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Some general RfA Problems

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  • "If the rights of one are violated, the rights of all are at risk." --Thomas Paine [1]

Note: It looks like the Bureaucrat who had initially reposted the RfA and said to let it run its "one week" course was outvoted, and other Admins have locked both the RfA page ("vote closed" reasoning) and its associated "talk" page: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/GordonWatts.

It appears that my attempt to "talk about it" on the talk page was not even permitted: A clear attempt to stifle my voice. (They gave a reason, but I don't buy it; My attempts to voice my concerns over my failed RfA have moved to this page: User_talk:GordonWatts/RfA.) From this post on Jimbo's page

Why do they have such a talk page, when it is clear that they are afraid to talk about it in a public forum?--GordonWatts 20:10, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Traditionally, an action or allegation by a person (or group of people) can be shown to be false by contradicting one of three gold standards.

  • Contradicts:
    • Known Laws / Rules
    • Itself
    • Gut Feeling

Application of Wikipedia Policy on RfA

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(Actual actions by voting editors contradicts: Known Laws / Rules)

Admission: The RfA can legitimately vote me down

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According to Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship, "The community grants administrator status to trusted users who are familiar with Wikipedia policies," so even if I am totally right, I don't think that Jimbo or anyone with power should promote me to Admin by fiat. If the users who voted on my violated policy, however, they may be subject to sanctions.

Was Wikipedia Policy on RfA followed in my RfA?

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Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship, which is current Wikipedia policy, says that "adminship should be no big deal. Admin actions are reversible; being an admin is primarily an extra responsibility, as there are rules and policies that apply only to admins." In addition, Wikipedia:Administrators states that "Current (de facto) Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community..."This should be no big deal," according to Jimmy Wales...In the early days of Wikipedia all users acted as administrators and in principle they still should."

That is the policy, and I am a user in good standing:

Neither my old user name, not my current one were ever blocked (except that my "old" name was permanently "blocked" when I switched user names, but that was not for disciplinary reasons, just to switch names).

Conclusion: The policy is quite clear: I should be accorded Admin status, since I am an editor in good standing, who has made close to 3,000 edits on over 239 pages, not as many as some, but quite a few! Kate's tool to count my edits ~~ I've been here since my first edit, 2005-05-02 16:20:23, and while I have been criticized for focusing too much on the Terri Schiavo article, these are only like 10-15 article at most: I've edited about 224-229 other pages, which is still quite diverse, given that this is not all I do with my life. The denial of my Request for Adminship (RfA) was not according to policy. Period.

If the editors don't like policy, they should change it; If they don't change it, they should follow it. The other criticisms against me are addressed in the sections below, and this affects other users, not just me, so this is a "general problem" with Wikipedia: Not following the Policy.

As a side note, I think that standards should be raised for editors: I think we should be forced to post our real names, work addresses, and phone numbers, with email address, like editors at online newspapers, because this would increase accountability and improve edit quality. However, this is not current policy, so holding me to artificial standards accomplishes nothing, and these political games and insider clique clubs are a major reason why many people leave Wikipedia in disgust and frustration.--GordonWatts 20:31, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For the N+1th time: There is no hard policy stating RFA voters have to vote a certain way. We can have any standards we want. ~~ N (t/c) 20:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There is, however, you did not read it closely. Let me highlight the relevant section: Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community. I meet both definitions: I am part of the red-colored "anyone" above, and I obviously was a trusted member of the community, since I was allowed to upload images (a sensitive power, given Copyrvio laws) -and edit in very difficult pages, all without and disciplinary record. Why do we have these rules and this policy if people can vote any way they wish, pray tell? To simply have an "insider's club?--GordonWatts 20:51, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think the RfA proves that you are not a trusted member: which is not something easily determined beforehand. Perhaps I can only speak for myself: I don't trust you. Not being blocked for blatant abuse is not sufficient to establish trust. It indicates a lack of active distrust, or at least it indicates that no one has yet believed you were doing anything that was so destructive to the wiki that a note on your talk page wouldn't suffice to stop it. And no more than that. I do not trust you to follow community consensus, or to avoid getting into disputes with other admins, or to handle disputes in a reasonable manner; I would oppose your request for adminship because while you are known you are not trusted and thus you fail the second criterion. (And I don't give a damn about how many edits in what namespaces you have or how long you've been here, beyond the minimal standards needed to establish some sort of investment in your identity here.)
Perhaps I am wrong, and you would not do any of these things I fear. But I do not trust you, and your actions over the past week have not inspired confidence that I should. We have these loosely-defined guidelines so that we may interpret them liberally with judgment and discretion, and are not locked into a strict quantitative system which could be easily gamed. There are many flaws in the RfA process that have caused suitable candidates to fail to reach consensus. I do not believe your non-promotion is an example of this. You have received an expression of no confidence from the community, and so your trusted status was not as obvious as you may have thought. Policy was followed. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 05:46, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Raw numbers of Admins

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(Contradicts: Gut Feeling: Need more admins.)

"We have ~23,500,000 edits, ~2,300,000 pages, ~440,000 users and ~580 admins. That means each admin is effectively responsible for 40,500 edits, 4,000 pages and 750 users. That sounds like 580 full time jobs to me~ --Alterego 15:56, 16 September 2005 (UTC)" (quote from Jimbo's talk page) [2] I don't know where he obtained his figures here, but I will (initially) take them at face value.

Conclusion: The desire to highly restrict Adminship to an "inside clique" simply goes against "gut feeling": It would be numerical suicide of the highest proportions and unnecessarily overwork the current Admins.--GordonWatts 15:55, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Editcountitis standard used in RfA process.

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(Contradicts: Gut Feeling)

"Editcountitis is particularly bad. There was a case recently where someone had been around for two years, made lots of good (and lengthy) contributions, never caused any trouble, had helped people out, but was blindly rejected because he had only made 1,000 edits or so...In short, adminship should still be no big deal. We should work at loosing the RfAd culture up. Pcb21| Pete 09:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)" (From Jimbo's talk page) [3] I have no reason to disbelieve Pete, here.

More Data:

Conclusion: I've only listed three (3) candidates, to keep things simple, because each one is representative of a larger sub-group. GordonWatts was criticised harshly for his rebuttals in his failed RfA, but his initial problems centered around his "stats," so we look to the other two groups for clarity. Robchurch was in the same boat as user that Pete described in the quote off of Jimbo's page: A good editor who failed but did not complain about it. GordonWatts also had other complaints about the way that he handled his recent FA-nomination, but those critiques are minor and shall be discussed in the "Double Standard" section here. (Criticisms of Watts' constant rebuttal to each and every answer also were a factor in his failed RfA, but they did not come initially, because the RfA's voters could not have anticipated this in advance, and thus could not vote on this.) Now, assuming all of the foregoing was correct, we can conclude one thing: All three of these candidates, Robchurch, Watts, and the anonymous editor described by Pete, were experienced at the outset, but "did not have the numbers," either in total edit count or "diversity." This does go against the "no big deal" policy for every editor in good standing, but moreover, it goes against gut feeling: What used to be an open club has become a closed clique of insiders, who arbitrarily raise the bar, when arbitrarily denied users would probably be good admins: Although the writer of this analysis has his personal differences with User:Phroziac, successful RfA candidate [6] described above, he feels that Phroziac's promotion was deserved: Phroziac is qualified to be an Admin according to current Policy, and this is proof that the "editcountitis" method is just plain wrong.--GordonWatts 16:55, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Special note on differences: In looking at the above, it is apparent that GordonWatts started editing exactly one month before Phroziac and has almost twice as many edits. Phroziac, on the other hand, has edited 1211 "Distinct pages," many more than GordonWatts, which is more "diversity," by far. However, GordonWatts has edited 238 "distinct pages," and with the many months and many edits of experience, 238 is not a small number. It surprised Mr. Watts when he saw that number, and since he was criticized for being too focused on the Terri Schiavo articles, it is apparent that these would only comprise at most 10-15 pages; the other 223 or so pages (238-15=223) would be "non-Schiavo-related" and thus still very diverse (even if not as "diverse" as others like Phroziac). Before Watts began objecting (protesting the RfA process as applied to his RfA), his "edit numbers" were the main criticism, which also caused Robchurch to fail, but the "numbers" that Watts and Church have are still very strong, and neither one was a "newbie" when they were failed. This is additional evidence of "gut feeling" speaking.--GordonWatts 17:25, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Double Standard

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(Contradicts: Itself)

Are RfA candidates criticized for things that Admins do all the time? - Two case examples

The "SlimVirgin" Edit War

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(Note: The writer of this post thinks that SlimVirgin was not at fault in this example, but many others harshly criticised and reverted her; FuelWagon has alleged that three (3) editors quit on count of her, but that may be coincidence that Neuroscientist, Duckecho, and ghost all quit at that time for other reasons.)

As a side note, while I think SlimVirgin was not at fault in the edit war above, my points were two-fold: She was never scrutinized like an RfA applicant would have been; Secondly: Here, in the page protect logs, SlimVirgin made these spicy comments about me, thinking I would never see them:

  • 10:28, 17 September 2005 SlimVirgin unprotected Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GordonWatts (I'm hoping Gordon has gone to bed)
  • 09:46, 17 September 2005 SlimVirgin protected Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GordonWatts (temporary protection against GordonWatts)

Hmm...--GordonWatts 20:38, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Then, after those questionable remarks, Admins at the talk page of my RfA would not let me post my comments to it, making excuses that my comments were not relevant to my RfA, but general: True, they were "general" in nature, but they were also specific concerns I had about my own RfA, and they should have not prevented me from posting them, but now they are here: Questionable actions abound re my RfA.--GordonWatts 20:38, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The recent Main_Page Edit War between at least seven Admins & Bureaucrats

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Comments: Can someone say "Revert War?"

  • User:SlimVirgin, while innocent in this writers eyes, still made a good number of users quite angry, and generated Talk:Terri_Schiavo/archive30#Suggestion_for_SlimVirgin complaints and also a Wikipedia_talk:Request_for_comment/SlimVirgin plus a lot of heat.
  • The front page revert war shown above involved at least seven (7) Admins and Bureaucrats and almost certainly one or two of them were in the wrong, since all competing "versions" could not necessarily be right; Further, even if they were all reasonable, why couldn't that talk it out on the talk page first?
  • The admins and bureaucrats involved may not have done anything other than be human, but are they worthy of Adminship and Bureaucratship?
  • Here, we have User:Allen3 (Revision as of 16:00, 13 September 2005)] telling me in my recent RfA application that my four reverts were out of order when I had the authority or permission to do them in three cases, and the fourth, if I were wrong, was a misunderstanding, based on the fact that Nichalp said that I had the right to have a FA-candidate.
  • In this diff, Andrevan, an Admin, posts a question to the page after it was locked, and I could not answer it there: He criticized me for getting "sysop" and "admin" mixed up; They mean the same thing. It is true that I made a human error, but he does not criticize Admins and Bureaucrats for much more serious and questionable actions.
  • Claim: I was the subject of a double standard: These users contradicted themselves when in my RfA application, they nit picked at me for what were possibly minor violations (nothing serious and no revert war on my part, unless I was actually justified). Even if I were not qualified to be an admin based on this behavior, why are other admins, and even bureaucrats (supposedly held to even higher standards) allowed to do this without so much as a peep from these RfA voters? Are RfA candidates, such as Mr. Watts, being held to higher standards than actual Admins and Bureaucrats?

One Possible Answer: "But [Adminship] is not a job. They are just powers. Originally, they were conceived as powers withheld, which you would be granted if you kept your nose reasonably clean. Now people are opposed because they don't vote on deletions, because they have made enemies, because they aren't "trusted" (but not "trusted" not to delete pages, "trusted" in a sense defined by whoever is using that as their reason), because you once bickered with somebody over something stupid, because someone once called you a troll and his mates piled on. Gordon should be an admin if it's no big deal. He wouldn't do any harm with it. He just blathers and tries to push his POV. If that was a crime, we'd be locking up half the editorship. Grace Note 02:00, 17 September 2005 (UTC)" (Taken from Jimbo's talk page; Emphasis added for clarity.) [7][reply]

Conclusion: If Admins & Bureaucrats were treated the same as RfA candidates, we'd be de-Adminning about half of them.

Conversely: If RfA candidates were treated like Admins and Bureaucrats demand that they be treated, then most of them would not have to face such nit-picking over relatively minor details.

META CONCLUSION

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This RfA process affects me, but it also affect many other editors, and misapplication of the rules is a factor in the current trend of users quitting and becoming frustrated with Wikipedia. Another example of this is my recent nomination of Terri Schiavo for Featured Article: Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Terri_Schiavo/archive1.

Here, I got nearly half of the votes, about 6-11 or 7-10... I may have mis-counted somewhere, but it was not a lopsided vote.

Then, a number of editors and I fixed all of the problems that the FA-editor, Mark, had identified, and most of those that others had found. So, here, in this diff, the last one, we see my nomination, but it was soundly defeated. The only thing that had gotten worse in the article was a vert short-lived edit war; the defeat was because many people thought the article had to "wait several months" becasue "that's the way we did things," and since I didn't know these "unwritten rules," that was proof that I didn't know enough to nominate a good article. My answer?

  • If the rules were "unwritten," then they should have been ignored anyway, in light of the "real" policy: "Once the objections have been addressed, you may resubmit the article for featured article status." Template:Fac-contested

META CONCLUSION: So, the violations of Wikipedia Policy affect a great number of users in a wide number of projects. These abuses must stop so users don't become frustrated and quit as they are doing.

In Plain English: Either follow the current Wikipedia plocies, or propose changes to the policy where you don't like them.

"If the rights of one are violated, the rights of all are at risk." --Thomas Paine [8]
I'm sorry, but I just can't resist biting any longer. Have you ever considered, even for a moment, that maybe your interpretation of policy might be wrong? Consensus is king on Wikipedia. That's how the place works. That's the basis for requests for adminship, too. If there is a consensus that people generally trust you, you'll be granted the privilege - it is not a feit accompli. I've generally been a campaigner for reasonably low adminship standards, and I've not run into you before, but after seeing your behaviour in response to that RfA, I would find it difficult to support you ever. I suspect you'll ignore me as you appear to have ignored all others, but please take a step back and have a look at yourself. Even your allies on Wikipedia have tried and failed to point out to you that you're wrong on this one. By being self-righteous and demanding privileges, you only poison the well with the rest of the community and further demonstrate you don't understand the most fundamental principle of working on Wikipedia - consensus. Ambi 06:26, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"you ever considered, even for a moment, that maybe your interpretation of policy might be wrong?" Yes, but that is unlikely, since even you admit that the RfA standards should be low; The "policy" as written is plain enough for a kid to understand, so no, whether or not the policy is a good idea, no I'm not misinterpreting it. "but after seeing your behaviour in response to that RfA," Hold on a sec. "response?" Response to what? Maybe I had a reason to respond. So, maybe first you should look at that was said or done to provoke me. I'm not saying I responded perfectly in every situation, but how would you have responded? You yourself admit you campaign for lower, more reasonable standards, so I'm sure you would have been upset at the actions there too. "I suspect you'll ignore me as you appear to have ignored all others" I ignore no one; I read every single post here and elsewhere, if I can (and usually do) -you mean I "disagree" -I do not even always disagree with others when I may be wrong. Seeing my RfA, I apologized to one fellow to whom I said something slightly rude, so no, I don't even disagree 100% of the time. "don't understand the most fundamental principle of working on Wikipedia - consensus." That's why I asked for others to help identify the current concensus both in Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates and in Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship, but I am damned when I do ask (see the replies I've gotten), and I'm damned when I don't seek concensus (your reply). So, which is it? Should I seek to identify and comply with concensus or not? If I am going about it in the wrong way, don't say I'm wrong unless you have a better alternative, and then "show me" if you're right. I am generally willing to hear (and enact) new ideas. OK?--GordonWatts 08:42, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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