User:Shot info/RfA Review Recommend Phase

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once again, thank you for taking part!

Questions

Selection and Nomination

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

• Response: Let any editor with a minimum number of edits (say 1000), anywhere (the dicotomy of article v other space is pointless), who have no blocks and/or is otherwise in good faith, be an admin with mimimal criteria. Desyopped admins, or other editors who are in "bad" faith (large block count etc.) would have a more difficult hurdle to overcome in order to (re)gain adminship.

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

• Response: Problem with WP at the moment is the "professionalisation" of admins into a 1st class with other editors as a 2nd class. Adminship needs to be broadened. The Community's expectations is flavoured by bad admins who need to be desyopped in a simplier and easier fashion. ie/ back to pre 2006 when adminship wasn't seen as a big deal and pretty much anybody could have it.

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

• Response: Only one nominator allowed.

The RfA Debate (Questions, Election, Canvassing)

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

• Response: Limit the number of questions to the basic ones. No optional questions allowed. For editors seeking adminship who are in "bad" faith, their questions can include optional quesitons - probably a standard set can be developed - in order to test their capability.

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

• Response: Only a standard set should be used....ever.

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

• Response: RfA is a currently a negative process. All comments by others on a editors !vote should be banned. Editors that break this should be blocked and admins desysopped. That would get the message across. Alternatively no comments at all could be used - ie/ it's a pure vote.

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

• Response: All editors seeking adminship should be allowed to have a go at it if they want the job and answer the questions. Particularly those editors who are in good faith. However coupled with this should be far easier mechanisms to desyop an admin.

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

• Response: Any additional work load assocatied with managing RfA's would probably mean that the current dribble would slow to a trickle. Let all editors who edit in good faith be an admin and couple it with easier and simpler methods to desyop. Being an ADMIN should be no big deal....yet it currently is probably as RfA is currently just a popularity context.

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

• Response: Canvassing should be allowed. It's a Community decision after all. How else does the Community find out about information if members of the Community don't inform other members of the Community.

Training and Education

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

• Response: Admining should be no big deal. However a form of coaching should be one of the mandatory items to inform propective admins of what is expected. It also could be used as a measure in desyopping an admin ie/ in your coaching you are informed of X, yet you didn't do that here, you did Y. Please explain - explaination no good....desysop.

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

• Response: Post adminship Mentoring should remain informal. We all don't have enough time as it is.

Adminship (Removal of)

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

• Response: Make it easier to desyop. Desyoping should be a mirror of Ensyopping (however Ensyopping is ultimately performed).

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

• Response: Recalling is called for by the Community as the DR process is too long, complex, invokes endless amounts of Wikidrama etc. etc. However is desyopping is made simpler, (say via a system similar to recall) then the calls would drop off. Recalling should not be an option available as to opt in or out as an individual admin sees fit. It should be a similar process of how one becomes an admin.

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

• Response: Make the desysop process simplier (by mirroring the sysop process...do you see a thread here). Force all admins to follow the system. Those that object - automatically desyopped.

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

• Response: Admins should automatically be desyopped (but without the "flag" of forced desysop attached to their name) after a logical period of time (say 12 months). Those that wish to remain admins reseek nomination (obviously becoming an admin needs to be a simplier process - see comments above).

Overall Process

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

• Response: Go back to the simplier system. There is no value in needlessly complicating something that (at the end of the day) is rather pointless (ie/ Is is something to show on your CV???....I can just see a potential employer saying "Oooo, you are an admin in Wikipedia, wow! The Job is yours!")

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

• Response: RfA is bad news at the moment...it's a popularity contest. And yes, adminship is currently a trophy - because it's essentially rather difficult to achieve. The process of becoming an admin needs to be simplified. The aura of being an admin needs to be removed by broadening the number of admins within Wikipedia. Adminship needs to be temporary (limited in time) and forcibly desyopping an admin needs to marry up with the process of gaining adminship.

Once you're finished...

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

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

Footnote

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 08:46 on 23 September 2008.