User:Masssiveego/admin
Masssiveego's Wikipedia Administrator Notes.
For any user that requries instruction on dealing on how to be, dealing with, or what went wrong in your RFA page.
Admin Questions[edit]
Question and Answers[edit]
- Nope. I will say this though - those who want to find what they want to seek will always find it. So, could I request something of you? It's just a little thing. If you have an inclination to oppose candidates, could you please accompany your oppose votes with other material which, say, highlights the strengths of the candidate? Not only would it be more palatable for the recipient, it would also come across as more constructive. In this way, your votes would come across as more meaningful, and less polarizing. Would this be okay with you? Is this something you could work towards? How do you feel about this suggestion? --HappyCamper 23:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, highlighting strengths would probably support the canidate and cancel out the effect of the oppose. Therefore I should
not give "compliments" about their strengths. I think bad admin canidates should clearly know without confusion they are opposed. --Masssiveego 03:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Also, I recommend that you look back at RfAs you've opposed. Often, you may find some solid counterpoints that may negate your oppose. — Deckiller 23:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
- Why did this come up? Ëvilphoenix Burn! 00:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Unless the counterpoint is clearly canceling out the reason why I opposed the canidate as wrong or false, I generally prefer not to change my position on my votes. I have not seen anything that would change my vote at this time. Otherwise if the counterpoint is merely, my voting record, or "I don't trust your judgement", I treat both as an insult that is covered WP:personal attack. --Masssiveego 03:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Since you ask, here's a question: Do you think any or all of the candidates you have opposed that were promoted have made bad admins? Would you be willing to rethink your strategy if you reviewed those admins that you opposed and found some of them proved worthy? Dmcdevit·t 03:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Definitely some should have never been made Admin in my opinion. I found none that I have opposed worthy yet. Masssiveego 06:39, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
"Oppose" votes should, but do not have to be, backed up by reason(s). I'm beginning to think that a plain "oppose", with no comment is best. Merecat 06:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Since Wikipedia is not a democracy close votes without a reason carry much less weight when it comes down to it, and to a certain extent same with support votes with no reasoning but if your okay with the fact that your refusal (both Merecat and Massivego) to write anything else in addition to oppose on your input degrades the impact that your votes have to the process and the fact that they do nothing to convince people to vote oppose (quite the opposite in many cases since some editors will vote support just to spite oppose voters which is a fairly immature and unhelpful response) while giving people a reason why you think the candidate is not suitable as an admin can and many times will help people get a full picture and very likely even vote oppose as well due to concerns about the candidate. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 06:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi Masssiveego. Personally, I think people question your opposes when your reasoning seems rather minor, possibly trivial, or possibly incorrect (e.g., "no images", "inactivity with the Wikipedia community", username is "copyright infringement"). I think clarification of your reasoning can go a long way, and could help those involved in the RfA process to determine whether they want a candidate to be an admin. — TheKMantalk 02:24, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
My reasons are definitently important, especially on the failiure to post images, in the light of the religious cartoon contraversy. Images are a large part of wikipedia. If the user in question requires clarification, they have the option to leave me a message asking so. Masssiveego 06:39, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Please also see Talk:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy Masssiveego 01:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Massiveego, please unless someone is for certain complaining about your voting on RFA or elsewhere, don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. Moe ε 17:45, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- Actually there are many complaints about my voting, and this is the correct forum for dealing with these disputes/explainations. WP:point
was overruled for voting purposes with Boothy443. If there is a problem with my voting habits, reasons, or otherwise about the admin election system. This is the proper forum for discussing them. --Masssiveego 05:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC) WP:point is only for editing articles.
- Well, Masssiveego, I think you probally should take a deeper look at some of your statements, some of your arguments really do seem a little odd.. Whilst I agree that you do have some valid reasons for your votes, taking a look at most of your history I'd say 85% of your votes are opposes and of those 85% the majority are "as above" etc. I really don't know how long you look into information, but from your comments on my rfa, mostly regarding my bot, I think you might want to spend just a little bit more time fact checking. For example you made a quote saying that I was being unfriendly regarding the bot, and the poster themselves took a second to reply and say that there was no hostility, he was simply reporting an error that was promptly corrected. I've also noted very very few non RfA related contribs, I don't want to sound offensive but are you sure you are really getting a perspective to vote without interacting with the user or the community at large, I think some more time on articles would really help put things into perspective. Perhaps a lot of voters don't look too deeply, I mostly vote based on talk page contribs and the overall friendliness of the user, perhaps talking to the user might help bring in another perspective that you didn't realize? I'm not trying to sound critical but a large number of editors have been questioning some of your votes, I'm just trying to suggest ways that might help you get a better perspective -- Tawker 01:43, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- The suggestion above has been well noted. The main problem with the above RFA was haste. The only time I have any discussion is when the RFA
canidate is questioned. At which point the answers, if any, from these canidates shape my response. While some of answers do appear odd, typically it's because the wikipedia at large seems to have limited experiences from which a habit has already been formed from. The differences in cultural backgrounds may account for this "oddness". Just because it's in english, does not necessarily means it's in the english culture.
As for the bot let me use my translation of the message.
Re: Tawkerbot2
This is in response to your reply on my talk page to feedback I left on the bot's talk page.
As for the message left on editors' talk pages, my personal preference leans towards something more technical and less conversational. That lead to my "thanks for experimenting, now frig off" interpretation, because that's how I imagined an innocent aggrieved editor taking the comment when the revert was wrong. FWIW, I'd lean more towards something along the lines of:
Your recent edit of some article was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to recognize and repair vandalism to Wikipedia articles. If you were experimenting, know that everyone really is welcome to contribute, but tests should be done in the sandbox.If the bot reverted a legitimate edit, please accept our apologies – if you bring it to the attention of the bot's owner, we may be able to improve its behavior.
Or something like that. At least that's my 2 cents' worth and how I read your talk page post.
"The bot is a great idea in theory. "
(There is a problem with the bot.)
"Thanks for all the work you've put into it. "
(civil)
But please be careful and very conservative in practice. (something may be wrong with it.)
If you get too ambitious you'll get in trouble, because there is no way that the bot will be ever be able to reliably distinguish between all types of vandalism from good faith edits.
(ambitious as in.. too much too soon.. therefore haste, haste is bad. Proof that haste is a continued problem.)
Randomly reverting legitimate edits is another form of vandalism, after all!
(the complaint about the bot)
Going for the obvious profanity, scatology, etc., will help a lot, but keep a close eye on it, and leave the rest to us mere mortals.
(the suggestion)
"--Kbh3rdtalk 05:29, 2 April 2006 (UTC) [edit]"
"A tawkerbot error"
"Hi Tawker. I just thought you should know about this revert. The IP address fixed it in the previous edit and your bot reverted it back. " (the problem with the bot)
"I figured that you should know so that hopefully you can prevent this from happening again. "
(warning)
"I left a message on User talk:80.7.14.231 (the user whose edit was reverted) explaining the misunderstanding. I overall like your bot and I've seen the good that it can do, however,"
(resolution)
"I am a little concerned that mistakes like this will bite newbies and scare them away from future contributions. However, as long as the mistake is caught and is explained to the user, especially if they are a new user, I don't have a problem with it. I am just worried that this won't always be the case. Anyway, thanks for looking into this."
(Probable damage from hastily releasee error prone bot. What kind of damage can this user do on newbies with admin powers added?)
--PS2pcGAMER (talk) 10:00, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
What stuck out the most in my mind.
"You threatened to block me for one bad edit in 24 hours which is the truth ." (the complaint)
"You are not an administrator." (something is really wrong.)
"Get a better handle on warning templates WP:RCP." (The tone of the suggestions suggests to me irate.)
"--196.40.43.218 08:03, 9 February 2006 (UTC)"
The way too quick on the draw that suggests a pattern of haste. Masssiveego 05:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Admin activity report for March, 2006[edit]
A resource to understand how Admin are.
To throw some raw statistics into the discussion, here's a summary of the top administrative users in March 2006. A total of 55 admins were responsible for 50% of the administrative activity in March (where "top 50%" has been computed independently for each type of administrative activity). The table shows, for each admin in the top 50%, their total count and rank in each category of action. Entries in roman font are in the top 50%; entries in italic font are not in the top 50% for that action.
| Admin | delete | restore | block | unblock | protect | unprotect | rights | renameuser | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JesseW | 5310 (1) | 3 (74) | 5 (243) | 8 (38) | 4 (89) | 1 (93) | ||
| 2 | Curps | 346 (51) | 3497 (1) | 180 (3) | 45 (10) | 3 (47) | |||
| 3 | Sherool | 3597 (2) | 1 (143) | ||||||
| 4 | Mushroom | 2870 (3) | 23 (9) | 24 (104) | 6 (52) | 3 (112) | 1 (93) | ||
| 5 | Freakofnurture | 749 (23) | 61 (5) | 1537 (2) | 320 (2) | 125 (1) | 10 (17) | ||
| 6 | Howcheng | 2524 (4) | 5 (43) | 1 (354) | |||||
| 7 | Mailer diablo | 2096 (6) | 7 (34) | 38 (77) | 3 (112) | ||||
| 8 | CLW | 2123 (5) | 10 (26) | 3 (276) | |||||
| 9 | Mo0 | 2074 (7) | 20 (10) | 17 (132) | 1 (150) | 2 (142) | 1 (93) | ||
| 10 | RexNL | 846 (16) | 844 (4) | 7 (41) | 29 (15) | 6 (28) | |||
| 11 | Cohesion | 1589 (8) | 1 (143) | 1 (183) | |||||
| 12 | Naconkantari | 746 (24) | 7 (34) | 547 (5) | 24 (10) | 26 (18) | 6 (28) | ||
| 13 | Angr | 1305 (9) | 7 (34) | 21 (118) | 21 (26) | 1 (93) | |||
| 14 | Shanel | 757 (21) | 12 (19) | 491 (6) | 76 (5) | 9 (52) | 2 (58) | ||
| 15 | Hall Monitor | 63 (159) | 1 (143) | 1041 (3) | 88 (4) | 88 (3) | 12 (12) | ||
| 16 | Harro5 | 1101 (11) | 5 (43) | 11 (176) | 1 (150) | 15 (33) | |||
| 17 | Vegaswikian | 1115 (10) | 2 (99) | ||||||
| 18 | DakotaKahn | 915 (14) | 4 (55) | 187 (14) | 2 (113) | 4 (89) | |||
| 19 | Academic Challenger | 960 (12) | 1 (143) | 12 (166) | 6 (67) | 1 (93) | |||
| 20 | Jeffrey O. Gustafson | 790 (19) | 16 (14) | 116 (26) | 12 (23) | 36 (11) | 6 (28) | ||
| 21 | Nv8200p | 954 (13) | 4 (55) | ||||||
| 22 | Meegs | 913 (15) | 1 (143) | 18 (127) | |||||
| 23 | InShaneee | 797 (18) | 3 (74) | 91 (36) | 4 (74) | 10 (48) | 2 (58) | ||
| 24 | Ixfd64 | 102 (123) | 3 (74) | 146 (19) | 624 (1) | 2 (142) | 1 (93) | ||
| 25 | Ta bu shi da yu | 817 (17) | 2 (99) | 1 (354) | 2 (142) | ||||
| 26 | SCEhardt | 769 (20) | 2 (99) | 3 (276) | |||||
| 27 | (aeropagitica) | 754 (22) | 1 (354) | 1 (183) | |||||
| 28 | Drini | 465 (39) | 3 (74) | 227 (9) | 5 (62) | 3 (112) | 4 (37) | ||
| 29 | Splash | 395 (46) | 24 (8) | 43 (68) | 6 (52) | 25 (20) | 206 (1) | ||
| 30 | RHaworth | 587 (30) | 90 (4) | 1 (354) | 6 (67) | ||||
| 31 | Sjakkalle | 262 (64) | 241 (1) | 97 (32) | 9 (28) | ||||
| 32 | Kingboyk | 444 (42) | 38 (6) | 48 (56) | 3 (86) | 6 (67) | |||
| 33 | Jareth | 459 (40) | 36 (7) | 22 (115) | 3 (86) | ||||
| 34 | BorgQueen | 207 (78) | 193 (13) | 26 (9) | 63 (4) | 9 (20) | |||
| 35 | Antandrus | 254 (67) | 204 (10) | 18 (15) | 7 (60) | 5 (33) | |||
| 36 | Guanaco | 142 (102) | 147 (2) | 86 (40) | 53 (6) | 15 (33) | 26 (7) | ||
| 37 | Nlu | 63 (159) | 20 (10) | 204 (10) | 18 (15) | 57 (5) | 50 (4) | ||
| 38 | Gator1 | 162 (98) | 4 (55) | 159 (17) | 21 (13) | 51 (7) | 2 (58) | ||
| 39 | NSLE | 218 (72) | 6 (42) | 90 (38) | 17 (17) | 26 (18) | 7 (25) | ||
| 40 | Brian0918 | 67 (155) | 10 (26) | 238 (8) | 7 (41) | 30 (14) | 4 (37) | ||
| 41 | Wayward | 12 (298) | 312 (7) | 10 (25) | 1 (183) | 2 (58) | |||
| 42 | BD2412 | 177 (88) | 129 (3) | 18 (127) | 1 (150) | 5 (78) | 5 (33) | ||
| 43 | Flcelloguy | 77 (145) | 2 (99) | 14 (151) | 1 (150) | 113 (2) | 82 (3) | ||
| 44 | Voice of All | 50 (178) | 2 (99) | 91 (36) | 4 (74) | 48 (8) | 21 (8) | ||
| 45 | Tony Sidaway | 16 (270) | 5 (43) | 16 (138) | 3 (86) | 25 (20) | 115 (2) | ||
| 46 | Jayjg | 15 (278) | 4 (55) | 93 (34) | 2 (113) | 36 (11) | 10 (17) | ||
| 47 | SlimVirgin | 33 (206) | 5 (43) | 46 (60) | 22 (12) | 29 (15) | 11 (14) | ||
| 48 | Dbenbenn | 111 (119) | 3 (74) | 4 (89) | 27 (6) | ||||
| 49 | Katefan0 | 27 (227) | 11 (22) | 52 (53) | 4 (74) | 27 (17) | 11 (14) | ||
| 50 | Gurubrahma | 37 (202) | 1 (143) | 2 (312) | 47 (9) | 31 (5) | |||
| 51 | PFHLai | 38 (199) | 1 (143) | 4 (262) | 52 (6) | 21 (8) | |||
| 52 | Raul654 | 8 (337) | 43 (68) | 9 (28) | 36 (11) | 8 (22) | 1 (4) | 9 (3) | |
| 53 | Woohookitty | 38 (199) | 1 (143) | 22 (115) | 7 (41) | 25 (20) | 11 (14) | ||
| 54 | Nichalp | 16 (270) | 3 (74) | 1 (354) | 3 (3) | 62 (1) | |||
| 55 | Cecropia | 2 (441) | 1 (354) | 1 (150) | 4 (89) | 22 (1) | |||
| Total | 71776 | 1551 | 17634 | 2314 | 2033 | 1031 | 35 | 97 |
138 admins were responsible for 75% of admin actions. 261 admins were responsible for 90% of admin actions. 468 admins were responsible for 99% of admin actions. 595 admins had at least one administrative action last month.
Raw data is available at [1], which I plan to update monthly (I should just automate it, cron is good for that). Kelly Martin (talk) 15:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Hmm..I'm not in there. Time to get crackin' :P By the way, I don't know if I'd consider rights and renameuser administrative actions, seeing as they're more like bureaucratic actions — Ilyanep (Talk) 15:53, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- The complete rankings for all admin actions (but not bureaucrat/steward actions) can be found at User:Freakofnurture/Stats (discuss). Hope this helps. — Apr. 8, '06 [15:56] <freakofnurxture|talk>
- These statistics are great, but note that they don't cover all administrator activities. Less quantifiable things such as responding to requests to edit protected pages, review blocks (at least those which don't result in an unblock), move a page over a redirect, enforcing ArbCom rulings which don't require use of the listed buttons, et cetera can only be done by administrators and represent valuable contributions but are not listed in these reports. --CBDunkerson 16:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, a lot of those things can be done by nonadministrators. A nonadmin can review requests to unblock or unprotect a page (just can't actually hit the button). Anybody can enforce an ArbCom ruling if the "shiny buttons" are not involved. The ability to move a page over a redirect is not an administrative ability; any registered user (not recently registered) can do this. It's moving a page over a non-redirect that is restricted to admins (and which is logged as a deletion followed by a move). The main ability of administrators that is not reflected in these reports is the ability to examine deleted edits; since that action is not logged there's no way to report on it. The notion that maintenance activities can only be done by administrators, while admittedly popular, is mistaken: admins have no special authority to do anything on wikipedia; they're just given access to extra buttons because they've (supposedly) demonstrated that we can trust them not to misuse them. Nonadministrators are free (and encouraged) to perform maintenance activities, to the extent that they can do so within the capabilities allocated to them by their access level, and for those items which require access to facilities not available to them, request others who do have them to complete the task. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Hrrrm? How can anyone review unblock requests when only admins can actually perform an unblock? If everyone can enforce arbitration committee decisions why does WP:AER say that admins specifically are requested to do so? Do we really want to allow any user who feels like it to appoint themself as ArbCom 'cop'? Likewise, non-admins obviously can't edit protected pages when requested. I agree that there are alot of maintenance tasks which anyone can do, but these don't seem the type. --CBDunkerson 17:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- For instance, non-admins can remove the {{unblock}} from a user's page, or they can revert edits of banned users, etc. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Hrrrm? How can anyone review unblock requests when only admins can actually perform an unblock? If everyone can enforce arbitration committee decisions why does WP:AER say that admins specifically are requested to do so? Do we really want to allow any user who feels like it to appoint themself as ArbCom 'cop'? Likewise, non-admins obviously can't edit protected pages when requested. I agree that there are alot of maintenance tasks which anyone can do, but these don't seem the type. --CBDunkerson 17:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, a lot of those things can be done by nonadministrators. A nonadmin can review requests to unblock or unprotect a page (just can't actually hit the button). Anybody can enforce an ArbCom ruling if the "shiny buttons" are not involved. The ability to move a page over a redirect is not an administrative ability; any registered user (not recently registered) can do this. It's moving a page over a non-redirect that is restricted to admins (and which is logged as a deletion followed by a move). The main ability of administrators that is not reflected in these reports is the ability to examine deleted edits; since that action is not logged there's no way to report on it. The notion that maintenance activities can only be done by administrators, while admittedly popular, is mistaken: admins have no special authority to do anything on wikipedia; they're just given access to extra buttons because they've (supposedly) demonstrated that we can trust them not to misuse them. Nonadministrators are free (and encouraged) to perform maintenance activities, to the extent that they can do so within the capabilities allocated to them by their access level, and for those items which require access to facilities not available to them, request others who do have them to complete the task. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Interesting. Can you provide stats of "admins who should never have been voted in"? Alphax τεχ 16:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- How would you suggest that I define that category? Kelly Martin (talk) 16:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
As an administrator who uses the mop only occasionally, I must say I am impressed. We should institute an "admin of the month" or something. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
What this says to me is that the semi-active admins are doing a lot more than people sometimes think. Let me summarize activity levels:
- the top 55 admins do 50% of actions
- the next 83 admins do 25% of actions
- the next 123 admins do 15% of actions
- the next 207 admins do 9% of actions
- the next 137 admins do 1% of actions
Even looking at the least active two categories, a lot of actions are being done there. And we must consider that those admins are likely doing actions that are not easy. You can rack up a lot of actions by doing RC patrol, CSD patrol, or new user patrol, but when someone does a page merge they do but a single delete and undelete that represents important yet slow going work. Same with blocking and unblocking users involved in non-obvious content disputes, not as quick and easy as a username block. I imagine that the actions done by the bottom two groups are more heavy with complicated actions than the easy ones. And the complicated ones are very important to running the encyclopedia. There are not so many inactive and semi-active admins as I thought when you consider that, and there is a good argument for promoting users heavily involved in content areas, not just the visible vandal fighters, because those are the ones that will often be doing the complicated admin tasks that are still important here. NoSeptember talk 18:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not sure. I mainly recall seeing the slow-but-important work being done by people who were doing lots of other tasks as well, not by people who specialise in complex page moves. However, the moral about relative utility of activity lists is a good one - how do we compare an admin who makes 995 uncontroversial blocks and 5 highly controversial ones with someone who makes 50 blocks? (BTW, I show up as a big fat zero in the figures, having been on wikibreak for the whole of March!) The Land 18:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not saying that they specialize in complex tasks, but they are just doing normal content editing most of the time and stumble across something that needs to be done with an admin action, as opposed to going on patrol looking to do blocks or deletes. NoSeptember talk 18:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I notice that the most active deleters are those that do the mundane image work. All of the top 5 deleters did work either deleting orphaned fair use images or unsourced/unlicensed images. By the way, is it possible to have an "all-time" list (not just monthly)? Something like List of Wikipedians by number of edits... perhaps a List of administrators by number of admin actions. The stats would certainly be interesting, and they might encourage admins to be a bit more active. :) Coffee 19:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- I can go back to January of 2005 (admin actions were not logged in the same way prior to that and I don't have access to those logs via the toolserver). I also note that NoSeptember's analysis is not exactly correct, because I misstated the import of the statistics. How one defines "50% of admin activities" is kinda fuzzy. You can just linearily add up across each categories, but then deletions rule because there are far more of them (over half a million in the past 15 months) than anything else. My original report simply ignored this and computed the top 50% in each category and reported in the list (sorted by total sum of activities) for any admin who was in the top 50% of any category. This overstates the number of admins required to get "50% of the activities". I've modified my script to scale each activity by the total number of that activity over the selected time interval (which means the total scaled count of each activity totals to the same amount). This means that each unprotection counts a lot more than each deletion toward one's rank. Using this scoring approach, 50% of activity in March was accounted for by only 25 admins; over the past 15 months, by 34 admins. When I have more time this evening I will generate the 50% list for each month for which I have data and generate a nice little grid, which I will post somewhere. Kelly Martin (talk) 20:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not all that concerned about the exact percentages or numbers. My point was that even those admins that are doing from 1 to 10 actions a month are making a worthwhile contribution to Wikipedia especially when you consider that there are hundreds of these people. NoSeptember talk 20:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- These are interesting stats, Kelly. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:41, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Okay, seriously, enough editcountitis[edit]
Attitudes.
Editcountitis is completely out of hand. I'm seeing people opposing candidates for not editing at a sustained rate of over 600 edits per month. If people can make edits that quickly, it's because they're never undertaking anything difficult, or (if they really are making 600 high-quality edits) they're so obsessed with Wikipedia that they never do anything else, and may not have the necessary perspective ("it's okay, it's just Wikipedia") to step back from a conflict when one arises.
We need more admins who haven't been spending months on end tailoring their edits to the RfA mold. (As I see it, the mold is something like this: large numbers of edits per month, predominantly on AfD to get name recogition among the crowd that does both RfA and AfD, and on RC patrol to get easy quick edits, with enough article and talk edits to make people happy.) Having some admins who predominantly do AfD and RC patrol is fine, of course, but the state of RfA is making them thoroughly overrepresented. I want to see more admins who do cleanup, work on WikiProjects, and handle disputes: actions that are not reflected in a number.
For those who oppose due to a "low" editing rate, what are you hoping to accomplish? What desirable properties does an editor who makes 600 edits a month have over one who makes 150 or 200? And given the warning that "editcountitis can be fatal", what would you consider editcountitis? --rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:54, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'd consider over 2000 editcountitis. After that, one gets diminishing returns- a person will show warning signs between 0 and 2000, but after 2000, they are vastly less likely to melt down as a regular editor. Rates have a similar argument. When you undertake large complex tasks like wholesale reorganizing and improving of a large category, it simply can't be done in a few spare minutes on the weekend. Plus, spending a lot of time editting stresses the editor, and letss us see whether they will "break", so to speak. --maru (talk) contribs 18:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
- I don't quite understand your response. Over 2000 what? I'm using "editcountitis" to mean "putting an unreasonable emphasis on edit count in adminship decisions", and I'm assuming that those who do emphasize the edit count so much don't see it as unreasonable. I'm asking, how far would it have to go before you see it as unreasonable?
- Naw. If we enforced really high edit rates, then perhaps. But this is like tempering metal- sure, if you tempered continually until it shattered, then there is no point, but if you temper once or twice, it comes out better. And besides, if they were going to burnout quickly, wouldn't they do so while attempting to attain that high edit count? --maru (talk) contribs 03:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, okay. I still can't tell if it's 2000 edits total (a reasonable standard to me, but I'd still support a good contributor with less) or 2000 a month (e-freaking-gad!) But I'll assume it's in total. That's fine. My beef is with the fact that people with, say, 3500 edits are getting opposed for making them too slowly. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- Read my comment again, rspeer. I address total edits first, and then another sentence addresses rates. Any standard demanding more than 2000 edits total is pointless, but I'm not too sure what the rate for edits should be. At least an average of 5 a day, I would think, since just watchlist monitoring and occasional prose cleanups would give as much. --maru (talk) contribs 03:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- I suspect that RfA is harming the community at times by forcing those who are predominantly editors into other tasks which they may not be interested or good in, just for the sake of getting through the RfA. Someone like Tyrenius (I am assuming that what he said about himself in the RfA was true) was rejected because - to be frank - he did not know the tricks. When someone is rejected for a reason like that he will probably go back and do the things that rspeer said (a few AfD votes, a few reverts, slice his edits thin), come back two months later and win easily. All that the RfA succeeded in doing would have been to decrease the quality of the contributions of a good editor, possibly permanently. I would love to see some study on the changes in editing patterns of people who are predominantly editors just before and after standing in an RfA. Tintin (talk) 05:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- I have to agree. Some of my first edits were complete articles. I remember working all evening on a page and only hit the "Save Page" button once. The first time I saw RfA and people were saying that candidates needed over a thousand edits, I was in awe. How could anyone possibly do that much work?! Recently, using AWB I racked up several hundred edits in a day doing some recategorization. So what are we looking for people who can make a minor change to an entire category or people who write articles? If we are going to accumulate statistics, we should look for things like how many paragraphs a person added (defined as text of some minimum length with two or more periods). -- Samuel Wantman 06:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- For me (see my question on Tawker's rfa) I like to see a consistent level of contributions. I'd be happier supporting someone with 300 edits a month for four months (for example) then one who has fluctuated so much like Tawker's, which is why I went neutral. Its not the overall level, its an indication that the contributor's current level work - the one we are judging them by - is one that they will be continuing at. Robdurbar 08:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- I can assure you that what I wrote in my abortive RfA was true. I have been putting a lot of work into building up a weak area of Wiki, namely contemporary UK art and am amazed at how little is being contributed to these articles, and how some important subjects have no entry at all. My RfA was primarily so that I could be more effective contributing to this area of Wiki with some of the facilities available to admins, such as rollback, moving articles where there is a redirect, blocking consistent vandals etc. I am constantly patrolling and rv vandals through my watchlist, and think this is a major problem on Wiki. I have to contact admins for assistance over some matters, and it seemed to me that it would ease the workload if I could do it myself,as well as saving my time.
- I felt I had demonstrated a good standard of contribution, with material properly researched and referenced etc, and had also shown myself able to intervene helpfully in disputes, both activities acknowledged by others with whom I had interacted — see latest on my talk page. There is, as far as I can see, nothing in my history to indicate that I would use any admin rights in a harmful way. Surely that is the only problem that needs to be considered. The statistical yardstick for judging RfA can, as has been pointed out, be counterproductive to Wiki's prime purpose.
- Tyrenius 22:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- Editcountitis surely can go wrong. However, Tyrenius, Interiot's tool gives you 85 user talk edits. I would think that this number is too low to have a reasonable certainty that you as a user interacted enough with the community, and as such, can be trusted to not abuse the tools. Edit counts are a bad yardstick by which to judge people, but it may be a sign of how much the user has been around, however imperfect. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:45, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- In the ideal world there is little need for user talk, if, for example, article edits are done with accurate, relevant information from NPOV and properly referenced. Articles are the only reason for Wiki's existence; everything else has come about in order to deal with the issues arising from them, but the ancillary activities have now become a purpose in themselves, and it is easy to forget the reason for their existence. The reliance on quantitative over qualitative assessment "penalises" editors who, for example, take care not to make edits which will lead to complex discussions, or who settle disputes quickly and cleanly. I find that people reveal themselves and their attitudes very quickly in Wiki, as in life, and that this is apparent in an editor's work in whatever field they have focused. Article edits are just as effective in judging an editor's disposition as user talk or other edits. The current mode encourages the "tricks" referred to by Tintin, and does not acknowledge properly those who maintain Wiki's primary focus on reliable encyclopaedic material. This is also a perception I have encountered with colleagues, who have been put off as a result from contributing.
- Tyrenius 00:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'll sign my name to any end to editcountitis proposal. Use of the Show preview button should keep edit counts down and would be a good indicator of care in editing but editcountitis rewards making a major edit and then following it up with a series of minor ones that obscure significant changes in watchlists. MLA 09:33, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
If I can just chime in, I don't think that an absolute limit at 2000, or indeed any absolute limit is any good. As I say in my admin criterion subpage, Wikipedians are not Dungeons & Dragons characters who are suddenly imbued with twice the power and understanding when they reach 2000 edits (=experience points). I personally think that a person with an "average" amount of article writing, RC patrolling and a fairly conscientious use of "show preview" will have sufficient experience at 1500, but variations here are enormous. Hermione1980 stands as a shining example of a good sub-1000 edit candidate, while an editor who makes 500 substubs is not as experienced as one who has made 20 good articles with 100 edits. If you find yourself voting based on Interiot's tool, stop using it and go through the contributions list instead and check the diffs out. Are the contributions in policy and deletion discussions well-thought out, demonstrating understanding of Wikipedia's "behind the scenes" working? Are there good edits to the encyclopedia demonstrating understanding of Wikipedia's mission to be an encyclopedia? That type of search says much more than neat graphs. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I would definitely agree with the top quote. 600 edits per month?? I think this is going out of hand. Maybe a few years from now, the opposing side will say I oppose because this user edits less than 500 times a week. Funnybunny 14:50, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Tawker's promotion[edit]
Process Failure.
Tawker was promoted at around 78%, with the last... 9 hours of his nom affected by the server outage. I'm wondering why Linuxbeak chose not to follow Essjay in adding on a couple of days to Jedi6's RFA (also around the same mark), and chose to promote instead, taking into account the oppose votes. I'm glad the guy got admin, which is what he wanted, but I have to question the circumstances. NSLE (T+C)(seen this?) at 04:36 UTC (2006-04-10)
- While extending it would have been nice, there likely would not have been enough oppose votes made in the short time to tip the scales. Additionally, there is no policy, or precedent (that I know of) for extending it. That said, I think extending Jedi's nom by a more than day and a half for a nine hour outage is completely innapropriate and potentially unfair, and should be reduced. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 04:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- Did you mean Tawker? Either way, that would be unfair. Maybe extend it for nine hours, if you must? SushiGeek 05:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- Well, this appears to have been moved (in part) to my talk page, just a link for people to see. -- Tawker 05:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- Did you mean Tawker? Either way, that would be unfair. Maybe extend it for nine hours, if you must? SushiGeek 05:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- No, I said Jedi6's, which has been extended almost two days. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
In most RfAs, the last few days add little to the indication of community consensus. An extention is not all that worthwhile, we have enough information to decide the issue. The closing of both the AzaToth and the Tawker RfAs seem quite fine by me. As long as the bureaucrat is acting in a transparent honest fashion (and they are), I'm fine with it. NoSeptember talk 05:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- I see no issue with Tawker's promotion since it's up to the bureaucrat's discretion as to whether to extend or not in this case I think the right decision was made to not extend Tawker's nom. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:37, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Simple solution to sockpuppetry[edit]
Interesting problem about Admin.
I have a simple solution to virtually eliminating the sockpuppet problem. You can not participate in an RFA if your account was created on the same day as the RFA. Plain and simple! Comment, please. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 14:11, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'd amend this to include people who's first edit is their vote as well.--Urthogie 14:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I would go one step further and say that you cannot participate in an RFA if your account was created within a week of the participation. Yes, I know that there may be someone who was previously not registered and has a legitimate beef with an editor and wants to create an account solely to comment, but I think someone should understand that if they choose not to create an account, this is just one of those things that they will not be able to do. -- DS1953 talk 14:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- (grr, edit conflict) I would generally like to see some mild suffrage requirements: you should not be able to vote, only comment, if your account is newer than a month and has less than 50 edits at the time the RfA starts. (Or some other arbitrary low numbers that make sure any reasonably good contributor can vote). Most other language Wikipedias seem to have such requirements for voting. Kusma (討論) 14:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. Anyone should be allowed to comment regardless of any requirements for voting.--Urthogie 14:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
If there is an agreement that a suffrage to RFA is necessary, an alternative to implementing a new suffrage would be to use one that already exists. We could make it mandatory/automatic to semi-protect all RFA pages. This has the dual effect of blocking all anons from voting as well as fairly new users (though the four days is less than the above proposals), but has the disadvantage that these users can't make comments. For the disadvantage, I guess the users who fail suffrage are still free to comment in the RFA's talk page, and if it's valid (ie, not trolling, vandalism, etc.), someone else can move the comment onto the RFA page. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- There are rarely (if ever) useful comments from anonymous/very new users anyway, semi-protection is a good idea. Martin 14:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if sockpuppetry is such a big issue, and any suffrage rules could be hard to enforce (and semiprotection would be going too far I think). Would be simpler in my view to just keep the current practice, where people start a thread under a suspicious vote saying that the user is new, this is his second edit only, etc, and then allow the closing bureaucrat to think about what to do.
If, in the future, sockpuppetry becomes widespread, then maybe a rule would be necessary. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:00, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm usually the first to suggest other solutions to a semi-protect (at least, with regards to folks wanting to protect Harry Potter-related articles), but in this case, semi-protection is actually a weaker suffrage than what is being proposed (or has been proposed in the past). With the current definition of "very new" being four days, this is an incredibly weak suffrage for RFA, but one that is easy to implement. On the other hand, this does go against the policies currently set out in WP:SEMI, so it might require a policy change, which is quit a problem to do. OTOH, it's true, sockpuppets and new users voting are usually not a problem: there's often at least one user "watching over" an RFA who can immediately point out these problematic voters. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:12, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
The case of Jedi6 is relevant because there were some confirmed socks at work in that RfA. Specifically, User:Rick Browser, User:The Eye, and User:Jean-Luc Picard. Now it should be noted that these accounts were not new, and were only discounted because a checkuser was done. I think if we start having these kind of requirements, more users will simply create lingering sock-puppet accounts that they bring out of the woodwork every so often. In fact, I'm sure this is already the case. So, no this solution would not eliminate the sockpuppet problem. jacoplane 15:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- When sockpuppetry does happen, it puts great stress on the candidate and makes the RfA ugly and appearing to be "controversial" although it isn't. It is also no fun to accuse people of sockpuppetry. Hard rules are much fairer and easier in this case: votes by people not having suffrage could be moved into an extra section and not have the discussion about them fill all of the regular voting section. Kusma (討論) 15:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Most important is for users to be aware that if they have questions about a vote, they should feel comfortable raising them; there are far too many votes on far too many RfAs for the bureaucrats to research every voter in depth. As Deathphoenix points out, there are usually users "watching over" each RfA, and it is essential for them to bring out thier suspicions. In most cases, it doesn't matter, because the RfA passes with flying colors, or falls below the threshhold were removing one or two votes would matter, but in a tight case, it's important for us to know that there are votes that should be considered. If a user is unsure of themselves, they should contact a bureaucrat privately to discuss concerns; I know I'm more than willing to discuss concerns like this with individuals. Essjay Talk • Contact 15:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- This also suggests that regardless of whether people add comments about possible newuser or sock activity, that the bureacrats would be well served to check things more closely when the consensus isn't as clear cut. And I'm expecting they do, whether or not people help out. But helping out presumably makes things easier for them... ++Lar: t/c 16:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I see no need for instruction creep concerning suffrage or sock puppetry. Users should feel free to comment in a civil manner on other users who are voting, and then the bureaucrats should review it. We have a long history of close detailed time-consuming scrutiny of close RfAs by bureaucrats, thats their job. The most recent is Linuxbeak's promotion of Tawker discussed here. One of the nice things about having a bunch of bureaucrats is that there is always one available with the time to do a comprehensive review of a close RfA. No fewer than five bureaucrats have done promotions since Francs and Cecropia retired. NoSeptember talk 17:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think my RfA is more likely an oddity than the norm. :-) Jedi6-(need help?) 17:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with the sentiments above that we don't need another "rule" regarding RfA. I trust our bureaucrats to be able to tell when a user is a sockpuppet with malicious intent; right now, we don't have a major problem. Remember that we should assume good faith to the highest degree possible - simply because someone is new should not mean that that person is automatically excluded from any discussions. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- Honestly, users shouldn't be given suffrage unless they have been around for a MONTH and have AT LEAST 500 edits. — Deckiller 20:45, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- har har har... --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I protest, as that's too low. So here we are: To be able to vote, you must be here for 2 months, have 1000 edits, out of which 100 project edits, 250 user talk edits, have worked on some featured article, and have 95.5% edit summary usage! I mean, we need serisous dedicated people to vote, and not just everybody. And if somebody has three sockpuppets all satisfying these criteria, let them all vote, no? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- These proposals are all far too liberal. Only members and former members of the Arbitration Committee should be allowed to vote. We must restore sanity to Wikipedia! Kelly Martin (talk) 23:39, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- The ArbCom should not usurp power that belongs to Jimbo alone. One-man votes are also make counting easier. Kusma (討論) 23:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- Obviously not strict enough. The user must go on a quest and do at least 3 of the following: 1) rescue a helpless princess, 2) resuce a helpless prince 3) destroy an evil Darlord, 4) destroy an evil magical artifact, 5) kill a dragon 6) prove the Riemman Hypothesis. In fact, now that it comes down it, I dont think Jimbo has doen any of those, so I guess to be fair he shouldn't be allowed to vote. Presumably zero votes means no consensus, so all adminships will fail until Jimbo hurries up and complete's his quests. Anyone know any dragons needing slaying? JoshuaZ 00:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- The ArbCom should not usurp power that belongs to Jimbo alone. One-man votes are also make counting easier. Kusma (討論) 23:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- These proposals are all far too liberal. Only members and former members of the Arbitration Committee should be allowed to vote. We must restore sanity to Wikipedia! Kelly Martin (talk) 23:39, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I protest, as that's too low. So here we are: To be able to vote, you must be here for 2 months, have 1000 edits, out of which 100 project edits, 250 user talk edits, have worked on some featured article, and have 95.5% edit summary usage! I mean, we need serisous dedicated people to vote, and not just everybody. And if somebody has three sockpuppets all satisfying these criteria, let them all vote, no? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
To Deckill, sorry, I misinterpreted your question as something like "We shouldn`t have a suffrage, but we should only allow users to edit here if they have been around for a month..." Apologies, with that interpretation, I thought it was a joke. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, it's okay ^_^. As for the above, how about 2 weeks and 250 edits? :) — Deckiller 03:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- My vote is going to be biased, since I don't even meet those requirements, and I participate in the RfAs. But bias aside, I'm liking the time requirement, but I don't think the edit requirement should be that strict. Some users, especially in their first few weeks at Wikipedia, would rather sit and observe before they jump into things. Also, we don't want to give the impression to less frequent editors that they don't have a say in how Wikipedia works. Even an edit count of 20 would ensure that new users know what Wikipedia is about before voting, and it would also discourage sockpuppets; if they *tried* to make twenty edits, it would be very suspicious.(^'-')^ Covington 01:45, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Questions to Canidates[edit]
I personally think the number of additional questions candidates are being asked is rediculous. In the space of less than 24 hours, lightdarkness received an additional 14 questions. He's managed to answer all 17 of his questions so far, but it's too much. I had my RfA back in November, and I didn't get any additional questions, and neither did anybody else really, at that point. I don't know if bringing out a limit to the number of questions would be the right thing to do, but it can't stay like this in my opinion. What are everyone else's views? — FireFox • T [15:08, 11 April 2006]
- As someone who initially proposed adding additional questions (but only three or four, though with admins being more likely to be desysopped, I don't see this as much of a necessity anymore), I have to agree with you. The number of questions being asked on these new RFAs is simply insane, and since the user asking these questions isn't point out that these questions are optional (like mine did), the candidate often feels obligated to answer all the questions. It's insane how many questions are being asked. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:14, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- Perhaps we could limit the 'hypothetical' questions - you know the ones 'You begin the process of correcting a cut and paste move when a tornado strikes up outside your house. You have no computer in your basement. You are wearing green socks and eating a bagel. Do you run for cover leaving the correction half done, or do you complete it first?' Robdurbar 16:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- The tornado carries you off to the Land of Oz!--more--
The Wicked Witch of the West appears in a flash of green smoke!--more--
She kills you instantly...--more--
Do you want your possessions identified?
- The tornado carries you off to the Land of Oz!--more--
- I see nothing wrong with asking more questions of candidates as long as the questions are sensible. If these nominationsa are "discussions not votes" then asking the candidate stuff is a necessary part of the process. That this is a comparatively new phenomenon is unfortunate; we should have been doing it always. -Splashtalk 17:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I don't want to restrict anyone from asking questions. I also have no problem with someone adding Optional questions: above these added questions even if the question asker does not. NoSeptember talk 17:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I've noticed questions are often only rhetorically optional... someone might say the questions are optional but some users vote oppose if their questions aren't answered. So if question are really to be optional, such oppose votes should be disallowed. Mikker (...) 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- No, we can't disallow votes on that basis. If a voter is being unrealistic in their expectations we can point that out, and we can point out unreasonable questions too. But ultimately the community through its voting decides what is acceptable. We don't need more rules about who's vote is going to count. NoSeptember talk 17:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- Fair enough but just note I was making a conditional point: if questions are to be optional in a substantive sense then oppose votes of the type I mentioned need to be disallowed. If we're happy for questions not to be voluntary or if we believe disallowing such votes does more harm than it's worth, then no change needs to be made... Mikker (...) 17:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- No, we can't disallow votes on that basis. If a voter is being unrealistic in their expectations we can point that out, and we can point out unreasonable questions too. But ultimately the community through its voting decides what is acceptable. We don't need more rules about who's vote is going to count. NoSeptember talk 17:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I've noticed questions are often only rhetorically optional... someone might say the questions are optional but some users vote oppose if their questions aren't answered. So if question are really to be optional, such oppose votes should be disallowed. Mikker (...) 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I don't want to restrict anyone from asking questions. I also have no problem with someone adding Optional questions: above these added questions even if the question asker does not. NoSeptember talk 17:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, holding the record for most questions, I think the additional questions help an "on rhe fence" voter. The willingness to respond to 12 questions also helps signify the editor is serious IMO. On the above note though I'll add a bib bold optional to my list. -- Tawker 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
As someone who is slightly responsible for the question inflation, I'd argue that additional questions are in general going to increase someone's chances to become an admin if they answer them well. For Jedi6, for example, I was mainly thinking of opposing, largely due to the concerns discussed in the first of my questions in that RfA. However, he gave a good detailed response illustrating why my concerns were not an issue. Thus, I voted to support. It seems to me to make much more sense for those considering opposing to ask questions first about how the user would adress their concerns. This makes more sense than what many voters do where they vote oppose for some reason, and then when the candidate attempts to respond to the various oppose concerns people vote oppose because the candidate is being too defensive/argumentative. JoshuaZ 17:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with you to an extent. I asked my optional question for all candidates, and some of the candidates' responses to my questions led me from not voting at all to voting support, so yes, it helps. My concern is putting a candidate through answering fifteen or more questions, and I wonder if all that is really necessary. I have no objections to a few questions (having asked a few myself), but I wonder if pushing the questions up to double digits is necessary unless the candidate has some clear problems in the past that need to be addressed. BTW, take a look at my questions here. I haven't asked them in a long time, as I feel they're unnecessary with a change in arbitration committee, but they're still available for use if anyone wants. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't really see a problem with it. Presumably if the candidate finds the questions too burdensome he will leave the questions blank, and will pass or fail the RfA with that taken into account. If the contributors by and large agree that the questions were unreasonable, then not answering them shouldn't substantially affect whether or not he is promoted. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I too had my RfA in the days of 3 questions being the norm... I dunno if I'd feel like the hassle of RfA "nowadays", though the barrage of questions are only part of it. We should be cautious of making RfA so annoying that many would-be good admins don't bother. --W.marsh 22:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Whatever happened to simply asking any questions on the candidate's talk page? Most of these questions won't have any influence on people's vot comments. --LV (Dark Mark) 23:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
RfA is "supposed" to be a discussion, so I say, more questions!ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! 00:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
See also WP:DFA... I still think it's an idea that has some merits, even if it hasn't been accepted or used much (discussion is goodness)... I have no problem with thoughtful questions, I think seeing how candidates think is useful. But one downside of questions is that you have time to think about them. In real life, out in the wild, there are certain sorts of situations (a fast moving vandal, for instance) we want admins that do the right thing most of the time without taking a lot of time to think about it... and others where taking time to think is the right thing to do. I expect knowing which is which is not easy.
THAT said, 38 questions may have been a bit much. I think Tawker (with his 12 questions cribbed from various sources) may be getting revenge in the traditional fraternity hazing way... what was given to you by your predecessors, pass on to your successors, it all flows downhill. OK not really, but it sounded funny. They're actually good questions! Let it oscillate for a while, the right level will depend on the candidate. We don't need new rules or guidelines I don't think. ++Lar: t/c 04:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I see no merit to asking additional questions; the questions in the template already do a good job of gaguing the suitability of the candidate (plus we should also focus on the candidate's edit history). If everyone felt "I want my question to be answered, or I won't support", then the RFA process will become very confused and frustrating for the candidate. Oran e (t) (c) (e) 04:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I think it's getting absolutely ridiculous too. I scroll through pages and pages of questions... not only that but some of the questions users set are ridiculous. "What policy covers 'to blacken the memory to one who is dead'" or something like that. Don't tell me if that user had answered that wrong that the person would have opposed. I'm getting very angry with this. It's "Requests for Adminship" not "Lets question every single action and do a complete evaluation of this person using 9.99 x 10999999 questions. --Darth Revert (AKA Deskana) (talk) 09:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- That appears to be a fairly new development brought in by Masssiveego. Generally though, questioning is a good thing to help gauge suitability as in open questioning for interviewing purposes rather than closed questions for testing purposes. MLA 10:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I would characterise (my opinion here, which I am entitled to hold, based on my assessment of the content and results of asking them) those questions as "trick" questions, designed to trip up the candidate so that Massiveego can justify (in whatever scheme he uses) voting oppose. One was poorly formed, and when the candidate tried to answer it anyway, the candidate was dinged for not reading Massiveego's mind as to what was sought. I am certain as I can be without mindreading that the 'crats discount much of what Massiveego does. My concern is that not everyone else does. Those questions should be disregarded when evaluating whether questions are good or not, just as they should be disregarded when evaluating candidates. (again, in my view, which I am entitled to have) ++Lar: t/c 11:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Masssive also opposed a candidate for not answering his questions in 24 hours after their being asked. JoshuaZ 12:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I want to know why I was the only person ever asked: "What do you have against the month of September?" This is clearly a question that everyone should be required to answer ;-). NoSeptember talk 10:12, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I have no problems with on topic questions but it has been getting a little silly. Lightdarkness's RFA has gone 100% wonky with LOTS of off topic questions, as a "joke". RfA is not for jokes, if you want to joke around take it to a talk page, RfA's are serious. As for "baiting" candidates with reasons to oppose, I don't agree with it. If a user doesn't get the question they should be able to ask for clarification (which I did several times with my questions) and nobody should oppose simply based on the fact that they didn't get their (possibly hard to understand) question -- Tawker 02:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to chip in and say personally, I would not have minded getting asked extra questions (I wasn't during my RfA), because it would have given me more space to discuss my viewpoints on stuff. It wouldn't have bothered me at all. I know I watched my RfA like a hawk that week, as I'm sure most candidates do, so it's not like I wouldn't have noticed any additional questions or really minded taking the time to answer them. That being said, I think we should be careful in asking too many questions, but I'd like to know if anyone around does feel like they werer asked too many questions themselves. Tawker maybe? Ëvilphoenix Burn! 14:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't find I had too many questions, I was bad and encouraged on topic questions (I'll admit, I was starting to think my RfA was going to fail and I wanted it to hit the record books for something) - though I think a lot of the questions helped candidates see what was going on and were not totally stock so nobody could think that I looked at past RfA's and the phrases that worked. Overall, I am for questions, just nothing really really silly and off topic. RfA is not a joke, lets keep it at least semi serious.... please! (though one of the questions was a test of my sense of humour, no idea what to say there :) -- Tawker 06:15, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- I personally lean towards not limiting the number of questions that can be asked. I think they are an important mechanism to get a true feel for the candidate's personality and approach, in combination with a review of their contributions. They also give the candidate a chance to respond to issues raised without having to respond to many individual votes (which itself can be frowned upon). It seems quite common that a question is raised in the format "Several users have raised concerns about X. How would you address these concerns?". Although they do lead to extra work for the nominee, it is not a huge amount and I feel that anyone entering into an RfA should be prepared to put in that extra effort to assist the community in making the decision.
- Answering the questions should be optional, but I think that not answering questions or deleting them can send the wrong message to some voters and make them wonder:
- Does the candidate not understand the policy mentioned?
- Is the candidate unable to address the concern?
- Can the candidate not be bothered to answer the question?
- Is the candidate hiding something?
- I'm not saying that it is correct to infer such meaning, just that I think it is likely that some will. Because of this I wonder if some further guidance should be included in WP:GRFA, to the effect of: "Answering additional questions is optional, but a failure to do so may be interpreted negatively by some contributors." TigerShark 08:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Hm. On the one hand, the "old" questions are becoming less and less useful, because every candidate who's not entirely sure in answering them and who has half a clue will look what people recently promoted answered. On the other hand, all these "optional" questions mainly benefit candidates who are good at answering questions the way the community wants to see them answered - a good quality in an admin, but not the only one for sure. I'm undecided - questions are good, but they should somehow be related to the candidate ("You did $something. Would you do it again?"), and not general boilerplate like "Who are you, and what is your stance on userboxes$some_recent_issue". -- grm_wnr Esc 22:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Suffrage requirements on other language editions[edit]
I would like to collect some data, just for comparison. On de: to be allowed to vote on RfA you need 200 article space edits and two months, on fr: it is 3 months and 300 "significant" (non-botlike etc.) edits. nl: has one month and 100. Other languages, anyone? Kusma (討論) 21:01, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think it's a fair comparison here. Each language operates independently of each other, and the voting rules and promotion guidelines vary from language to language. For example, on nl, it is strict voting - anyone above a certain percentage (80 percent, I think) is automatically promoted. That's why they have strict voting suffrage requirements. Also, because of that, in nl bureaucrats aren't given the responsibility of deciding consensus - it's a strict number count. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:45, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- On ru: you need five edits prior to the nomination. Conscious 04:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- In the Italian Wikipedia: logged in user, registered at least 30 days before start of nomination, and having done at least 50 edits - Liberatore(T) 13:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I like what they do in ru: - let us adopt that, my friends. BD2412 T 18:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, five edits is a nice small number, and the requirement of having them before a nomination could help avoid sockpuppet votes. — TheKMantalk 18:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- The downside is that you can create ten accounts now, make five edits with each and use them for all the following nominations. Conscious 19:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- If someone wants to go to the trouble of setting up a sock puppet to lie in wait, anything we come up with isn't going to be a huge hurdle. I think, as TheKMan pointed out above, the requirement of having the edits before a nomination could help avoid sockpuppet votes, which seem to be triggered, on occasion, by a particular nomination. -- DS1953 talk 19:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm agreeing with TheKMan and DS1953. Also, having a minimum number of votes - even just five - would also make sure that well-intentioned new users know how Wikipedia works before casting a vote. (^'-')^ Covington 01:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, five edits is a nice small number, and the requirement of having them before a nomination could help avoid sockpuppet votes. — TheKMantalk 18:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I like what they do in ru: - let us adopt that, my friends. BD2412 T 18:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Ten edits and seven days registration prior to opening of nomination. John Reid 23:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think 11 edits and 6.5 days is better. -Splashtalk 23:50, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Hmmm, then how about 1 year and 50,000 edits. ;-) BD2412 T 23:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Guess who just passed 50k edits last month ;-) Seriously, is setting a specific number really so bad? Kusma (討論) 23:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Didn't we say that 50,000 edits is mandatory retirement level? Wikipedia can't take any more of those carpel tunnel lawsuits ;-). NoSeptember talk 00:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Guess who just passed 50k edits last month ;-) Seriously, is setting a specific number really so bad? Kusma (討論) 23:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Hmmm, then how about 1 year and 50,000 edits. ;-) BD2412 T 23:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think 11 edits and 6.5 days is better. -Splashtalk 23:50, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Backlog[edit]
Yeah, just two noms, but with thirteen 'crats claiming to be active, a 24 hour delay for no apparent reason (and if there is one, with the devs tweaking everything in sight, please set me straight) is, in my completely useless opinion, inexcusable. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 16:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- They're not pinin', they've passed on! These bureaucrats are no more! They have ceased to be! They've expired and gone to meet their maker! This is a late bureaucracy. They're a stiff. Bereft of life, they rest in peace, if you hadn't nailed 'em to the perch they'd be pushing up the daisies! They've rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! These are ex-bureaucrats! --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Cecropia's resignation threw everyone off kilter. But it doesn't have to be just you keeping up with the backlog. With such a limited scope of responsibilities, and so few promotions to preform, every bureaucrat should be on top of this. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Personally, I think this delay shows why we need more bureaucrats. A number of editors have been saying that we don't need more and have blocked attempts to promote more admins into bureaucrats. But as this delay shows, we need more of them b/c not every bureaucrats will be able to do work every week. We have a redundant number of admins to achieve coverage of tasks on Wikipedia and we should have an equally redundant number of bureaucrats to cover needed tasks.--Alabamaboy 17:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Ah, the old Soviet model of getting a job done. ;-) If the current workers aren't doing the job (aren't, not can't), double the number of workers on the job. And if that doubled number don't do the job ... -- Cecropia 18:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- There are way more than enough to get the job done, they just neglect/ignore their responsibilities. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 18:42, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Frankly, I don't understand why people are so impatient to get their adminships. A delay of 24 hours is perfectly reasonable, and really anything under 72 hours is perfectly ok with me. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Well, there was a big hoo-haa about CSCWEM's RfA because it would have run for 17 days. I know 10 (which is what you're suggesting would be reasonable) isn't quite 17 but still, do we not need to be consistent? --Celestianpower háblame 18:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- To Kelly Martin: My own adminship (not bureaucratship) was controversial because a couple of editors (who, I am happy to say, later became friends) raised a fuss over my editing that they disagreed with on a contentious article. This led to (for the time) a huge voting body for and against me. When the 7 days passed, I was in what we now call "the [high] gray zone." Over the following days no one of the bureaucrats took any action, even when continued voting put me over 80%. Finally, Ed Poor promoted me and the rest is "history." (Fast Forward) When Angela called for more bureaucrats I applied and eaily won. But my point is that in my nomination and comments, I gave my concept of what a bureaucrat would do, and promised not to leave people hanging in space, as happened to me. I tried dilligently, while I was bcrat, to fulfill this. So I don't take this lightly, and yes, I still feel that it is very important, when someone is waiting to see whether or not they will get a desired Wikirole, not to let them cool their heels. My principles come from business training, but from the business training that cares about its "customers," not an old fashioned mortgage company, or a government bureaucracy, which says: "Someone wants something that is depndent on my action. They can wait until I get around to it.". -- Cecropia 19:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Oddly, my PoV is somewhat the opposite. It took me about two days to be promoted, by Raul, during a period when you did practically all promotions. After about two days, I did catch Raul on IRC and ask him if he could close it, but otherwise I let it go figuring that someone would do it soon enough. Frankly I'm a bit bothered by the rampant immediatism that seems to be overtaking the Wiki. I suppose it's to be expected as we get more people who grew up saturated in the glorification of self that was the late 1990s.... Kelly Martin (talk) 05:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- The 2nd CSCWEM RfA wasn't so much about the 17 day length, but that only supporters knew about it for the first 10 days. In other words, it doesn't mean much in terms of a backlog. --W.marsh 19:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Minor issue - everyone who happened to stumble across it for the ten days before CSCWEM accepted happened to vote support; saying that "only supporters knew about it" makes it sound like a conspiracy, but any editor could have found the page, as there were numerous appeals on CSCWEM's talk page asking him to accept. BD2412 T 22:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- The 2nd CSCWEM RfA wasn't so much about the 17 day length, but that only supporters knew about it for the first 10 days. In other words, it doesn't mean much in terms of a backlog. --W.marsh 19:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I guess the issue is that there is a select group of editors who have been entrusted with a very specific set of responsibilities, which they either ignore, or neglect. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 18:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- We're all volunteers here. We shouldn't think in terms of ignoring or neglecting responsibilities. Friday (talk) 18:43, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Jeffrey, that's three times in this thread you've given the appearance of saying (paraphrased for effect "The 'crats are a bunch of slackers"...) If that's what you mean I am not sure I agree. We all have real lives, readers, editors, admins, 'crats, developers, all of us (Except BRION, the foundation owns his soul... well at least 40 hours a week it does...). Expecting promotions 5 minutes after the close is about as realistic as expecting answers to questions posed on RfAs within 24 hours. The sky will not fall in either case. Jeffrey, I do not understand why you repeat this theme, it just seems divisive to me. Perhaps you could clarify what you really meant? ++Lar: t/c 18:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, indeed, our 'crats are some of our best editors and admins. I do not doubt for a second that they may be too busy with Other Stuff to do a promotion right away, or to do every other promotion. But there is a serious argument to be made in regards to bureaucratic activity. There are two (soon to be three) very narrow, very well defined, not very time consuming, specific tasks that bureaucrats undertake. Those who applied for that job understood this, and wanted to do this. Yet, for some reason there are more than a few bureaucrats who simply don't do the very narrowly defined task the community has entrusted them with. One volunteers for a position with an occasional well-defined task, a position that is rather hard to get, and can only be achieved with extraordinary support and trust from the community - yet they don't do their job? Bureaucratship then becomes a glorified popularity contest or method for seeking aproval. It's simple: one asks for a job, the community gives it to you, then you don't do it: what picture is one supposed to paint? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 19:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
...and the mouse quietly works away. :) --Durin 19:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I take minor offense to the notion that RfB is a glorified popularity contest. RfB happens to be the most stressful week of your life on Wikipedia if you actually have a shot at passing. David practically had to keep me from having a nervous breakdown during that week. The 90% approval rating is tough. That means that 1 oppose vote effectively cancels out 10 support votes. If you can convince 90% of a large group that you can and should be entrusted with a tool (I managed to convince 120 people), then damnit, you've earned it. Just because we are not always on top of the job at the exact moment that something is done doesn't mean that we're negligent or unqualified. We have real lives too. Now, I've stated that I will do my utmost to pick up whatever slack the parting of Cecropia and Francs2000 caused, and I stand by that. But for God's sake if you've got something to complain about, just say it. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 19:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I wouldn't take it too personally, Linuxbeak. This is an "if the shoe fits, wear it" issue. If it doesn't apply to you, ignore it. But I have to take exception to your pointing out how difficult it is to become a bcrat and then saying that if you succeed in the process "you've earned it'" Earned what? The right to say you are a bureaucrat but will do the work whenever it's convenient? The right to throw your weight around in adminship discussions but rarely promote? The right to accept a responsibility and wander off, then get angry if a user like Jeffrey asks where you all are? Or in the case of Danny (the only name I will name) the right to be inactive for more than a year, then waltz in to make a controversial promotion? -- Cecropia 20:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I take minor offense to the notion that RfB is a glorified popularity contest. RfB happens to be the most stressful week of your life on Wikipedia if you actually have a shot at passing. David practically had to keep me from having a nervous breakdown during that week. The 90% approval rating is tough. That means that 1 oppose vote effectively cancels out 10 support votes. If you can convince 90% of a large group that you can and should be entrusted with a tool (I managed to convince 120 people), then damnit, you've earned it. Just because we are not always on top of the job at the exact moment that something is done doesn't mean that we're negligent or unqualified. We have real lives too. Now, I've stated that I will do my utmost to pick up whatever slack the parting of Cecropia and Francs2000 caused, and I stand by that. But for God's sake if you've got something to complain about, just say it. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 19:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I could write a silly script to post a note somewhere when time is up for certain admin nomination and a bureaucrat needs to close it. Would that help? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
My apologies I couldn't get on last night, but my ISP went down and I had to wait for it to come back up today. I believe I've tended to most requests within a few hours of closing since I was promoted, with the exception of those I felt I should recuse from. In fact, I signed on the other night specifically to be sure that Can't Sleep and another nomination that closed around the same time were promoted, because I wasn't sure the other bureaucrats would be around. I think overall we're doing a good job here, and that we certainly can handle the situation; we may just need to poke a few of the older hands and let them know that they're needed again, as they have probably gotten used to someone else handling everything. Essjay Talk • Contact 06:14, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- I apologize in advance if anyone should take offense at my comment here -- but -- what is the problem??
- How can we worry about a backlog of admin nominees? A large backlog of TfD deletions can be a problem; the longer it sits, the greater chance that a clueless editor will slap a deprecated template on a few dozen articles and escalate the backlog. A backlog of copyvios is a potential problem; the more copyvios floating in store, the greater chance that some lawyer steals Jimbo's shorts and he reaches for the Big Circuit Breaker.
- Granted that some backlogs must be worked off by admins; so promoting admins indirectly works off more important backlogs, too. But the key word is "indirectly". If some zealot ran for adminship swearing to work all the admin-only backlogs down to one hour even so I think it would do no harm if he had to wait a few days.
- For the record: Should it happen (a) that I find myself in the running and (b) get the nod and (c) no b'crat gets around to handing me a mop I promise I will hold my peace for at least a week. What's the hurry? The backlogs will still be here. John Reid 23:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Removal of questions[edit]
RGTraynor removed the standard questions from his/her RfA - here. I have assumed for now that this was unintentional and have added them back. I just wondered if there is any precedent for the intentional removal of such questions by the candidate. Cheers TigerShark 09:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- There are a few editors who have opted to not answer them; they are not obligatory, although they are certainly traditional. Given the excessive number of questions that have started appearing on RfAs lately, I'm almost moved to say "Bravo!" Essjay Talk • Contact 09:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- Fair comment, but I wonder if deleting, rather than just not answering them, would be the right thing to do (unless they were obviously nonsense or bad faith). That might possibly give the wrong impression. Certainly, I think that once the candidate answers the questions (and especially if "voters" have commented on those answers) - they should not be removed as they then form an integral part of the RfA. This is what happened in this case, but as far as I know it was a mistake. Cheers TigerShark 09:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- Who "owns" the candidate's RfA page? (answer, it's a wiki, no one does, not even the candidate) I guess I'm slightly supportive of 'crats using their good judgement and removing out and out silly questions/answers (but on the other hand, not very supportive, because I think they humanise things, within reason, and what's the harm?), but not at all supportive of the candidates themselves removing questions. Once a question is asked, the candidate ought to answer it, or choose not to, and leave it unanswered, but not remove it. If this practice of deliberately removing questions that weren't maliciously placed spreads, it might become a factor in some people's
votingstatement of opinion, well mine at least. RfA is supposed to be a discussion. Within reason, more questions mean more discussion and more understanding. (this is setting me up to get 94 questions, I am sure of it!) ++Lar: t/c 11:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)- He's talking about the standard three questions themselves getting removed, not added questions by other users. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 14:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- Maybe he is, in this specific case. But Essjay DID remove some (increasingly silly?) ones from a different RfA. Since he drew the "silly line" just AFTER my questions, maybe I feel lucky... but I would not have removed as many as he did. That said, he's a bureacrat and I'm not, meaning his judgement is more seasoned on this (by loads) than mine is... ++Lar: t/c 14:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- Um, no, I didn't. Look at the history. A regular old admin removed questions, I had nothing to do with it. Essjay Talk • Contact 02:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- You've said "no I didn't" twice (here, and farther down) so I'll apologise twice (I already did farther down but it merits saying again/before/whatever), I was wrong, I wasn't paying close attention, I should have checked the history instead of relying on faulty memory, and I'm sorry. No slight or impugn was intended! I do agree you should find a different Mindspillage pic though, and fully intend to take you to task on that every chance i get. ++Lar: t/c 23:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Um, no, I didn't. Look at the history. A regular old admin removed questions, I had nothing to do with it. Essjay Talk • Contact 02:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Maybe he is, in this specific case. But Essjay DID remove some (increasingly silly?) ones from a different RfA. Since he drew the "silly line" just AFTER my questions, maybe I feel lucky... but I would not have removed as many as he did. That said, he's a bureacrat and I'm not, meaning his judgement is more seasoned on this (by loads) than mine is... ++Lar: t/c 14:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- He's talking about the standard three questions themselves getting removed, not added questions by other users. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 14:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- Who "owns" the candidate's RfA page? (answer, it's a wiki, no one does, not even the candidate) I guess I'm slightly supportive of 'crats using their good judgement and removing out and out silly questions/answers (but on the other hand, not very supportive, because I think they humanise things, within reason, and what's the harm?), but not at all supportive of the candidates themselves removing questions. Once a question is asked, the candidate ought to answer it, or choose not to, and leave it unanswered, but not remove it. If this practice of deliberately removing questions that weren't maliciously placed spreads, it might become a factor in some people's
- Fair comment, but I wonder if deleting, rather than just not answering them, would be the right thing to do (unless they were obviously nonsense or bad faith). That might possibly give the wrong impression. Certainly, I think that once the candidate answers the questions (and especially if "voters" have commented on those answers) - they should not be removed as they then form an integral part of the RfA. This is what happened in this case, but as far as I know it was a mistake. Cheers TigerShark 09:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- I do rather object to bureaucrats opting to remove questions on the basis of being bureaucrats. We hand the 'crats power over the outcomes of this process, not over how the community conducts its deliberations. It is not up to the 'crats what questions a candidate should and should not be asked; it is up to them whether to answer them or not, and people can remove them if they really must in their capacity as an editor. Bureaucrats have had this slightly overbearing view of their RfA-superpowers before, when they attempted to directly suspend the process: but they control only the end, not all the means unto it. -Splashtalk 01:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Um, to be clear I was deferring to Essjay's judgement (rather grudgingly, because i thought they were worthy questions) not precisely because he was a 'crat, but rather that knowing he was one, I knew he had been around a lot longer than I and had more seasoning, and further, because I trust his judgement (more or less, except when it comes to photoshopping Mindspillage pictures, but I digress)... I or anyone else could still revert those removals, he doesn't own the page any more than any of the rest of us do. Heck I might go revert them now, I dunno. ++Lar: t/c 02:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Just like to point out, you're wrong: I didn't remove questions from any RfA. I removed an innapropriate commment from an RfA; questions were removed from the same RfA, but not by me, check the history. Shanel moved the questions to the talk page, not I. Essjay Talk • Contact 02:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Right, apologies. I was shooting a little blind on the back of Lar's comment. Essjay says that he didn't remove them, so there's no problen. -Splashtalk 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- And another set of apologies here. You did not remove the jokey stuff, you removed stuff that was wildly inappropriate after BorgHunter removed the jokey questions (and Shanel moved them to talk). My bad. It was all pretty fast. But details schmetails. My point stands, I tend to trust your judgement (even about stuff you didn't do!) and in general am willing to shortcut a bit on who to trust, people on arbcomm, 'crats... how did they get there? By having more experience and more good sense because of that more experience (and if in general people don't feel that way it sort of says they think the process is broken)... is any of this making any sense? ++Lar: t/c 02:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- On the important issue (the photoshopping), my only complaint is the constant use of the same image. I would like to point out to Essjay that many nice pics can be found from the various Wiki Meetup galleries :-). NoSeptember talk 23:18, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Just like to point out, you're wrong: I didn't remove questions from any RfA. I removed an innapropriate commment from an RfA; questions were removed from the same RfA, but not by me, check the history. Shanel moved the questions to the talk page, not I. Essjay Talk • Contact 02:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
My opinions (each worth exactly the standard 2¢ and no more): • Nominees should not remove anything from their nomination pages whatever. If I see it I will vote oppose, no slack. • Nominees should do their best to answer all questions posed. A good part of adminship is fielding stray balls. • Bureaucrats should not tamper with nomination pages in any way; they get their chance to play god soon enough. • Editors should not throw excessive or funny-only questions on nomination pages; it's stupid. • Editors should rm such questions on sight. Like any other edit (in my playbook) you express yourself directly by adding or rming once and once only. If you add and it's rm: Well, if it had merit then someone else will restore it. If you rm and it's restored: Well, if it didn't have merit then someone else will rm it again. John Reid 23:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Administrative thank-yous - again[edit]
Question of ethics. Cabal
This issue has been archived - IMO to early.
Voting for someones' RfA is not a personal favour, thus thanking, whether by template or else, is awkward. But I've the impression that a lot of votes are reciprocal, i.e. returns for votes given. I often feel that RfAs are prepared by spending a lot of time on the RfA page, voting at random, merely hoping to reap the harvest. "If you want a hand with anything, please gimme a shout". That's how many "thank-you" templates are worded, and it smacks of corruption of the voting process. I feel it leads to bad decisions. Though at the moment only a funny nuisance, thanking for votes should be strongly discouraged. Maybe reciprocal votes should be devalued. --tickle me 03:33, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- It would be hard to implement something like that. Participation in RfA has long been something that potential Admin nominees have engaged in, even well before this whole thanking trend started going on. I think it just comes with the system. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 03:58, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think maybe candidates better warn in advance that they will thank people!!! (except those they know don't want it...) OK, not necessarily. I think thanking is just the polite and thoughtful thing to do. While technically not necessary it's just nice, and it adds some color. I particularly appreciate clever or pretty thank yous, and especially thank yous that go to all commentors, even those that were neutral or oppose, because to me that's showing the candidate wanted the feedback, good and bad. I have never expected any quid-pro-quo for supporting a candidate, although I can't speak for anyone else. I participate in RfA because it's important to the project, not because I want to be an Admin someday in the future (I've moved from probably don't to probably do but that's not relevant). Note: Admitted bias: I collect all the ones I've gotten here. ++Lar: t/c 14:20, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm of two minds. On the one hand I appreciate all forms of politeness; good manners never go out of style. On the other hand I feel it's inappropriate to take individual notice of a vote. Again, my opinion of an editor improves when I see him thank me for my oppose comment. Yet again, I don't vote as a gift to the nominee; I vote in the interest of the project -- as I see it. I wish thank-yous would come unembellished by cute graphics and clever formatting. I'd prefer to keep the deck clear for action. Another side to the issue of these bread-and-butter notes is: How am I to reply? I reply on my own talk to comments made there; I think it's safe and sane. But I doubt if these instant celebs are checking back on my talk. Should I crank out a cute, clever congrats template to slap on all successful nominees' talk?
- Given all the potential headaches of adminship, perhaps the unsuccessful nominees are the ones who should be congratulated -- but that might be taken the wrong way. I'm only certain of one thing: I don't want to see any comment on my talk from a nominee before closing time. John Reid 23:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Replication Lags on Interiot's edit counting tool[edit]
Limited Wikipedia resources.
I use Interiot's tool for counting a Requesting User's edits (I don't have editcountitis, just so you know) but now that the Replication Lag is up to 2 days (and keeps on rising), how will we be able to see the progress of the User's edits if Wikipedia data is no longer updated? Funnybunny 14:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- There's nothing unusual about the current replication lag - it's been known to lag for a few days at times. The time will eventually decrease. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, it's a little more serious than a general lag at this point - see User_talk:Interiot for details. -- MarcoTolo 15:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the details - I didn't realize that the toolsever wasn't receiving updates. Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- You could try Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters/Flcelloguy's Tool or Interiot's Tool2. -Splashtalk 14:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- This is one of the primary reasons that I started the tool. Although I haven't been working on it recently due to a lack of time and technical prowess, thanks to the great skills and efforts of the members of the WikiProject, the tool is now better than ever and serves as an adequate backup when the toolserver is down. Because it is independent of the toolserver, it is not affected by any technical issues - all it requires is that Wikipedia is up and running. :-) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Will they be able to fix this? Funnybunny 15:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
To be totally cynical, what effect is the lack of an edit counter actually having on RfA's? Can some frequent voters share how their voting pattern may have changed? :) Stevage 15:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Can some people just stop saying that sort of thing because it's been said many times before? :) -Splashtalk 15:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Dunno if I am a "frequent voter" or not but if it's permanently gone I probably will vote less. When I can't make up my mind, either I do research, or I don't vote. One class of research I do is to look in various namespaces to judge the candidate's contributions. Not looking for absolute percentages but am looking for signs the candidate does/does not understand policy, does/does not help shape policy, does/does not engage in constructive discussion with users, does/does not help resolve contention in articlespace, and so forth. Just looking at their contributions the raw/onwiki way is a way but the contribution tree helps a lot as it is more efficient. Note that since the recent change to contribution to allow filtering by namespace, using the onwiki way is certainly easier than it was previously (and bravo to whatever developer *cough* Robchurch *cough* did it). If I can't satisfy myself in a certain time spent, I won't vote. More efficient tools mean a greater fraction of "satisfy in a certain time spent". Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 15:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Heh, ok. Actually for what it's worth, I miss the edit counter, I like seeing *my* edits. Stevage 15:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think the down toolserver will affect RfA for at least a couple of weeks -- not for me anyway. I don't really care what a nominee has done yesterday or last week (unless it's truly exceptional, therefore not a countable thing). I want to see overall editing for the last several months and this is still available. When the lag grows to an appreciable fraction of the minimum length of membership I'll consider (currently 3 mo), then I'll worry about the toolserver. John Reid 22:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- General agreement, but I would be highly annoyed to be missing oh say the last month of a user's edits then I'll be pretty concerned. JoshuaZ 00:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
This tool is not essential, although it is ok to have around. I just hate seeing all that blue/purple/orange when I look myself up ;). NoSeptember talk 23:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Bureaucrats[edit]
After the Admin
After looking at this page yesterday, I realized that there's kind of a shortage of b-crats. Here's my question--why? There's no shortage of great administators out there; why don't some of them run? Just throwing that out... Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 00:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- The question whether there is a shortage of bureaucrats depends on how much work you expect every single one of them to do. The workload could easily be handled by four or five, given that on the German wikipedia, all admin promotions are done by one bureaucrat. So it is unclear whether more bureaucrats are needed; perhaps more bureaucrat activity is needed, but whether that will be provided by electing additional bureaucrats is also not clear. Kusma (討論) 00:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Bingo. More bureaucrat activity would be best. I myself am not always around (I'm a college student... busy busy) but I try to make time for Wikipedia as often as I can. The reason why we don't like having too many bureaucrats is a matter of security. You don't want to promote someone to bureaucrat that might end up going rogue. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 01:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Linuxbeak, that explanation is the first rational reason I have heard for why there aren't too many bureaucrats. Before I thought it was silly not to have a a bunch more but after hearing this little fact I've changed my mind. (And before anyone says anything, I'm sure Linuxbeak's point was made before on these discussion pages but this is the first time I've heard it.) Thanks, --Alabamaboy 01:55, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- With Essjay promoted, I doubt we will have problems anyway.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 02:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- As far as I know, Essjay has not taken a pledge to never go on vacation or to avoid getting busy with other things. Reliance on any one individual is not a good idea. We shouldn't promote unqualified candidates, but there is no good reason to reject a good trustworthy candidate. NoSeptember talk 13:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Obviously I am not saying that we only need Essjay, but that with the addition of a new crat (him), we should be OK. I'd still support a good nom though.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 18:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- I realy hate the say we do RfBs. We let someone nominate themselves, and then we simmultaneously have the 'do we need more crats?' and the 'if we do, do we want him' debates. (It is like going for an arduous job interview, when you arn't even told in advance if the job exists.) It would be better to agree how many more (if any) we need at present (or let the existng crats tell us). Then let anyone apply, and vote by approval/diapproval voting - the highest get appointed - any others with high approval form a reserve lists when the existing crats decide they need reinforcement. When/if the list is used up, we open for new nominations again.--Doc ask? 14:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- An ArbCom style election would be fine, as would a Steward style election, but when discussed here it got mixed reviews. NoSeptember talk 14:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- As far as I know, Essjay has not taken a pledge to never go on vacation or to avoid getting busy with other things. Reliance on any one individual is not a good idea. We shouldn't promote unqualified candidates, but there is no good reason to reject a good trustworthy candidate. NoSeptember talk 13:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- With Essjay promoted, I doubt we will have problems anyway.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 02:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Linuxbeak, that explanation is the first rational reason I have heard for why there aren't too many bureaucrats. Before I thought it was silly not to have a a bunch more but after hearing this little fact I've changed my mind. (And before anyone says anything, I'm sure Linuxbeak's point was made before on these discussion pages but this is the first time I've heard it.) Thanks, --Alabamaboy 01:55, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Bingo. More bureaucrat activity would be best. I myself am not always around (I'm a college student... busy busy) but I try to make time for Wikipedia as often as I can. The reason why we don't like having too many bureaucrats is a matter of security. You don't want to promote someone to bureaucrat that might end up going rogue. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 01:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- I agree. I don't subscribe to the "we have enough 'crats" idea, but it does motivate me to have high standards for 'crats. If the only concern is that a 'crat might go on a rampage, then select those who won't go on a rampage. It's as simple as that. I normally wouldn't feel so strongly about this, since on a wiki we ought to be eventualist (how much does it matter if we get a few delayed promotions now and then? How many of these delayed RfAs would be controversial?), but as Doc has pointed out, this creates a nasty problem with RfBs. We shouldn't be turning qualified people down and yet at the same time leaving applications open if we have "enough" crats. Johnleemk | Talk 16:00, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Meta Admins[edit]
Different admins.
- Our newest admin
- on Meta
- here - proof that a large edit count is not all that matters.
- Does this mean he will be doing some of the WP:OFFICE functions, like protecting pages for legal reasons?
- This will be a good thing for Wikipedia and clearly he should be an admin, but it would have been fun to cast a vote for him ;-).
- Welcome aboard Brad. NoSeptember talk 04:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Nope, meta admins are meta admins, they have no special role in en.wikipedia whatsoever. --Doc ask? 13:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- To clarify, that was the en.wiki bureaucrat log, and he is an en.wiki admin not a Meta admin (at least not yet). NoSeptember talk 14:18, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Nope, meta admins are meta admins, they have no special role in en.wikipedia whatsoever. --Doc ask? 13:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- OK, got you now, I don't see why we should get a vote on this. This guy is a lawyer, and I guess the foundation has given him rights to help wth legal matters. The foundation is not answerable to the community in how it deals with legal questions, because ultimately it is the foundation and not the community who are legally responsible (in so far as they are) for what is on their servers. If we found this guy objectionable (and I'm glad we don't), well then tough. --Doc ask? 14:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- I wasn't complaining in the slightest way, in case that didn't come across through the internet. I agree that a vote is totally not needed. I only said it would be fun to do ;-). We should enjoy the fact that this is a very rare occurance. With the exception of readminning former sysops and the occasional test (like user:Angela1) or error (quickly reverted), this is the only occurance I am aware of, of a non-RfAed sysop being added since 2002 when there were fewer than 40 sysops in total. And I have gone through the entire history of sysop promotions back to September 2002 in the process of creating this page. I fully trust Jimbo, Danny, and Angela. I am enjoying the uniqueness of the occasion, come and enjoy it with me. NoSeptember talk 14:57, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- OK, got you now, I don't see why we should get a vote on this. This guy is a lawyer, and I guess the foundation has given him rights to help wth legal matters. The foundation is not answerable to the community in how it deals with legal questions, because ultimately it is the foundation and not the community who are legally responsible (in so far as they are) for what is on their servers. If we found this guy objectionable (and I'm glad we don't), well then tough. --Doc ask? 14:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- OMG, once he didn't leave an edit summary, where do I go to protest about this!!! Martin 16:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- File an arbitration case against Jimbo, Angela, Anthere, et al for promoting an obviously unqualified candidate outside of process. Johnleemk | Talk 16:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- It was Danny who did the out of process promotion, and not for the first time (he attempted to) this year either ;-). NoSeptember talk 17:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- I advised Brad to ask Danny to promote him; Mindspillage concurred in that recommendation. Having Brad go through the motions of an RfA would have been pointless; Brad needs this level of access in order to do his job for the Foundation, and that should be the end of the discussion. At least nobody is screaming too loudly yet. Kelly Martin (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Don't worry, Kelly, I don't think anyone disagrees with the promotion. — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- Nope, no disagreement after seeing what he does. Still, it would have been nice if Danny would have made a note here or somewhere else on Wikipedia why he promoted Brad, so that we don't have to go hunting around before finding out that he's WMF's legal counsel. --Deathphoenix ʕ 07:10, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Don't worry, Kelly, I don't think anyone disagrees with the promotion. — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- I advised Brad to ask Danny to promote him; Mindspillage concurred in that recommendation. Having Brad go through the motions of an RfA would have been pointless; Brad needs this level of access in order to do his job for the Foundation, and that should be the end of the discussion. At least nobody is screaming too loudly yet. Kelly Martin (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- It was Danny who did the out of process promotion, and not for the first time (he attempted to) this year either ;-). NoSeptember talk 17:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- File an arbitration case against Jimbo, Angela, Anthere, et al for promoting an obviously unqualified candidate outside of process. Johnleemk | Talk 16:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Discussions for Adminship[edit]
Other conversations on the topics.
We're trying to rewrite the proposal. Please see WT:DFA for more. — Ilyanep (Talk) 19:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- In case you weren't here before, that's a proposal to reform RfA. — Ilyanep (Talk) 22:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- I thought the reform attempt was dead by now. There was a very insightful comment on this page a while ago, by NoSeptember[3]. To paraphrase, it said that the current RfA system is mostly fine, and if anything, changes to it will come gradually as the process evolves and issues show up. I wholehartedly agree with that. Suggestions for big overhauls did not gain much tractions so far, and I don't see a good motivation for trying. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The Unqualified[edit]
I’ve only been here for four months and have had about 300 posts. I know people won’t vote for me right now, but I’m just wondering... how long do you guys think it would take before I stood a good chance of being voted as an admin? --EKN 03:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)EKN
- Also, see the guide to RfA. It may help explain things further. --LV (Dark Mark) 03:58, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Bad Admin[edit]
I think I'll leave a comment here, since I imagine my decision may provoke discussion. I realized I'd been absent in my role of bureaucrat for far too long -- the discussion following Cecropia and Francs2000's resignations put very much in my mind the fact that I've been neglecting my responsibilities. I came here and saw that the time had come for Master Jay's nomination to close. I spent some time reading through all of the comments and considering carefully what I thought the community was expressing, and decided that a consensus had emerged in the responses. I recognize with respect the objections of those who opposed Master Jay, but felt that the nomination had succeeded, and that it was my job (too long neglected, as I said) to make these difficult decisions. Either I'm good at making such judgments (and can be trusted to do so), or I can't. If I can't, I should clearly resign so that a better community representative can promote the will of our community--if I can, then I thought shying away (out of a desire to do uncontroversial promotions only) was simply a further failure to do the job I signed up for months ago.
If you take issue with what I did, I'm very open to your comments, and as noted above, if the community clearly feels that I'm not as good a judge of its will as I hope and strive to be, I will step down without hesitation. I have no desire to rock any boats, and am merely, at long last, trying to get back to work assisting this project in whatever limited capacity I'm capable of. All my best to you all, Jwrosenzweig 05:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think that you made the right decision. It was 77% to promote and despite the fact that there were good reasons to oppose many of the people were very reluctant to oppose and at least one should probably have been discounted off the bat to begin with as yet another disruptive me to vote so I think you definitely made the right choice to promote. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 05:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- I also support your decision; you have worked on the encyclopedia a long time, and your judgements fit the situation. Clearly Francs and Crecopia will be missed, and you are stepping up. --Ancheta Wis 05:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Firstly, thanks for stepping back into this difficlt role and putting yourself in the firing line - which so few bureaucrats seem prepared to do. I think the promotion was fine but, in response to the request for feedback, it may have been a good idea to extend the vote a little longer as the numbers were still in the gray area and there had been a lot of recent voting activity (at a quick count, 10 new/changed votes in the final 5 hours). Not a major concern though, plus I'm very happy to see Jay promoted :) Cheers TigerShark 06:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you for your honest feedback--the idea of an extension is certainly a tool available to bureaucrats, and one I have given some encouragement to in the past. My decision not to use it in this case was based on several considerations--although (as you rightly note) votes were continuing to be added a few at a time, the overall percentage had hovered in the vicinity of 75% for at least the final day of the candidacy. It seemed to me that, rather than indicating a trend which it might be fruitful to see continue, the voting pattern suggested that the current state of affairs was likely to be the status quo. I have grown hesitant to extend votes over time, as it seems to me that 1 or 2 day extensions can become battlegrounds where both "sides" recruit votes, and situations become more tense and confused, not less. As a result of this thinking (which I admit may well not be shared by other bureaucrats), I find myself leaning away from extensions out of a desire to avoid putting the intensity of a spotlight on a "make or break" day of voting. Finally, the number of votes was high enough that the odds were low that another 10-12 votes would swing the total decisively into the mid 80s or the high 60s, and I consider anything in the 70-80 zone to be a matter of bureaucrat discretion (with the pressure against promotion intensifying as you reach 70). I give this lengthy explanation because I think bureaucrat decision-making ought to be relatively transparent, and because if any of the assumptions or guidelines by which I travel are out of step with the community, I hope to have that brought to my attention sooner rather than later. I hope they provide some insight as to why I did not opt for an extension in this case (and we shall see if it proved a wise decision). Jwrosenzweig 06:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- You mention a 70 to 80 range. I think the current consensus is a 75 to 80 range. Aside from Luigi30 and Freestylefrappe, I can't think of anyone who has been promoted with under 75% in the past 8 months. NoSeptember talk 06:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks--I'll definitely keep that in mind, as the voting standard seems to have gone up slightly since I was last active (however briefly) in promoting users. I'll go have a look at the two exceptions you noted to get a sense of when to dip below 75. Jwrosenzweig 06:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Luigi30's promotion is regarded as a new bureaucrat's mistake. Here is the <80% list from Durin (a few more have occurred in the past 2 months). NoSeptember talk 07:09, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks--I'll definitely keep that in mind, as the voting standard seems to have gone up slightly since I was last active (however briefly) in promoting users. I'll go have a look at the two exceptions you noted to get a sense of when to dip below 75. Jwrosenzweig 06:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- You mention a 70 to 80 range. I think the current consensus is a 75 to 80 range. Aside from Luigi30 and Freestylefrappe, I can't think of anyone who has been promoted with under 75% in the past 8 months. NoSeptember talk 06:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you for your honest feedback--the idea of an extension is certainly a tool available to bureaucrats, and one I have given some encouragement to in the past. My decision not to use it in this case was based on several considerations--although (as you rightly note) votes were continuing to be added a few at a time, the overall percentage had hovered in the vicinity of 75% for at least the final day of the candidacy. It seemed to me that, rather than indicating a trend which it might be fruitful to see continue, the voting pattern suggested that the current state of affairs was likely to be the status quo. I have grown hesitant to extend votes over time, as it seems to me that 1 or 2 day extensions can become battlegrounds where both "sides" recruit votes, and situations become more tense and confused, not less. As a result of this thinking (which I admit may well not be shared by other bureaucrats), I find myself leaning away from extensions out of a desire to avoid putting the intensity of a spotlight on a "make or break" day of voting. Finally, the number of votes was high enough that the odds were low that another 10-12 votes would swing the total decisively into the mid 80s or the high 60s, and I consider anything in the 70-80 zone to be a matter of bureaucrat discretion (with the pressure against promotion intensifying as you reach 70). I give this lengthy explanation because I think bureaucrat decision-making ought to be relatively transparent, and because if any of the assumptions or guidelines by which I travel are out of step with the community, I hope to have that brought to my attention sooner rather than later. I hope they provide some insight as to why I did not opt for an extension in this case (and we shall see if it proved a wise decision). Jwrosenzweig 06:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- I disagree on the extending of the review period. Absent a specific reason to extend, the RfA should be closed. Just being in the borderline area of pass/fail is not a good reason to postpone a decision, and it happens all the time. I'd hate to see a precedent established for continual postponements. NoSeptember talk 06:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
The important thing is that you are back, doing the job, and willing to make considered judgements. If you feel any need to review current community standards for bureaucrat decisions, read the last few successful RfBs and the archives of this page, but I think you are doing fine so far. NoSeptember talk 06:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you: I did some reviewing before my promotion, but I will certainly continue to do so, and more information about recent disputes can only serve to help me in making appropriate decisions. Jwrosenzweig 06:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Oh em gee! How dare you actually do a job some people don't seem to want to do!! On top of that, one you were even chosen to do. Just kidding... It seems okay. But then again, we are not BCrats, so what do we know? ;-) Keep up the good work, Jwrosenzwig. --LV (Dark Mark) 06:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
With the two exceptions, it should be noted that while Luigi's been okay, Freestylefrappe was desysopped after having that arbcom case against him. While my analysis is that of a non-bureaucrat, I think some of the complaints about him as an admin were the very factors that were mentioned against him with many of the oppose votes in his last RfA. --Deathphoenix ʕ 07:07, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks to you and NoSeptember. I'd say it's become fairly clear to me from your comments and some digging in the archives that any promotion below 75% is treading on very dangerous ground--I won't go there anytime soon, myself. I'd say this doesn't change my position on the promotion I made today, but it certainly is good to know that the community's range has narrowed (though I do see some Wikipedians still support the idea of a 70-80% range, or did in late 2005). Jwrosenzweig 07:15, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I accept 75% because I see widespread support for it, and the rarity of anyone passing below 75% reinforces that. I could live with a lower standard than 75% (and the 90% for bureaucrat promotions), but I don't see much support for it from experienced users. The fact that someone who fails their current RfA can reapply shortly seems a fair reason for keeping the 75% barrier, since it means they are only delayed in getting adminship typically. There is a lot of fear of promoting rogue admins (which I don't share so much now that ArbCom is more active in desysopping) that motivates many to keep very high standards IMO. NoSeptember talk 07:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Archives
Prior to June 2003, requests for adminship were made and discussed on the mailing list.
- For Archives of discussions from June 2003 to the present, please visit Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archives.
- Discussions about Requests for adminship can also often be found at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard.
[edit]
Requirements for RfA
I know this has been discussed 1000 times before, but I want to know right now when the new requirements that a user has to have been here for 6+ months and have accured 2000 edits was put into effect?
It took me over 3 years to achieve 6000 edits, did that make me a bad admin? — Ilyanep (Talk) 16:55, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Just before someone discovered how to enforce them. It's a full time job to keep up with the new rules. Edit: average failed nom has over 3,000 edits. Stephen B Streater 17:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Not everyone requires that. It is usually a good amount of time and enough edits to judge. Other than your lengthly signature, there should be no complains about you :) -- ReyBrujo 17:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- Looking at the average edit counts of failed noms is not a good way of measuring changes in standards. If you remove failed self noms from that equation, it comes out to an average edit count of 4,742 edits per failed RfA nominee since 1 January 2006. I think a better way of measuring this is where the failure rate stablizes, i.e. the point past which the number of edits does not seem to influence the outcome of an RfA. This point seems to be around 2,000 edits (see above chart). --Durin 17:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I too am disheartened at the standards being put into place at RfA. I see people with over 10,000 edits being opposed because they don't have enough talk page eidts. When I ran for adminship, I too was criticized for not having enough talk page edits. When I pointed out the the vast majority (60 - 70%) of the articles I worked on had talk pages with five of fewer comments on them, and that no less than one-third of the articles on my watchlist has no talk page at all, people suggested I put more active pages on my watchlist so that I can take place in debate! I worked as a German translator prior to my adminship. Most of the articles on my watchlist were articles I had written from scratch, and also were articles where I was the sole major contributor. People were literally telling me to put pages on my watchlist that I wasn't interested in so I could argue with people on those articles' talk pages! It was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever encountered in my time at Wikipedia. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 18:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- RfA is becoming the laughingstock of the Wikipedia community. My friends mock some of the opposes and now think their edits will be reverted because they do "not having enough portal talk edits" (taken out of context, but that's what people do). Something needs to be done; otherwise, Wikipedia is going implode because of a massive backlog of upkeep work. What we're doing here on RfA is similar to Wal-Mart hiring only people with X number of dollars in the bank. I propose another ammendment to WP:NOT — Wikipedia is not a place to put people on "statistical trials". — Deckiller 18:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Ryan's statements above. And now it appears we will have a failed RfA for a user with 13,000 edits, who has a featured article, who works on many WikiProjects, who uses vandal-wacking tools already, and who has no civility issues within the last eight months... because of "not enough talk page edits". There is such a thing as standards, and then there's such a thing as going overboard with requirements. :( --Firsfron of Ronchester 18:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Who are you referring to as the failed candidate? JoshuaZ 18:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Agentsoo's, whose current RfA hovers at 69%. Although the RfA still has several days left, the first 48 hours are usually pretty indicative of how an RfA will turn out.--Firsfron of Ronchester 18:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I was aware of how that RfA was going but was confused because it hadn't been closed yet. I agree that the way it is going is a bit odd (although one of the opposes is Masssiveego and that hardly counts). JoshuaZ 18:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I can only vote my opinion. I fully encourage Wikipedians to excerise their option to vote. Any vote I place will absolutely count, and any new voters should know their votes will also equally count. --Masssiveego 05:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
In response to the above (and its accompannying editing summary of "response to belittling personal attack") I believe you have misinterpted what I said. My point was that since you generally vote oppose, your vote could plausibly be removed if one was trying to treat the first few days of an RfA as a sample of how things will proceed. This particularly makes sense when (as the case was when I had written the above comment) only a small number of people had voted in the RfA. JoshuaZ 05:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Agentsoo's is the second-most-recent RfA to be added, and with only 17 voters so far, it's a little premature to be casting doom and gloom on it (also, he's now up to 76% as of this writing ;) -- nae'blis 20:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Jumping in, perhaps it would be a good idea to come up with something like what's used for featured articles whereby we have a set of community standards (like Wikipedia:What is a featured article?) and that any objection should seek to relate to one of those standards. That might help eliminate some of the oppose votes that don't really relate to Wikipedia:What is good administrator?, like some of the things mentioned above. It also wouldn't mean automatic promotions once someone reaches a certain edit count, contribution time, etc. Just a thought. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 18:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- Interesting thought, and I like it! Problem though is that what makes a good administrator is very subjective. If we can get around that... --Durin 19:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- No more subjective than what makes a good FA. FAC is not much less contentious than RFA though, and there are plenty of bad faith/useless objections at FAC from people that don't understand the FAC criteria. But who knows, maybe having a community criteria would be a good thing. It may help make bad faith votes harder to make and or easier to see/ignore. In FAC Raul654 can just ignore the bad faith opposes or those that make it clear they don't know the criteria. It's worth a shot. - Taxman Talk 20:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think Wikipedia is about to implode because RfA is not promoting enough people to handle backlogs. If we look at Category:Administrative backlog, the list isn't all that long. Also keep in mind that two different studies have shown that approximately 50% of the administrator work is done by the top 20 most active administrators. Even if we doubled our promotion rates, having a better chance of finding a "top 20" administrator is not necessarily a definite conclusion. --Durin 18:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
o True, I was purposely going a little overboard. I still think RfA is becoming ridiculous to a degree (and my friends have laughed about it :) ). I agree with Tari's idea, except for the fact that some questionable users may still get promoted using that system. — Deckiller 18:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- I don't doubt that there are votes that are absurd. I know there are. I do doubt that such votes are predominant or indicative in any respect of the general nature of RfA. --Durin 19:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- I think they are though. The general nature of RfA is that people can oppose for whatever reason they want to even if it doesn't help the project. There are large numbers of uninformed votes that make no attempt to truly identify if the candidate would make a good admin. - Taxman Talk 20:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- Sure. But, I don't think we can conclude a particular case of vote as being indicative. The core problem here is that we passed a scalability threshold of the system a LONG time ago. People don't "know" each other on RfA anymore for the most part. The project is huge now, and virtually ever candidate that comes up is going to be one that we don't know from first hand experience. To review each candidate in detail, to come up with an informed vote....that's very hard. I conduct reviews of candidates against a set of standards I have for people whom I intend to nominate. It takes hours to complete the review. It's only after such an extensive review that I feel comfortable nominating someone. To be honest, I don't feel 100% confident in people that I haven't nominated, but voted support because I can't see spending hours doing a thorough review to come up with an informed vote. It's very hard. Very few people (if any?) are conducting thorough reviews of people prior to voting. Nominating, there's a few of us that do in-depth reviews. But voting? Probably less than 1%. --Durin 20:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- Hours long completely thorough review is not needed every time, but a complete lack of an effort to review a candidate at all beyond, "no portal talk edits" is a problem, and it seems to be a systematic one. I don't think it has anything to do with the RfA process other than the fact that we prominently paste in edit count summaries that are completely irrelevant to determining if an editor would make a good admin. - Taxman Talk 20:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- (Excuse me for barging in) I completely agree and I'm glad people like Taxman feel this way too. I have been rudely shocked by some of the most useless and irrelevant objections. "Too few edits given the time he/she has spent here"; "not enough talk page edits"; "speaks too few languages"; "hasn't made any edits in the last 5 minutes" - too name a few. And what's worse, some of these are from admins. Can we please de-admin such people? :-) - Cribananda 20:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
- Over at Wiktionary (disclaimer: which has a small community where everyone knows each other), it is more or less up to the Bureaucrats to recognize absurd "no portal talk page edits" oppose votes, and to ignore them. I understand that it may not be that obvious here on Pedia, so adopting community-wide standards may be a better idea. But then, doesn't it become very obvious when someone will fail or will succeed? Are there any votes still needed then? I have never voted on RFAs for people that I'd never heard about, but that's an equally bad stance if everyone were to adopt that. — Wildrick 21:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I believe any vote from Wikipedian that qualifies to vote is counted regardless of the reason. --Masssiveego 06:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
The one that shocked me, on my RfA, was the person who opposed due to not having 7/24th in WP space. Although the opinion was stuck out, that level of scrutiny makes no sense to me. Portal and help space edit requirements also make no sense whatsoever.--Firsfron of Ronchester 21:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
This is one way to look at controversial RFA that are not passing.
Controversial RFAs can be broken down into at least three types. Some RFA's do not offer a view of nom that reassures people unfamiliar with them that the nom is trustworthy and capable. These should be the easiest to fix. A few tweaks to either the nom record or RFA can make a stronger impression. Other times the RFA may provide a good view of the nom, but the particular people viewing the RFA have rigid standards that sink the nom. Still other RFA's have noms that some reasonable people think are prepared to be admins and other reasonable people disagree. The situation is worse when all three problems co-exist. --FloNight talk 22:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, there are silly votes on RfA sometimes. But that's why there is a 75% threshold, you can't fail unless at least a quarter of voting people believe you are unfit to be an administrator. I would like to see an example where a candidate failed primarily because of frivolous votes. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
My Rfa was going down before Taxman came in and called my detractors "unreasonable". RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 23:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC) And for that matter, I consider this to be pretty frivolous. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 00:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
"We have enough admins" ... and yet there's practically fights breaking out between the different wikipedia "departments" over each single qualified admin (we basically just see one or two pop up every month). See also below. Kim Bruning 04:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Either the situation has gotten more dire over the past few months while i've been inactive or there are more alarmists. I think a combination of both. Anyways, g'day and I'll try to do a couple more promotions in the future — Ilyanep (Talk) 04:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Let me explain it this way. The shield from lawsuits for Wikipedia is the Admin who must select which information must be censored from the public. Too much censorship, and somebody who is doing a research paper will not get the information they need. Too little and we invite legal problems. I obviously do not want a vandal slipping through and misusing admin options to severely damage Wikipedia, or it's reputation. Given the long and difficult process of removing Admin, the only quality control toward preventing a system wide shut down by a renegade admin is to screen them before they can do damage. Remember people are donating their money, time and their effort. I rather not see such gifts go to waste because a few bad admin. It only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the barrel. Quoting one actor. "...choose wisely..." --Masssiveego 05:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
- Reminds me of another line, "He chose....poorly". Too many RfA voters are looking for the holy grail. --Durin 12:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and it's ridiculous because if an admin did do something to "severely damage Wikipedia" it could be no worse than many trolls do, and that admin would almost immediately have their admin tools removed via WP:OFFICE.--MONGO 13:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Agentsoo now stands at (31/5/2). See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Agentsoo2 :) Dlohcierekim 02:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
Edit count tables - hide/show
Is there any reason we couldn't wrap the edit count tables in Hide/Show boxes, such as demonstrated at: User:Kylu. I feel like the edit counts add clutter and forcing everyone to look at them as they scroll past is not really the attitude we want to promote. Dragons flight 00:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The problem with that is that show/hide labels only work with the Monobook skin, with the other skins you don't see the [show] box and therefore cannot see the contents. —Mets501 (talk) 02:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
It's still better than nothing. Especially considering most people use Monobook.--W.marsh 02:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea to me. To ensure graceful fallback, we'd need to set the default CSS state of the div to display:none display:block, so it'll incur a brief change in the perceived length of the page at every page load for Javascript browsers, but that seems like a small loss for something that could streamline the page. (Perhaps this fallback hack will fix the problem for non-monobook users?) - Tangotango 02:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I made a typo there. The template has to be set to display by default for browser compatibility. But this has nothing to do with Tyrenius' comment (different matter). - Tangotango 10:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I think "forcing everyone to look at them" is exactly what we want. The record of an editor's contributions in this way is one of the fundamentals of judging their suitability (note "one" of). Tyrenius 08:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
However, you should look at the contributions, not at edit count stats. Hiding the stats and reminding people to look at the actual edits is a good idea. Kusma (討論) 08:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The reports are interesting, though the length of them does possibly give undue weight to the quantity of edits. We could have a summary at the top (eg total; article/talk; WP/talk; edit summaries major/minor) on four lines with the full amount underneath. Stephen B Streater 08:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
Admins coming off this page are useless, promote different admins.
I knew you'd look at such a provocative title! ;-) Actually, it's not quite true, the vandalbuster and volume editor admins coming off this page *ARE* useful, and you're doing a great job! It's just that we are running very very very short on admins in all the other categories of admins we can have. (personally I'm running really short on mediators, but I know other people are complaining too)
A couple of people who really need that admin flag are folks like:
- Featured article writers
- (potential) mediators
- Policy experts
Are all not getting the admin flag.
The properties of these people are:
- Low numbers of high quality edits in the relevant parts of wikipedia.
- Reluctance to become an admin.
- the ability to stand their ground when they have to.
These criteria are selected *AGAINST* by the current rfa process.
- RFA selects for high number edits per-se. Many people currently don't even look at quality of edits, and looking at quality is strongly discouraged due to the high number of edits required by edit-count criteria in the first place. Please look at things like featured articles most carefully.
- RFA selects against people who don't want to be an admin. if you say "I don't wanna" , nowadays people on rfa will just say "ok"... while they should be going the extra mile to drag this person across the line, kicking and screaming if nescesary ;-)
- RFA selects against people who stand their ground in a conflict, even when prudent. This is because it's like "ooooohhh.... there WAS a conflict...Oppose". You can't be a good admin if you deal with conflict by simply running away all the time. You have to stand up for yourself and wikipedia, but do so in a calm, polite, friendly and professional way. If you demonstrate that, Great!
Each group needs the admin flag for different reasons:
- Featured article writers need the flag to help maintain featured article pages themselves. This is very very important, as the goal of wikipedia is ultimately to create as many featured articles as possible. They will hopefully not need to use their flag often, but when they need it they *really* need it.
- Mediators need to flag mostly to protect pages and read deletion histories. Also: "sit down, shut up, and LISTEN to each other, or I'm banning BOTH your asses for a week" , can be effective in a pinch ;-)
- Policy experts need the admin tools to be able to continue to work on and build their understanding and experience with policy. Some policy only works for admins, and it gets rather hard to test at times, if you can't use it, as you might imagine ;-)
So could everyone look at their criteria and see if you're not selecting against these categories of people? Please ask your friends to look too! Kim Bruning 04:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The process is also failing to identify people who understand copyright issues.--Peta 04:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe an admin test is in order? —this is messedrocker (talk) 04:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I honestly hope we have not reached that point. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 04:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I personally don't think featured article writers need to be admins unless they need to be admins. Adminship is the set of tools any given article writer doesn't need. Admins do more of the cleaning so the content creators can create. It's a burden to try to do both. Or something. --Keitei (talk) 04:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I totally disagree. Those tools are helpful for article writers. Also though, it doesn't help that when we get excellent FA admins that we run them off by letting editors insinuate they are neo-nazis when they just try to improve articles. pschemp | talk 04:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Or worse, when they come in to an ongoing disagreement, edit war, or even worse, breeching experiment, and try to do the job we asked them to do by restoring order and then get labed with a POV label and their block is dragged through (tens of) thousands of words of analysis. ++Lar: t/c 07:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Here's a statement that proves true for administrators, regardless of which project: once they get administrator status, they focus much more on things like the Wikipedia namespace. —this is messedrocker (talk) 04:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not useless (I'm not saying anyone is saying that I am), but I agree we do need more varied admins. One of the things I laid out in my candidacy was that I wanted to work behind the scenes. I didn't want to go for the (relatively) glorious job of being a troll fighter and a vandal blocker. I earned several support votes for this position, but also several opposes ("I don't see why he needs the tools...") Troll fighting and vandal blocking are both admirable, but what we need to do is promote people who will work. Everyone likes to block trolls, but who is going to close TfD, RfD, SfD, etc.? All are less glorious than AfD and many have admin backlog. We need to promote the type of people who work quietly, behind the scenes. We need more people who will recognize that the symbol of the admin is the mop, not the broadsword (and yes, I got an oppose vote for having that comparison in my RFA candidacy text.) RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 04:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
That's fine, we need those too. I just really really REALLY need people who can learn to be mediators, policy makers, and general organiser types coming out of RFA too, and I've seen them being opposed several times now. Kim Bruning 05:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I think your ladder is on the wrong wall. We need the minimum overhead possible to produce the final product: an encyclopedia. Diverting resources to the social problems probably gets us farther from that, not closer. And by the way, it's generally better to assume whatever roles you believe are important and do the work until people recognize you as a leader, rather than continually reminding us that you believe you are one. - Taxman Talk 15:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I really didn't deserve that. :-( Stupid social issues and stupid overcomplex rules are draining an overlarge part of wikipedias resources, and more every day. I've been doing so much of the work on solving these issues all along, especially since many of my old friends have moved on to other things. I can't do it on my own, the wiki is too big. Can you help me? Can you find people who will help me? Kim Bruning 15:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I wish they'd actually go through with their CSD promises. They forget about CAT:NR, Category:Images with no copyright tag, CAT:NS, CAT:NL, and CAT:ORFU. Speedies, but with time delays to fix the issues. Few admins ever touch them, and they build up until some poor sap has to spend their entire day deleting or cleaning tags off of hundreds upon hundreds of images off of the CATs. I'm not quite sure who those admins are(and if you're reading this, good job), but this is just another backlog that sits and languishes. Kevin_b_er 05:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
As an aside, I have been working on a new tracking bot to help identify backlogs like this and call more attention to them. See User:Dragons flight/Category tracker and User:Dragons flight/Category tracker/Summary. Dragons flight 07:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Excellent! It's a great thing to have on my watchlist to remind me of which categories need work. Kusma (討論) 07:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
As long as you stop calling for featured article writers/wikipedia ambassadors to edit fully protected pages like MediaWiki:Common.css and {{cite web}}, I'm fine with sysopping the FA writers. Adminship should be no big deal. The only question should be: "Do we trust this person not to abuse the tools?". Anything else is ridiculous admin-cult (as we have it at the moment). Maybe an inverse-blocking feature could also be helpful: admin A gives user U the right to edit fully protected page P — an "ambassador" delegates his trust to a specialist maintenance staff member for a specific job and surveys how that job is done. It's like giving the key of your appartment to the plumber. If the plumber does a bad job (site looks like shit after user U edited MediaWiki:Common.css and U has no striking explanation for the botch) then you'll never call this plumber again (A disables U from editing protected page P). --Ligulem 08:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
A couple of people who really need that admin flag are folks like:
- Featured article writers
- mediators
- Policy experts
These are all important jobs, but they can be done without the admin flag. Using 'admin' as a marker for 'respected knowledgable person' isn't really appropriate. The later is a precondition for the former, but not (yet) vice-versa. I'd like to keep it that way for a bit longer yet. Regards, Ben Aveling 08:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
There's another job which we can't have too many Admins for: educating new users. The more education that goes on, the smoother everything runs later. Stephen B Streater 09:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
- -) Kim Bruning
These jobs used to be doable without the admin flag, as you'd just call on a clueful admin to help out. Nowadays it can take over an hour to find said clueful admin. So no dice. We need admins on hand to make sure people do not disrupt these activities. Also, I believe I already pointed out which admin abilities are important to each group? Even if I hadn't, it is so that typically more and better tools are always a good thing.Kim Bruning 15:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
To Kim's original point: If the regulars of the FA, mediation and policy areas are not participating in the voting at RfA, you should encourage them to come over here regularly and tell them why they are needed here. As long as it is not linked to a particular candidacy, I don't consider that vote stacking. The ultimate purpose of RfA is to produce good admins for the benefit of all of Wikipedia. The regular voters at RfA are not representative of the whole community, but don't blame them, at least they are participating in the process. Instead bring over here the people that are not participating and they will bring with them their perception of what types of admins we need to serve the areas of the project they participate in. NoSeptember 09:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I was going to say it, but NoSeptember beat me to it. This appeal to RFAers is good and all, but getting a wider range of the Wiki community to participate in RFA and the shaping of its standards should be the goal - rather than trying to change the standards of those already participating. Themindset 19:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Just a note to say that I have only recently started to vote in RfAs, and I found this discussion extremely enlightening; it's given me quite a bit to think about. My own standards do include edit counts, because I am judging by my own familiarity with policies -- at 1300 edits or so I feel there are plenty of policies I haven't even read yet, much less understand. Hence I feel that someone with 1500 or 1800 edits is also likely to have gaps. But what I found most useful in this discussion is the list of areas where more admins are needed. I'll be thinking about revising my standards and taking a more careful look at edit histories. Thanks. Mike Christie 19:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with NoSeptember. The admins are there to facilitate the environment for productive writing of articles, creating diagrams, audio recordings etc. Unfortunately I see that there aren't enough article writers who actually want to have a say in who becomes an administrator, because this is what the administrators are there for. As for the policy, edit count doesn't really tell you whethere the person is well versed in how to do things unless they demonstrate it by doing it, or by reading the policy. Some guys with 15000 edits don't know the 3RR policy because they simply edit quietly in a corner without ever edit-warring. Also, because OrphanBot does most of the image tagging, most people don't learn about how all the image categories like unsourced, unknown copyright, unused fair use, etc, work, because the bot processes them, but only a few read the CSD for images and participate in deleteing them. I'd guess it would be maybe 10 admins doing 90% of the image deletions or something like that, a greater imbalance than the usual admins tasks and the pictures are oftern backlogged 5-6 days. as far as the coaching at WP:ESP, I don't think anybody does image policy tutorials, and that really needs to change, because what we need is people to delete images and also check them, as there are surely many pictures out there with bogus
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and fairuse tags. I'd simply say there are not enough people training themselves with the skills required to be an admin; not enough people do NP patrol or cateogry cleaning and doing notability analysis, and likely there are gigabytes of cruft festering around the place, etc. I get the impression that there are a lot of people simply piling on at AfDs to get name-recognition for RfAs "per nom", rather than researching on dubious articles and AfDing them or making comments which add to the debate knowledge. Blnguyen | rant-line 00:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Mike Christie, joining the discussions on this page counts double for Wikipedia talk page edits. ; - ) --FloNight talk 00:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
LOL Tyrenius 09:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
Strange situation on rmrfstar rfa
Several people have stated (paraphrased):
- Oppose Great user, made 2 FAs, and I'm sure this user will never abuse the admin tools, but I'm not letting him have them anyway. -- john doe.
There's also several neutrals in the same vein.
Kelly Martin has been marking some of those edits, I think.
Poor bureaucrat who gets to close that particular case!
See also my rant above. I suppose rmrfstar is a fair example of that situation. I took the time to really rake him over the coals in person while at wikimania, and he did pretty well. And then he went to a birds of the feather talk, and showed enormous insight in his questions and comments there.
You can imagine I was pretty surprised when I came home(-ish) today, connected to the internet, and discovered he was doing badly at RFA! ^^;;
Why is his RFA doing so differently from my perception?
Did I miss something in my observations? If so, what did I miss, do you think?
Kim Bruning 07:26, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
- I think it's the RfA which misses something, namely the essential character of the candidate. Too preoccupied with exam questions and statistics.Tyrenius
- Part of the problem is that people who are focused not on the statistics but on the character of the person and whether he will misuse the tools etc. have a hard time coming to the same conclusion about every candidate of this sort. So those who have interacted with the candidate (at Wiki or in this case in person) perceive things that someone who is merely digging into the person's contributions may miss. So there are not enough support votes because not enough of us have that personal involvement with the candidate. Perhaps we should rely on the judgement of voters we respect, so when Kim says "I know this guy and I trust him", we should give that a good deal of weight even if we didn't perceive that when we dug through the contributions. NoSeptember 10:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
God, I wish Kelly hadn't done that. I firmly believe rmrfstar should have the tools, and voiced my opinion. But copying and pasting notices for the closing 'crat to ignore votes like that just doesn't seem right, and I bet several (or many) people will be upset, with good reason. This, coming on the heels of the user lists thing, I think was a bad idea. :( --Firsfron of Ronchester 08:26, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
It's Kim Bruning's fault for starting it previously. However, I'm now coming round to thinking it's not such a bad thing. It makes it a bit more rowdy, but it does mean opposers can't be complacent. Tyrenius 09:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
- -) Kim Bruning 09:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, opposers can do what they often do: don't respond on the RfA page. In which case, it's not really opening up further dialogue, especially when this RfA is so far along. Had there been some grandstanding like this when the RfA was first opened, it might have convinced some people to change their opinions. But this far along, all it's doing is telling the closing 'crat to ignore many !votes, which I don't believe will happen. I feel it's just going to open yet another can of worms. Pity, too, because he should have been promoted, IMO.--Firsfron of Ronchester 09:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
My biggest concern about this RfA is the sudden liberal use of the extension of the discussion period beyond 7 days. That's fine on a close RfA, but this one was not even close to being close. Even with all the extra votes added, it remains far from being close precisely because it had so far to go. Having a failed RfA is not the end of the world, you can come back in a month or two and pass. We have a candidate who made some mistakes on this RfA that cost him, doing a bad job with the questions right off the bat, having an RfA when he was busy, etc. Live and learn, this is a good candidate, but the mistakes were his own. Next time, he should get a nominator who will deliver a rousing nomination statement, he should work out well thought out answers before the RfA gets submitted. This is all quite doable, just not on the current RfA. But extending an RfA that would require either 33 more support votes or the retraction of 11 oppose votes just to reach the 75% level (which is where it stood at the scheduled close) is not the right thing to do IMO. We should not start creating special rules for specially deserving candidates, especially when he should be able to sail through next time if he gets it done properly. We are setting a precedent where any candidate with as low as 60% approval can request extension, and that is a big ongoing mess just waiting to happen. NoSeptember 10:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC) [edit]
Peoples' voting criteria worry me
So, I just made my opinion known at The Thadman's RfA, but I wanted to expand upon it a little here. In cases such as these, I'm pretty worried by the large number of users that mark their opinion as (something like)...
- Oppose, not enough article contributions. We're building an encyclopedia, here.
... without even bothering to check whether article contributions would be at all relevant to their intended administrator activities. In the case of User:The Thadman, I'm disappointed that so many people have opposed his RfA on the basis of his low article contributions, despite his extensive experience (and proposed future involvement) in mediation. I guess this is an extension of my dislike for some peoples' FA requirements, applied to users' contributions to writing articles.
Am I alone in thinking that a user's ability to write fluent prose is totally disconnected from their ability to maintain the encyclopedia that hosts it? This is really quite frustrating, at times. RandyWang (chat me up/fix me up) 11:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
They don't have to be able to write great prose, but many of us do believe that in order to understand the various policies that affect the most important thing we do here, someone needs significant experience in actually working on what we are here to do: write an encyclopedia. Prose mistakes are not a problem, but someone that has no experience writing articles also doesn't know how to negotiate sources, break deadlocks and move an article forward. We are here to write an encyclopedia, not to mediate. - Taxman Talk 15:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Then again, if all we were here to do was write an encyclopedia, we wouldn't need admin rights. --Kbdank71 15:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Except that ignores the fact that there are people whose efforts are not helping to build an encyclopedia. Many of us believe article writing skills and experience are important to knowing how best to do that, and build the encyclopedia. - Taxman Talk 16:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Does this really make sense? How do you react to an individual with enormous experience voting in AfDs, noting 3RR violations and the like - but has a tiny number of article space edits? A user's suitability for adminship isn't utterly dependent on their ability to write articles: it's dependent on their experience in activities specific to adminship tasks. Why else do we consistently vote against users whose sole need for admin powers are "wikification" or the like? RandyWang (chat me up/fix me up) 12:57, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe you're assuming I think it's the most important or the only thing. I don't, but it is an important part. A person not participating in creating articles is missing what we do here. If they have exceptional other characteristics I will support them and so will many other people. It happens quite often that people get promoted without much article contributions, but they have to have something else that more than compensates for that. Also note I don't look at number of article edits. If someone has 100 article edits but they are very high quality, then that covers that fully for me. Others unfortunately focus on edit count and that's part of the problem. - Taxman Talk 14:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, I'm not sure I understand how The Thadman's mediation efforts require admin powers like block, unblock, delete and undelete. It seems to me that if comes to blocking users and protecting articles that mediation has failed. His answer to question 1 did no mention those needs. And I'm not sure how his mediation work prepares him for the top admin needs like *fD-DRV, vandalism fighting, and copyright issues. Cheers. :) Dlohcierekim 16:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that experience in article creation should be paramount when considering a potential admin. Would you hire an umpire who had no experience with baseball? Or a traffic cop with no experience with driving? The most common RFA standard is 1000 article edits (which happens to be my standard as well) which is in fact not that difficult to achieve. With even just 5 article edits a day one would achieve that in just over 6 months... to me this is a rather low bar, one that simply ensures that the potential admin has the basic amount of experience in the primary activity on Wikipedia. Themindset 18:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
""I agree. Article creation/improvement is most important. :) Dlohcierekim 20:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I suppose I'm in the minority here. I had almost no experience in the primary activity on Wikipedia when I became an admin, nor do I today. My day-to-day activities have zero to do with article creation/improvement. So I understand where Randy is coming from, and that's why I don't have a RFA standard that is based on editcount. On the other hand, I definitely understand the need for experience, and with everyone else editcounting as a standard, it's not that hard to hit. --Kbdank71 21:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
The main issue I see with the logic that people only base their criteria off of the main namespace is that there are many _many_ other areas needing administrator attention - it does not require sysop tools to make a featured article, either. By restricting administrators to only those who focus on the main article namespace, then we'd have none who focus on backlogs and the Wikipedia namespace. The notion that it's an automatic oppose unless a cadidate has a certain amount of contributions is simply editcountitis. What if a user actually heavily contributed to policy in the wikipedia namespace instead of creating articles? Now, I'm not saying making a featured article is a bad thing. That of course is very helpful and does show that the user is likely familiar with key policy such as verifiability. However, it is not the only way to determine whether a user is worthy of being an administrator. If anything, sysops deal a lot more with deleting articles than with creating them. Sysops are the framework that keeps the encyclopedia together behind the scenes, blocking users harmful to the encyclopedia, protecting pages from edit wars, closing deletion discussions and managing backlogs. The single most important factor in a candidate for adminship is 'Can they be trusted with the tools?'. I'm very curious to go deeper into the reasoning as to why people have such strict criteria involving main article contributions and featured articles. Is it the fear that users will make mistakes early on due to a lack of experience? Well, administrators are meant to make mistakes. They're supposed to - I would be surprised if an administrator made no mistakes. And, just like anyone else, they're meant to learn from them. Cowman109Talk 21:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, I would have to say I completely agree with your last point... And yet I feel it actually supports a certain degree of edit counting. Yes, the new admin will make mistakes, but wouldn't it be better to make sure less new admins make less mistakes? And if that can be done by setting a minimum amount of participation in the encyclopedia, isn't that a positive thing? Like I've stated earlier, these edit count minimums that most of us set are not difficult to achieve - and if someone finds that hitting those numbers is an unnecessary burden, they are probably not going to contribute very much as an admin anyways. I don't believe in 1FA, but I respect those who do... and who knows? Maybe there is more than one user who was so intent on becoming an admin that he/she made sure to achieve 1FA before nominating themselves. If that's the case, then the 1FA criteria has helped the encyclopedia. And surely, the experience of 1FA was invaluable to the user themselves. So I believe there is room for understanding, if not agreement, with the variety of different RFA standards set by different users. Themindset 22:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that some problems stem from the fact that people usually leave no room outside of 1FA for supporting an adminship candidate. There _are_ other ways to determine whether people are ready. We have plenty of admins who have never and probably have no intention of ever writing featured articles who do plenty of work, so I feel that at least people should be aware that there are other ways of determining whether candidates are beneficial to the encyclopedia. Cowman109Talk 22:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Ultimately, I do agree with you - that is why I don't use 1FA as a criteria. I simply respect the choice to use it. Themindset 22:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Themindset, to my mind the 1FA is actually harmful to the project. Can you imagine what would happen if every RFA nom-to-be was pimping articles at FAC. FA is not meant to be a stepping stone to sysop. FloNight talk 22:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I definitely understand that feeling. Have you tried expressing your feelings directly on the talk pages of those who vote with the 1FA criteria? (Like I said, I agree and do not use 1FA as a criteria.) Themindset 23:26, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Comments from the peanut gallery[edit]
Hi! I've been following the discussions on this talk page for some time. As a frequent participator in RfA's, I enjoy seeing others opinions on the RfA process. As such, I'd like weigh in. In terms of the RfA process, I don't really think it's broken at all;
* The RfA process is dictated by the community, and as such, if the community thought/thinks there is/was a better format, it would be discussed and consensus would be reached. * Candidates only become administrators once the community reaches a consensus that both the candidate and Wikipedia would do well to give the user administrator status.
I mention these two points to show that all of RfA is community-based, and I have faith that the community is making the right decisions.
Furthermore, in terms of how people "vote" and the reasons given, I believe that each and every participant should be treated with respect and be appreciated for volunteering their valuable time to participate in the process. I don't feel that standards should be called into question or chastised if they are reasonably explained. If a Wikipedian has RfA standards that include a minimum number of edits or length volunteered to the project, it should be respected. Also, specific standards such as those that include featured articles, AfD participation, vandal fighting, user/article talk participation, etc. should also be given due respect. While we might not agree with certain standards, we should recognize one's right to participate in the RfA process as one sees fit.
If a user participates in an RfA with anything but the best of faith, our community-elected 'crats will see the input for what it is and discount it when making the decision as to whether or not consensus has been reached.
Furthermore, as very few administrators have been desysopped, it's reasonable to say that almost all administrators have helped Wikipedia become a better place, and the right people are having successful RfA's.
Also, as adminship is really not that big a deal (and a double-edged sword, at that), I hate to see users become disappointed in themselves and/or the community and leave the project or become jaded on the process because of their or another's RfA. As such, perhaps the WikiProject (which I, personally, am still on the fence about as to it's appropriateness) could actively seek out recent unsuccessful candidates and help them address some of the advice left to them.
Anyways, I just wanted to throw in my two cents. I think the discussions here are productive and enjoyable to watch unfold, and I wanted to comment on what I've seen so far. Cheers hoopydinkConas tá tú? 18:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Hear, hear! It's like you read my mind :-) After reading the discussions on the rest of this page, I thought I was alone. Nice to know someone shares the same views as me! —Mets501 (talk) 23:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
It's funny, I missed this little statement, but I've been saying the same things on this very talk page... Hear, hear, indeed! Themindset 23:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
To a point I agree with you that the current system isn't terrible, but one thing that I think is really a shame is people failing because of their inadequacy in something they don't intend to deal with, like a vandal-fighter who could really use the tools failing because of lack of experience in other areas. I've written up my (ever-revolutionary) thoughts on this at Wikipedia:WikiProject on Adminship/a la carte. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Hoopydink is making a somewhat circular argument, which can be refuted by simply having one or more community members say they want to change RFA.
/me raises hand.
Hi, I'm me, and I'd like to change it ;-)
Here's the thing though. I think the current RFA format can be made to work, but it does need a lot more commitment than that people are currently showing. I'm thinking on changing that.
Kim Bruning 19:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Per my 10:40, 9 August 2006 edit of this page, we need an RfA cabal of like-minded editors ;). NoSeptember 19:24, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I smell irony... We have been talking about changing RfA for what seems like forever, and yet RfA has remained largely the same for years. If you're looking for a process that's inefficient and broken, this is it – not the RfA process, but the process to change RfA. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 19:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Kim Bruning, I would suggest going to the Village Pump or forming an official policy proposal to set the wheels in motion. If the community decides that RfA needs to be changed and your proposal is the way to go, then it will be so. I'm certainly open to changes, so if you do decide do follow through, I'll be very eager to see the developments. Cheers and good luck! hoopydinkConas tá tú? 00:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
RFA has remained largely the same for "years"? Hmm. Let's try two and a half years ago. Timwi's self-nom read,
Hi. I've been around since June, and I've been a well-behaved user all the way through. :) I don't make ground-breaking new contributions very often, but I make a lot of minor corrections and I revert vandalism. I would like to be able to help with this better, and thus, I am requesting adminship. Thank you for your attention.
and he passed unanimously. Fuzheado's vote on Pakaran's nomination read
Defer. Pakaran is a good contributor, but he's been here for just two months with 270 edits of article pages. Perhaps a *bit* more time only because we should be consistent. WP has rejected other folks for too little experience.
and Pakaran seemingly passed. In fact, there were three opposes in the entire timespan, for 38 admin candidates, as opposed to 317 supports, meaning the support ratio was 99.1%. Some of the nominees got in with fewer than 400 edits. Wik, opposing Pakaran, wryly noted: "Actually I'm helping you, as my opposition will move ten other people to support you!"
RFA hasn't changed for years? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
There was no AWB or scripts back then. 400 edits meant something, especially when you had to press the warm up button to notify the servers that you were about to submit an edit. NoSeptember 08:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't referring to the standards; those obviously have changed. I was referring to this process / format. This nomination from July 2004 looks quite similar to a July 2006 nomination. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 12:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
A horrible realization!
Essjay has no category talk and no portal or portal talk editsHe needs to be immediately recalled! [1]! And yet he is not only a sysop but a crat with checkuser as well. What was anyone thinking? JoshuaZ 20:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I know. And not enough user edits either. This is a disgrace. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 20:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC) Funny how you point this out at a time when Essjay hasn't edited for 2 days ;). NoSeptember 20:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
And did anyone see his SIGNATURE?!?! The horror, the agony! -- Avi 20:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
- And he only had less than 500 main namespace article edits at the time of his RfA! What insanity! Clearly RfA is broken if it let him through! Time to raise the standards. --Durin 21:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
This joke appears so many times in so many variations. Just to add fuel to the fire: Jimbo Wales probably wouldn't qualify for most people's RFA standards right now. Themindset 21:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Including yours. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 21:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Yup. And I believe it's perfectly reasonable. Themindset 21:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
So you support the fact that you are blatantly hypocritical (no personal attack meant) in your standards towards adminship? Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ---- 00:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not hypocrisy when you consider if that Jimbo was a normal editor, he'd probably have a lot more edits than he currently does, since he wouldn't have to worry about PR and fund-raising. Johnleemk | Talk 17:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
But have you ever seen the go it alone, self-important attitude that Jimbo has. Half the time it's like he has no respect for normal policy or process at all, and just does whatever he wants. Why would anyone think it was a good idea to give him admin powers? Dragons flight 22:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
- I've chastized Jimbo once in the past. He makes mistakes like all of us in fact, it got me on the cabal's black list...Go me! :). At the core should be the question, does Jimbo have the best interests of the project at heart and will he not abuse the tools? Of course he does and of course he won't. --Durin 22:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know whether you're being sarcastic or not... but Jimbo-bashing is at best an unhealthy pastime on Wikipedia. From the one incident where I've had to deal with him I found him heavy handed, but also acting in good faith. If I had issue with his status/behaviour I would simply leave the project. Themindset 22:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
- I'm serious. I took issue with him and told him as much. Told him his behavior was akin to the CEO of a large company coming down to the loading docks and telling the guys in shipping how to do their jobs. --Durin 22:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Although I'm not sure where this is going, I would say that your example is not particularly convincing. If I was a CEO and saw the guys on the loading docks screwing around I would probably do something about it. Themindset 23:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, everyone makes mistakes but I think every mistake Jimbo has made has been in a good faith effort, that being said he has to be careful, even more careful possibly, about throwing around his power because if done too often it'll either a) lose all meaning, or b) entirely skew the structure of Wikipedia to the point where he ends up being an active dictator of everything rather than a passive dictator who lets the community makes decisions semi-independently. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ---- 00:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
- de-indent The point is that a CEO showing up at a loading dock might take action, but being that his job isn't shipping, there's a pretty decent job he's going to screw it up. The problem is, when the CEO does something, nobody is going to disagree with him...even if he's wrong. Speaking more abstractly, all of us are human, and all of us make mistakes. There isn't any reason that Jimbo should be treated any better than the brand new editor here who has made one edit. --Durin 01:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
o One of the core principles of top management is that you have to choose the areas of involvment where you can have the greatest impact. CEOs who understand operations may well visit the dock if there are problems with shipping and receiving (a far more common scenario that we might like to believe). On the other hand, if the dock is working fine, or if operations is outside the CEO's area of expertise, such a visit would be unwise. I think that Jimbo chooses his battles well; as a rule, if he shows up and edits something, it's because there's a broader point that he's trying to make about the way things ought to be. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
o My comment above is only half-sarcastic. I agree with you that there are examples where, in my opinion, Jimbo has misused his power by asserting his authority over situations he didn't really understand (e.g. Radiant!). I know he means well (hence "misuse" not "abuse"), but he isn't involved in the day to day operations of this wiki and that lack of experience, when coupled with absolute power, can and does occasionally lead to serious mistakes. If you have had a good experience "chastizing" Jimbo, then I congratulate you. The last time I was upset by Jimbo's behavior, his response to my concerns pushed me close to leaving the project. Dragons flight 15:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
+ I don't think Jimbo has made any serious fuck ups yet (besides the somewhat depressing case of Radiant!), but I know he has made fuck ups. The problem I see with Jimbo is that he has good theories and principles that we should be applying, but when he butts in and tries to get us to apply them, he fails quite frequently. I'm not arguing against intervention from some higher and supreme authority, but in a company, the CEO (as UninvitedCompany says) ought to pick his battles. There's always some other executive he can have doing his dirty work, which is why I've previously advocated devolving some of Jimbo's authority to a group of people more familiar with the English Wikipedia, e.g. the arbcom. Anyhow, I'm quite over these pointless meta-issues now. I'm far more concerned with our article-writing process, which I think more often than not involves well-meaning snot-nosed newbies and equally well-meaning but overly defensive professional academics/people with such experience. (The breaking point for my first and only wikibreak ever was when I was basically told to fuck off when I advocated the removal of trivia sections from an article.) We don't have more than a handful of experienced WPians involved in the policy issues of content, and those who are involved can be overwhelmed by said snot-nosed newbies often enough. (Case in point: Worldtraveller's GA project careening off course into being a less-than-FA-but-still-a-star-for-my-homework process for articles which could become an FA; in the first place, GA was meant to fill a niche for articles which could never be FAs.) Now this would be somewhere worthy of Jimbo-scale involvement (aside from the issue of BLPs, which everyone has been devoting an exceedingly large amount of attention to). Johnleemk | Talk 17:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
People not discussing their positions when challenged.[edit]
I just checked back on rmrfstars rfa again, and to my dismay, many people didn't answer my questions to them. I don't have much to do with what kelly martin was trying by the way, although she did have some point. I was asking people for their opinions and standards and why they hold them, and how they reached their conclusions.
The failure to answer questions is not a good sign. If you're going to state an opinion, please show some commitment to it and defend your position when someone asks you about it. Holding your position against all logic does not seem very conducive to consensus to me (be it support or oppose). The point is to come to a consensus, and to do that, you do have to respond to other peoples concerns, of course.
Is that logical, or am I going crazy here? :-)
Kim Bruning 19:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
One hundred percent reasonable. I also don't like when people say that asking questions or responding to oppose voters makes one confrontational. If this is really not a !vote, that kind of thing ought to be acceptable, and to some degree, encouraged (as long as it doesn't become excessive). -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 19:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with asking a question if you're actually seeking an answer. If an oppose comment says "Does not meet my standards", it's reasonable to ask him what his standards are. However, if someone is asking a question in order to discredit an opposer's opinion, that's inappropriate. For example, Kelly Martin's comments on Rmrfstar's RfA were quite obviously not meant to solicit an answer. Aren't I Obscure? 19:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
As you say, confrontation of a voter in a challenging matter is highly offensive. Sometimes these border on a personal attack when challenging the value of the oppose reason. Sometimes they read as though they are trying to change a vote. Voters are not obligated to change a vote just because someone else dislikes the reason. Oppose voters are not obligated to to justify their rationale. They do, however, need to make it clear.
One purpose of the RfA is too advise the candidate on how to improve. Clarifying or explaning, or even just stating a rationale is needed for the candidate to understand how to improve. I try to leave a link to my standards if I don't leave a more instructive note with the vote. They are on my userpage for all to read. They are also on the RfA standards page. I think the people who just write, "per my standards," expect people to dig them out of the Standards page. I don't know how long it was before I figured out where it is. It is not very easy to read or make sense of.
To make a long story short, seeking understanding is great. Seeking to brow beat a vote change, or unleashing one's anger because the RfA is going badly , is not. Hope that helps. :) Dlohcierekim 23:24, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, Kim. If you leave a sincere message in an effort to help improve consensus and the project and the person is not willing to respond to back their opinion, then they can't count on their opinion carrying quite the same weight in the consensus, assuming there is enough time left to respond to the inquiry. Now we do have to be very careful with that because browbeating and pestering a voter to change their opinion is not acceptable. I'm not saying you did that, but others efforts may end up closer to the unacceptable that others have pointed out above. But lets all remember we're here at RfA to build consensus on who should have admin tools, so discussions approach that while drive by votes are not as helpful. - Taxman Talk 23:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Indeed there are limits. Browbeating and being exceptionally repetitive is exactly the kind of excessive I was talking about. And that's just not from the candidate, but !voters as well. They need to make sure they're not browbeating or being exceptionally repetitive with their discussion either. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 23:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that there are reasonable limits but challenging votes and not counting those from people who do not even bother to read that challenge would go a long way to get rid of the disturbing and blatantly harmful trend of drive by voting. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ---- 01:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it's generally agreed that "drive-by" voting isn't especially useful to RfA. However, things get rather complicated when we actually attempt to define what a drive-by vote is and what should be done about them. For starters, what about support votes? The focus of criticism is usually on oppose votes, but opposers usually provide more of a reason than supporters. If the supporter provides no rationale (only a signature), is that a drive-by vote? What if the reason is something vague such as "good user"? Should we discount support votes that don't provide enough reasons for supporting? If we're going to talk about ignoring or giving less weight to certain opinions, we need to look on both sides of the fence. Aren't I Obscure? 02:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Well the presumption is that people should be admins as long as there isn't a substantial opposition, ie no consensus. Also supports are more or less agreeing with the nominator, so they don't need as much expanded reasoning. Opposes are disagreeing with the nominator and supporters, so they require better reasoning to establish why, and that's ok. But of course you're more than welcome to politely ask a supporter for clarification too. - Taxman Talk 02:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
The RFA in my opinion is not the place to discuss issues. As the comments are about the vote it self not what you voted. RFA are vote counts. If the user in question wants to know why they could contact the voters after the election. I'm particullarly annoyed when users asks for an explaintion during a vote. As it simply makes the page very messy, when a link to the users own talkpage will do. While it's conviable to convince a person to change their votes during an election. Such conversations should be on the talkpage. Personally once I vote, I prefer not to change my vote once my vote is cast. --Masssiveego 08:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Masssive: first, the votes on RfAs are an attempt to establish community consensus, seeing them as an absolute "vote" is unproductive. Second, not changing one's vote after one has made it runs afoul (at least in my mind) of the entire principle of a Wiki- there is nothing wrong with editing it if one's opinion changes and it should. Third, while everyone says that adminship should be no big deal the notion that we discuss things less or in an out of the way location because doing otherwise "simply makes the page very messy" seems to be a complete misunderstanding of what priorities should be. JoshuaZ 13:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I second that comment by JoshuaZ. Tyrenius 13:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. RfA is not a vote.--Stephan Schulz 14:28, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not the place to discuss general issues, but it very much is the place to discuss whether the candidate is suitable for adminship. Thus polite requests for clarification are very suitable to developing the best consensus. You may be annoyed at someone asking for clarification, but better would be to change your expectations to this being a consensus gathering exercise. Again, if you don't wan't to respond to polite good faith requests for clarification you can't expect your opinion to have as much weight in the consensus. - Taxman Talk 14:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with JoshuaZ and Taxman. On my RFA, several people opposing changed their opinion after I responded to their concerns. IMO, people opposing are doing so to help the community. Often the person opposing is a stranger to you and makes a judgment based on limited information. I respect the opinion people opposing even if I do not agree.
JoshuaZ's response (several other people chimed in as well) to another oppose on my RFA was helpful. It was worded politely but still forcefully countered the opinion. There was some back and forth discussion. I do not know what JoshuaZ thought because we did not discuss it but I did not think the particular person opposing would change their opinion. The point was more to clarify the situation for other people that did not know me as well as JoshuaZ did. FloNight talk 16:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Noticing how many paragraphs a single RFA produces with Alphachimp response. It adds to the difficulty of finding where to place the votes, and more scrolling. After a point the discussion becomes a full page article in itself about the RFA in question, and interferes with the vote after a certain point.
My refusing to vote change is mostly so I do not find myself being forced to accept another persons opinion which if find very faulty. I prefer length explainations and arguements after the RFA upon the user in questions request. --Masssiveego 05:20, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
To Kim Bruning's original comment: If you believe that someone has misapplied their rationale/criteria to the specific user, it is appropriate to address that with a comment on the RFA itself. But if you are objecting to the rationale/criteria in and of itself I find it highly inappropriate (and rather rude). In those cases, take it to the talk pages - a user should not gunk up some random person's RFA because they have a philosophical disagreement with someone's decision making process. We should always try to remember that by participating in WP:RFA a user is sacrificing their time and energy to try to improve the project, I find far too many users get into snits over opinions that don't match theirs, and this may be something we should try to guard against. Themindset 06:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a project that is run by consensus. Your explanation seems rational, until you realise that the objective is to reach consensus, rather than to avoid conflict altogether. Conflicts occur naturally, and you need to resolve them as amicably as possible, true. However, this should not go so far as to avoid conflict altogether to the detriment of consensus-finding. Hiding from problems won't make them go away. If there's some conflict, you need to discuss it, else you'll never reach consensus. Kim Bruning 06:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
There is discussion and feeding the trolls. Too much conflict in my opinion is disruptive, and counterproductive. --Masssiveego 05:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Consensus is great, Kim. But there's a line between searching for consensus and badgering. And, especially in RfAs, it's probably better to tread softly and keep the challenging rhetoric to the talk pages. Themindset 16:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
Alternate users
How has having an alternate user account historically affected RfA's? The User:Jtkiefer - Pegasus affair is certainly an interesting episode. The reason I ask is I have an alternate user, User:Mikereichold. I established this account because my other one is in my real name. I felt vulnerable after dealing with vandals that lived in a nearby city. My name is unique enough that I would not be hard to find if a kook wanted to look.
I acknowledge the alternate users on each page and give the identity of this alternate user on the other one. I make the recommended affirmations of innocence and benignity on each. I mention it now out of curiosity and to have some discourse now before I even consider submitting an RfA. I would appreciate reading what others think on the subject. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
The rules are laid out in WP:SOCK as long as you follow them and don't try to vote stack, then there are no issues. What Jtkiefer - Pegasus affair are you referring to? - Taxman Talk 14:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Taxman, take a look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Jtkiefer_3, which might warrant an early closure. I don't see there's much chance of this request reaching consensus unless some extraordinary evidence is forthcoming soon. Gwernol 15:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
This affair is frightening. The notion that we made this person an admin previously is disturbing. I personally supported the Pegasus incarnation in some of his previous RfAs, and gave him off-Wiki advice about how to be diplomatic in RfAs. This almost makes me think that RfA standards are not strict enough. JoshuaZ 16:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
This is just too strange. Is there any confirmation that the two accounts are really the same person? (Liberatore, 2006). 16:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
See Kelly Martin's recent comments in the RfA. JoshuaZ 16:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
The current situation is a rather extraordinary one. It's probably not a helpful example to use. Jkelly 16:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
o Like Taxman says, WP:SOCK is pretty clear. Anyone using an alternate user is supposed to be open about it and not abuse it. The idea of dual adminship is pretty staggering except for the one limited exception I know of. This is reminiscent of the JoshuaZ et al question about admin’s with sock puppets. I don’t know that more stringent requirements are in order. The question of how to assess an RfA candidate is where it was when my alternate user started taking part in RfA’s How did they do it in the old days-- look at each edit? The last 500?? All in all, how do you assess for character? :) Dlohcierekim 17:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
+ It's too bad about Jtkiefer, certainly abused our trust. I even tried to convince Pegasus to come back when he said he was leaving. I don't know what happened here, but it happens with far greater frequency than we'd like to admit. I've seen in various places anonymous folks saying that they're building up admin accounts, but I guess this is one case where the admin-sockpuppeteer has been caught red-handed. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I have a related idea which I suspect will be shot down (I'm not even sure it is a good idea myself but I think it may be worth thinking about). Why not have any individual who accepts a request for adminship submit to a checkuser request. After the checkuser request, the person who performed the checkuser will talk to the candidate about any observed anomalies and will then make a report to the RfA about whether there appear to be any serious violations of WP:SOCK. JoshuaZ 18:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
At this moment I don't think a checkuser function will help out much. I've personally seen the process in action and it is a *huge* drain on the wikipedia servers. Plans are on to improve it's functioning. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be easier to just add a new question to RFAs: "Please list all accounts and IP numbers under which you have edited." If someone knowingly withheld information that would be relevant to the adminship request, it would be grounds for desyssopping, which could be handled through arbitration. --Tony Sidaway 19:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good. But we could have someone who has engaged in silliness and vandalism. Thought better of it - created a new accounnt and edited harmoniously for 8 months. Do we realy need them to declare that they were a 'penis vandal' for two days, three years ago? Perhaps better just asking 'have you even submitted an RfA under a different nick?'. --Doc 19:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not like we could even run a checkuser that far. At most, we get information about the last four weeks of edits. It seems unnecesary, at least to me: we can't legislate every single thing that could happen, and this case falls under this. So, I can't use EvilCat to test a new monobook.css layout? Titoxd(?!?) 08:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Per WP:SOCK#Legitimate uses of multiple accounts (mostly the security aspects), I feel it is too extreme to force an adminship candidate to publicly identify alternative accounts. And demanding IP numbers should be way out of bounds from the view of personal privacy. Dragons flight 19:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Can't see this as that practical, it would just mean being careful to avoid the checkuser showing anything up. Checkuser isn't and never will be the be all and end all of sockpuppet detection. --pgk(talk) 20:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
accepting and listing[edit]
I think we need more coherent rules for accepting and listing RfAs. If it's done in a manner such that some people know about the nomination and not others (i.e. it's not listed on the main rfa page), and worse yet, people are allowed to vote during this time... it's really going to leave the people who didn't happen to know about the RfA feeling disenfranchised and the RfA will never seem totally legitimate to everyone.
So, how do we do this without instruction creep?
1. Votes are only valid after a candidate has accepted and the nomination is listed on the RfA page by the candidate or nominator 2. Early votes (votes before the both parts of step 1 were completed) can be crossed out and need to be re-affirmed by the voter
I don't think that's too much to ask, and it would really stop all of the various problems that crop up from time to time. --W.marsh 02:12, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
The "how to" says the editor accepting the RfA must list the RfA - I think this makes good sense. Any votes prior to them listing it should be minimal. Thanks/wangi 02:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Usualy the prior votes are minimal, it's when they aren't that problems emerge... the goal here is to make the process uniform so there isn't "that one RfA..." every few weeks where irregular process leads to a bunch of annoyed people. --W.marsh 02:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Cool, understand that. Perhaps just an addition to the guidelines saying another editor/admin shouldn't post the RfA if the editor themself has forgotten to - instead they should post a pointer on their talk page? Thanks/wangi 02:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah. That sounds good. I'd like to hear from a b'crat before adding any of this though. But I do think having it written down somewhere formal will be great just for avoiding this periodic confusion and frustration. --W.marsh 02:34, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
That has always been my understanding of how it worked. That gives the nominee time to write answers to the questions. I am quite frankly appalled that someone—I won't mention any names—transcluded an RfA so that they could register the first !vote on it as an oppose. I think that it would be wise for a 'crat to strike all the !votes registered before it is added to the RfA main page by either the nominee (per the instructions) or the nominator. People should then come back and reaffirm what they said earlier if it is still applicable after the questions have been answered.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 02:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
What folks have done is made up new rules for RFA (with several people saying maybe it wasn't such a good idea), painted themselves into a corner this way, and now they'd like to make even more rules to try to paint their way out of the corner again.
Rules are like drugs, you habituate and need more and more of them to get the same high... errr... level of organisation.
Perhaps we could back to immediately transcluding the RFA the moment you create it? Some of the old problems would come back, but the new problems will go away again.
Since the old problems were mere inconvenience, and the new problems are disenfranchisement, I suggest we go for the old problems ;-)
Kim Bruning 03:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
It just seems like the old way presents a lot of problems we could easilly avoid with a simple, clear rule being written. It's only instruction creep if it makes things more confusing, and I think this makes it less confusing. I know people are rule-phobic around here, but this "rule" would only kick in when a problem emerges. I.e. in most RfAs, where the candidate just quietly accepts after they see the nomination then lists it before any votes appear, nothing new needs to happen at all... we just would now clearly have a process so occasional hiccups don't cause drama every time they occur. Yeah it's a rule... but at this point on Wikipedia I think having a clear process is much preferable to a system of vague unwritten rules and learned behavior dictating how things operate.--W.marsh 03:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
- The "older way" is a simple, clear rule. Make the nomination and transclude it immediately. There's some minor niggles about it not looking all pretty and perfect from the get go, but so be it.
- The "newer way" involves several rules as well as a number of penalties for getting it wrong.
The latter is a larger burden on users than the former. Therefore, we probably want the former, for some strange reason ;-) . (unless you happen to like nomic ;-) )Kim Bruning 06:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
The "older way" leads to confusion, as does the current way, as far as I can tell. What happens when someone doesn't accept quickly enough in the older way? Are early votes valid? Do we cross them out? It seems like we have to have the same drama every time it happens, which is pretty common. Rules are not automatically bad just because they're rules... my proposal would give us a process so we don't have confusion and hurt feelings every time something irregular happens. If that process does cause more problems than it fixes we can forget it, but I think it would be painless and not even encountered by 95% of RfAs. --W.marsh 15:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
The main problem I had with the older way is that people, very inconsiderately, nominated others without getting their okay first. Social decency wasn't enough to prevent this from happening, so I'm hesitant to endorse going back to that system, especially given that in the current atmosphere of RFA such incidents would be more harmful. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I loved the way you could nominate people without getting their ok first. The people most suited to adminship are often those who least want it. Why the heck did we remove the ability to drag them to RFA kicking and screaming? Kim Bruning 10:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe if people weren't in such a bloody hurry to vote get consensus things would go more smoothly. The nomination lasts a whole week! There will be enough time to make your voice heard! So just let the nominator and the nominee finish their pre-nom business in peace. RfA worked fine the "old way" for years and there was no need to go all instruction creepy on it. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 14:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that's the case. People often seem too frantic when dealing with this. Michael 03:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
Young administrator candidates[edit]
Do we ever take notice of the fact that the nom is obviously a kid, or do we just keep going like he was an adult? :) Dlohcierekim 03:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we should discriminate against candidates or nominees based on age (or any other inherent characteristic). Hold all candidates to the same standards regardless of age. We have some great editors under the age of 16 and I see no reason why one of them couldn't become an admin if they met the usual standards expected of candidates. Best, Gwernol 03:17, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
We have a 14-year-old bureaucrat, for what it's worth :-) Kirill Lokshin 03:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Indeed! That is amazing. I just feel sorry for the poor kid out there with his string of teenager mistakes and with 18 opposes. So much for my opinion that we should block all school accounts on sight. :) Dlohcierekim 03:25, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Kirill, do we? I thought he had grown up. (Not that it matters anyway, age discrimination in RfA is senseless. There's "mature" contributors who I would like to be as far away as possible from the mop.) Titoxd(?!?) 08:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, his userpage still says 14; I have no idea if that's still the case, or if he's merely neglected to update it. Kirill Lokshin 14:09, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
This was actually a hotly debated issue on Fetofs's RfA a couple months back. I personally think age discrimination in RfAs is ridiculous. --Mr. Lefty Talk to me! 03:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Evaluate candidates on maturity, not age. (Disclaimer: I am a 16-year-old admin.) Johnleemk | Talk 07:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I concur. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
If we knew everyone's age, then we might want to discourage those under 14 from standing. But we don't - and even where it is declared, we can't verify it. So judge maturity by actions. (Disclaimer: I sometimes act like a pre-teen) --Doc 10:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Yah, I know plenty of adults who are less mature than most children. --Kbdank71 11:08, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
As my name was mentioned, I thought I might give my opinion: I think that, being part of the net, Wikipedia has no means to know my age if I don't tell it voluntarily. You have to think what you would have not knowing of the age (and probably you would have considered maturity). Also, it's wiki experience that counts most; when editing here you have to deal with conflicts. But then, I guess I'm a bit biased :) fetofs Hello! 00:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree, age has no part in adminship (I'm 15). —Mets501 (talk) 14:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I also agree with this. Age has no part in who should be an admin. However, maturity does: if you have a 13 or a 30 year old who acts like a "typical" 10 year old, neither should get the tools. One thing I am concerned about though is that it is probably more likely that a young candidate take a failed RFA badly.--Nilfanion (talk) 14:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, if you get into a serious problem on Wikipedia, "Hey, I'm just 15!" really can't be an excuse if you've chosen to go through RfA and say that age doesn't matter. You've chosen to be treated as an adult for better or worse. --W.marsh 15:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes indeed. Age doesn't matter as much as maturity. I've seen admins as young as 12 kicking and screaming (in a positive manner, of course). --Pilotguy (roger that) 16:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I too agree with this. Age is actually not a concern. The level of maturity is. --Siva1979Talk to me 18:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Age absolutely is a valid part of a larger look at a candidate for adminship. There are some cases where im immensely surprised to find some current admins who were young when promoted, but for the most part, it's along the lines of 'I could tell'. It's not a litmus test, I wont make up my mind solely on the issue of age, but I find it much harder to support someone under 18. Not impossibly hard mind you, and I end up swayed as often as not, but it is just more reassuring to know someone has reached at least adulthood, seems to temper them and add a bit of maturity from what I see. We dont live for the exceptions. There are mature teenagers, and immature 30-somethings, and thats what the discussion part of RfA is for, to sway those who see that. But for the majority of cases, if you're in highschool, you've got some growing to do. Get over it, do that growing, its not like im saying you suck as a person because you're young. -Mask 21:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
- For legal issues, I can understand why someone would want aged 18+ admins. But, then again, how can one prove age on the internet? Moreover, wouldn't that compromise "No big deal" even more than it already has been? I agree with the above user; age is another statistic, like edit count — stats serve as half of the equation in RFA, and the other half is the discussion aspect. — Deckiller 21:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with AKMask on this. Deckiller raises the obvious practical question: how do we know how old someone is? That aside this kind of age discrimination is illegal in some countries where Wikipedia operates, and IMHO its immmoral everywhere. The question we should be asking is about maturity, not age, as maturity directly impacts their ability to be a good admin. Since even AKMask admits that age!=maturity then adding an age barrier does nothing the improve the RfA decision process but it is instruction creep. We already judge people on their maturity and find some older folks lacking and some younger folks to be wise. I may be old and creaky myself but I still remember being young. Gwernol 22:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Age should not be a factor. If for no other reason, we don't know most users' ages. That would then make it unfair on those who have chosen to be honest and tell their age, and are then punished for it. If someone isn't acting like a little kid (in the bad way), then don't oppose them for it. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 22:12, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
{edit conflict with Newyorkbrad)Discriminating against someone based on their age makes as much sense as discriminating against someone based on their being from developing country. Many young people are not as mature as adults. Many people from non-first world countries are either computer illiterate and/or unable to communicate effectively in English. Therefore young people and people from non-first world countries are less likely to make good admins. This should be taken into account when judging RfAs from people under the age of 21 (the age of majority in many countries) or RfAs involving people from less well off countries. It's just more reassuring to know that someone has grown up in an English speaking country and surrounded by technology. It seems to temper them for the online environment and add a bit of English communication proficiency from what I see. We don't live for the exceptions. We should pass over people from countries outside of the developed world. Right, or did I miss your point? Basing an argument on stereotypes and generalizations is not a mature rhetorical approach.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 23:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree, I think. Your sarcasm confused me for a moment. (You are being sarcastic right?) There is no reason to think that a 40-year-old new to Wikipedia should be more knowledgeable about the project than a 15-year-old who has been around for a year. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 23:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it was meant to be a weak reductio ad absurdum, commonly seen as sarcastic agreement. I'm sure that there are some people on the project that feel that admins should only come from English speaking countries in the Western world. If someone commenting here feels that way then my argument could be rejected, however I have a strong feeling that the vast majority of commenters will agree that it is an absurd conclusion. Breakdown of logical argument follows. Let A stand for young people, B stand for immature people, C stand for good admin candidates, D stand for people from places outside the developed/English speaking world and E stand for computer illiterate people/people with poor English communication skils. AKMask said Most A are B. B are not C. Therefore A are not C. I responded Most A are B. Most D are E. B and E are not C. Therefore all A and D are not C, but all D != C is an absurd conclusion. —WAvegetarian•(talk) 07:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Youthful RfA candidates should be treated just like everyone else if they are serious candidates. I ran successfully for public office when I was in my early 20's and can shout as loud as anyone "judge people by their qualifications, not by their ages." Of course, in some cases we don't know a candidate's age anyway (e.g., I had no idea User:Mets501 was a teen when I supported his RfA last month, but now I am sad I'll never get to reminisce with him about the 1986 World Series).
On the other hand, when a young nominee (such as a current candidate at this writing who appears to be 12 years old) has no real chance for the mop in his/her current RfA, the situation calls for the same kindness and thoughtfulness that we would have wanted to receive if there had been an Internet and a Wikipedia when we all were 12 or 13. Especially if, as in this case, the user is a serious article editor and we want him to stick around in that capacity. It's particularly important that at least some of the comments be positive -- but that this be done without patronizing the candidate, these are some of the brightest kids around and will see through that -- and that we avoid pile-ons in these situations. Newyorkbrad 23:43, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
WOW! I just felt bad for a certain RfA candidate who was getting shredded without regard for his age (12-14). I just found his mistakes more understandable as age/maturity related. Then I find out we have a teenage 'crat. I don't care how old an editor is. All that matters is ability. I don't think we should take age into considerationregardling qualifications. Should we temper our "constructive criticism in any way? Cheers :) Dlohcierekim 00:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I haven't edited this page since the HRE fracas, but I think I need to say a few things. As someone who was made admin at 15 (I became admin a few days before my 16th birthday last year), age plays little to no part in it, it's maturity. HOWEVER, regardless of one's age, I think there's one underlying point that must be made here: If you accept and choose to go through with the nomination, you have to expect and accept what comes at you. This certain candidate is being opposed on mostly fair grounds, with, as far as I can see, only one struck out age-related issue. He's being opposed on how he would use the tools, and his actions in the past regarding policy, not his age. Chacor 01:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
"On the internet, no one knows you're really a [16 year old] dog." -Kim Bruning 10:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I've been discriminated against because of my age before on Wikipedia (quite often by vandals but a couple of times by respected editors too). I don't think age should play a part in the process – quite often a 13, 14, 15 year old can be more mature, and more responsible than a 30 year old. — FireFox (talk) 10:51, 13 August '06
As a member of the over-30 admin group, I also think that it more relates to maturity than chronological age. I happen to think that there is a positive correlation between the two, but it isn't 1. If over a period of six months to a year, and a few thousand edits, the user demonstrates the maturity, diplomacy, and discipline needed to be a 'crat or sysop, then why not? I know plenty of fourty year olds that make my kids look like sagacious octogenarians :) -- Avi 14:57, 14 August 2006 (UTC) [edit]
FAC talk
I am a little confused. Some editors demand !FA, which would necessitate/demonstrate communication skills in just trying to bring the article to that level. It appears some discount FAC talk in favor of user talk and article talk. Why would FAC not be enough to show a user communicates well enough to be an admin? (Pleae pardon any typos. I'm at work and don't have a spell checker to help me proof. :) Dlohcierekim 23:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Being able to develop an article up to FA-class demonstrates exceptional writing skills, which many users see as extremely important in the context of administering an encyclopedia. However, it's also fairly common for users (such as myself) to disagree with that particular standard, because one's ability to administer the encyclopedia does not depend upon the quality of one's writing style.
Personally, I'd say that while having a Featured Article or two under one's belt is pretty impressive, it means nothing in terms of one's ability to delete articles, block users and the like. A good writing style is an advantage to an admin, but should never be considered the sole basis on which to judge a candidate's suitability - AfDs, User Talk and other areas of participation are more relevant as examples of how a user communicates in other contexts, and are equally (if not more) important. RandyWang (chat me up/fix me up) 09:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with the above statement where you've only cited three points to being an admin. I'm not sure if you've participated in FAC before, but getting an article featured is a stressful exercise. For a newbie to get an article featured shows a lot of positive attitude in building consensus. Take a look at the FACs to judge how a candidate has responded to the oppose remarks. Secondly, adminship is not about just explicit vandalism fighting, if you're a dedicated wikipedian, reverting vandalism is part and parcel of your work here, admin or not. And being a editor-admin, it's a lot easier to judge if an article needs to be deleted or not. Lastly, an editor-admin can edit pages protected pages such as DYKs and ITN. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
It's a good thing that wikipedia admins don't administer any encyclopedias. Some of them seem to have enough trouble using the admin flag on a wiki. Kim Bruning 10:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
Adding a question on Recall
I would like to propose changing the RfA template to include a question with regard to Category:Administrators open to recall, to be answered mandatorily. Now that we have a precedent of an administrator being recalled, I want to see the recall process get more defined, and the perfect way to get all admin candidates to consider recall and to go on record with their opinion on how they would handle theirs is to add a question, as follows:
Q4: If promoted, do you plan to take the optional step of joining Category:Administrators open to recall and why? If yes, what course of action will you take if recalled?
Doing so will raise the profile of the recall process and will put a lot of peer pressure on candidates to volunteer - which I think is a net good thing (proceeding from the premise that recall is fundamentally a good thing, which could be debatable). I have added this question (on an optional basis) to a couple of still-pending RfA's, and my understanding is that Lar has asked a similar question of candidates in the past. Prior discussion is at Category talk:Administrators open to recall - CrazyRussian talk/email 14:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I Support this idea 110% (could turn nominees into politicians however - how do we make them keep their word??? ;) Great idea - Glen 14:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I object to the entire category on principle. It should be all admins or no admins. Trying to pressure some admins (or admin candidates) into joining creates an ugly double standard. It is on the same spectrum as saying: "If you have nothing to hide, then surely its okay if the police know every detail of your life", i.e. "If you are going to be a good admin, then surely you won't mind being held to a higher standard than other admins". And if an admin candidate refuses to join, do we really want to believe that this person is more nefarious than all the other admins who haven't joined? If something is a "good idea" then refusing to participate will look bad even though being forced to participate would create an unfair double standard. I'm on record in multiple places as supporting some form of admin recall for all admins, but I absolutely think it is unfair to create de facto policy applying only to new admins by pressuring them into it. Dragons flight 15:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
What DF said. The idea of admin recall is good and sound as a check on the system, but so far none of the proposed systems have gained both consensus and widespread use. The self-nominated category has some flaws (not least of which is small usage), and applying this only to new admins actually intensifies the problem, not solves it (IMO). Anyone can ask voluntary questions of candidates, though... -- nae'blis 15:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I feel the question would back people into a corner. The vast majority of admins have not joined the category, but that does not mean they don't feel they should be held accountable for their actions. However, some !voters would take objecting to joining the category as an indication that they don't feel it's necessary to be held accountable for their actions. I think some people, including myself, feel the structure of the open to recall category is a bit too rigid and would result in the admin in question being forced to step down despite relatively minor infractions. Admins will run into trouble, garner a few enemies. It happens, but that's part of the job. I'm sure I could easily find six people who believe Cyde, for instance, is a bad admin, but that doesn't mean he really is; he's just willing to put his neck on the line in controversial situations. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 15:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Forcing this into the standard questions now amounts to blackmail to join a category that has significant opposition to it's use. Get consensus on admin recall for all admins, then and only then can it go in the standard questions. - Taxman Talk 15:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
But we now have the issue of people asking it at all. People are currently welcome to ask this question on every single RfA which would essentially have almost the same effect as being a standard question. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 15:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Adding it to the template makes it a standard part of the process and indicates consensus for it being a criterion for evaluating an administrator, which all candidates must answer; instead as an optional question, it is one editor asking it to help him and some others make their own decisions. —Centrx→talk • 16:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Taxman, would you then consider me guilty of blackmail if I asked that question on a voluntary basis? Would you like me to withdraw the yet unanswered question I posed to Wangi a few minutes ago? Nevermind [2]. Good answer. - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
A number of the issues people seem to have with this question is the idea that saying no could be then taken as a reason perhaps to oppose. However consider Alphachimp's response: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Alphachimp. I think such an elegant reply on why they would not join does their RFA no harm at all (in fact it does the opposite). Saying that I don't feel it should added in to the template, it's fine as an optional question. Thanks/wangi 15:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
This is a terrible idea and I object to asking the question at all. It will just make people think they have to join that category or say they will for them to get the vote of the person asking. The category is not anywhere near accepted by anywhere near a consensus or majority of admins, and questioning people at all about such a controversial thing does nothing but make them think they have to go along with it. Wangi's answer cited above is a perfect example of this. People are so afraid of things on RFA anyway, that few will say "no I won't join" because of the implication that if you don't join you are a bad admin. This is nothing but a way for the supporters of admin recall to advertise their category. pschemp | talk 15:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I second that statement--this is indeed terrible. While I have no issue with someone voluntarily joining this category, to raise this as a questions implies that if someone says no others will try to blackball their nomination. --Alabamaboy 16:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I concur with all of the above - this idea is awful. Raul654 16:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I totally agree with Pschemp - asking this to candidates is and would be a very bad idea. Supporting or submitting to a highly muddy and controversial proposal (which is probably new or of little interest to many or most Admin Candidates anyway) should not be added to the list of mulitcoloured hoops that candidates here have to jump though (which it will become, as many have stated above). Plus, during/just before an RfA is not the environment in which to decide on it. Each individual Wikipedian should decide where they stand on it when they hear about it naturally and have no pressure on them either way. Thanks! —Celestianpower háblame 16:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I also agree with Pschemp -- it's fine as an optional question, but making it mandatory should only come after there is consensus that the category is beneficial, at the least. Even then, since the point of the category is to implement a voluntary recall standard (as opposed to making the recall process a regular part of the admin policy) it would be arguable that making the question mandatory gives it a higher profile in the RfA process than appropriate. Mike Christie 16:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Well you missed half my point then. I'm opposed to asking it at all, even voluntarily, because I think that is just the supporters of the category advertising it. pschemp | talk 16:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
You're right; I didn't make it clear which part of your comment I was agreeing with -- my mistake. Personally I wouldn't ask the question and don't feel it is necessary, though I did find AlphaChimp's "no" to be useful and informative. However, I don't oppose it as an optional question because I have a hard time placing limits on the optional questions. Optional questions are clearly from individuals and I don't see a reason to oppose any questions other than obvious time-wasting. Mike Christie 16:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
That's a lot more opposition than this proposal had gotten at the talk page of the category - which makes some sense. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I have nominated the category for deletion as inherently divisive. Dragons flight 16:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Wow. Somone asks a question here and as a reaction you put this cat on CfD. Not really nice. (Warning: this was a divisive statement. Let's call the wiki thought police). I would propose that all admins here step down from adminship because adminship is divisive. A statement from a humble non-admin --Ligulem 17:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Not to mentions I doubt you'd be asking anyone about this if you hadn't just been recalled CryzRussian. Asking that question, even voluntarily is advertising for your cause, and as such does not belong in an RFA. pschemp | talk 16:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Recall is not my cause. I would like to either see it made near-universal or deleted altogether. A rejection of this proposal is something I am 100% ok with, but I definitely want recall discussed. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
"I want to see the recall process get more defined, and the perfect way to get all admin candidates to consider recall and to go on record with their opinion on how they would handle theirs is to add a question" sure sounds like it is your cause. pschemp | talk 16:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
(proceeding from the premise that recall is fundamentally a good thing, which could be debatable) on which the jury is apparently still out, as I have now heard. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Lookit, I haven't done anything wrong. I asked three optional question, something I was not the first to do, and I started a discussion in a couple of places, to which I've gotten some strong answers, which is a very good thing. That's all. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Calm down. My point is that RFA questions are there to determine the suitability of the candidate, not to promote or make visible a category. Since that was your stated goal, that question is not appropriate. I'm not accusing you of doing wrong, just pointing out why you shouldn't continue. pschemp | talk 16:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
100% calm. It was a mixed motivation. I will certainly not continue as recall seems doomed. - CrazyRussian talk/email 17:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I support the category, and encourage admins to consider placing themselves in it, and argued strongly for keeping it just now, but oppose asking this as a standard question, and further note that my comment record shows I have supported people who opposed the idea and opposed people who supported it. It should not be a litmus test for admins. I further argue that it need not be near universal to do siginficant good for the encyclopedia and if it's not near universal, that's no reason to delete it. "Admins willing to make hard blocks" isn't near universal either and yet does a great deal of good by existing. ++Lar: t/c 16:39, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, this question should not be asked in any way. CrzyRussian's quote above points out that the reason for asking is to make it more visible. That is an unacceptable use of RFA questions. RFA questions are there to determine a candidates suitablitiy not to make a category more visible. If you don't care about their answer to the question, it shouldn't be being asked, not even voluntarily. pschemp | talk 16:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Other issues aside, the question seems perfectly reasonable as something to help determine a candidate's suitability for adminship. It's certainly more relevant than some of the other questions that people will ask. Kirill Lokshin 17:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Exactly how is it relevant? pschemp | talk 17:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Because a potential administrator's views on the possibility of recall (if not necessarily on the particular method being discussed) are usually indicative of their view on the role of admins within the community in general—which is a rather important point to a number of people. (Provided the answer to the question is honest, of course; but that's true of all the questions being asked.) Whether you choose to use this information in determining your opinion is entirely up to you; but surely you can see that some (many?) of those commenting might find it useful? Kirill Lokshin 17:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Well then ask about their views of the recall proposal, not if they want to join a category. As it is worded right now, it isn't relevant. pschemp | talk 17:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I can't speak for Crzrussian's reasons for asking but they are not mine. As I say below, I asked (a rather long winded multipart question about both recall and ROUGE) to gauge the answers. To say I don't care what the answers are is not really a very accurate thing to say because I do care very much, but more about the process and the thinking than the actual answer. That's because I don't think that being in or not in it makes you better or worse as an admin. ++Lar: t/c 03:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Extremely related to this, an actual Recall policy proposal is currently being discussed at WP:RECALL. Thanks. rootology (T) 17:17, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
The question isn't about WP:RECALL, its about joining the current category. Two different things. To make it relevant, ask about WP:RECALL instead. pschemp | talk 17:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I think both approaches are misguided. If you want to know how the candidate feels about administrator recall, ask them how they feel about administrator recall. Don't ask them to hit a moving target (WP:RECALL is far from solidified, despite the straw poll) or blackmail them into support the current voluntary categorization. Maybe it could be useful to mention both in the question, but that just overcomplicates things in my view. -- nae'blis 20:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree. I meant aske them how they feel about recall in general as I said up above. I put Wp;Recall in there because that seems to be Rootology's currrent fascination, but what you said is correct. Ask about the general idea, not the category or the proposal. pschemp | talk 01:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
My take on the particular discussion: do NOT add as a mandatory question. Individual people are fine to ask, on their own volition, but as the self-recall is just something a group of admins is willing to do does not make it policy. rootology (T) 17:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that would be a good step to take. Michael 02:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC) [edit]
Voluntary -> no question[edit]
May I suggest a simple way out. As it is very well understood, adding your self to the recall list is voluntary. As such, it should not be a question on a RfA, but post the question at the talk page of the new admin as soon as a nomination has been concluded successfully. In that way, they are aware of it, can add themselves, and it will not result in a false suggestion at the RfA if someone for whatever reason does not want to put themselves on the list. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 02:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Cool! - CrazyRussian talk/email 02:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Excellent suggestion. I wonder if it would be worth posting this entire discussion over to the talk page of the category, to avoid having to hash this out again in three or four months. -- nae'blis 02:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Sure, assuming the category survives deletion, that is. ++Lar: t/c 03:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
It will. There is no way either side will get a consensus. --Kbdank71 15:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
good suggestion. thanks Kim. pschemp | talk 02:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to the suggestion of asking about the category after the successful RfA but I gotta say, I think there is value in asking all sorts of questions of prospective admins to see how they think on their feet. I'm standing behind the versions I asked as having generated a lot of good thinking from candidates (and remind you yet again that my comments of support or oppose were not completely congruent with the yes/no answers I got, rather they were congruent with the level of thoughtfulness I saw) ++Lar: t/c 03:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with you. Michael 03:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd be inclined to vote "oppose" to someone who said that they would add themselves to the category. The more people who are unwilling to do anything that might offend anyone (or, well, 6 anyones) the less able Wikipedia is to protect itself from nogoodniks. Guettarda 04:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
If a bad-faith recall happened, I'm sure the targetted admin would romp back in. Regards, Ben Aveling 07:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I suppose my underlying concern comes from my experience with teaching evaluations. Student evaluations can influence hiring, tenure and promotion for faculty and teaching assistants. Getting good evaluations pays off, getting bad evaluations can hurt you. I believe that this is a major driver of grade inflation, which lowers the overall quality of tertiary education. There are enough forces which limit your fearlessness as an admin. While there are a few people who are too fearless, starting people off like that seems to be a good way to produce cowed admins. Guettarda 15:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit]
Image:Rouge-Admin.png
I have put Image:Rouge-Admin.png on IfD. You may say this is a violation of WP:POINT, but I must say I have always found this to be highly divisive. Also the notion of rouge-admins is highly divisive. --Ligulem 18:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
You created an en image description page for a mirrored rendering from Wikimedia Commons. I've deleted the empty imagespace page here. If you'd like to nominate this media for deletion, you need to do it at commons:Template:Deletion requests. Jkelly 18:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok. Then let's discuss it here, because that banner is used by admins on en. That banner was used by Brigate Rosse, an Italian terrorist group who murdered prime minister Aldo Moro. I find this banner offensive and divisive. Is this what these "ambassador" admins want to express here? --Ligulem 19:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Category:Rouge admins is also discussed for deletion here. That banner is used there. If Category:Administrators open to recall is divisive, is Rouge admins not divisive? --Ligulem 19:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
W/ due respect to your comments, i must say that the category would end up w/ a "no concensus". I agree w/ Kelly that the procedure must go thru commons:Template:Deletion requests. -- Szvest 19:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I didn't know where that banner came from, and I have to say that given its origin it is in bad taste for admins to display that on their userpages. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
May I just say that I find this all rather silly. Themindset 03:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what aspect exactly you deem silly: the fact that I brought it up here or the fact that some admins on en are using this banner to decorate their user pages. In any case, I admit that this is somewhat a matter of WP:POINT from my side, because none of those admins did put that banner in bad faith on their user pages. Neither was the Category:Administrators open to recall created in bad faith and nobody is forced to comment on that cat. Nevertheless both the rouge banner and the cat were both put on deletion discussion. Now, what is more ridiculous/divisive? Most of those that want the Category:Administrators open to recall have deleted argue it is divisive. Nevertheless some of them are on category:rouge admins, which I try to say is divisive too. How much do we need to extinct divisive things on user pages? --Ligulem 07:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I strongly second Christopher Parham on this. Tyrenius 03:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I thought the image came from a military organization. However, upon learning it's actually from a terrorist organization, I concur that it's quite disrespectful. -- tariqabjotu 03:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Some jokes just push the envelope farther than others, they're still hilariously funny and incisive though. Take, for example, the September 11 joke by an Arab on The Daily Show a few nights ago. They were talking about how Bush and Rice keep saying that the problems in the Middle East are merely "the birth pangs of Democracy" and "a great opportunity". The response was to contrast how the Bush administration expects the people in the Middle East to respond to their crisis and how we responded to ours. We didn't consider 9/11 a "great opportunity", for instance. --Cyde Weys 13:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm confused as to how that's relevant. We're talking about using a terrorist banner as a Wikipedia admin symbol. -- tariqabjotu 14:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the image is in bad taste. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
For those who are interested in this image it is now listed for deletion on Commons, here: commons:Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Rouge-Admin.png.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
What i believe is that none of the admins tagging h/ userpage w/ the image is really "Rouge". We don't really need all this spectacle. I'd have agreed w/ you if one of those admins is behaving as a "terrorist". None. What's the problem? -- Szvest 16:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
To be perfectly clear, Ligulem, I think all sides of this "issue" are rather silly... PS, Cyde, I caught that episode of the daily show and was amazed he got a laugh out of an american audience. It was, as you say, hilarious and incisive. Themindset 16:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Masssiveego RFA Admin grading system[edit]
How I judge the Admin on the Request for Adminship.
Quote from Spiderman. "Great power comes with great responsibility."
Qualifications[edit]
Wikipedia:You know you're a Wikipedian if
I feel, Nominee must be
- A people person, EQ over 100. see Billy Graham No aggressive conflicts.
- Hardworking, see Martha Stewart Depends typically non-bot 30 posts a day minimum or 3 featured articles.
- Civil, Wikipedia:civil No swear words, etc..
- Trustworthy, see Pope John Paul II. Zero lying, cheating, stealing etc..
- Helpful, see James T. Kirk or Bob Villa
- Kind, see Mike Murdock or Heidi Barnstars checked.
- Have good temperance, Wikistress Wikistress meter cannot be at 4 or higher at any time while being on Wikipedia. and other indicators.
- Friendly, see Bjork Tone of posts are noted.
- Have good manners. Julia Childs
- An understanding of the English language, have a good vocabulary. Such as reading difficult edits.
- Understands the workings of Wikipedia, no more then 2 policy errors.
- Be a good tutor. see Jaime Escalante or Stand and Deliver If a user only uses templates with little or no explaination, or
fails to give assistance to a confused Wikipedian.
I find post counts and time on Wikipedia factor toward the above but may not necessary reflect on the person character. Last thing I want to see is another power tripping Admin that deletes the hardwork of other people for the sheer pleasure of destroying other people's work. While I understand there are limits to wikipedia bandwidth, and server hard drive space. Admin should be
- Open minded, and
- Flexible to variation, and
- Have a broad understanding of what is useful everyone else, rather then what is just useful to me.
I feel Admin must be, and the user can be,
- Intelligent, IQ over 100. see Stephen Hawking
- Wise, see King Solomon
- Clever, see Donald Trump
- Happy, see Ronald Reagan
- Unstressable do gooders, see Mother Teresa
- Have the time to be on Wikipedia, see Jesus Christ
- Take the time to both smell the roses, and keep things organized with a clear mind. see Sound of music or Anne Frank
Explanation of the above in terms of what I look for.
If you recieved a not active enought with the Wikipedia community.. Please read the following. Esperanza Wikipedia:Esperanza WikiProjects
If you recieved an orphan pictures remark. I prefer no more then 3 orphan pictures within the last 3 months. I feel canidates must have last two pictures demonstrating some understanding of the process.
This is due to Admin's ability to move, delete, or remove pictures.
- Demonstrate an understanding on how pictures are used on Wikipedia.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the pictures processing methods on Wikipedia.
- Demonstrate an ability to create and maintain a useful gallery of pictures.
Written Questions Interview[edit]
Typically tested with hypotetical situations, policy knowledge, and opinion tests. Anywhere for 3 to 9 questions are asked. Each question is designed to be tough, and require some thought or effort by the canidate.
Examples of Admin[edit]
To achieve my criteria standards is always by choice in what you choose to believe and make happen. If you wish to meet my criteria, I must see a clean talk page, a reasonable user page, pass inspection of your posts, post counts, Wikipedia activities. After that I must find signs being part of the Wikipedian community. If I find any sign of abuse, warnings, or otherwise misguided templates, I typically weigh them against possible future occurances of such activities, and if I find the user unwillinging or incapable of changing their habits they fail my inspection. After that I check for barnstars, awards determine if they are indeed appropriate and real, and start checking all image uploads. If there are three or more orphan images it is an automatic failure, for wasting Wikipedia resources. I excuse orphan images if they are used but not listed as in images placed in user pages. If I cannot find a postcount, or a post that would allow me to sampling how they would act, I typically believe they are inexperienced, and should post more often, therefore automatically fail them. If I find too many templates placed without enough of an explaintion or difficultly tracing the conversation of the template it is an automatic failure. Given there are (-n) version of the templates, that allow new users to track what are they getting the warning for. I do not like seeing someone bite the newbies head off with a template.
There are many other automatic failures such as no talk pages, no greetings pages, not enough images, not posting enough which etc. I prefer to leave this in an email upon request to avoid embarrasing or otherwise reputation damaging information being left on talkpages. As I'm not about driving users away, but making sure only good Admin obtain tools that they need to help and correct. Rather then have self serving troublemakers drive away good users who have dontates so much of their knowledge, time and money to Wikipedia. Thus I do check for character as in how many post counts do they do, do they use bots? How are the bots?
If you pass the first part. The second part is I ask questions, the person has 24 hours and demonstrate that RC patrol skills, or vandal hunting skills a) they are online b) they monitor their watchlist or RFA c) are human by answering question, hypotetical situations, and tests such as a sample page. To show that they indeeed know what they are doing, and they understand policy.
If the two parts are past, the last part is I must see at least 5 other Wikipedians who have regular daily contact with the user in question contact means a message at least once every 3 months, usually shows up on talk pages that can vouch for the character of the user. After that I typically support the canidate unless something comes up.
More other Examples[edit]
I felt this user should have had a fair chance to attempt to be Admin. However others have disagreed with me, and his attempt was discontinued. Basically this user had before my basic requirements. My requirements have gone up since then, however this user personality is something I do look for.
Masssiveego Crappy Admin definitions[edit]
Every once in a while, there will be bad Admin. Those who are new to Wikipedia may every once in a while encounter what I like to call "Crappy Admin".
- The not here. [[4]] [[5]] "170 admins do 90% of all actions." If this is 20% Where are the other admins?
- The power tripping.
- The gone insane.
- The bad attitude.
- Cabal. See Link. [[6]]
- The egotist.
- The vandal that got through.
- The troublesome, can't be bothered.
- The irresponsible. Like goes on a Wikibreak without
leaving a message on their userpage indicating that they are unavaliable.
Arbcom requires at least two users to create a report against these really horrible Admin. This can be difficult if a user has been banned on Wikipedia, hence the use of email or sockpuppets may be necessary to file an Arbcom complaint.
Dealing with Deleted Edits[edit]
This is an example of a good page being deleted by an Admin that did not do good research. The damage an admin can do. This is the Mike Murdock page. This represents just some of the many irratations we like to avoid, aggrivation, time wasted, from one admin. The process took 16 days to save the article.
Reversal of the original decision[edit]
Mike Murdock taken and edited from WP:DRV Wikipedia Delete Review of March 27, 2006 I disagreed with the speedy delete in that he is a world famous pastor, author and song writer.
- Overturn, take to AfD. Article did assert notability. Just zis Guy you know? 09:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Overturn and list on AfD. Might be notable. David | Talk 11:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Overturn/list at AfD Contested notability deserves fair hearing. Xoloz 15:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Overturn (Amazon bares out that he's a well-published author, since we keep such there is little point in relisting - someone can AfD it if they think they can make the case). --Doc ask? 13:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
- Overturn and Speedy Keep There is enough to make this fellow notable. Long history of high profile ministery with multiple TV shows and books. No reason to list on Afd. [10] --FloNight talk 18:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
After the article was put up for AfD vote.
AFD Vote Win[edit]
The result of the debate was keep. SushiGeek 01:32, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Originally speedily deleted on January 8, 2006 [11]. Appealed on deletion review. There was a consensus that an AFD discussion should precede any deletion. I am listing for your consideration. —Encephalon 13:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
- Weak keep Although I find this sort of guy's message offensive and borderline blasphemous (basically:"Send me money and God will make you rich.") he appears to be moderately notable. Fan1967 14:10, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
- Delete per WP:BIO and WP:V. Claims notability, but doens't provide any evidence... and the claims appear fairly ridiculous (115 books and 5000 songs? When does this guy sleep???) Willing to reconsider if someone sources
this.--Isotope23 16:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
[[12]] [[13]] [[14]] [[15]] [[16]] [[17]] [[18]] [[19]] [[20]] [[21]]
- IMO, none of those sources meet WP:RS other than Amazon since the majority of the links there are for his own website or groups he is affiliated with. No evidence that the audience is greater than 5000.--Isotope23 05:09, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
- Dr. Mike Murdock began full-time evangelism at the age of 19, in which he has continued for 35 years. He has traveled and spoken to more than 13,000 audiences in 36 countries, including East Africa, the Orient, and Europe and receives hundreds of invitations each year to speak in
churches, colleges, and business corporations. ww2.daystar.com Masssiveego 06:15, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
- Keep Famous, and gets flown around the country in the ministries cooperate jet. Audience in songs, books, television shows, churches.. over 5000. --Masssiveego 01:03, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Extremely reluctant keep. As loathe as I am to give this guy more publicity, the sheer number of published works and appearances on TV are sufficient for notability. Powers 15:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Keep, per LtPowers. I would also note that people who are quite notable in this guy's kind of circle is likely to be completely unknown to the typical WP editor. So it may be tough to research and write up these kinds of articles, or find editors who will do so, but this guy looks like he's probably more than notable enough. We can at least have a proper stub. NTK 20:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
- Keep per Powers. Metamagician3000 05:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
- keep please a famous evalnglist Yuckfoo 08:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- Delete per Isotope23. So he's a preacher. The woods are full of them. Tex 13:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Keep Moe ε 17:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Proof that an Admin can delete a good page. This is how you challenge and deal with a wrongful delete.
Images and sound bite problems[edit]
Users and Admin can and do delete good images all the time with a speedy delete. Most because they are "trigger happy" just because there was a mistake in the copyright tag, it's deleted often without informing the uploader, or making any attempt to research the image. Many users just leave tags, or may have a incorrect concept of what images may be on wikipedia.
Problem Examples[edit]
To Be Frank--Go F%!? Yourself[edit]
From Zoe's Talk Page.
"This seems pretty self-explanatory to me, you duplicitous little turd. I may leave Wikipedia after this little episode. I can see that you have ruined this site for a number of users with your over-zealous execution (fitting word) of Wikipedia regulations. You have truly gone below and beyond the call of duty."
Lilyana 21:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)Lilyana
Your persistent rudeness[edit]
One tends to respond in the same vein as the way one is treated. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
- So everyone is exceedingly rude to poor old you, which is why you are rude to everyone? So everyone abuses admin privileges against you, which is why you use page protection on pages on which you were edit warring? Everyone deletes "your" pages out of process, which is why you delete pages when people dare to challenge your authority? Your "explanation" is laughable. Guettarda 03:07, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Guettarda is a known uncivil user. He routinely removes edits from his talk page with comments like "white supremacists unwelcome here". It's sad really. Justforasecond 17:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
- Not routinely, just when the come from admitted white supremacists. Guettarda 18:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Seeking out conflicts[edit]
Zoe, I've noticed your admin actions and your comments over the course of a year or so, and it makes me feel that you generally seek out conflicts and escalate them. It's like you have a knack for saying or doing exactly the thing that will get both sides of a dispute angrier at each other. I wish you would stop and consider your actions more. This isn't good for Wikipedia. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Commentary: Zoe of course is the example of the power tripping Admin I'd like to avoid.
Deletion: Byron Smith[edit]
You have just deleted a page that I am working on. You used Speedy Deletion, although the criteria you mentioned are clearly not "patent nonsense or pure vandalism." Byron Smith is a important figure in current mountaineering circles. I am planning to ad much more.
Mark User:Mwamsley
Re:Byron Smith[edit]
That's fine. The criteria I used was A7, or non-notable person. Before you added the external links it appeared as if he was just a guy who made a claim. But it seems he is fairly notable, according to your sources. In the future, you could begin articles on your userspace (e.g. User:Mwamsley/Byron Smith), and work on it until it's ready for article space. Let me know if you have any further questions. --Fang Aili talk 22:33, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
- Hi Mwamsley,
- I agree that Byron Smith wasn't speedy-deletable, although I don't know whether or not the subject needs a Wikipedia article about him. Therefore I undeleted the article and placed it on the "Articles for Deletion" page, where it will be discussed and voted on. To vote on and discuss the article, please go to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Byron Smith (to get an idea of what is usually said at these discussions, see today's list of pages up for deletion). In the meanwhile, please feel free to continue editing and improving the article you wrote (without removing the AFD notice). — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 15:29, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
The lack of research by the Admin in this case is disturbing, as the article was reviewed and found notable.
Voting Problems[edit]
Thank you for your concern about my voting habits. Please allow me to remind you that I am allowed to vote, and it is never possible to call any oppose vote a disruption, as was the decision by the arbitartion committee. --Masssiveego 04:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not the voting that's disruptive, it's the disruption that's disruptive, and you can be blocked for that. Knock it off. --Cyde Weys 04:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
That is incorrect, voting cannot be considered a disruption under any circumstances. I cannot be blocked for voting my position, nor be compelled to explain my vote. However it seems you are trying to force me to vote "support", or force me to not vote at all both of which is voter intimidation. Please do reconsider your position. --Masssiveego 04:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, since it's not a vote, but rather a discussion, you really do have to explain yourself. I guess the alternative to blocking you is to just to start blanking your stuff, because it's becoming readily apparent you don't care about the RFA process at all ... you just want to sow disruption by opposing every single RFA that comes along. Though frankly I'm quite sure the closing bureaucrats are already routinely ignoring you. --Cyde Weys 04:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Again that is incorrect, wikipedians are not allowed to blank a vote or comment made legitimately during an RFA vote. It is part discussion but it is also a tally vote. The bureaucrats routinely count my vote at every tally regardless of what reason I may place beside. Per above means I agree with the above reasons to oppose the canidate. --Masssiveego 04:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
"The bureaucrats routinely count my vote at every tally regardless of what reason I may place beside." — Please go to WP:BN and ask them what they think of that statement. --Cyde Weys 04:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC)