigeneration gulf between the existing admins who mostly started editing before 2007 and the very large part of the community who only became active in the last five years or so. Nor does stabilising imply that the underlying problems are being solved, we are still seeing inflation of arbitrary criteria such as edit count and tenure, with the fear that people are judging candidates by things that are easily measured rather than properly checking their edits to see whether or not they'd actually make good admins. But after years of measuring an ever deteriorating situation I'm delighted to be able to announce some good news on this page. ϢereSpielChequers 08:00, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- It seems that this year there have been several desysops and/or admins voluntarily handing in the bit. There may also be admins who have simply stopped editing this year and gone unnoticed. Ignoring the number of admins who have had the flag removed for inactivity, I wonder what the actual net result is and whether this year's promotions are actually covering the year's attrition of active admins. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:50, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes I've got some stats on that as well:
- Admin attrition
Year | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Inactive or desysopped (net) | n/a | 24[1] | 22 | 25 | 96 | 382 | 263 | 194 | 179 | |||||||||||||
Inactive or desysopped% | n/a | 14%[2] | 6% | 3% | 9% | 28% | 22% | 18% | 21% | |||||||||||||
Change (net)% | n/a | 151.7% | 100.6% | 35.6% | 2.7% | -6.2% | -7.7% | -12% | ||||||||||||||
"Semi-active" admins >=1 edit in last 90 days but < 30 edits in last 60 days [3] | n/a | 283 | 421 | 496 | 543 | 519 | 571 | 555 | 539 | 482 | ||||||||||||
Inactive admins [4] | n/a | 439 | ||||||||||||||||||||
"Active" admins at end of year (EOY) 30 edits or more in last 60 days [5] | n/a | 143 | 360 | 722 | 979 | 1,005 | 943 | 870 | 766 | 744 | 674 | 633 | 585 | 582 | 541 | 543 | 514 | 499 | 511 | 470 | 495 |
NB. Active admins from User:NoSeptember/Admin stats and Revision history of Wikipedia:List of administrators
- ^ Over three years not one
- ^ Over three years not one
- ^ semi-active admins first calculated as 198 on 8/6/2007
- ^ Admins with no edits in last 90 days = admins - semi-active admins - "active" admins
- ^ active admins peaked at 1021 on 28/2/2008
The number of "active" admins is still falling and despite two dozen new admins being appointed this year it has dropped by slightly more than two dozen since the end of December. Though arguably things would look very different if "active" was relabelled as has edited in last 30 days >30 edits in last 60 days and we had a number of tighter definitions, including has used the admin tools in the last 30 days and even a "very active" for any admin who is active on wikipedia for an evening a week or more. ϢereSpielChequers 12:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks WSC. That's exactly what I wanted to know. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:25, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think these numbers are also a little misleading because there has been a lot of discussions about adminship and RFA's that IMO generated interest. I do think its likely we haven't hit bottom quite yet and this may just be an outlier but its still a problem that needs to continue to be addressed. My fear is that the community will continue to torpedo good initiatives for changes to the RFA system until its too late for things to be fixed and we have to do something drastic at the last minute and the problem is irreversible. Also, although there are quite a few editors with the tools, most don't use them or use them rarely so its the same handful of people doing the admin stuff. In many instances its because the people who are "trusted" enough to get the tools lacks the technical or functional ability to use them. This is another problem that needs to be addressed. Lastly and possibly most importantly, a lot of admins violate the rules in the conduct of their "duties" but are allowed to keep the tools. In some cases these problems are the same things that would prevent a user from getting the tools in the first place. If the problem is bad enough to prevent an editor from getting access to the toolset, then it should be removed and the editor should have to rerun. We shouldn't give them unlimited latitude once they get the tools and then not allow someone to have them because of the same problem. Kumioko (talk) 13:42, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Hi Kumioko, yes discussion about RFA sometimes prompts people to run, and signpost articles in particular usually result in a bit of a spike. My intention is to make at least one such spike a year, this year has already had its spike, but it wasn't any bigger than we've seen in the last few years. So it is quite possible that the next five months could see rather fewer admins than one would predict by extrapolation from the last 7 months. But in saying that in 2013 the year on year decline has finally bottomed out I am not relying on a single RFA succeeding in the next five months. Though if just five do then 2013 will actually produce more admins than 2012.
- As to your other questions, yes in terms of whether we can keep this site running this way we need to focus on the number of admins we have, and we really ought to measure level of admin coverage available. 50 full time admins working a shift pattern would ensure that we always had half a dozen around and at busy times at least a dozen. But we depend on volunteers who choose their hours and might only donate an hour of their time in 6 months. That makes for a difficult thing to measure. None of the people who seem to want admins to be a scarce resource also seem to be willing to try and calculate how many admins we actually need. I'm very much in the camp of thinking that all civil sensible long term editors should be admins, so to me the minimum number of admins we need is only relevant as part of a worst case scenario - at what point will there be a general enlistment of a posse of poorly vetted admins? Having the decline in the number of new admins bottom out doesn't stabilise the number of admins, but it does raise hope that things might be improving. However we'd have a very long way to go to get to the point where we had so many admins that being one was not a big deal, and we didn't need anyone to be just wielding the mop and not otherwise being part of the community. ϢereSpielChequers 21:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think some of that will help but I don't think that causing spikes in the RFA's is a good long term help to the process. I think its good of you to try and affect the number of admins but I think, perhaps naively, that we need to fix the process itself so we A) Get more people to attempt the process, B) we get more admins and C) we get more people with access to the tools needed to help keep this place running. Wikipedia needs people with access to the tools but we don't need them in one big group, we dont need the title of admin and we don't need all the beauracracy. As I and others have said before, we need to make it easy to get and easy to take away. Kumioko (talk) 01:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Actually, it's not as hard as it seems. This year, there have been more successful RfA than unsuccessful. The problem is getting people to run. AutomaticStrikeout ? 01:40, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think some of that will help but I don't think that causing spikes in the RFA's is a good long term help to the process. I think its good of you to try and affect the number of admins but I think, perhaps naively, that we need to fix the process itself so we A) Get more people to attempt the process, B) we get more admins and C) we get more people with access to the tools needed to help keep this place running. Wikipedia needs people with access to the tools but we don't need them in one big group, we dont need the title of admin and we don't need all the beauracracy. As I and others have said before, we need to make it easy to get and easy to take away. Kumioko (talk) 01:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think these numbers are also a little misleading because there has been a lot of discussions about adminship and RFA's that IMO generated interest. I do think its likely we haven't hit bottom quite yet and this may just be an outlier but its still a problem that needs to continue to be addressed. My fear is that the community will continue to torpedo good initiatives for changes to the RFA system until its too late for things to be fixed and we have to do something drastic at the last minute and the problem is irreversible. Also, although there are quite a few editors with the tools, most don't use them or use them rarely so its the same handful of people doing the admin stuff. In many instances its because the people who are "trusted" enough to get the tools lacks the technical or functional ability to use them. This is another problem that needs to be addressed. Lastly and possibly most importantly, a lot of admins violate the rules in the conduct of their "duties" but are allowed to keep the tools. In some cases these problems are the same things that would prevent a user from getting the tools in the first place. If the problem is bad enough to prevent an editor from getting access to the toolset, then it should be removed and the editor should have to rerun. We shouldn't give them unlimited latitude once they get the tools and then not allow someone to have them because of the same problem. Kumioko (talk) 13:42, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks WSC. That's exactly what I wanted to know. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:25, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- I draw two key conclusions - both optimistic which some may say just makes me a Polyanna. First, this year (thus far) is the first since the prehistory of 2005 when successful nominations have outnumbered unsuccessful ones. So maybe one thing that has changed recently is that fewer speculative, premature or joky nominations/self-noms are happening. Secondly, it may look like a problem that RfAs have gone down from 920 in 2007 to just 92 last year - a convenient 90% decrease. But the high water mark of active admins was just over 1,000 in that same year, 2007, and the total number has declined since then not by 90% but by about 33% (from 1,005 to 647). So the key figure is not the number of new admins we create, but the number still active and that's much less of a problem. I would myself make creating and removing admins a much easier and quicker process but given the tortuous history of RfA reform I don't have any good ideas about how that might be accomplished. But I think RfA reform is a less urgent problem than others have expressed, given that at present the numbers of admins usually seem sufficient to deal with the work on hand. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 14:12, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- According to this link there are 1441 active admins (including beauracrats, bots and the like who have admin rights). Of those its the same 50 or less (mostly the same 20 or so) I see doing all the admin work and given the often long backlogs at many of the areas where admin rights are needed, I don't agree that the status quo is sufficient. Kumioko (talk) 14:31, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- That's partly right, Kumioko. It is indeed only around 20 or so (if that) who risk their Wiki lives and reputations by working in the drama areas without a Kevlar vest. Of course, in doing so, they are occasionally going to make the rare error of judgement, and unfortunately one wrong block or deletion brings an angry mob out in force yelling 'Desysop!' and calling for kangaroo justice. That said, I will agree that some admins have been less than mature with their use of the tools, but that is no reason to go on a rampage tarring all admins with the same brush and keeping hate lists per WP:POLEMIC.
- There is another group of admins however, whose names we hardely ever recognise: they are the ones who quietly work in the background closing uncontentious AfDs, doing page protections, deleting expired PRODs, and other technical tasks that require the bit for access. These may in fact be in the dozens of admins. But looking at the pie charts of many obscure sysops, one could get the picture that some just drift away after they have realised that adminship is no big deal after all and the flash of having those extra tools has worn off. Then you get a few old blokes (or even ladies), retired from active employment in RL, who just do what they have to, do it fairly regularly and reasonably fairly, and stay out of trouble - even if sometimes it's only by a hair's breath :)
- At the end of the day, any reliable plodder who has amassed a tidy sum of edits in most areas and without any hiccups, and knows they have no skellies in their cupboard should not have angst to run the gauntlet. Unfortunately there's nothing we can do about those who oppose with a vengeance, and those who simply use RfA to oppose the system - aye, there's the rub.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:14, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- In my opinion, the biggest problem may simply be finding prospective candidates that are actually willing to run. Such brave souls are often few and far between. AutomaticStrikeout ? 15:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- That's fair to say. And as long as the RFA is a gauntlet many individuals will pass on trying to go through it. As you put it, its no big deal so we need to put an end to the idea that being an admin is a big deal and only the editors who don't do anything and keep their heads down can get the tools. As I said before I still think the tools need to be split up. There are only a couple I need or want. Not the whole set and not the title. But there are several aspects of adminship such as editing templates and pulling more than 25000 articles into AWB that I could use if and when I start editing again. Kumioko (talk) 15:25, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- The question is how do we make adminship be seen as less of big deal? AutomaticStrikeout ? 00:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- And how do we make the RfC process less hostile and intimidating? There are many people (myself included) who would not dream of subjecting themselves to a week of hassle and attacks, just to get a mop so we can do additional chores here. --MelanieN (talk) 01:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)d
- I know it's fun to say that, but RfA is no different from anything in real life. If you've done your homework and behaved yourself for a few months, it'll go off without a hitch. If you're not ready, then you're in for quite a bit of criticism, but nothing deeply soul-wrenching. You need thick skin on the internet, just as you do in the real world. – Juliancolton | Talk 01:30, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- What particularly frustrates me is that so many people are afraid of even running for adminship. Does it really need to be this scary? AutomaticStrikeout ? 01:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- One person with shaky credentials and thin skin runs, fails, then convinces everyone else that the problem is inherently with the voters and not with himself. The system works when you realize that admins have to occasionally do things they're not comfortable with (including, initially, standing for the position). – Juliancolton | Talk 01:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- "including, initially, standing for the position"...well put. --kelapstick(on the run) 03:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- Im sorry but I disagree. The RFA process works in the sense that a few editors, mostly ultra conservative ones who haven't gotten their hands dirty, get the tools. It fails in virtually every other sense. If you have dared to work in contraversial areas or are very active, then the likely hood of getting the tools is low. I would also add that the vaste majority of the "tools" are not inherently administrative but have been left bundled to the sysop role because there is no place else to put them and the community has utterly failed to separate them. In nearly every definition the RFA process is a stunning failure. Kumioko (talk) 03:40, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- "including, initially, standing for the position"...well put. --kelapstick(on the run) 03:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- One person with shaky credentials and thin skin runs, fails, then convinces everyone else that the problem is inherently with the voters and not with himself. The system works when you realize that admins have to occasionally do things they're not comfortable with (including, initially, standing for the position). – Juliancolton | Talk 01:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- What particularly frustrates me is that so many people are afraid of even running for adminship. Does it really need to be this scary? AutomaticStrikeout ? 01:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- I know it's fun to say that, but RfA is no different from anything in real life. If you've done your homework and behaved yourself for a few months, it'll go off without a hitch. If you're not ready, then you're in for quite a bit of criticism, but nothing deeply soul-wrenching. You need thick skin on the internet, just as you do in the real world. – Juliancolton | Talk 01:30, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- And how do we make the RfC process less hostile and intimidating? There are many people (myself included) who would not dream of subjecting themselves to a week of hassle and attacks, just to get a mop so we can do additional chores here. --MelanieN (talk) 01:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)d
- The question is how do we make adminship be seen as less of big deal? AutomaticStrikeout ? 00:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- That's fair to say. And as long as the RFA is a gauntlet many individuals will pass on trying to go through it. As you put it, its no big deal so we need to put an end to the idea that being an admin is a big deal and only the editors who don't do anything and keep their heads down can get the tools. As I said before I still think the tools need to be split up. There are only a couple I need or want. Not the whole set and not the title. But there are several aspects of adminship such as editing templates and pulling more than 25000 articles into AWB that I could use if and when I start editing again. Kumioko (talk) 15:25, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- In my opinion, the biggest problem may simply be finding prospective candidates that are actually willing to run. Such brave souls are often few and far between. AutomaticStrikeout ? 15:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Well, that's pretty much what I said. All candidates are expected to have gained some experience in CSD, AfD, AIV, etc, be nice and civil, and have demonstrated a knowledge of policy by helping others at some of the help desks and/or demonstrated their knowledge of inclusion criteria by having either created substantial articles or making substantial contributions to existing articles. They will stand a good chance. Those who have repeatedly got things wrong, have a lot of declined CSDs, had a low hit rate at AfD, and have been warned for COPYVIO, 3R, incivility and/or PA, canvassing, CIR, offline negative stuff about Wikipedia, etc., and don't have a clean block log,or don't fess up to their past misdeeds, are going to have a hard time. Ladies, for some reason, usually enjoy a relatively clean ride at RfA and mostly pass with flying colours (I'll not categorise on why that is).
I don't think the RfA system is a stunning failure though, most of those who should pass do, and most of those who shouldn't, don't, but there is no guarantee of every RfA having a perfect outcome - there will always be the rare sysop who will get defrocked. It has always been the behaviour of the voters that has turned it into a 'horrible and broken process' and the stigma that all admins and admin candidates are potentially badmins needs to be nipped in the bud - well in the flower actually, because it has become utterly ludicrous. That's it, folks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:33, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Kumioko the 1441 figure is the total number of admins not just active admins - some of the people in that list will be in the next batch of desysops for inactivity. ϢereSpielChequers 12:06, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- In a similar vein to what Juliancolton is saying above, the hyperbole associated with RfA is unreasonable (e.g. "scary", "brave souls", "gauntlet"). During RFA2011 I remember phrases like "hellish nightmare", "snakepit", "trial by fire" being thrown around. In reality, worse things are said in a primary school playground than in the average RfA, and the recipient therein likely has a better sense of perspective Jebus989✰ 13:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree with you, but nevertheless the number of RfA candidates has shrunk drastically. Bad public relations is bad public relations whether or not it is fair. AutomaticStrikeout ? 15:23, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Kudpung I could name several admins who shouldn't have gotten the tools, several who didn't and should, several who should have them and won't try due to the process as it is and finally some who are admins and should have the tools taken from them. I'm sure you can name some from each group too. My point is we cannot continue to promote 1 or 2 a month and then have 10-20 going inactive.
- @WereSpielChequers, your absolutely right and some will be in follow on lists or are as I said above. In fact most of those 1400 that are active don't use their tools. I hate the term but their basically just hat collectors rarely if ever using the tools. Using a very generous number I would say less than 100 are active and use the tools more than occasionally.
- @Jebus989, partially true but it doesn't mean its not true. People hate the process, most don't want to go through it and in fact most admins wouldn't do it again if they had too. That's partially why service limits for admins won't work. The community created the process and there is a large movement within the experienced members of it (both admins and non admins) that want to change it, yet any effort to do anything to change it meets with failure. Because just as the community has allowed the process to degrade, they fail to make any changes. If we want to change the process we also must change the perception of the process. We have started doing that this year as noted in the increase in RFA's and approvals but we have a long way to go if the project is going to succeed. Kumioko (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- We don't lose 10-20 a month to inactivity. We lose about 4-5 on average. If we can just promote that many a month, it would stabilize in terms of losing an administrator to inactivity vs gaining an active administrator. From what I've gathered though, we are going to be experiencing a slight increase in the latter half of this year, maybe 7-8 on average. RFA is pretty much the only thing we can hang our hat on at this point, but it's not much because the only thing we have done is started more nominations that would pass than fail. We're still not close to starting as many nominations as last year. I've done tons of statistical work looking at inactivity desysoppings and making sure that it's done on a monthly basis, as well as maintaining active administrator statistics here and keeping the list of former administrators as accurate as possible. Also, as of last week, we now have more former administrator accounts than we do active administrators. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 04:15, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Kumioko. Just because someone rarely uses the tools recently doesn't mean they were a hat collector when they applied to be an admin. This is a volunteer community, people's availability changes and sometimes some of us are going to retire from this or maybe just take a year out. Yes there are a number of admins who appear to hardly ever have used the tools. But part of this is showing a gap in our measurement - we know who the admins were pre 2005 but the logs of admin actions only go back to I think Dec 2005. So the hypothetical 2003 generation admin who performed a lot of logged actions on 03/04 and 05 but now sticks to an evening a month of editing and perhaps closing the odd RFC would appear as an admin with zero logged actions. Yet you wouldn't want to call them a hat collector would you? ϢereSpielChequers 13:25, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- You guys seem to be forgetting that I have been around a long time and although I am not an admin I have been doing admin stuff for a long time (I just have to let someone else take credit for the work). I have also been around this process for a long time and understand intimately how it works and doesn't work. So your not going to convince me that its a good process or that it works anymore than it seems I am going to convince you otherwise. The process is crap and needs to be fixed. Not justified and protected because it promotes a handful of candidates. As for the 10-20 a month number. That is the combination of those we remove the tools from due to inactivity and those who just stop editing and walk away. The number does fluctuate between zero and more than 10 but its still far more than we are promoting. In an age where more and more content requires admin action due to being protected, an increase in vandals, increases in CCI and other maintenance tasks, etc. Its no wonder we have backlogs in some areas reaching into months or years. People would help if they could, but we can't. Kumioko (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- There's a net figure of the number of admins who cease to be active each month and a gross figure. I suspect that all new admins are active for some time after they get the mop. But as only one person has passed RFA in the last few years without sufficient recent edits to be listed as an "active admin" the moment the bit is flipped, we might as well assume that all new admins are additional "active admins". There are also a steady trickle of returnees from long breaks and some intermittent editors who sometimes get above the 30 edits in 60 days threshold and sometimes drop below. All this contributes to the figures I listed above - despite appointing over 500 admins in the last five and half years we have over 300 fewer active ones. The Nett loss has averaged about five a month and gross a dozen a month but both oscillate wildly, thus far this year our nett loss has only been about 4 a month. ϢereSpielChequers 16:33, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree with you, but nevertheless the number of RfA candidates has shrunk drastically. Bad public relations is bad public relations whether or not it is fair. AutomaticStrikeout ? 15:23, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- In a similar vein to what Juliancolton is saying above, the hyperbole associated with RfA is unreasonable (e.g. "scary", "brave souls", "gauntlet"). During RFA2011 I remember phrases like "hellish nightmare", "snakepit", "trial by fire" being thrown around. In reality, worse things are said in a primary school playground than in the average RfA, and the recipient therein likely has a better sense of perspective Jebus989✰ 13:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Increasing candidates
This year, we've had more successful candidates than unsuccessful ones. Frankly, RfA is not as bad as we make it out to be. A large part of increasing RfA candidates will be improving RfA's perception. Still, the question remains. How do we do it? AutomaticStrikeout ? 01:57, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- You can't make chicken salad from chicken shit. Any changes to the process are essentially just paving a cow path. I will admit the process is better than it was last year but its still failing to generate more than a handful of admins. Most of the ones it does generate are ultra conservative. They don't participate in contraversial areas, many of them vote in things like AFD or MFD with whatever the winning votes are. Not for what they think or feel about the topic. Because voting your conscience these days and decreasing your "AFD", "CFD", etc. percentages is a good way to not get the tools. Sorry for my pessimism here but I have been around for a long time and I am very familiar with the process. Kumioko (talk) 02:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I know. My theory is that if we can't change the process, we might as well quit trying to. Instead, let's try finding more of those rare candidates who are willing to run. AutomaticStrikeout ? 02:34, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think finding candidates is only part of it but we also need to give the tools (certain ones not necessarily the whole set) to those who know how to use them or will use them. There isn't any sense in restricting template editing to Admins when only a handful know how to edit them. Its better to create a right to allow people who know how to edit them to do so without having to be admins. Same goes for a lot of other things like the API High limit and editing certain pages like the main page. There are a lot of non admins who know how to do these things and a lot of admins who don't. Kumioko (talk) 02:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I know. My theory is that if we can't change the process, we might as well quit trying to. Instead, let's try finding more of those rare candidates who are willing to run. AutomaticStrikeout ? 02:34, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- It's impossible to improve perception when we have perpetual conversations (driven by a few very vocal and inexplicably cynical individuals) about how awful the process is, driven. Most people aren't afraid of running until after they've failed once or twice anyway. – Juliancolton | Talk 02:31, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I disagree with your last sentence. I've asked a lot of people to run for adminship and the vast majority have declined. If the process wasn't so demanding, prospective candidates wouldn't stay away in droves. AutomaticStrikeout ? 02:34, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- These arguments about RFA have been going on for 7.5 years at a minimum. Have things gotten better, God no. Wiki editorship has been nosediving since 2007 and for quite valid reasons--virtually everything is dysfunctional. Many DYKs, GACs, and FACs now fail simply because there are nowhere near enough reviewers. It's virtually impossible to get rid of a bad admin. RFA is an ever-increasing troll fest. Until these issues are fixed talk of fixing RFA or anything else on wiki is pointless.PumpkinSky talk 02:39, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Automatic: "prospective candidates wouldn't stay away in droves." But what is a perspective candidate? Somebody who would have stood for the position on another wiki that employed another RfA-equivalence? I feel most active and highly respected editors who have chosen not to run an RfA did so because they simply feel they're better suited to occupy themselves with another part of the project, chiefly content creation. I've been an admin since 2008, and I've never done anything particularly hated or controversial, but at my most active I would still find myself having to answer difficult questions I didn't expect to have to answer about my deletions or blocks. If there's any reason to be hesitant about RfA, it should be what comes after you pass and start getting your feet wet. Now, I agree with PumpkinSky that many other areas of the wiki are suffering from a shortage of hands, especially areas that actually affect what our readers see (FAC, copyvio filtering, etc.). Those, to me, seem more pressing than the RfA "drought", which, as noted above, seems to be stabilizing and perhaps even improving. – Juliancolton | Talk 02:53, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Julian, the drought of new admins may finally be bottoming out, but the number of active admins is going to continue to fall and is heading to fall a long way to bring it into line with the flow of new admins. That has implication for many parts of the wiki, including copyvio, where admins are needed to delete stuff. If it's true that those who pass RFA tend to stick around much longer, then persuading more of the 2007-2011 wikigenerations to run should increase the numbers of editors available for all sorts of things. ϢereSpielChequers 14:23, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I disagree with your last sentence. I've asked a lot of people to run for adminship and the vast majority have declined. If the process wasn't so demanding, prospective candidates wouldn't stay away in droves. AutomaticStrikeout ? 02:34, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- As one of the most recent candidates I have to disagree with Kumioko. Yes, candidates are grilled for a week, and at times I didn't enjoy the experience, but it wasn't worse than expected nor bad enough to discourage someone from running. In particular I'm well aware of being more of a deletionist than much of the community, yet my AfD record was hardly an issue - less so than I would have expected. I certainly cannot confirm that "voting your conscience", even when unpopular, is an obstacle to adminship. Or was I supposed to be included among those who don't vote their conscience? Huon (talk) 02:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree with Huon completely (also promoted in 2013).--Ymblanter (talk) 07:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Yaroslav, how can you second all this being himself a reasonable person? This fascist ochlocracy simply shut me up without giving any chance to respond to grievances and otherwise take the feedback from the community. Why do you feign that all goes right?! You should rally the remaining people, who can think yet, to disperse this crowd of black shirts that is called the RfA community. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:09, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Clearly it goes wrong sometimes, and any of us can give examples. My point was that it actually goes smoothly more often than expected, and additionally it can be in many cases predicted. I am pretty sure for instance that MelanieN who says above that she is not willing to submit herself to RfA, would have a smooth ride, unless of course she goes wild a week before and gets blocked for incivility, or unless she really annoyed too many people in the distant past and did not care to repair the damage.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:27, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Sometimes? Hardly. Dysfunction is the norm on wiki.PumpkinSky talk 10:47, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I am sure you have research data to substantiate this statement.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:21, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Of course, do you to support yours?PumpkinSky talk 11:25, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree, just because the process promotes a couple here and there doesn't mean it works. And to answer your question Huon, I wasn't referring to any particular admin. But the fact is that a lot of RFA's are brought down due to percentages at AFD, CFD or the like. Its a common argument in even those that pass and the argument is pointless for a couple reasons. 1) Admins don't generally delete stuff that doesn't meet consensus for such actions and 2) if they did it can just be reverted or recreated. Even in the admin toolset there are few things that cannot be reverted. Kumioko (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for that, Ymblanter. It's true that people have suggested I run and I have always said no thanks. For me there's a second issue, in addition to the aggressive questioning and nitpicking, which you can always grit your teeth and deal with if you really want the bit. The main reason I haven't considered a run is the insistence that the person has to have a excellent knowledge of everything that an admin might conceivably have to deal with, things that I have never dealt with and have no interest in: copyright issues, images, IRC, technical details, etc. If I ever get the urge to be an admin I will have to study up on those things, but in the meantime it's not worth the effort for me. I'm not saying that admins shouldn't have to know all these things, just that the breadth of knowledge and experience demanded at RfA may be a deterrent for some. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe it's not. But it is a consideration that may be keeping down the number of RfAs. --MelanieN (talk) 14:58, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I do not think it is actually correct. From my observations, a candidate (i) is expected to have a clue in the areas they are going to work, Q1 of the nomination; (ii) if they screwed up badly in the past in some admin-related areas, to have some knowledge of those areas or to promise very clearly that they are not going to use the tools there. It would be perfectly acceptable if a candidate who wants say to work on MfD answers that they do not really understand copyright, and they are not planning to work with files for this reason.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:25, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Really? Because I do see detailed questions, with specific examples, "how would you handle this situation" type of thing. Are others here of the opinion that "I don't know and I don't plan to do that" would be accepted as an answer? --MelanieN (talk) 15:32, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- "I don't know and I don't plan to do that" could easily bring out an oppose or two. AutomaticStrikeout ? 15:33, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- (post edit conflict and with a different take from AutomaticStrikeout's) That was a concern at my RfA, with good reason, but they gave me it :-) I've seen the concern raised at pretty much every RfA over the past year, partly because I suspect it is indeed impossible to know everything, but I haven't seen many where it kept someone from getting it. Mine was a peculiar RfA and I wouldn't generally recommend the insouciance with which I treated it, but I think it's easy to be unnecessarily daunted on that score; many editors are looking for clue and for trustworthiness and many do accept the idea that not every admin will work in every area. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:36, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree that if the candidate declared they didn't know something it would likely generate a few opposes. How many depends on a lot of factors but it could derail the whole RFA. For what its worth I know how pretty much all the Admin stuff works, how to use all the tools (although since I haven't had access I admit I don't know everything) but I still can't get them. So its really less about what you know as your ability to go along with the program, not buck the system, don't ask too many difficult questions or try and make the processes better. Those people, like me, are considered to be trouble makers and won't get the tools. The tools are generally given to those, as I mentioned above, who are very conservative. Kumioko (talk) 15:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- (post edit conflict and with a different take from AutomaticStrikeout's) That was a concern at my RfA, with good reason, but they gave me it :-) I've seen the concern raised at pretty much every RfA over the past year, partly because I suspect it is indeed impossible to know everything, but I haven't seen many where it kept someone from getting it. Mine was a peculiar RfA and I wouldn't generally recommend the insouciance with which I treated it, but I think it's easy to be unnecessarily daunted on that score; many editors are looking for clue and for trustworthiness and many do accept the idea that not every admin will work in every area. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:36, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- "I don't know and I don't plan to do that" could easily bring out an oppose or two. AutomaticStrikeout ? 15:33, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Really? Because I do see detailed questions, with specific examples, "how would you handle this situation" type of thing. Are others here of the opinion that "I don't know and I don't plan to do that" would be accepted as an answer? --MelanieN (talk) 15:32, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I do not think it is actually correct. From my observations, a candidate (i) is expected to have a clue in the areas they are going to work, Q1 of the nomination; (ii) if they screwed up badly in the past in some admin-related areas, to have some knowledge of those areas or to promise very clearly that they are not going to use the tools there. It would be perfectly acceptable if a candidate who wants say to work on MfD answers that they do not really understand copyright, and they are not planning to work with files for this reason.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:25, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for that, Ymblanter. It's true that people have suggested I run and I have always said no thanks. For me there's a second issue, in addition to the aggressive questioning and nitpicking, which you can always grit your teeth and deal with if you really want the bit. The main reason I haven't considered a run is the insistence that the person has to have a excellent knowledge of everything that an admin might conceivably have to deal with, things that I have never dealt with and have no interest in: copyright issues, images, IRC, technical details, etc. If I ever get the urge to be an admin I will have to study up on those things, but in the meantime it's not worth the effort for me. I'm not saying that admins shouldn't have to know all these things, just that the breadth of knowledge and experience demanded at RfA may be a deterrent for some. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe it's not. But it is a consideration that may be keeping down the number of RfAs. --MelanieN (talk) 14:58, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree, just because the process promotes a couple here and there doesn't mean it works. And to answer your question Huon, I wasn't referring to any particular admin. But the fact is that a lot of RFA's are brought down due to percentages at AFD, CFD or the like. Its a common argument in even those that pass and the argument is pointless for a couple reasons. 1) Admins don't generally delete stuff that doesn't meet consensus for such actions and 2) if they did it can just be reverted or recreated. Even in the admin toolset there are few things that cannot be reverted. Kumioko (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Of course, do you to support yours?PumpkinSky talk 11:25, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I am sure you have research data to substantiate this statement.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:21, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Sometimes? Hardly. Dysfunction is the norm on wiki.PumpkinSky talk 10:47, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Clearly it goes wrong sometimes, and any of us can give examples. My point was that it actually goes smoothly more often than expected, and additionally it can be in many cases predicted. I am pretty sure for instance that MelanieN who says above that she is not willing to submit herself to RfA, would have a smooth ride, unless of course she goes wild a week before and gets blocked for incivility, or unless she really annoyed too many people in the distant past and did not care to repair the damage.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:27, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Yaroslav, how can you second all this being himself a reasonable person? This fascist ochlocracy simply shut me up without giving any chance to respond to grievances and otherwise take the feedback from the community. Why do you feign that all goes right?! You should rally the remaining people, who can think yet, to disperse this crowd of black shirts that is called the RfA community. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:09, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree with Huon completely (also promoted in 2013).--Ymblanter (talk) 07:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Yes its true that the proportion of candidates who succeed is quite high, and I'd add many who do pass do so with such huge margins that if they'd run 6 months earlier we'd have had an extra admin for those 6 months. But the number of candidates is a function of several things. It's good that we are deterring almost all the newbies who used to run, less good that many who'd make perfectly good admins have decided they prefer to serve the community in other ways, and rather worrying if the decline in RFAs in some way reflects the fall in the numbers of new editors becoming active Wikipedians. I have to choose my words carefully here, because there are several different phenomena going on, some are more meaningful to some editors than others and some are better documented than others. If we ignore the effect of the edit filter and the change to intrawikis then edits on the English Wikipedia are in gentle decline - down 4% this year, and significantly down on the peak in 2007. Of course ignoring either of those and especially the edit filter gives us a completely false picture, but because the edit filter deals with vandalism rather differently than cluebot it is difficult to work out how the current "true" editing level compares with 2007. My suspicion is that if you allow for the edit filter, or if we'd implemented the edit filter as vandalfighting bots, then total editing probably peaked sometime after 2010. But it goes without saying that the automation of anti vandalism work has largely lost us one our biggest recruiting routes for RFA, unfortunately we still need admins to do a large part of the blocking, but the rest is mostly automated. Automating our vandal fighting, along with the rise of the smart mobile and similar "read but don't try to edit" devices has resulted in the latest generation of teenagers being almost exclusively users of Wikipedia. Teenagers and especially under 18s are now relatively rare in the community as we are probably greying by more than a year per year. One side effect of the greying of the pedia is that we have an increasing proportion of middle aged and elderly editors many of whom find RFA rather less attractive than the the stereotypical 2004-2007 era teenage admin who today make up the undergraduates and twenty somethings who are the core of the current admin cadre. Then of course there has been bizarre expectations inflation, despite the fact that neither tenure nor edit count are particularly good indications as to whether someone will make a good admin (imagine a driving test where anyone with more than x miles as a learner and more than y lessons was allowed to skip the bit about driving around with a tester and instead ushered into a hall for a written test). Those easily measured metrics are crowding out proper review of candidates, and I suspect deterring many people who'd make fine admins but lack the editcountitis that now seems to be required. ϢereSpielChequers 18:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The community will not ever do anything about the total dysfunction that wiki is now, except if the the situation is about 10X worse than it is now. PumpkinSky talk 21:05, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- There are a lot of editors would make great admins but because of the RFA trollfest, would never pass an RFA. PumpkinSky talk 21:08, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- For that matter a large percentage of the current Admin cadre wouldn't pass under modern times if they were to rerun. Kumioko (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Indeed, and I think that last fact is what drives a lot of the growing hostility towards the non-hereditary "caste system" that has become entrenched here. With no community de-adminship process and a connected group of self-interested admins-for-life who unite to kill reforms, we are left with a vanilla Rfa process, well-described above, that discourages anyone with a history that is other than utterly bland from seeking the tools. I have previously proposed a staggered alphabetical de-adminship and re-elections, which got zero backing. Failing that, term limits should be proposed in an Rfc in which opposing admin !votes are heavily discounted due to COI. I submit that such a proposal would pass handily, if allowed to happen, but is unlikely to get off the ground because various admins start up with the "pitchforks" theme, an ironic term since in the story, the monster Frankenstein created was all too real. Jusdafax 22:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I admit that I no longer have any faith that the community will do anything to fix the process. It seems more and more that the community is incapable of passing anything remotely resembling reform on anything let alone something as contentious as RFA. So in the end no matter how much we discuss change or how much we all agree its needed we will be stuck with the same old problems. Kumioko (talk) 22:29, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The 2010 Rfc on Community de-adminship was the last serious attempt I am aware of. The admin !vote killed it. Everything since then has been rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, as I see it. Jusdafax 22:46, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I for one find it quite insulting and hypocritical to say the community can be trusted to promote editors to admins but they can't be trusted to demote them. I have never heard a more stupid argument. I thought your submission was a good one and should have been passed and I agree that it was largely the admin cadre protecting their power that killed it. Kumioko (talk) 22:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- What I find insulting and hypocritical is to imply that administrators are not part of the community, and are too blinded by the unfathomable power of having access to a few extra buttons on a website to be able to contribute anything worthwhile to the solution to this alleged problem (if one even exists). Suggesting that admin !votes in such an RfC should be discounted is like arguing that non-admin !votes in an RfA should be discounted. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 22:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- (ec) Actually User:Tryptofish and User:Ben MacDui put in a lot more work than I did. Repeat, a lot more than I did. Towards the end the proposal got bogged down when a late addition to the process started haggling in a manner I felt was designed to burn out participants, and there were other irregularities. Three and a half years later, nothing has changed, except for the worse. As for the comment I edit conflicted with, I can't agree and can't help but wonder if you understand the meaning of "conflict of interest." Jusdafax 23:03, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- What I find insulting and hypocritical is to imply that administrators are not part of the community, and are too blinded by the unfathomable power of having access to a few extra buttons on a website to be able to contribute anything worthwhile to the solution to this alleged problem (if one even exists). Suggesting that admin !votes in such an RfC should be discounted is like arguing that non-admin !votes in an RfA should be discounted. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 22:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I for one find it quite insulting and hypocritical to say the community can be trusted to promote editors to admins but they can't be trusted to demote them. I have never heard a more stupid argument. I thought your submission was a good one and should have been passed and I agree that it was largely the admin cadre protecting their power that killed it. Kumioko (talk) 22:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The 2010 Rfc on Community de-adminship was the last serious attempt I am aware of. The admin !vote killed it. Everything since then has been rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, as I see it. Jusdafax 22:46, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I admit that I no longer have any faith that the community will do anything to fix the process. It seems more and more that the community is incapable of passing anything remotely resembling reform on anything let alone something as contentious as RFA. So in the end no matter how much we discuss change or how much we all agree its needed we will be stuck with the same old problems. Kumioko (talk) 22:29, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Firstly to PumpkinSky, changes have happened. BLPprod being one of the bigger ones. I suspect that most of us would agree that the Wiki needs radical change, where we are less likely to agree is over what that change should be. As regards RFA, it doesn't need the situation to get ten times worse, just bad enough that we have a spree of vandalism or attack pages with no admins available for an hour or two. I honestly don't know how close we are to that happening, but the fewer active admins we have the more inevitable the scenario becomes. When it does we'll probably get a large batch of poorly scrutinised admins appointed. Obviously I'd prefer any one of several possible reforms to that, but after bashing my head against the brick wall that is resistance to RFA reform I'm now resigned to the inevitable. As regards there being lots of editors who'd make great admins but who wouldn't get through RFA, I agree, but we might not agree as to who those potential candidates were. For example we have lots of uncontentious editors who are here for perhaps a couple of evenings a month, I wouldn't suggest they run because I don't believe they'd be sufficiently active to get through RFA, but I believe that lots of them would be good admins. As Kumioko points out most current Admins wouldn't pass RFA if they ran today, for starters only one candidate with less than thirty edits in the sixty days before their RFA has passed RFA in years. About 800 of our current admins would fail for that reason alone and many of the rest would also fail for lack of activity. Yet if one judges from the desysops it is the highly active admins who are likely to be problematic. In practice I suspect that if we had some sort of fixed terms for admins and a bunch of candidates ran on the basis that in some specialist area of the wiki they use the tools for an hour a month, then hopefully those of the uncontentious ones who could be persuaded to run would get reappointed. But one of the reasons why I believe fixed terms would be a bad idea is that RFA is such that many good admins just wouldn't rerun. So I'm in the camp that that thinks RFA is broken because most existing admins would not have become admins if RFA was as broken as it is now when they first became admins. If anyone wants to convince me of the opposite case then first they need to say how else they'd recruit sufficient admins to keep AIV staffed and also have most attack pages deleted within minutes of creation. Then of course there's the issue that the fewer admins we have the greater their "scarcity value" is and hence my fear that the fewer admins we have the more detached they will get from the community. ϢereSpielChequers 23:10, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Indeed, and I think that last fact is what drives a lot of the growing hostility towards the non-hereditary "caste system" that has become entrenched here. With no community de-adminship process and a connected group of self-interested admins-for-life who unite to kill reforms, we are left with a vanilla Rfa process, well-described above, that discourages anyone with a history that is other than utterly bland from seeking the tools. I have previously proposed a staggered alphabetical de-adminship and re-elections, which got zero backing. Failing that, term limits should be proposed in an Rfc in which opposing admin !votes are heavily discounted due to COI. I submit that such a proposal would pass handily, if allowed to happen, but is unlikely to get off the ground because various admins start up with the "pitchforks" theme, an ironic term since in the story, the monster Frankenstein created was all too real. Jusdafax 22:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- For that matter a large percentage of the current Admin cadre wouldn't pass under modern times if they were to rerun. Kumioko (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- There are a lot of editors would make great admins but because of the RFA trollfest, would never pass an RFA. PumpkinSky talk 21:08, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The community will not ever do anything about the total dysfunction that wiki is now, except if the the situation is about 10X worse than it is now. PumpkinSky talk 21:05, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Probably the biggest issue non-admins have with admins is blocking. The power to stop you from editing and add a permanent black mark to your record is an overwhelming one, and creates a chilling effect. Some admins use the threat of their power as a sort of bully-lite. Perhaps if we can't get meaningful Community de-adminship, admins should have to get a second admin and possibly a third to confirm a block on a regular editor, but here again I doubt admins would go for such a proposal. Recently I have started using STiki on vandal patrol and have noticed a handy warning screen regarding templating regulars (defined generously as 50 edits or more.) Which made me wonder if that shouldn't be something that should pop upon an admin's screen when they click to block a regular. Even that exceedingly mild reform, I suspect, would be fought by some admins. Jusdafax 23:38, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not a huge fan of the term limits either. I think there are a lot of areas we can improve this process but I don't think that's one. With that said I also do not think that admins should be there for life once the have shown a pattern of misconduct. Currently, there are at least a dozen admins that have shown a longterm pattern of misconduct and should have the tools removed. Instead they tell users to take it to Arbcom, knowing they are the only ones that can remove the tools and knowing that Arbcom isn't very responsive to desysopping admins outside a long and tie consuming Arbcom case. Even then its are. So essentially once an editor becomes an admin they know that the only way they'll lose access to the tools is for them to voluntarily give them up. As I said before, what we need is to make the easier to get and easier to take away. We also need to do is allow more people easier access to the tools they actually need, not the whole set of tools that that they neither want nor need so they can edit protected templates or see deleted content or some other specific tool that's bundled. Kumioko (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:02, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I've created a fairly vague rough draft of an RfC at User:AutomaticStrikeout/Adminship RfC sandbox. Any thoughts? AutomaticStrikeout ? 00:44, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- ASO-glad to see you try, but it won't accomplish a thing. PumpkinSky talk 00:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- AC no longer has any balls to do their job. I said that in the current RFAR and I'll say that here. I'll also say that the current AC is totally useless and should all be fired. That and lack of community de-adminship are why we can't get rid of bad admins. And I agree, if community can give the bit, they can take it away. On wiki source admins had to re-rfa every two years and it works fine. But we're wasting our time talking as wiki is so dysfunctional no reform will happen at all. It's like expecting Congress/Parliament to clean up their own act. Admins will derail any attempt at reform. And admins aren't the only problem, GAC/FAC/DYK can no longer get enough reviewers. Articles don't get promoted simply due to lack of reviewers. Do we really wonder why editorship has been nosediving for 5 years? No we don't wonder, it's because wiki is now totally dysfunctional.PumpkinSky talk 00:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree they have lost their way. Too interested in being the legislative body and no interest in the Arbitration mission. I gave up on reviewing GAC's and the like because of various reasons not the least of which was my personal feeling that if I cant be trusted to use the tools then I shouldn't be promoting articles either. I do an occassional review but its extremely rare. Kumioko (talk) 01:09, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- AC no longer has any balls to do their job. I said that in the current RFAR and I'll say that here. I'll also say that the current AC is totally useless and should all be fired. That and lack of community de-adminship are why we can't get rid of bad admins. And I agree, if community can give the bit, they can take it away. On wiki source admins had to re-rfa every two years and it works fine. But we're wasting our time talking as wiki is so dysfunctional no reform will happen at all. It's like expecting Congress/Parliament to clean up their own act. Admins will derail any attempt at reform. And admins aren't the only problem, GAC/FAC/DYK can no longer get enough reviewers. Articles don't get promoted simply due to lack of reviewers. Do we really wonder why editorship has been nosediving for 5 years? No we don't wonder, it's because wiki is now totally dysfunctional.PumpkinSky talk 00:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- ASO-glad to see you try, but it won't accomplish a thing. PumpkinSky talk 00:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I've created a fairly vague rough draft of an RfC at User:AutomaticStrikeout/Adminship RfC sandbox. Any thoughts? AutomaticStrikeout ? 00:44, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Jusdafax An alternative way to stop excessive blocking of the regulars is to revive my proposal of upbundling "block regular" to the crats. The main argument used against it last time was that it would create anomalous stuations where an admin could block one side of an edit warring pair but only report the other for a crat to block. But otherwise I think it has a lot going for it, we need lots of admins to block the spammers and and vandals who come in every day, and we need them blocked quickly especially the vandals. So we can't upbundle block/unblock altogether. However the few justified blocks and unblocks of regulars could be left to a small group of highly trusted editors, and doing that would take out much of the drama and wheelwarring. It would also as you point out put admins on much more of a level playing field with other regular editors. ϢereSpielChequers 15:44, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not a huge fan of the term limits either. I think there are a lot of areas we can improve this process but I don't think that's one. With that said I also do not think that admins should be there for life once the have shown a pattern of misconduct. Currently, there are at least a dozen admins that have shown a longterm pattern of misconduct and should have the tools removed. Instead they tell users to take it to Arbcom, knowing they are the only ones that can remove the tools and knowing that Arbcom isn't very responsive to desysopping admins outside a long and tie consuming Arbcom case. Even then its are. So essentially once an editor becomes an admin they know that the only way they'll lose access to the tools is for them to voluntarily give them up. As I said before, what we need is to make the easier to get and easier to take away. We also need to do is allow more people easier access to the tools they actually need, not the whole set of tools that that they neither want nor need so they can edit protected templates or see deleted content or some other specific tool that's bundled. Kumioko (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:02, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Probably the biggest issue non-admins have with admins is blocking. The power to stop you from editing and add a permanent black mark to your record is an overwhelming one, and creates a chilling effect. Some admins use the threat of their power as a sort of bully-lite. Perhaps if we can't get meaningful Community de-adminship, admins should have to get a second admin and possibly a third to confirm a block on a regular editor, but here again I doubt admins would go for such a proposal. Recently I have started using STiki on vandal patrol and have noticed a handy warning screen regarding templating regulars (defined generously as 50 edits or more.) Which made me wonder if that shouldn't be something that should pop upon an admin's screen when they click to block a regular. Even that exceedingly mild reform, I suspect, would be fought by some admins. Jusdafax 23:38, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- I like the proposed Rfc, AS. Run it, it will be interesting. One note, I actually favor a four-year term for admins, myself. Jusdafax 06:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- If you don't think the current Arbs are doing a good job then say why and create a voters guide for next time. Maybe people will agree with you and kick the current incumbents out, maybe the current incumbents will respond to criticism. Maybe we need an RFC to change Arbcom's remit so for example they do have authority over the IRC admins channel or they can desysop an admin for bringing the project into disrepute. But it simply isn't true that admins can only lose the tools voluntarily. This year we've only had one admin resign under a cloud and one desysopped. normally we'd have lost more by now, and the only case that I've really followed should in my view have resulted in a desysopping and probably some interaction bans by contrast most of my criticism of Arbcom in previous years was in cases where they were too heavy handed. But the best response to that is to broaden Arbcom's remit and ensure we elect the right people to it. If you try again to replace or supplement Arbcom with some process that omits the safeguards of Arbcom then don't be surprised if you fail again, especially if you have such an easily refuted case as saying that currently the only way to lose the mop is voluntarily. As for Arbcom processes taking too long, much of the delay involves time for people to put their side of the story, and time for a group of ininvolved volunteers to consider and deliberate. You need to tread very carefully when you consider changing that, and be very specific as to what reforms to Arbcom you are proposing. Otherwise you risk making the whole thing worse - remember our biggest problem re adminship is recruiting new admins. Implementing a less fair system for supervising them is not going to help persuade more people to run. ϢereSpielChequers 09:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- That'd be another waste of time. It could have a majority support but the incumbent power base, admins and arbs, would derail it, just like RFA reform. To reiterate, the entire wiki system is totally dysfunctional. Don't forget, I'm one of the few people that have seen wiki from the extreme of both ends. In order for things to change, two things must happen: 1) wiki needs to recognize there are problems--this we've known for a long time and 2) be willing to change those problems--this we are far, far from doing. PumpkinSky talk 10:50, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I disagree. I'm pretty sure that we have consensus that there are significant problems on Wikipedia. But where we disagree is over the defining of those problems, their priority and in some cases their solution. So for some people one of our problems is that we have a bunch of teenage admins doing things that legal minors possibly shouldn't and supervising a bunch of older and wiser content contributors. For others, including myself, part of the problem of the greying of the pedia is that we now have a bunch of twenty somethings who think they are supervising a bunch of teenagers when actually they are offending a bunch of middle aged men by treating them as teenagers. Problems get harder to solve where they involve misunderstandings and philosophical clashes, and just as most of our religious and nationalistic article disputes involve people who know their side to be right, so increasingly do our governance ones. But where the divide is ultimately about a misunderstanding we can work to achieve consensus by explaining how we understand the situation and being willing to test our assumptions against reality. For example one of the biggest divides within the community in its broadest sense is between those who think that the best response to an unsourced edit is a revert, and those who regard that as newbie biting. A useful bit of research would be for someone to work out which approach is most effective in teaching newbies to cite their sources. Closer to home, pretty much everyone agrees that there are "bad admins" out there who should be desysopped. But when we get more specific, there is a big divide between those who would like to desysop someone like me for a strict interpretation of CSD criteria that sees me declining lots of CSDs that other admins might stretch a point and delete out of process, and those who'd like to desysop some admins whose flexible interpretation of the CSD criteria would get them at least a 40% oppose at RFA if they had to rerun. Now a general call for desysopping "bad admins" might get support from people with very different interpretations of what a bad admin is, it's only when you start defining "bad admin" that your consensus falls apart. But periodic admin reconfirmations don't just worry those who'd expect to fail them. There's also the real risk that we'd lose too many admins to keep the site running with volunteer admins, especially with RFA as dysfunctional at it has been for years. ϢereSpielChequers 14:10, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Unfortunately I agree with PS. I don't see the admin cadre allowing any changes that would reduce their power base or that would allow more editors access to some tools. This isn't just a perception but has been shown repeatedly in a dozen or more reforms over the years. Looking at the reforms its nearly always a majority of admins who vote them down because there are more admins who watch the RFC's and advanced areas than those of us that are advanced users but don't have the tools. So although there are more users than admins, the majority of the ones who would watch these areas are admins. Also, unfortunately I think things will need to get much worse before any meaningful change is allowed to happen. Until we are in such dire need of admins that the community or the WMF is required to do something drastic, we'll be stuck with the same process we have By that time though it will likely be too late to fix it. Kumioko (talk) 16:00, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- There have been big reforms - the unbundling of rollback being one of the most dramatic. And while I can remember several attempted changes where the balance of !voting was very different among admins or non-admins; I doubt if there have been many where there was consensus for change amongst non-admins and enough admin opposition to stop that change. Happy to have that tested if you can name any RFCs that illustrated such an admin non-admin divide. However I am willing to predict that such incidents will arise in future if we don't reform RFA and open it up to the editors who joined us in 2008-2011. ϢereSpielChequers 16:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oh hogwash. Unbundling rollback is the biggest farce ever. All that does is let you do in one click what used to take 3 (i think). Rollback is just smoke and mirrors and not a reform of substance at all. Changes of substance that need done but won't happen unless it gets about 100x worse than now: RFA reform, community desyssop, abolish arbcom, treat content editors like people instead of shitbags, removal of bogus blocks from the log (which is one of the many reasons scotty's rfa tool is bullshit, it counts all blocks as bad, even a reblock if you are unblocked to edit so you can make a statement), cease forcing people to wear the Wiki Scarlett Letter forever, and end the double standards of admins vs non-admins.PumpkinSky talk 17:41, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Although I agree that splitting out Rollbacker and Filmover were a step in the right direction they are far from "big reforms". They are really little changes actually and only succeeded because they, IMO, offered no loss of power to the admins. The most important thing I think we need to address is as PS put it the treating of Admins above editors. They have a few extra tools and it time we starting treating it that way. They aren't true database admins they don't have server access, most don't do development. Its time we allow more people to help out and allow expanded access to the tools. Now no one is saying that every editor should have access to every tool but if the editor has shown they are capable and have been here for a while then there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to access some things. If they want to participate in CCI then they need certain tools to do that. If they want to help with vandal fighting then certain tools go with that. If they are like me and do a lot of gnoming and maintenance stuff then there are tools that lend themselves to that. But in most cases the whole toolset isn't needed to do these and there is no valid reason in today's editing environment that an editor who has been around for a while shouldn't be trusted with many of them...or all of them. If they screw up then they can be taken away. Without all the pomp and circumstance that is currently associated with the RFA/Desysopping process. Give them the access and let them contribute and if they abuse it remove it..that's it. Really easy. I'll add to that one exception and that is block/unblock. I personally think anyone with this right should be required to report their real life identity with proof of age (just like Checckuser and Beauracrat) to the WMF. Kumioko (talk) 19:36, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Kumioko, the two most contentious tools that admins have are block and delete, and of the two I think that delete leads to more RFA fails and block more desysops. I'm not sure that proof of age for RFA would achieve much now - if you introduced a minimum age of 18 five years ago you would have lost a lot of admins, but now I'm not sure you'd lose any. Or rather the people you'd lose would be the ones who don't trust the WMF to know who they are, and they are often the last people that any of us want to lose. But the other thing is is the practical consequences, now I rarely delete anything other than G7 G10 and U1, so I'm unlikely to get a subpoena from some annoyed spammer who doesn't want their spam deleted off Wikipedia. But we all rely on some anonymous admins who do delete such pages, and the WMF can't currently be a conduit for such subpoenas because it doesn't know who these admins are. If it did then we have a problem and I really don't see enough advantages to outweigh that. By contrast what do you think of my idea of upbundling "block regular" to the crats? ϢereSpielChequers 20:52, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- @PumpkinSky Unbundling Rollback may have lost some of its significance, but I think at one stage it was a precondition of using Huggle. More importantly it transformed RFA. Just look at the way the number of RFAs per month shifted in March 2008. As for your other proposals, If you believe in them write up a case for the change and file an RFC. Taking two at random, I can't remember an RFC proposing the abolition of Arbcom on this wiki, though I think it has happened on another wiki. I'd be interested to read such a proposal, and in particular I would be interested to see which of Arbcom's roles you would simply abolish, which you'd transfer elsewhere and who you'd transfer them to. If the answer involved a significant de facto transfer of power from Arbcom to the Admins IRC channel then I think you'd get some surprising defenders of Arbcom. As for invalid blocks, I think that the record of RFA is that we are pretty good at ignoring accidental and invalid blocks, and as long as they are a year or more old we are also very willing to accept explanations or at least an assurance of things not being repeated. But again if you want to see certain types of blocks erased file an RFC, I for one don't remember when we last considered that idea. Personally my list would be very different:
- Upbundle block/unblock regular to the crats.
- Unblock most longterm blocked IPs and IP ranges - especially former open proxies
- Implement smart blocking as an option for IP ranges - so only editors who are using the same sort of browser O/S and hardware as whoever did the edits that merited the range block get caught by the block
- Stop using EN wiki as the test wiki for new software and only implement new tools here after they have been properly tested and ideally battle tested on a wiki that has volunteered for them.
- Stop the endless Engvar battles amongst Newbies by making Engvar a user preference, and pointing those who care about such things at our humongous list of words like bonnet, hood and pants that subsequently would require some sort of hidden template to make them correctly render on opposite sides of the pond.
- Fold AFC into Special Newpages, with a new "draft" status for any article not yet marked as patrolled, and make those articles {{noindex}} but with a new speedy deletion criteria of "lacks a reliable independent source" for new articles on commercial oranisations.
- Implement flagged revisions on all articles as they've done on DE wiki. If I'm forced to compromise on that I'd go for invisible pending changes. So readers and new editors won't notice a difference other than less vandalism getting through, but vandal fighters will be able to spend their time checking edits that no other human vandalfighter has checked.
- Resolve the "revert unsourced" problem either by requiring editors to cite their sources and prompting them for a source when they save their edit, or by stopping patrollers from reverting newbies' edits merely for being unsourced (unsourced and clearly bonkers would still be fair game). One of these would be an inclusionist victory, the other a deletionists one - but I think moving either way would be better than the status quo.
- Reform RFA so that adminship becomes the norm for sane sensible longterm members of the community that are willing to occasionally wield the mop. ϢereSpielChequers 20:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- An invalid block is invalid from day one. It shouldn't take a year to "erase". You make Some good proposals. I especially like the EngVar one. Probably something close to your list and my list is what's really needed but we both know that'll never happened. While I've truly enjoyed this talk, it will amount to nothing and either none of the ideas will ever get implemented or if it does, it'll only be tiny pieces far too long into the future, ie, too little too late. PumpkinSky talk 20:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Although I agree that splitting out Rollbacker and Filmover were a step in the right direction they are far from "big reforms". They are really little changes actually and only succeeded because they, IMO, offered no loss of power to the admins. The most important thing I think we need to address is as PS put it the treating of Admins above editors. They have a few extra tools and it time we starting treating it that way. They aren't true database admins they don't have server access, most don't do development. Its time we allow more people to help out and allow expanded access to the tools. Now no one is saying that every editor should have access to every tool but if the editor has shown they are capable and have been here for a while then there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to access some things. If they want to participate in CCI then they need certain tools to do that. If they want to help with vandal fighting then certain tools go with that. If they are like me and do a lot of gnoming and maintenance stuff then there are tools that lend themselves to that. But in most cases the whole toolset isn't needed to do these and there is no valid reason in today's editing environment that an editor who has been around for a while shouldn't be trusted with many of them...or all of them. If they screw up then they can be taken away. Without all the pomp and circumstance that is currently associated with the RFA/Desysopping process. Give them the access and let them contribute and if they abuse it remove it..that's it. Really easy. I'll add to that one exception and that is block/unblock. I personally think anyone with this right should be required to report their real life identity with proof of age (just like Checckuser and Beauracrat) to the WMF. Kumioko (talk) 19:36, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oh hogwash. Unbundling rollback is the biggest farce ever. All that does is let you do in one click what used to take 3 (i think). Rollback is just smoke and mirrors and not a reform of substance at all. Changes of substance that need done but won't happen unless it gets about 100x worse than now: RFA reform, community desyssop, abolish arbcom, treat content editors like people instead of shitbags, removal of bogus blocks from the log (which is one of the many reasons scotty's rfa tool is bullshit, it counts all blocks as bad, even a reblock if you are unblocked to edit so you can make a statement), cease forcing people to wear the Wiki Scarlett Letter forever, and end the double standards of admins vs non-admins.PumpkinSky talk 17:41, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- There have been big reforms - the unbundling of rollback being one of the most dramatic. And while I can remember several attempted changes where the balance of !voting was very different among admins or non-admins; I doubt if there have been many where there was consensus for change amongst non-admins and enough admin opposition to stop that change. Happy to have that tested if you can name any RFCs that illustrated such an admin non-admin divide. However I am willing to predict that such incidents will arise in future if we don't reform RFA and open it up to the editors who joined us in 2008-2011. ϢereSpielChequers 16:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Unfortunately I agree with PS. I don't see the admin cadre allowing any changes that would reduce their power base or that would allow more editors access to some tools. This isn't just a perception but has been shown repeatedly in a dozen or more reforms over the years. Looking at the reforms its nearly always a majority of admins who vote them down because there are more admins who watch the RFC's and advanced areas than those of us that are advanced users but don't have the tools. So although there are more users than admins, the majority of the ones who would watch these areas are admins. Also, unfortunately I think things will need to get much worse before any meaningful change is allowed to happen. Until we are in such dire need of admins that the community or the WMF is required to do something drastic, we'll be stuck with the same process we have By that time though it will likely be too late to fix it. Kumioko (talk) 16:00, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I disagree. I'm pretty sure that we have consensus that there are significant problems on Wikipedia. But where we disagree is over the defining of those problems, their priority and in some cases their solution. So for some people one of our problems is that we have a bunch of teenage admins doing things that legal minors possibly shouldn't and supervising a bunch of older and wiser content contributors. For others, including myself, part of the problem of the greying of the pedia is that we now have a bunch of twenty somethings who think they are supervising a bunch of teenagers when actually they are offending a bunch of middle aged men by treating them as teenagers. Problems get harder to solve where they involve misunderstandings and philosophical clashes, and just as most of our religious and nationalistic article disputes involve people who know their side to be right, so increasingly do our governance ones. But where the divide is ultimately about a misunderstanding we can work to achieve consensus by explaining how we understand the situation and being willing to test our assumptions against reality. For example one of the biggest divides within the community in its broadest sense is between those who think that the best response to an unsourced edit is a revert, and those who regard that as newbie biting. A useful bit of research would be for someone to work out which approach is most effective in teaching newbies to cite their sources. Closer to home, pretty much everyone agrees that there are "bad admins" out there who should be desysopped. But when we get more specific, there is a big divide between those who would like to desysop someone like me for a strict interpretation of CSD criteria that sees me declining lots of CSDs that other admins might stretch a point and delete out of process, and those who'd like to desysop some admins whose flexible interpretation of the CSD criteria would get them at least a 40% oppose at RFA if they had to rerun. Now a general call for desysopping "bad admins" might get support from people with very different interpretations of what a bad admin is, it's only when you start defining "bad admin" that your consensus falls apart. But periodic admin reconfirmations don't just worry those who'd expect to fail them. There's also the real risk that we'd lose too many admins to keep the site running with volunteer admins, especially with RFA as dysfunctional at it has been for years. ϢereSpielChequers 14:10, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- That'd be another waste of time. It could have a majority support but the incumbent power base, admins and arbs, would derail it, just like RFA reform. To reiterate, the entire wiki system is totally dysfunctional. Don't forget, I'm one of the few people that have seen wiki from the extreme of both ends. In order for things to change, two things must happen: 1) wiki needs to recognize there are problems--this we've known for a long time and 2) be willing to change those problems--this we are far, far from doing. PumpkinSky talk 10:50, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- If you don't think the current Arbs are doing a good job then say why and create a voters guide for next time. Maybe people will agree with you and kick the current incumbents out, maybe the current incumbents will respond to criticism. Maybe we need an RFC to change Arbcom's remit so for example they do have authority over the IRC admins channel or they can desysop an admin for bringing the project into disrepute. But it simply isn't true that admins can only lose the tools voluntarily. This year we've only had one admin resign under a cloud and one desysopped. normally we'd have lost more by now, and the only case that I've really followed should in my view have resulted in a desysopping and probably some interaction bans by contrast most of my criticism of Arbcom in previous years was in cases where they were too heavy handed. But the best response to that is to broaden Arbcom's remit and ensure we elect the right people to it. If you try again to replace or supplement Arbcom with some process that omits the safeguards of Arbcom then don't be surprised if you fail again, especially if you have such an easily refuted case as saying that currently the only way to lose the mop is voluntarily. As for Arbcom processes taking too long, much of the delay involves time for people to put their side of the story, and time for a group of ininvolved volunteers to consider and deliberate. You need to tread very carefully when you consider changing that, and be very specific as to what reforms to Arbcom you are proposing. Otherwise you risk making the whole thing worse - remember our biggest problem re adminship is recruiting new admins. Implementing a less fair system for supervising them is not going to help persuade more people to run. ϢereSpielChequers 09:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I imagine that there are a fair amount of people who frankly just find the admin type of work somewhat uninteresting, and don't want to give the false impression that they have the time and interest to contribute to admin activities. If the goal is to reduce backlogs and get things done, then convincing people that work on admin activities is a worthy use of their time could be just as big of an issue as the perception that the RfA process is overwhelming. Admin work is thankless and I really appreciate everyone who does it, by the way. We really should have an automatic list of those who do the day-to-day stuff to give them more recognition. II | (t - c) 06:54, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- ssshhhh, don't talk too loud. Admin work is thankless? - not to those who like wearing shiny buttons. XOttawahitech (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- The way a lot of them act you wouldn't know its thankless. If it was they wouldn't try so hard to keep people from helping out or protecting their power. Kumioko (talk) 14:31, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- I don't doubt that it's largely thankless...but is that the motivation? If I had the bit, I wouldn't expect much thanks. I just don't feel like it's worth it to run the gauntlet so that I have the privilege of being able to volunteer more time. --Onorem (talk) 14:45, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- ssshhhh, don't talk too loud. Admin work is thankless? - not to those who like wearing shiny buttons. XOttawahitech (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
Can RfA become a due process?
Hello. Many users will not listen to me now because of this and that, but I still hope that my thoughts can be useful. Three days ago I was insufficiently informed about certain RfA-related matters, and this prompted me to attribute the incident to organized malevolence. Now I learned something and realized that there is much more disorder than bad faith. There were following facts:
- I started an RfA;
- After two hours certain Hahc21 marked it as “closed” citing an essay;
- I reverted, because perceived (and still perceive) the closure as illegitimate and, in any case, a humiliatingly early;
- A bureaucrat closed again, apparently because perceived me as a deranged user who blatantly rejects the community output;
- I complained;
- Another bureaucrat supported the first one, apparently because they are both respected users with 100,000+ edits and I am a plebeian with a handful of thousands edits (at least, in en.wikipedia);
- Further arguing became futile.
So, we have:
- 7 users expressed negative feelings about my candidacy;
- Hahc21 stigmatized my RfA as a hopeless one because of aforementioned 7 users, without examining the matter;
- Wizardman assessed my RfA as a hopeless one because of Hahc21’s assessment, without examining neither actual votes nor the matter;
- The Rambling Man assessed my RfA as a hopeless one because of Wizardman’s and Hahc21’s assessments, whereas user:Secret’s opinion was disregarded as a minority one;
and, finally, I perceived all this as a conspiracy, because did not expect such dysfunction from the “great community”.
It is anything but not a due process. IMHO I was not the first person caught in this vicious loop. Therefore. All RfAs should be run by a board of extremely durable supervisors capable to quickly assess the situation, themselves. Of course, it sometimes requires (fast) reading. Any persons with their own, personal RfA-related troubles (like me, yes ☺) must be barred from exerting any administrative function. Thank for your attention – I sincerely want to help this sick community. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:12, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- What vicious loop? Your RFA was never going to succeed, and was closed (correctly) per WP:SNOW. The only person who has issue with the close is...you! GiantSnowman 19:18, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- I am not so sure that users who evaluate a candidate based on his/her last dozen of edits and like to cast votes in the first two hours have a strong influence on the community of actually encyclopedic editors. Of course they possibly have… then it would be so poor for the community IMHO. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:32, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- You can see previous early closures from this year and the previous year. I think the point of reviewing your most recent edits is to assess your character today. A lot of us start out sloppily and perhaps behaved less civilly than we do now. Recent contributions give us an inkling of how well editors follow policies and guidelines and the demeanor with which they interact with others. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:40, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- What does certain number of early closures prove? That there were early closures, I think. To prove your point you should demonstrate that any successful RfA did not ever start from the red rage. In any case I aimed to obtain remarks and advices from the actual community, that I was deprived of. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- The rule of thumb is that the threshold of succeeding is having at least 80% of the votes be in support. Based on the 7 votes in opposition, that means you would need 40 votes in support. Another threshold is 70%, and that means you would need ~27 votes in support. This is assuming that you stay at 7 votes in opposition, which is not likely. I would have opposed too, based on others' concerns. You mention that it was a "humiliatingly early" closure, but the point of the early closure is to recognize the outcome based on the aforementioned extrapolation (and past trends) and minimize the bludgeoning. You mention wanting "to obtain remarks and advices", but the RfA is not the place for that. You have to be fairly confident that you will pass. Kind of like a Featured Article candidate should have a peer review before going through the candidacy process. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:13, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- If you want "remarks and advices from the actual community" then in future you might want to try WP:ER. GiantSnowman 21:22, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- He did file one as mentioned in Q2 of his RfA: Wikipedia:Editor review/Incnis Mrsi. It did not get a review until after the RfA. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:25, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- What does certain number of early closures prove? That there were early closures, I think. To prove your point you should demonstrate that any successful RfA did not ever start from the red rage. In any case I aimed to obtain remarks and advices from the actual community, that I was deprived of. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- You can see previous early closures from this year and the previous year. I think the point of reviewing your most recent edits is to assess your character today. A lot of us start out sloppily and perhaps behaved less civilly than we do now. Recent contributions give us an inkling of how well editors follow policies and guidelines and the demeanor with which they interact with others. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:40, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- I am not so sure that users who evaluate a candidate based on his/her last dozen of edits and like to cast votes in the first two hours have a strong influence on the community of actually encyclopedic editors. Of course they possibly have… then it would be so poor for the community IMHO. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:32, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
Not sure why you compared my edit history with your self-assessment of being a "plebeian". Also not sure what you're hoping to achieve. My best guess is that you want to run another RFA without closure before the standard 7 days elapsed time. If so, I'd be happy to see you renominated and would suggest to all 'crats to allow the nomination to run to its conclusion. Generally speaking, premature closures of RFXs are designed to protect the nominee from unnecessary and usually inflammatory commentary. You seem to be keen to allow an RFA which may succumb to that to run its course. Is that what you're looking for? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:16, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- Honestly, I had thought about opening a thread regarding this. Personally, I don't support Incnis Mrsi as a candidate for adminship, but if he wants the RfA to remain open longer, why must we say no? The only person who needs to be effected by it remaining open is the candidate. If the candidate wants it left open longer, why must we insist on keeping it closed? AutomaticStrikeout ? 00:01, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- In response to the title question: no, it can't. RfA is the internet's answer to stoning. It hasn't changed for years, and it won't be changing any time soon. That may be dramatic, defeatist, uncollegiate and a whole bunch of other things with negative connotations, but it ain't wrong. —WFC— FL wishlist 00:35, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm getting sick of being harassed about this nonstop. Is it really that important to have a now pretty stale rfa put back up? I mean, if the person's THAT set on a full seven day rfa then fine. Wizardman 01:54, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- I realize I am usually the volatile one in the group here but if the user really wants to submit the RFA and run the gauntlet that bad, let him...IMO. Its not going to pass but its not worth arguing this much over either. Its just not that big of a deal folks. Kumioko (talk) 02:21, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- I have re–posted the RfA. AutomaticStrikeout ? 02:22, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- I always thought that the person running could request against SNOW closures. Lets open the thing back up and see how humiliating it can get before they accept it. --Onorem (talk) 02:51, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- I did. AutomaticStrikeout ? 02:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC)