Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

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Poll

Foregoing archived to Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 200#799 active admins

I've just done a quick read of this thread and, well, to be frank, it's not clear just exactly how many editors here think the above-mentioned concern is legitimately a problem. While indeed voting is evil, I believe in this instance, it would be beneficial if we could have a quick show of hands. -FASTILY_sock^(TALK) 09:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Those who believe the lack of active administrators is a problem

1. I think that both choices here are too black and white: it is not a huge problem, but it is certainly not not a problem. The backlogs are there, WP:AIV, CAT:RFU, the white and blacklists, &c. I'm also not saying that there are no other solutions possible left and right, but it remains that some actions need to be done by very established editors, and a lot of those things need to be done with an admin bit .. and I believe that that needs a steady, significant influx of fresh admins. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:22, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
2. In some areas, such as AE I see a fairly small circle of admins carrying a rather large and, I imagine, demanding workload. It takes time and ability to get sufficient reflexive command of our policies and a feel for 'what works' and how to ensure that actions are interpreted as being constructive that fewer 'new' admins could spell trouble down the road as we look for as Beetstra says very established editors. Unomi (talk) 10:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
3. It's already a problem and it will get worse. The lack of admins puts an extra load on the currently active ones and this can lead to admin fatigue. Sure, it would be nice to have more successful RfAs but one more question we should be asking ourselves is "how do we keep the current admin corps?" Also less admins means an increased perception of power. Pichpich (talk) 22:28, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
4. It is a problem insofar as it keeps causing lengthy discussions like this one, distracting people from improving the encyclopaedia. :) More seriously, I do think we could generally use more admins in many areas - we certainly aren't at the point where we can see 'we've got enough admins' - and in that sense, the dearth of admins is a problem. Robofish (talk) 00:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
5. Per Robofish. Often times, it takes hours to have an RPP request actioned, by which point, lots of vandalism and BLP violations have taken place. Paralympiakos (talk) 19:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
6. Intermittent backlogs; too much workload for dedicated admins; less patience for handling disputes and teaching our wiki ways to passionate but disruptive editors; danger of group think without a steady influx of newcomers. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Those who believe the lack of active administrators is not a problem

1. It is not yet a problem in terms of backlogs, though possibly in terms of community health. ϢereSpielChequers 09:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
2. It doesn't seem to me to be a problem right now, because everything seems to be working ok -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:35, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
3.  – iridescent 09:48, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
4. Not a problem (unless we consider the amount of time spent on this perennial discussion). It is overly simplistic to believe that the number of active admins is a useful barometer, especially when we see that at least 701 of those 799 active admins also appear on the list of most active users in the history of Wikipedia. If the project actually starts to suffer in a way that is directly attributable to the raw number of active admins, we'll figure it out then. In the meantime, we should pat ourselves on the back for being part of a project that continues to improve.  Frank  |  talk  12:58, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
5. Well I have just looked at my usual haunt speedy deletions and there is no backlog. Any daily backlog which builds up there always gets removed when America wakes up (recently the level for considering it a backlog was reduced from 75 to 50, I have no idea why). I then noticed someone commenting on this page about AIV backlogs so I thought I would have a look and I noticed AIV was empty and there is nothing for me to do there. Because I work on European time I only ever seem to get a small handful of really difficult AfD decisions left for me so I rarely close AfDs as a newish admin, unless I can devote a spare 45 minutes. Polargeo (talk) 13:08, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
6. I'm yet to be convinced that admin-related backlogs are currently any larger than previously, when there were more active admins. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
7. The decline in the number of active administrators is merely a consequence of the decline in the number of active editors. We should get used to the idea of wikipedia having fewer edits and fewer editors. Fewer admins is a not overly concerning result of that. However that does not mean that I don't think RfA "standards" can be a little high some times. --Mkativerata (talk) 18:26, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
8. Yet to see any firm evidence that there's a problem. We may not need as many admins as a going concern as we did as a startup, especially with advances in bots.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
9. Don't even see that there is a lack of admins. If there is a slight one, it is not a problem yet. Or at least no more so than it used to be. (X! · talk)  · @052  ·  00:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
10. I see the occasional backlog at some of the areas I look at, but even if we had 10 times the number of active admins, that will still happen. Some admins go away for a while and come back (for example, I've been away for pretty much the last month and a half, due to the birth of my son - that's been more important than Wikipedia!) - real life takes precedence over enwiki, but that doesn't mean that all our "non-active" admins will not be back! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
11. Admittedly I've been more busy in content space, so am not sure that there have been any admin-related backlogs of ongoing concern, but suspect there haven't been (??) However, I do believe there is an issue in lack of active admins in pages with ongoing sanctions and difficult areas (at least there was when I was an arb and I suspect that still holds true). Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
12. I don't think the quantity is an immediate problem. My greater concern is the quality.--Kudpung (talk) 04:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

If the number of active administrators continues to decline it will at some point become a problem.

1. Yes. We need enough admins to do things like delete pages and block vandals. ϢereSpielChequers 09:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
2. Yes. Clearly it will, if it continues. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
3. I am afraid that this is obvious. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:46, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
4. Well, um, yeah. sonia♫ 09:49, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
5. -- Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 10:24, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
6. Unless we find a way to replace them with a very small shell script. Unomi (talk) 10:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
7. It is hard to put one's finger on a "problem", but I find it problematic that a small number of administrators are handling a large majority of the tasks. We are all susceptible to burnout and if numbers continue to decline, increasing workloads will fall upon those that remain - in turn causing more burnout - in turn causing more to reduce activity or leave - in turn causing more burnout on those left - and so on - eventually we may enter a tailspin from which it will be difficult to recover. –xeno^talk 13:16, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
8. Eventually. However, I don't think it's simple to quantify how many we need, even as a proportion of the total number of active editors, due to increased automation of certain admin tasks and increased complexity of policy. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:22, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
9. In the longer term. We're at the stage where we have the luxury of actually experimenting with the adminship process (rather than contemplating) without the pressure of having to get it right first time. We don't have to take it, but if we do not, then as a collective we will be fools for not doing so. The notion that people will voluntarily lower their standards at RfA is nonsensical. Alas, the way wikipedia works, you will never get consensus on change unless all but two options have been categorically ruled out. And judging by people's attitudes to change, one of the options would have to be "do nothing", which is usually popular. --WFC-- 14:00, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
10. As of now, the number of active administrators is not a problem. However, if this decline continues it could eventually turn into a problem. The Raptor ^{You rang?}/_{My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions} 14:36, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
11. Of course it will become a problem. I think once we're below 500, we'll be in the shit. You can only ask so much of users before they crack. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 21:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

    That would be a good thing though wouldn't it? It would force the system to change to a more rational system of governance, which clearly won't happen otherwise. Malleus Fatuorum 22:04, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

    Judging by what happens in other projects, once we drop below functional levels the foundation will step in and appoint sufficient admins for this project to function. ϢereSpielChequers 10:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

    Which is the opposite of desirable, as the community may have no say, and candidates whom have been rejected previously could be appointed. Esteffect (talk) 22:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

12. Does anyone have any idea how much of the admin workload is fixing problems caused by IP editors and newly-registered accounts? If those problems ceased to happen, how many active admins would be sufficient? - Pointillist (talk) 22:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
13. Eventually. This is years away, though. (X! · talk)  · @052  ·  00:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
14. Eventually. Connormah^talk 01:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
15. It would. 174.52.141.138 (talk) 21:35, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
16. Isn't this stating the obvious? Even if the number of active administrators was declining by 1 a year, "at some point [it] will become a problem". However, I do not think that the problem is anywhere in the near future -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:23, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

    The decline is more like 100 a year. ϢereSpielChequers 10:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

17. Clearly Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 19:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
18. Agreed with this view. Orderinchaos 16:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
19. Yes, eventually. Having fewer active admins around could potentially result in higher average amounts of workload for the remaining active admins, and there's only so much that one individual admin can do. --SoCalSuperEagle (talk) 22:20, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
20. Theoretically and broadly yes. Not sure what number is the critical number though. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
21. It will eventually if we are not able to make the process less humiliating, and more objective. What we might get is more quantity but a drop in quality.--Kudpung (talk) 04:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
22. Yes, but the Vandal Fighter proposal is not a solution. Esteffect (talk) 22:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Neutral

1. The wording of the options above is faulty. There is not a clear lack of active administrators. Sure, if the number of active administrators fell to 4, one could assume problems would follow. But the wording of the first two options above suggest where this poll is intended to lead the reader. Townlake (talk) 13:40, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

   The last sentence is entirely true. --WFC-- 14:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

   Agree that the wording of the first two questions is flawed and intentionally or unintentionally comes off as a Push poll. Third question is pretty obvious. Going to have to decline to participate. Jusdafax 14:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

   I added the third option because I thought the poll with its two options was at best a distraction. Of course the difficult thing is that we don't and can't know when the decline will turn into such an embarrassment that the foundation will step in and appoint admins as I believe they've had to do on other wikis. There are so many variables - how active are the admins we have, how evenly spread are they in their hours of activity, whether we can somehow make admins more efficient, or use bots for some of the things we need admins for. My fear is that we will get over-dependent on a small number of hyper active admins, and when they get burned out or overwhelmed we will need a lot of new admins to replace them. But unless we change direction we will at some point hit a major problem, and it would be good to get that agreed or flush out the reasons why people disagree. ϢereSpielChequers 11:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

2. I agree with Townlake, and furthermore, insufficient research has been completed on the issue. We need more info on: "how many admins there are on Wikipedia in total", "how many admins have left Wikipedia", "how many admins took admin actions each month", "how many actions have been taken each month, and the reasons for any decreases or uninvolvement from certain areas by each admin", "the reasons why certain veteran admins have never entered certain areas", etc. etc. This data then should be compared with the RFA stats. If we were to elect more admins who are going to be unwilling to enter those areas where they are needed, or who are unlikely to have sound judgement in one or more of those areas, then I wonder what the point is in worrying about how many admins are elected each month. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
3. I don't see the problem. New users come (like me), and older users move on; big deal. There will always be talent coming and going. All we can do is nourish the new and experienced users and hope for the best; this is an open and unpaid project afterall. Tommy! [message] 23:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

   The issue is that we have an imbalance and the number of active admins is falling rapidly, and what few new admins we have are rarely new users. We have almost no admins who joined us in the last 18 months and few who joined us in the previous 18 months. This isn't an issue of turnover, this is an issue of decline. ϢereSpielChequers 10:40, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

"Fixing" RFA

A lot of discussion has been happening here over the past few days about how the RFA process is broken and that we are losing active admins at an alarming rate because of users having almost impossible standards in the RFA process. I have heard several solutions like probationary adminship and having an easier way to remove administrators along with other solutions to help relieve users' fears about promoting admins that may go rouge. This RFC is to try to find a consensus on how we can fix this problem, or if there is a consensus that there is no problem. Techman224^Talk 20:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, as I write this we have five "there is a problem" vs nine "there is not a problem". A tiny sample, but so far it looks like there's not a great deal to discuss. – iridescent 21:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. There's plenty to discuss. It's just that the discussion won't actually shed any light or have any useful outcome... Pedro :  Chat  21:12, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's closer to what I meant. The "the sky is falling!" discussion has been going on as long as I've been on Wikipedia; since no change is actually happen unless the lights start going out, there's not a great deal to discuss. – iridescent 21:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

If anything, this RFCtag should be moved up to that 'vote'. The opening statement doesn't really give much to go on. –xeno^talk 21:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

If you want to move the RFC tag to another similar discussion, I have no objection. Techman224^Talk 21:35, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll leave it, in the naive, optimistic hope that it will attract some brilliant soul who comes up with the answer to RFA, The Universe, and Everything. –xeno^talk 21:54, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry Xeno, you got me instead! As for whether we currently have too few administrators to get needed tasks done, it seems to me that things work reasonably well, but it's a matter of speculation whether more administrators would mean shorter backlogs. From what I see at RfAs, there are always a few people with what I regard as unfair reasons for opposing, but, whenever it gets to more than 20% oppose, there are some legitimate concerns there, whether or not one agrees with those concerns. And I guess I won't surprise anyone by suggesting that, if we could have a better way to remove administrators who turn out to lose the community's trust, those who participate in RfAs would be less likely to be sticklers, and RfAs might become less intimidating. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• What is needed is a better class of voter. If anyone has ever taken the trouble to analyse who the majority of the 'support' voters are, and who the ones are that ask all the stupid additional so called optional questions; they will realise that the average age is about 17 (with some only 11 or 12) and a great many of the voters have talk pages full of warnings, blocks, and CSD notices. It's like having a bunch of prison inmates on the jury of a high court trial. We don't need a set of higher or lower standards for adminship, what we need is a set of qualifications for voting on RfA., so that candidates can be sure of getting a fair trial. That said, generally those who should be promoted will be, and those who shouldn't will fail. But there are still too many borderline cases where the judges might make the wrong decisionL.--Kudpung (talk) 22:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you give examples of these voters with warnings, blocks and CSD notices? I've not noticed inexperienced voters, mostly admins or admin hopefuls. How exactly would you have qualifiers anyway? Paralympiakos (talk) 22:33, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems that you want to set an age when people can vote. That would be discrimination and I don't think the community (or even Jimbo Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation) would not allow it. Plus it will discourage young editors from Wikipedia. Judge them by their contributions, not their age. Techman224^Talk 23:39, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

You can find out about the voters by running the same checks as I do: the same ones you would make when voting on an RfA; ie, maturity, longevity, quality of prose, editing accuracy, sense of judgement, etc.
I do not necessary make an issue of age, it's often a lack of maturity that concerns me most. if lack of maturity goes with low age, then I suppose some will insist that it is simply an unfortunate coincidence. However, a review of the RfAs this year will probably show a trend as to who passes and who fails, and who the regular voters are. Probably the first and most interesting execrcise is to analyse the Oppose votes on RfAs that are absolute clear passes, and the Support votes on RfAs that are quite obviously doomed to fail. --Kudpung (talk) 05:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

* We need a community process for either desysopping, or at least sanctioning administrators that is not subject to a popularity contest. Good administrators in controversial areas will be unpopular to someone - that's why the admin community tends to oppose proposals for Requests for Desysopping.

* We need a common standard for eligibility, even if that standard is a minimum - I really think that only issues of misconduct/questionable editing/incivility should have a chance to get aired in an RFA. I've watched this process transform over my almost 6 years on and off the project from "no big deal" to something on the order of senate confirmation for a supreme court post. That's serious policy creep.

I think those are the big concerns. Fix those and RFA will start working as it should (Add: If anything, the length of this debate - it's been going on for years now, demonstrates the utter lack of consensus. I don't think we can question anymore if there is something wrong - if there wasn't, this debate would have died off. The question is what's wrong.. Triona (talk) 23:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Your first bullet point includes some things I think are important: a "community process", and "not subject to a popularity contest". The "popularity contest" issue was a major factor in sinking CDA, not, I would now admit, without good reason. I tend to think now that ArbCom would have to have the decision-making authority, but we need to have a better "community process" to get the case placed before ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I am looking at what the German Wikipedia does here. They do have a dispute process which is equivalent to our RFC for admin disputes. Now for serious abuse, they can temporary revoke the admin rights for up to three months after community discussion and then have another discussion for permanent de-admin if they abuse them again within 12 months. We should look at how the German Wikipedia handles this. Techman224^Talk 01:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

There are two group on wikipedia that have a very high standard for confirmation, arguably higher than that for adminship - ArbCom and Bureaucrats. As such, these are likely the groups that are best suited to handle desysopping. I'd propose something like, a 'crat can certify a petition for desysopping based on the merits of the petition, rather than on the number of petitioners. Once certified, a panel of a given size of 'crats (selected somehow) reviews evidence, and makes a determination. as to whether desysopping is justified, with possibility to reprimand, temporarily desysop, or a full desysopping in exceptional cases. Sanctions of this type would be strictly for abuse of privileged functions - normal editor conduct rules and processes should apply to everything else. Desysopping actions would be subject to review and appeal to arbcom, and arbcom would retain the sole authority to create a disability from ever applying for adminship again. The right of appeal of permanent desyssopping by an admin so sanctioned would exist - and there would be a requirement for a full arbcom investigation if so demanded by that admin. Triona (talk) 01:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like what ArbCom does right now. The problem is that they can take a month or more to reach a decision. If this would to have any chance of working, there must be a system in place that lets ArbCom or Bureaucrats (or whatever group) make a decision more quickly (like in a week), and then implement those decisions. You would also need to create policies that define what is allowed and not allowed in a petition, and prevent abuse of the system. They should also have already tried the dispute resolution process before using this as a last resort. Techman224^Talk 02:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Our bureaucrats don't have a whole lot of responsibilities beyond permission requests. With a requirement that one of them deem the petition worthy of investigation, it's still going to have a high burden to even get the hearing, but if it's something that warrants one, I think we can trust that it will happen in reasonable timeframes. I'd also support emergency desysopping within such a policy once the petition has been "certified", for a reasonable duration to investigate if the activity in the complaint continues or if the abuse otherwise escalates. As for what can deserve such a sanction, verifiable patterns of abusive behavior that have defied dispute resolution or which are flagrant ongoing violations of policy Triona (talk) 03:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Here's a rough rough draft - User:Triona/Proposal for bureaucrat mediated administrator review Triona (talk) 04:04, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• We just did this back in the spring. Read below. Your proposal suffers many of the same problems. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Let's solve some of these problems

Instead of rejecting the whole proposal, lets try to actually fix the problems. I'm going to copy the problems that Hammersoft is talking about, and I also copied Triona proposal to my page so I can make my own changes. I'm going to go through these problems one by one to correct them, or give an explanation if a problem is unfounded. This will take a while for me to do, I'll be doing it in batches. Techman224^Talk 17:03, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The Problems

• This proposal would only be a last resort, after all other dispute resolution steps have been taken, and I put in if they agree to stop their actions, no action will be taken. However, I added if they continue to abuse their tools, the bureaucrat can reject it because that could cause administrators to continue to abuse their tools over and over again.
• This proposal will only apply to Admins who misuse their tools and requires serious evidence that they did it and that dispute resolution steps have been taken and completed without results. It does seem confrontational because it involves removing rights, but it has to happen if we want to hold abusive admins accountable, just like at ArbCom.
• I've added that petitions must be supported by two other editors who tried to solve the dispute but failed including the editor who brings it. Plus this is not a vote like CDA, and it's not like RFA, with support and oppose, as bureaucrats make their decision based on evidence.
• This process would only look at the abuses the administrator makes as stated in the petition, not at other situations.
• I've added that all discussion must be on the petition page so that all editors can review.
• Of course this will be an exceptional occurrence. This would not be a vote, and since only evidence is reviewed by bureaucrats, the two parties will know exactly what to expect, without the hassle of voting. Techman224^Talk 19:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• In a petition, the decision will not be made by consensus, but by a group of trusted bureaucrats, which eliminates the !vote and popularity contest. It is not the same as Uncle G proposal. Plus the policy is still in the creation process, so it can still be changed before we !vote to better reflect consensus. Techman224^Talk 20:09, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• It would be useful to remove admins more quickly without going through ArbCom, and it would allow for a easier out, which may help lower the out of control standards at RFA. Techman224^Talk 20:09, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

RFA and De-Adminship Survey

It looks like the discussion is heading towards a way on desysop admins who abuse their tools. I have a feeling that lots of people have high RFA standards because it is nearly impossible to remove them unless they do something very serious, and even that could take a long time (as we see in ArbCom). So I want to start a survey that may help decide what we should do next. For the people who constantly oppose because of high standards or if you find some mistakes (everyone makes mistakes sometimes), is this because your afraid because it is hard to remove admins that are already added, and that if we have a procedure to remove admins in a timely manor, would your standards for RFA become more relaxed? Techman224^Talk 04:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes

• Yes, they would. Access Denied ^talk _contribs editor review 16:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Certainly, and I have made it clear on several occasions. I would never oppose without good cause, but I will only support when I am entirely confident that the candidate will be a big asset. Interestingly, despite this question being explicitly aimed at people who oppose more RfAs than they support, from my (brief) experience most of the people below do not fit into this category. If we take involved parties into account, perhaps 30% or 40% of people want admin recall. I readily admit that, and the (very) early stages of this poll suggest likewise. But knowing whether 30%, 40%, 70% or 80% of frequent opposers do so in part due to fear of removing problematic admins would be valuable information. It would help if staunch opposers of de-adminship were prepared to allow us to get this information. Apologies if I have made any incorrect assumptions, but that is my perception of this poll. --WFC-- 23:48, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Actually, I was thinking much of what you just said. I support much more frequently than I oppose, but on the rare occasions when I oppose or am neutral, I can think of some where I would have gone easier if it weren't "permanent". Also, I think that some of the present-day high standards come from looking at a few administrators who became administrators a long time ago, and seeing how the project would be better if they were administrators no longer, so this issue is more complicated than just the standards for RfA today. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

[3]. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Yes. My standards aren't too onerous now, but I'd be be prepared to take a bigger chance on an uncertain candidate if there was an easy way of reversing a mistaken appointment later. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

No

• Oh God, we just went through this hell back in the Spring. If you're eager to see the community's response to this (or alternatively if you're having trouble sleeping), then read this. Please, spare us. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Yea, the previous six month long discussion that produced no results or changes of any kind started off with a similar sense of optimism before it went to hell. There seems to be broad agreement that there are problems with RFA, and no agreement at all on exactly what those problems are and how to fix them. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• I've no objection to people reading through past CDA proposals and trying to come up with something better than the current Arbcom based system, though I don't see the relevance of discussing CDA here at RFA. But please don't start another RFC on CDA unless you've got something that resolves enough of the previous objections to be both workable and unlikely to break the wiki. I'd also suggest separating the issue of why one desysops people from how one does so. If the community can identify particular admin behaviours that Arbcom should be more or less tolerant of, then its possible that Arbcom might take that on board; If they didn't then some of the opponents of CDA might see a reason to support CDA. It would also help if you could indicate how you would alter the desysopping rate of 1% per annum, which some of us consider worryingly high. ϢereSpielChequers 15:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• No. I actually prefer it the way it is right now. While I routinely disagree with Arbcom, I trust them to actually follow common sense and precedent, rather than making things up as they go along. Community reaction is fickle, often leading to disproportionate reactions that amount to a lynch-mob mentality. Jclemens (talk) 15:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Arguably that's why we're in this mess. bibliomaniac15 16:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• I am not convinced that the higher standards at RFA are a result of the lack of a de-adminship process. Rather, I believe that enacting CDA would only exacerbate this problem as we will only accelerate the decline because people will not lower their standards. The answer, in my mind, to borderline RFAs is whether we are giving the crats enough leeway to make a judgment call. An oppose vote (and yes, it is just a vote) on grounds that is only tangental to the candidate's ability should be dismissed. Resolute 17:57, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• The current process for tool removal seems satisfactory. Generally I think that the calls for CDA arise not because people want to be able to relax RFA standards; they arise because people want to apply the new, higher standards to existing administrators. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:21, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe

• My standards are already relaxed, but I participate infrequently in RFA. 1) do they have decent rationale for wanting tools 2) is there evidence they will abuse them 3) do they have at least enough good edits and time on the project to outweigh the damage they could cause if the account proves to be a "submarine" vandal wanting tools for some nefarious purpose (balance of effort issue). If I like the answer to all 3, I'll support, otherwise, I'll oppose. Triona (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Important question

Before we go through another round of Requests for Desysop, it might be prudent to review the proposals (all failed) at Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship#Proposed processes. The most recent had a number of serious flaws (Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RfC#Flaws in this process noted by TenOfAllTrades); while the criticisms I offered were aimed at that particular proposal, many of the points have a more general applicability. In particular, the last section of my comment notes a couple of ways in which we already have policy tools for desysopping admins, but we don't tend to use them. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:08, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposing a moratorium on de-adminship proposals proposal

Given that (1) we've had no less than 17 proposed processes for de-adminship over the last 7 years (a rate over two a year), (2) none of these proposals have ever succeeded, and (3) enough kilobytes has been spent debating the point to open a branch library, I propose the following: No more proposals for a de-adminship process may be put forth until August 11, 2012. This moratorium is effective immediately. To vacate this moratorium, the following conditions must be met:

1. Only editors in good standing may propose ending the moratorium.
2. Editors recommending ending the moratorium must have proposed it at WP:AN.
3. A bureaucrat must be asked before posting the proposal for permission to post a proposal to end the moratorium on proposals.
4. Three bureaucrats must subsequently certify the proposal on the end of moratorium proposal, else the proposal will be archived.
5. In no case will bureaucrats be able to override the decision of ArbCom, even though ArbCom members usually become so with less community support than bureaucrats.
6. Decisions made on ending the moratorium are subject to proposal appeal to ArbCom, if and only if five administrators certify grounds for appeal within an 11 day time span, beginning immediately after the proposal on ending the moratorium on proposals has been rejected.

All in favor? All together now... ---Hammersoft (talk) 14:03, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Nope. Editors wishing to stem the tide of proposals should be more prudent in pointing out the failures of the past (WP:CDA and other discussions) rather than on censoring discussion itself. If you don't like what you see here, there are other things to do which don't involve this page. --Izno (talk) 14:55, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• This is very anti-wiki. What if someone finally comes up with The Answer? –xeno^talk 14:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• 42. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:59, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• ...depends on the question. –xeno^talk 15:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• We're working on that. Wikipedia is the end phase. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:03, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support common-sense proposal. Jclemens (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose I'm a CDA supporter but I don't think now's the time to run another round of this. However I strongly oppose this sort of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose We need to be avoiding instruction creep. Access Denied ^talk _contribs editor review 16:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per Access Denied and Xeno. TFOWR 16:25, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - like Cube lurker I think this is just far to bureaucratic. I am beginning to warm to the idea of structured way of removing the admin tools from admins who have abused them, I just don't have the answer on what the bar should be set at to trigger such a processes. Codf1977 (talk) 16:45, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - Someone may come up with a good proposal someday. Also this will block discussion, which is what Wikipedia stands for. Techman224^Talk 16:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
• Note: Before more editors chime in to 'oppose', they should probably pause to recalibrate their senses of humor. Hammersoft's post is a parody (barely) of some of the desysopping proposals that have been presented to the community in the past. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Beautiful plumage, though. - Pointillist (talk) 17:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

At the first one to officially oppose I plead guilty. Gotta remember to look at the OP's user page before replying.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:20, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

What, me calling it a "common sense" proposal wasn't hint enough? :-) Jclemens (talk) 17:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Should have been, on the other hand if people honestly believe something is common sense It's probably a really bad idea.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:33, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, it caught me out :-o I'm so angry I'm moving to support. TFOWR 17:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm glad at least SOME people got the humor :) --Hammersoft (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I should have twigged at the "...proposals proposal" title. Should have been a give-away... Anyway, shouldn't the sysops participating in this thread be desysopped? TFOWR 17:41, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• I was sprinkling variations of "proposal" all over it, hoping to not catch so many out :) But yes, the sysops are obviously biased so if they vote here they're incompetent and attempting to game the system. Rise up and stab at them with your plastic sporks! --Hammersoft (talk) 17:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

A moose once bit my sister... –xeno^talk 17:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Ah yes, about this time last week, no?  :) --Hammersoft (talk) 17:55, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion: Following precedent, this proposal is now the least opposed proposal on the table. I am therefore implementing it. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:56, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Wouldn't it be easier to just block me instead? This discussion is hilarious, I think. I show up here in response to an RfC, and people propose a moratorium on something that isn't happening anyway. By the way, to those of you who have made serious criticisms of the past CDA proposal, I've taken to heart what you said. Really. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• The tongue in cheek proposal was a moratorium on new de-adminship proposals. It wasn't a moratorium on de-adminship in general. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'd like to propose that we have a moratorium on proposals to have a moratorium on proposals. Etc. Now, everyone please go and contribute content. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Sweet Onions The fact that there have been 17 discussions in the last 7 years shows that the proposals always either go too far or get too complicated, and end up getting sunk accordingly. What we need is qualitative and quantitative evidence of the problem, qualitative and quantitiave evidence that possible solutions might work and community consensus on what evidence we accept to be true and/or truly representative. Only then can we hope to make any headway on easing RfA and/or desysopping requirements. The only other way change will come about is if something happens to truly bring the issue to the fore. I gave one example of a possible catalyst above, but the idea that Jimbo is competent enough to act as a bureaucrat appears to have been predominantly rejected. --WFC-- 03:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
• Violates WP:CCC on binding decisions. This is a motion to quash debate, and would therefore seem to violate WP:CCC. Granted, there have been a lot of proposals, but that would seem to demonstrate at least some segment of the community thinks there is a problem with the way desysopping is handled. Triona (talk) 18:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Please read more carefully, and turn on the humor detection center of your brain :) --Hammersoft (talk) 20:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

A different angle to consider

I haven't been actively improving the idea, but during the big CDA discussions a few months ago, I put together some thoughts on fixed terms of service for admins at User:B Fizz/Admin for X years. I encourage you to review the pseudo-proposal and the strengths and weaknesses it presents. I also tried to encourage participation in a simple survey regarding WP:NOBIGDEAL, found at User:B Fizz/Admin for X years/Survey 1, but for whatever reason didn't get responses. The survey remains open indefinitely for responses. ...comments? ~BFizz 18:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Finally! More admins!

I don't know if more people are reading our need-more-admins discussions, but look - we have 5 legitimate admin candidates running at the same time! We might finally have a good month! Access Denied ^talk _contribs editor review 16:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

If I had to wager, I would bet only two of those will pass, just from the percentages and where they are after the number of votes they've had. Possibly a third, though I would think a 13-2-4 start is going to have trouble making it, most candidacies that don't have a really hot start (six people out of 19 not voting in favor is a real problem) are heading for failure.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, just looked at it, not just the report at top of page, it is 13-3-5, which means you really ought to buy the black suit for the funeral.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:55, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Two out of six, I think now. Any candidacy at 80 percent at these stages is going to have problems.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:52, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

How's that crystal ball looking now? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Or now? Just noting. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

That's good, but can we get community consensus about minimum content experience? DeltaQuad's RFA doesn't leave a clear position for future candidates. In the end, content concerns probably blocked that RFA but some sensible good faith supporters felt that opposes "are weak, at best", "awfully weak", "clutching at straws" and were "baffled by the level of this opposition". There was also an undercurrent that if you ask any question about content, you're suspected of demanding an absurdly high level of contributions, including GA's, FA's and DYK's. IMO it would be helpful to candidates if the community could achieve some consensus about minimum content experience for modern admin candidates. How might this be achieved? - Pointillist (talk) 23:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Funny you should being this up. I was planning on writing a new section exactly on this :p. I've seen RfAs opposed because someone created too much content, and RfAs opposed because someone created not enough content. I know it's hard to please everyone, but this is quite confusing. IMO, content should not be a major part of RfAs, since admin work doesn't involve creating content - unless the candidate has made some major error. As someone pointed out above, we want our best content creators working on content, not maintenance tasks. Netalarm^talk 23:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree your final sentence, but nevertheless it is vital that admins understand the pain it takes to generate content. Because of other activities, I don't do as much content as I'd like, but I try to check everything I touch and until an admin candidate has spent an hour fixing a single reference (or $20 buying an out-of-print book, or driven 50 miles to check their university library) I find it difficult to accept their power over contributors who have done all of those things. If we could find a model that would restrict newly-appointed admins to policing only the activities of IP editors and new accounts, I think much of the concern about admin powers would disappear. - Pointillist (talk) 23:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Generating content is painful? Really? Admins don't deal with good content, on the whole, they deal with bad content that needs to go. I don't know why it would take an hour to fix a reference, and of course it's the editor's choice to go out of their way to get a book. Admins don't really have powers, they have rules to follow and on the whole they do. And, I think if established users followed the rules, they wouldn't need any admin on their case. As has been mentioned, the best admins are the ones who want to get on with the nitty-gritty side of Wikipedia - administrating, not writing. Let's stop pretending that we only do writing here, because it's simply not true. Wikipedians take a great many roles, all very important, and none should be considered better than others. Aiken ♫ 00:24, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's exactly my point: until you've spent an hour on a single edit, or gone out of your way to find a book, you don't really "get" how some of our best editors feel about content. That is the nitty-gritty: content and the administration of it. If by "bad content" you mean vandalism, bear in mind that the formula "anyone can edit" = "so IP's can vandalize" was just marketing to attract more contributors. It helped make Wikipedia a success but it isn't infallible: if we run out of admins the anonymous editing principle won't withstand the twin assaults of vandals who think they won't be detected and journalists whose proprietors hate us anyway. Our admins—all of them—need to be more than just vandal fighters and fixers of inappropriate user names. Let's stop pretending that an admin can be effective without demonstrable content competence. - Pointillist (talk) 00:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course you can "get it". Wikipedia isn't the only place in the universe where research takes place, and it's easy to empathise with writers. By bad content I mean bad pages - ones that end up deleted by admins. There's loads of effective admins with little to no "content" experience, so not sure what you're saying about pretending - it's true and it's happening right now. Aiken ♫ 13:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I too am afraid that some of these RfAs will just fail to reach the safe 75% threshold. Maybe it's time for the community to send a signal to the bureaucrats and lower the informal discretion zone down to 66-70%. It's a simple way of countering the increasing standards of RfA voters and it would probably yield an extra admin a month or so. Pichpich (talk) 23:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Based on the time left, it looks like only 2 of them will pass. I think we should also make it more discussion based, where weak points are not given much weight. Netalarm^talk 23:50, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

No, people will just raise their standards. Aiken ♫ 00:24, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Two step solution: 1) lower the pass threshold to 60%, 70%, whatever; 2) stop allowing discussion under the voting headings - instead, move all discussion to the Discussion page so people who want to argue or ask quiz questions can do so there. Admit RFA is a vote, get more people to run by siloing the conversation, stop pretending consensus emerges from contested RFAs, stifle the broken-record chatter on this page about minutae that all sorts out randomly in practice. In real life elections, everyone has their own standards, and nobody thinks that's bad. Is Wikipedia too Dr. Seussian to try simplifying a process? Townlake (talk) 00:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't resist answering your last question: yes. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:20, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

With regards to #2: I disagree. A lot of oppose rationales are quite lacking, and people should be expected to defend them if they want to make them. NW (Talk) 02:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Obviously you believe these discussions actually produce consensus as opposed to stratified vote totals. This pattern of pretending is what will keep the Oppose section a battleground, the RFA process unwelcoming, and the ranks of admins justifiably shrinking. Townlake (talk) 02:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, discussions don't show a consensus. They do however highlight bad votes, which crats can then more easily ignore. I would rather not make RFA more of a popularity contest than it is already, and force people to account for their votes. Just see what happens here, here, and here when people don't have to justify anything. Can you tell me specifically why some of those candidates passed and others didn't? NW (Talk) 02:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Who cares? The bottom line is what matters. Part 1 of my suggestion is a concession to the fact there might be some more "lacking" opposition, and lowers the pass bar accordingly. However, at some point Wikipedia has to accept that some users are real people, and will oppose for non-intellectual reasons, and that's not necessarily bad. Townlake (talk) 02:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

If the oppose is for something that clearly doesn't make sense or is without grounds, it's reasonable for people to challenge it and discuss it. As NW has also pointed out, this makes unreasonable votes stand out more so crats can ignore them. If I was to go Oppose, I just don't like you, the vote should be challenged cause it makes no sense - and in the end ignored by the crats. Opposing for non-intellectual reasons isn't necessarily bad? I have no idea what you're talking about, but if everyone used common sense, everything would be much better. Netalarm^talk 03:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Obviously the current format has its fans, and the Sisyphean task of advocating basic common-sense improvements isn't worth the effort to me. Have fun in the gauntlet, folks. Townlake (talk) 04:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the dwindling supply of new candidates will drive the point home by necessity that there are other and likely better models of managing Wikipedia. Dividing up the tool set and granting individual permissions that may be granted by a simple, much less involved process is more efficient and sensible. Few administrators care to get involved in *all* aspects of WP administration, most state here what part they are interested in and often it is rather limited initial interest. No reason to have them undergo comprehensive scrutiny, and if they want it later, they have shown a track record with a limited tool set and a judgment is much simpler to arrive at, based on actual observed behavior, not hypothetical questions in advance. It's hard to fathom why one would want to subject oneself to the current regiment just to fight vandals, and what not. Reading the commentary at times makes one wonder if many of the voters even do the research to arrive at their opinion or simply are "me too"s, copycats, agreeing with prior opinions that they like. The current trial of putting edits by anonymous users on quarantine until reviewed by someone with the reviewer status is a good example of what can be done. This should be expanded to more tools. It would allow prospective "full" administrators to grow into the responsibility with visible track record and produce a larger community of privileged editors than the current process. Kbrose (talk) 14:52, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

That's one of the perennial proposals... Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 15:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

So? I find it a little baffling that an idea repeatedly and independently brought up by different contributors should be dismissed because many people think it is a Good Idea. Which it is. bd2412 T 15:54, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

As mentioned above many times ..one of the main problems is editors simply pointing to a wiki page and not giving an answer them self's. Looks like we are having a problem of "dogma" - no one is thinking for themselves and simply dismissing comments because they have seen a guideline about it. Moxy (talk) 16:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

↑What they said. Since when is "lots of people support it" a reason not to do something? – iridescent 16:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Well to effectively fight vandals as an admin one needs to be able to block, delete pages and protect pages. I really don't see the point in giving one of these buttons to a user and not the others. Also these things have not gotten through because lots of people don't support it. When they do such as with rollback it gets through! Polargeo (talk) 16:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Not necessarily. We could easily create a user right, say, vandalfighter, which allows the user to place blocks on new (say, with fewer than 5 edits, and less than 5 days) editors who may be vandalizing. This will hopefully alleviate the concern that vandal fighter admins have the power to block anyone, including established users. Vandal fighting, as an admin, is mostly blocking, with some protecting, and a little deleting. The protecting and deleting can be done by others. Likewise, we could create a "speedydeleter" role, where only recently created pages are able to be deleted. I can't see anything wrong with those ideas. Aiken ♫ 16:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

So is a very large percentage of the discussion that is on this page. FunPika 18:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

New userspace article on opposition reasoning at User:Esteffect/RFA_Reason_Test

I've just written this brief, userspace article on the reasoning, and perhaps lack thereof in some opposition to Requests for Adminship. I'm open to comment and so on, but the general jist is that it is good to read the reason to yourself, and then ask, "Does this sentence make any sense?" The article can be read at User:Esteffect/RFA_Reason_Test. Thanks. Esteffect (talk) 21:54, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at it, and one issue occurred to me right away. The person actually making the !vote at RfA is always going to think that their reason makes good sense, even if you or I, applying the test you propose, would conclude the opposite. Thus, the test becomes one of "in the eye of the beholder". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point, although sometimes I'm not sure that people even think their reasoning through, they just look for a reason and then oppose. I also perhaps think that, occasionally, opposers/neutrals don't really think through the fact that the point they are making is a statement that the person would not make a good administrator. Looking at it like that, I'm sure some would stand back and think, "Actually, their having not voted in more than X amount of AFDs is not going to make them bad with the tools", and they might therefore back down and judge a candidate on their merits, and not dubious and possibly non-existant flaws. In an ideal world, of course. Esteffect (talk) 22:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Looking at many opposes, it's clear no thought went into them whatsoever. Opposes should be made carefully, with caution. Some oppose almost compulsively, as if there are no other options. Aiken ♫ 23:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

In fairness, I'm sure there are also users who habitually support without doing any serious research, just to follow the crowd. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Opposes hold much greater weight than support though, which is why opposes always should give solid reasons, while for supports is it generally optional to. If any person makes an oppose, it is often a notification for others to join in too, rightly or wrongly, which is why it's so important for opposes to be made carefully. Aiken ♫ 23:41, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Please understand, I'm not really arguing with you, because I think that your observation about some opposers is absolutely correct. I'm just saying that there can be low-quality input in either direction, so we need to be careful before taking this observation as evidence that RfA needs to be reformed in some way. And I would hope that all !voters would take what they do seriously. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The difference between the two directions, however, appears to be that nobody will dig for a cheap reason to support, yet many editors will dig for a cheap reason to oppose. I'm sure that most editors skip straight to the oppose section to overview those reasons, too, sometimes not even overviewing the questions or the support reasons at all. It's unlikely that many are doing the same in jumping to the support section and following that crowd (except in the cases of emphatic, 100+ supported passes, where it's rather irrelevant anyway). Esteffect (talk) 00:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'm not sold on the idea that the difference between the two directions is as big as that (although I agree that the difference trends in the direction that you describe). Supporters don't need to dig for a reason; they can just say "support" and leave it at that. It's human nature to want to feel good about something, especially when one can do it by joining a crowd. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:41, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting read, althought I don't think many RfA candidates have been blocked for wheel-warring. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Probably not, perhaps a more likely reason for a block could be used. Esteffect (talk) 22:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring? --Mkativerata (talk) 22:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Makes more sense. Esteffect (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Another point I'd make about opposes is "please wait". I've seen a number of RfAs recently (not any of the current ones I don't think) with early opposes that weren't overly well-considered. These things go for seven days. There's no need to jump on a candidate within a few minutes of transclusion. --Mkativerata (talk) 23:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point, and I've added it in a new section. Esteffect (talk) 00:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Unless you're looking to influence readers. (X! · talk)  · @103  ·  01:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, the classic torpedoing of an RFA. 67.136.117.132^{Also 174.52.141.138}14:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• We already have Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions. Are you proposing to update that with some of these arguments? ϢereSpielChequers 13:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• That should be made policy - it would stop some of the nonsense sprouting up in most RFAs! :-) Aiken ♫ 13:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

If you want a policy, do it the right way.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions is a condescending piece of junk and it's never had any effect on the way RfA is run. What we really need is something that explains the importance of participating in RfA and explains how to do so responsibly. Pichpich (talk) 16:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

If you think some opposes are unwarranted and should be disregarded, go talk to the crats. Given that the reasons that are disliked here also seem to be widespread at RFA, I do not think you will get consensus for a policy change to abolish the ones you don't like.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:05, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Given the history of RFA, and the various tools to track voting statistics, there's no reason to believe that the 'crats treat RFA as anything other than a vote. There have been cases where they have swung a little bit between the high and low of what's historically promotable, but I think they are too afraid of backlash if they dealt with it entirely on weight of arguments to say, reject a candidate with over 80% support, or promote a candidate with less than 70% support, even if the majority of the opposes were completely unreasonable like "edit counter down". Clerking was mentioned above as a way to prepare people for adminship, but I'm actually wondering whether RFA itself needs a clerking process, to strike comments that go against community standards, whatever we determine those to mean, and therefore keep completely off the wall "The number of Portal talk edits isn't a prime number" oppose rationale out of the process. Alternately, admit it's a vote, and kill the commentary altogether in the interests of civility - some of the stuff that gets posted to RFA discussions would likely earn editors a block for personal attacks if posted anywhere else on the project. Triona (talk) 20:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC).

• Erm, not really - While it does echo many of my sentiments, the core 'in a nutshell' bit of the page is more about the testing your reasoning, with the bits given as examples to demonstrate why some opposes are a little ridiculous. I'm also not wanting to get in to areas of legitimate contention, such as age, because that's really down to someone's opinion. Regarding policy, it's hard to disallow certain arguments, but I'm all for striking out opposes and neutrals that are there to make a point, like the recent "the edit counter is down, so I'm neutral" kind of thing. Esteffect (talk) 17:59, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Wow. How on earth do you strike out a neutral?--Wehwalt (talk) 21:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The issue with Neutral is that it scarcely is. Neutral votes can be seen by some as "half-oppose", as in, there's a reason not to support that is a problem. Indeed, if somebody is neutral, it's often a case of them A) Not wanting to oppose, but having a problem;,or B) Making a point. I know that, several years ago, I looked at Neutral as having negative connotations. Esteffect (talk) 19:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

One particular current RfA has served once again to demonstrate how extremely flawed the entire admin selection system is, despite Wikipedia's decade-long existence. In some cases (note the plural) it's been turned into a discussion page about the voters with such totally inadmissible comments by admins such as 'I've lost my respect for you' when commenting on a perfectly legitimate, well documented vote. In my opinion, hardly any of the 'support' voters appear to do the slightest background research at all, and are often members of the candidate's fan club. The only serious voting appears to be done in the 'oppose' section, where the edit count, although not the main reason, must of course be taken into account along with the very important breakdown of the type of edits. It should also be noted that quite often, support votes are made quite openly and explicitly for no other reason than in pure defiance of, to counter-balance, and to vilify the opposers.

When voters turn an RfA into a general slanging match, it's bad enough, but when the ringleaders are admins, clearly it's time to to bring the system under some serious scrutiny, and exercise more conrtol over who we promote in the future,or more specifically, whom we allow to vote, and not less.--Kudpung (talk) 9:58 am, Today (UTC+7)

We also have other tools that provide exactly the same service and information (if not more in fact) as any that have been temporarily closed down, and it displays lack of experience if anyone suggests they cannot find them.--Kudpung (talk) 03:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

While WP:POINT votes and so forth are a problem, the last thing we need to do is scrutinise even more in RFAs. Any more and we won't promote another administrator for half a year. Esteffect (talk) 19:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The amount of hypocrisy in that RfA left me gobsmacked especially because the WP:POINTy !votes and caustic comments were made by admins who wouldn't hesitate to warn or block a mere mortal for a like offense. Anyway, for those in this discussion who suggest the bar is set too high, that RfA has sucessfully demonstrated that opposite is already true, and being implemented. I am now expecting a crush at the admin admission door and I might even be in it myself ;) --Kudpung (talk) 13:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Read your page. Bottom line I disagree with your baseline question. IMHO an oppose vote is often not "You would not make a good administrator", rather "I can not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that you would make a good administrator. A subtle, but very real difference.--Cube lurker (talk) 13:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Not really, not unless you also accept that a support vote means "I can not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that you would make a bad administrator", rather than "I think you would make a good administrator".

While I understand what you're saying I disagree. Afirmative action is needed to break the status quo. Prior to the RFA user-x is not an admin. A vote is either evidence has been provided to make the change, or for whatever reason there is not sufficient evidence to promote. I know for a fact that others view the process differently, but this is how I see it.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think your logic holds up; one might just as well argue that "affirmative action" is necessary to maintain the status quo. Quite clearly the overwhelming majority of support votes provide no evidence of anything whatsoever other than popularity. Malleus Fatuorum 14:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

On the first line, one might argue that, but I wouldn't. On the second line I don't disagree. However I'm commenting on this as an essay of 'how things should be done', not an analysis of how things are often done.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Qualitative review of RfAs of admins later de-adminned

Has anyone gotten all the RfAs of admins later deadminned and had a look at any common themes? I thought it might be interesting to see if there were any 'warning signs' or other threads.... Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Without doing a formal review, I've felt that the RfAs are either perfect (or close to it), or have the same issues that most of the RfAs have now (civility, article writing). There doesn't seem to be anything that stands out on them. (X! · talk)  · @099  ·  01:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think someone actually has run the numbers (there was a graph IIRC), and found basically as X! describes. The RFAs are the same as any other RFAs. --Izno (talk) 04:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm being stupid here, but what does "deadminned" mean? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

De-admin-ed. Did you read it as "dead minned"? :-) Aiken ♫ 14:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Me too, but unlike Boing, I was too embarrassed to ask ;) --Kudpung (talk) 14:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Aha, my wording "misled" you (past tense of verb "to misle") Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:56, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Admins are "dead-mined" for different reasons. Some acted and applied in good faith and later screwed the pooch, others were playing us from "edit 1". I've often wondered if any warning signs could be found in the RFAs or the pre-admin activity of the "archtransits" but never checked due to the whole "20/20 hindsite" thing. Come to think of it, "edit 1" might be a good place to look, that's how "pastor theo" was caught. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, my first edit was a hoax, and I think I turned out alright! Esteffect (talk) 19:27, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

New user rights

This proposal can now be viewed and discussed at Wikipedia:Vandal fighters.

I know fully well that this is a perennial proposal. Nevertheless, I am unaware of any recent suggestions along these lines, and none expressed in the way I am about to.

There are a lot of user rights on Wikipedia. These range from autoconfirmed to admins, to reviewers to bureaucrats and checkusers. Over the years, several functions have been successfully split off from the adminship bundle: rollback, ip block exemption, account creation etc. This means that, in the past, we have begun to split up the adminship tools.

Normally such proposals will suggest we split up the actions one by one: i.e., we have "deleters", "protectors" etc. I don't think that will work. What I suggest is we consider important roles that admins fulfil, and turn them into user rights.

For example, consider a vandal fighter. Many will have little content experience, and not much outside of vandal fighting. He might consider running for adminship to assist in blocking vandals that he reports to AIV appropriately. So he does. However, as we know, most people expect more than just vandal fighting. Despite the fact he is an excellent vandal fighter, he is asking for the whole package, and abilities that are beyond the experience he has. Some might argue he has no right to block established article writers when he has done so little himself. So, as with many, he fails, not because of anything bad, but because he didn't have enough experience for everything adminship gives. There are usually two choices the candidate faces: either continue doing what he was doing, or try his hand at article writing. But as we all know, people who don't want to write articles often don't because they simply are unable to. Issues such as plagiarism, copyvios, unreferenced articles, sloppy spelling and grammar etc, may well come up. This is because the candidate, still wishing to become an admin (just to fight vandals, mind), is trying to please the RFA crowd.

Who does not agree that this is a bad thing? My suggestion would be, to relieve ourselves of this very common problem, to create a "vandalfighter" user right. I suggested it somewhere above - they would, of course, have rollback, but also the ability to block new (say, less than 5 days old) accounts. Of course, in the role of vandal fighter, an editor might find the need to delete or protect a page, but the most they do is revert and block. Surely, a role like this would alleviate the perceived problem of "non-article writers" with power over writers?

There are other user rights that could be created. For example, speedy deleters could have the ability to delete new pages, and that's it.

Overall, I think that splitting up admin tools has much potential, and it has started to be done, but we need to look at it at a slightly different angle, rather than looking at tools individually which is what tends to happen. We need to consider the individual jobs admins do, and decide if any would be suitable to become a new user right. I'm sure most will agree that a role like "vandal fighter" with limited abilities shouldn't pose much of a problem.

Aiken ♫ 17:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a thoughtful overview, that has much to commend it. The block-new-users-only feature is new, at least to me. At first glance, I'd support this, and I speak as someone with a bit of experience in vandal-fighting. Jusdafax 17:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

If it's technically possible, it would be a good idea, in my opinion. Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 17:56, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I would support such a userright. One thing though, I believe you neglected to mention blocking IP vandals. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 18:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Logged in or out, they're still vandals. Aiken ♫ 18:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)New users, as in new usersnames, or new users, as in usernames and IPs newly editing? --Izno (talk) 18:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

That sounds good. If it's possible, I'd support it. It would enable people like TTTSNB to block guys without going to AIV. I am a bit of a vandal fighter but likely not enough to warrant the bit. Nonetheless, it would cut down on the backlog at AIV that plagues this place on Friday nights!--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 18:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've heard it suggested before that a new right to only block IPs might work, but perhaps blocking IPs and non-autoconfirmed users might be a better way to go - most repeated vandalism seems to be addressed by short blocks on IPs or by indefinite blocks on new vandal-only usernames. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I support Aiken's idea with high enthusiasm. It would perhaps be most practical to propose each new rights category one-by-one, rather than propose in principle that new kinds of rights be created. But this way of approaching the issue makes excellent sense to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Anything that takes power out of the hands of megalomaniacs is a good thing, but that's precisely why this proposal will fail just like every other proposal for unbundling has failed; the megalomaniacs won't vote for it. Malleus Fatuorum 18:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

We're not speaking of taking power away from admins. We're just talking about... spreading the workload among people who are more than qualified for the specific job, but not enough for the wider array of tools. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 18:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there a list of such proposals? I see this is listed at WP:PEREN, but maybe someone could prepare one at WP:Limited administrators. –xeno^talk 18:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I would support enabling vandal fighters to block anonymous IPs and non-autoconfirmed VOAs. Question is, if the implementation of this new "vandal fighter" user right is feasible, what requirements should we set for users who wish to apply for this user right? Obviously, users with "vandal fighter" rights would need to be held to a higher standard than users who simply have "rollback" rights. --SoCalSuperEagle (talk) 18:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Before we even go there, I think we ought to see if there is agreement that we should go forward with this proposal. We can discuss the hows and whens on a newly created project page. I expect, should it be implemented, it would be granted like rollback, and taken away as easily if misused. A full blown request seems over the top for a minimal role. Aiken ♫ 18:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

"We're not speaking of taking power away from admins. We're just talking about... spreading the workload among people who are more than qualified for the specific job, but not enough for the wider array of tools." That's your interpretation TTTSNB, and not an unreasonable one, but history is against you. Malleus Fatuorum 18:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe so, and nowadays a pure vandal-fighter trying to pass an RfA is like someone trying to find a drinking fountain in a desert. There's hardly any chance of doing so. As a side note, nowadays I'm leaning more towards CSD and UAA work... (I checked my CSD noms earleir today... out of at least 144 nominations, only 4 were declined.) The Thing // Talk // Contribs 19:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Not Auto confirmed and IP's sounds good. This one seems like it may actually have a chance!--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 18:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the idea is "When everyone is somebody/Then no one's anybody." --Wehwalt (talk) 19:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that's partly it, but it runs deeper than that. If an admin had to go through the RfA hazing then so should one of these upstart vandal fighters. We saw something of that already: "what requirements should we set for users who wish to apply for this user right?" Malleus Fatuorum 19:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah. Well, you'll never get admins to admit, then, that ordeal by fire and by water should be for other than members of the elect (I must be having an operatic day).--Wehwalt (talk) 19:14, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Well of course there will be those Badge collectors who will use it as a stepping stone to RFA, but the idea in principle sounds good. As for "standards", I think that you have to be a MAJOR vandal fighter in order to get it. If someone who is like me, is a decent vandal fighter, has 100+ edits to AIV, and is a Huggler, gets the bit, they better be thoroughly checked to make sure that they do not accidentally, or intentionally abuse it. To be honest, I think that I, or people who have a vandal fighting record like me, should not be eligible to get this new bit because I/we simply do not vandal fight 60-100% of the time that I/we spend here.--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 19:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Stepping stones are perfectly ok, that's how the real world works, you work your way up in a company by accumulating experience and gaining privileges and responsibilities. It also makes the evaluation process a lot less unreliable when the user applies for another right, the user can be more objectively evaluated by what (s)he has already done with the prior rights. However, I am not convinced that this grouping is really necessary. For example, one gains 'rollbacker' status by showing some experience and dedication to the project. There is no reason that a good editor with track record of adhering to policies cannot be given a right to impose a 4, 8, or 24 hour semi-protection on a page to stop a persistent vandal from defacing a page. This should not require a lengthy community vote, this right could be conferred by very informal methods and this would be one of the most effective tools available often. This example occurs so frequently, that it's almost astonishing that a good editor does not have the tool available. I can't count the number of time this scenario has wasted editors' time waiting for an admin to appear to take action. Kbrose (talk) 19:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

And thus, logically, editors should be able to block IPs or nonautoconfirmed for 4, 8, or 24 hours? And of course this should be granted by very informal means, but perhaps be a bit more difficult to remove? And there is no reason not to unbundle page moves and deleted revisions, so long as the editor has edited the article ten times? Needless to say, these "deputies" should be able to deputize others to help in their useful work, right?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand your sense of logic, nor the intent of your post. Conferring additional privileges to qualified editors needs to be evaluated one by one. But it should be observed that the most powerful, most critical privilege conferred to editors is the permission to edit the encyclopedia, to change the face to the project in front of the public. Yet, this requires no scrutiny whatsoever. Protecting a page for a limited amount of time, even banning an anonymous user temporarily who is clearly defacing the project, is a rather minor action compared to being able to change content. Kbrose (talk) 20:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah so. And so that right should be restricted by some guy who asked permission from an admin or other who probably wasn't paying much attention, instead of having to demonstrate the trust and support of the community to restrict that Very Important Right?--Wehwalt (talk) 20:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can tell the specifics of granting haven't even been discussed yet? –xeno^talk 20:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course they haven't. The tone of Wehwalt post reflects slightly the reason why these proposals rarely progress, namely an apparent resistance of existing admins to agree to a perceived dilution of their perceived privileged status. Rather than implement a trial of various ideas, these ideas are blocked by phony argumentation. Kbrose (talk) 20:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

They must have forgotten to send me the key to the executive washroom. Are there other privileges? I haven't encountered many in 20 months as an admin. I don't think we even get a discount at Hertz.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course, Malleus would no doubt state that the average admin doesn't do much at Hertz and would rather have that discount at Tricycles Я Us.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that the average admin probably does more harm than good, but that would be made much worse if they were allowed to drive rental cars, just because they appeared to be sufficiently mature for six months before. Malleus Fatuorum 20:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

No opinion on how evil admins are, I've never done a survey ("Hello. Do you eat babies?") ... but even if admins were evil, wouldn't it make sense that we/they would be more likely to agree to letting non-admins block new users as the number of admins dwindles? Sadly, I think Carl's likely to be right that there's kind of an average wiki-life expectancy, which would mean that extrapolating from his table, we're more likely to drop 200 active admins next year and pick up 11 than the other way around. I'd be more than happy for a trusted, competent member of the community to start blocking new users. It requires experience, communication skills, and the trust of the community, but it's not rocket science. - Dank (push to talk) 21:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea - with such a right, an editor would only be able to block IPs and very new usernames, and would not be able to interfere with established editors. Not sure how best to implement it, but I think it does need an easy removal process so anyone abusing it can be stopped quickly. And acquiring the right would presumably need to be easier than RfA, otherwise there wouldn't be much point to it. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) This is something I never thought that I'd do, but I am supporting this proposal. It's by far the most sensible of all the unbundling proposals, and technically easy to implement. The functionality doesn't exist right now, but I'll commit a fix in a little which which should make this a nice easy configuration change. (X! · talk)  · @934  ·  21:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Second the jaded support above. Aiken's analysis is on-point, devolution [aka unbundling] of the peculiar hodgepodge of admin rights is long overdue. Technical and implementation difficulties notwithstanding, this is a solid proposal worth pursuing. Suggest moving this to the village pump for serious consideration once it is honed. Skomorokh 21:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Since there's (surprisingly) not been an outpouring of vehement opposition, it may make sense to move this to a subpage to be refined and developed before it is formally presented as a proposal. –xeno^talk 21:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's quite remarkable! Go for it, I'd say -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Make it so (?) The Thing // Talk // Contribs 21:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Captain, I shalln't be driving this one. Just throwing out the suggestion that a re-venue might make sense =] Of course, now that I opened my mouth there's some opposition below! =) –xeno^talk 21:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Oh hell no. Why should new editors be treated to being blocked by a less experienced admin-lite? New editors are the very lifeblood of this project. So, instead of an experienced administrator who can handle doing a good job with incomers, we instead pass off the blocking to someone who does not have sufficient experience to handle being given a global block button? That's backwards, to say the least. Plus, all this unbundling has had the unintended effect of making adminship harder to achieve. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Here we go, there come the fear mongers. The idea is not that 'new users' be treated, but obvious vandals. Vandals are not the life blood of WP. In addition many editors are just as experienced and sensible as many admins, and those are the ones that get the right. Kbrose (talk) 21:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• If you're going to insult me personally, at least you could have the common decency of coming up with something that makes sense. Pop quiz; how many editors here started with zero edits? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• We would probably be limiting this userright only to people who have significant experience in the area in the first place. Presumably the initial uses of this userright would come under great scrutiny at first, to weed out any problems or inexperienced or sloppy users. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 21:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  And I would expect it to be limited to blatant vandalism only, and easily removable from anyone who abuses it. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Neutral - I'm unsure whether I should support or oppose the proposal. On the one hand, it will make dealing with persistent vandals far easier, but on the other hand blocks from the blue are one of the main causes of accusations (both real and unfounded) of admin abuse (the other being page protection). In other words, while it may seem good in theory, it may ultimately end up as more trouble than it's worth. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Carl Johnson)} 21:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

If we adopted "it might not work" as a guiding principle to rejecting new ideas, Wikipedia would not have gotten very far in the first place. A better one might be "If we try and fail, we can always go back; if we never try, we'll never know". Skomorokh 21:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Well, I'm going to oppose on the grounds that it is a procedural nightmare. In addition to the usual RFAs, you'll have a whole bunch of semi-RFAs in which people with some rights will be asking to get other rights. Gah! Looie496 (talk) 21:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

My goodness, it could almost turn out like that disaster, WP:PERM. Skomorokh 21:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This is not the only area that has potential. We could consider creating a "page deletion/restoration" role to allow more users to clean up AfD discussions, or a "page locker/unlocker" to cover those requests. Splitting the admin tasks into smaller user rights has the potential to be a very good thing if we can keep it simple. I would also recommend that said rights expire after a few months, though that's an entirely different topic to discuss. ...comments? ~BFizz 18:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Opinion

• Support - excellent idea!   — Jeff G.  ツ 21:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Yeah, I rather like this idea actually. It's a recognised weakness of RfA that some vandal-fighters that could clearly make excellent use of a block button are persistently denied it because they're uninterested in other areas, and the admin tools come in a one-size-fits-all bag. This is an excellent compromise. ~ mazca ^talk 21:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support. I already said this above, in a threaded comment, but I figure I'll say it bulleted here. Oh, and "it might not work" is Wikipedia's guiding principle to rejecting new ideas! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support, as long as we're all clear that you can't block without being able to see deleted contribs (you really need the whole picture to do it well), and with the recommendation that we call these people "clerks"; per tradition, we use meek sounding words like "bureaucrat" and "mop" when handing out userrights, and this is already a word in wiki-circulation. I'm a little disappointed that this is happening now instead of a month or two from now, when ... I think, I hope ... it will be obvious that UAA (or maybe RfPP or copyright, we'll see) clerk candidates would be ideal for this. In a clerkship vote, say at UAA, it's likely that 90% of the voters will be very familiar with the candidate's comments at UAA, so they'll know exactly who should be trusted with this tool. And so you'll get a vote that's similar in some ways to RfA, but hopefully better ... more voters will know and be focused on the candidate, and no one will be worrying about the candidate destroying the wiki. I didn't want to argue the point; I was pretty sure it would play out that way, and then we could all point and say, "See?" I wouldn't mind accelerating the vote at UAA so we could test this before (if) we create the new userright. - Dank (push to talk) 22:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Full disclosure: I just created a pointer from UAA, since there was a lot of discussion about a similar idea (clerking) recently. - Dank (push to talk) 22:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Splitting up admin rights and spreading them around is a great idea. Many wish to specialize and we should not hold anyone back because of this.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support Try it for obvious vandalism - see how it goes - if it works well it could be extended.Fainites ^barleyscribs 22:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose See below. No thank you. Blocking is way too powerful and the most abused admin tool as it is. See below. Tommy! [message] 22:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Since there is quite a bit of support for this idea, we should move to a new page and post to relevant village pumps etc. I would move it but I can't think of a good, general name for the idea. We need to discuss what new rights we want (vandal fighter has been discussed here most, but there are other ones too like speedy deleter), how they will be granted, and even if there is enough support for the idea. Aiken ♫ 22:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't listen to me because I didn't see this coming, but my two cents is that if you throw in deletion, you'll kill it. - Dank (push to talk) 22:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. It needs to be limited for it to work... The Thing // Talk // Contribs 22:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstand. Each right would be individual. That is, vandal fighter right, speedy deleter right etc. We can discuss which rights we want on another page. I'm not in any way proposing we have a user right with blocking and deleting ability... Aiken ♫ 22:12, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 3) I'd try to convince the community one privilege at a time; I fear it'll be difficult enough to get, even without throwing in a new and different position... Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 22:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, well seeing as the blocking one seems the most supported, we'll go with that. I do admit, that it seems to be vandal fighters rather than speedy taggers who have trouble passing RFA. Aiken ♫ 22:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so where should we move this proposal? The village pump? A subpage of this talk page? The Thing // Talk // Contribs 22:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Also, I have a question. Would one be allowed to block new usernames that violate the username policies, usernames which one would normally report to UAA? The Thing // Talk // Contribs 22:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• If this is done, in my opinion, giving it out must remain the province of the Bureaucrats, and not within the scope of individual administrators. The 'crats need to "run" this much the same way as they run RFA. Also, perhaps there could be a provision that a regularly selected administrator could overturn any decisions made using this flag without fear of WP:WHEEL... Haven't formed an opinion on the overall proposal quite yet. Courcelles 22:14, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
  • If a limited block ability is included, then we're going to get voters, and rationales, that we've seen so far only at RFA, so I would think crat-skills would be valuable, and that this is more or less the kind of thing the community had in mind when voting at RfB. But we should certainly ask them if they see it the same way. - Dank (push to talk) 22:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This now has a project page, located at Wikipedia:Vandal fighters. We can discuss details of the proposal on the talk page there. Aiken ♫ 22:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I like it. Tommy! [message] 22:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• The key to this is reasonable and precise definition of the problem and the proposed solution. Start with the lowest common denominator that people can agree with. I see people are already horrified by the idea of users being blocked and what not. Look at all the tools available to accomplish a goal, say vandalism fighting. Implement a TRIAL of the least controversial tools first, just like the current Reviewer trial. I think in terms of vandalism, the most effect and least controversial tool is first to try a very limited (4 hours) period of semi-protection. I'd say almost all anxious vandals that deface a page give up after a short period of time. They don't come back after 4 hours and try again. Have the page automatically expire the protect status without editor intervention. If that doesn't help, and the vandal goes around to other pages, after a few of those, we can look at a one hour block or so. Make the process easy to understand for vandals as well as editors. A good new user should not have to fear being blocked even if they are anonymous. Kbrose (talk) 22:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I changed my opinion due to the tools essentially being a very light version of the sysop tools. I complete agree with Courcelles that it should only be granted by a bureaucrat too. Tommy! [message] 22:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 3) Hmm, seems like it's harder than I thought it would be to implement the right. It's possible, and I could get it to work, but the problem is the dozens of places a "block" link is used in the interface must be updated. I've filed a bug at bugzilla:24817. (X! · talk)  · @999  ·  22:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'd like to see objective statistics on this, but very many RFA supporters have argued that administrators mainly fight vandalism and spam by unproven contributors. If that's true, it makes sense to have a "vandalfighter" right that doesn't affect proven contributors (e.g. can't block them, doesn't have special status at AFD, can't delete pages and can't view deleted pages). This model might significantly reduce the number of full admins we need, so we can insist on deep content skills at RFA and ensure future admins have the trust of our most effective content contributors. If it is technically difficult to achieve, that is all the more reason to gather statistics about the admin workload required to handle unproven contributors. - Pointillist (talk) 23:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Support per !X saying that it can be implemented, and my comments above. This is a wonderful idea. I'm surprised that no one thought of this earlier!--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 00:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

This has already moved to its own page. Aiken ♫ 00:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Isn't there a risk here of making the RfA situation worse? That is, not only are candidates expected to have X edits across at leat Y namespaces, experience with XfD, CSD, ANI, RfA/B, AIV, etc, and have an encyclopedia knowledge of policy, but now also Z months experience in some type of clerk position. Editors choosing to demonstrate their character through clerkship is one thing, but it could easily become an expected criterion for passing RfA, meaning this sensible suggestion is twisted into a way to further raise the RfA bar. EdChem (talk) 00:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

If we never try anything, we'll never learn. The discussion has moved to its own page. Aiken ♫ 00:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I like EdChem's proposal. Make it an official recommendation. Some people agree to be humiliated, tarred and feathered to get the magic button at all costs - they can just as well dance the vandalfighting dance for some time. Others will pass the RFA without any of these userright trinkets. The system isn't broken: profiling applies only to a certain level. East of Borschov 07:33, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I can only see it elevating the status of adminship to further levels of esteem, and I'm concerned at any non-administrative class having block powers. Esteffect (talk) 01:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Why do people keep voting when there's a perfectly good project page to discuss on? Wikipedia:Vandal fighters. Aiken ♫ 01:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Because that page is hidden in a wall of text. I did eventually find it, and I've expanded (albeit, not in a particularly well-worded way) on the talk page of the proposal). Esteffect (talk) 02:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Excellent idea. bd2412 T 18:41, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose see WT:Vandal fighters#My opinion for the long why. —fetch·comms 02:05, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

12 years old

I really don't want to offend anyone or anything here, but is it wrong that I think having 12 year old (and possibly younger) administrators is not the best way to run the project? I know they've past RfA like everyone else - but I already think we are scrutinising all the wrong things and every so often I get little confirmations, like this, that I was right. I just don't think pre-teen children ought to have the responsibilities and powers which go with being an admin. IainUK talk 22:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there an issue with a particular underage admin, or is it just you don't like the idea of it? Aiken ♫ 22:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I want to see an underage admin block their parents. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:55, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The latter. IainUK talk 23:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Then I don't understand your comment. You say "every so often I get little confirmations, like this, that I was right". What's "this", exactly? Aiken ♫ 23:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Haha.. But I agree with IainUK, Tommy! [message] 22:56, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Are we even allowed editors under 13? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 22:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

There's no age limit. We had a 13 year old *gasp* bureaucrat once. The horror, I know, and I think they still have the rights too. Aiken ♫ 23:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 3) The thing is, I'm not sure that there are any 12 year old admins here. I know they'd get shot down if they revealed themselves, but behavioral evidence should weed out most 12 year olds anyway. I think the youngest age that's common is like 14/15. I've always seen 12 as a hyperbole. (X! · talk)  · @999  ·  22:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Aiken, what I mean is, the RfA process is such that we can give admin powers and responsibilities to a 12 year old without even noticing. IainUK talk 23:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that if their on-wiki behaviour/editing patterns didn't identify them as being so young, they're probably mature enough to be an admin! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with Phantomsteve. Personally I couldn't care less how old they are, as long as they did a good job. Frankly, despite all the unproven cries of "children make bad admins" and "teenagers would abuse tools", I don't believe I've ever come across an underage admin who actually abused or misused their tools. Aiken ♫ 23:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure we can really say that a 12yr old can deal with the responsibilities, and sometimes even pressures and difficult decisions that being an admin can involve. I would at least like to see someone get through secondary education before they start dealing with disputes and making decisions on bans etc. I think there are many cases where a kid could come across as a legitimate adult online - I don't think that makes it ok. IainUK talk 23:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

In principle I tend to agree with you; however, it would be very difficult to make sure an editor is 18, short of requiring all successful candidates to identify themselves to the Foundation (an idea I don't like and that's one of our perennial proposals); that's why I fear the only viable solution is to evaluate how mature a candidate appears to be before handing them the bit. Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 23:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you about identification, but I still think pre-teen admins is a problem, and so it brings me back to my conclusion that the current RfA procedure needs to be changed dramatically to scrutinise the candidate strategically, rather than their operational contribution. IainUK talk 23:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to interrupt, but what's the objection to identification? The fact that there have been admins who were sockpuppets of previously banned admins is prima facie evidence of the need for identification, isn't it? Pointillist (talk) 23:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The objection to identification would be that Wikipedia is an anonymous (if desired) venue - only CU/OS/Stewards have to identify to the Foundation. OK, I have identified myself, but that was because as a user of the ACC tool, I have access to private information (IPs and email addresses) and it felt like the correct thing to do - but if admin candidates had to identify to the foundation, I suspect many would choose not to - they may not necessarily trust the people who will see their passport or id - after all, they do not know them, they cannot see them in person, they are not a member of a government department. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing to not be sure about - we've been and done it on Wikipedia many times, and I don't see any long-lasting effects. Most young editors who even get nominated for adminship are probably (I'm stereotyping here) intelligent nerds, who enjoy writing encyclopedia articles in their spare time. They are probably very mature for their age. I think you should just go with the flow and assume that everyone is an adult who sounds and acts like one. If you find it wrong, it's not really your problem. Furhermore, we don't require any proof of age or identity, so it would be difficult to enforce. Aiken ♫ 23:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Iain you say pre-teen admins are a problem, and yet you have presented no evidence to support this theory.--Jac16888^Talk 23:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Jac, that is because I have no evidence. This is a view that I hold. Even if a pre-teen admin did nothing "wrong", I don't think it is right that they should have the pressures, powers and responsibilities involved. Bad behaviour is not the only reason for lower age limits. IainUK talk 23:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

If someone put a speedy tag on this page - and, doing his duty as admin, a pre-teen starts to review the article, would you say that is ok? Or if there is a difficult dispute between two respected members and a difficult decision needs to be made, would he have the experience and skills to deal with it properly? There are many reasons why I think it is wrong to have pre-teens as admins on the site - it isn't about immature behaviour or disruption. I hope you'll excuse the example but I think it illustrates my point. IainUK talk 23:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I understand your point of view - however, short of requiring all admins to identify to the foundation and to be over (x) years of age, how would it be enforced? It's not fair to ask all candidates if they are of the age of majority where they live (the WMF have no age requirements for admins on any of their projects), and they could easily lie anyway. Also, if you decide the age of majority should be the cut off point - which one? Age of majority shows that if you live in the Isle of Man and are male, the AoM is 14 - whereas the highest AoM is 21. If you say they have to be of the age of majority, someone is Bahrain would have to wait 7 years longer than a male on the Isle of Man! Personally, I agree that some people may not be suitable for the "pressures, powers and responsibilities involved" - but to be fair, I know some 28 year olds, some 42 year olds, etc, who would fall into that category! Should we require a psychiatric evaluation as well? OK, I'm being deliberately facetious there - but the point is, unless they say they are that young (and/or show it in their discussions), how would we know anyway? And as the WMF have not seen fit to limit the age for adminship (and as of now, enwiki hasn't either), how would we stop them any way? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is an easy solution, I'm just identifying the problem. And I don't think that a lack of an easy solution take the problem away. I think in the RfA we could place more of an emphasis on personal skills and experiences, in order to build a better picture of the candidate's judgement. I don't know what the best solution is, but I do think that even without identification, we could do better with our scrutiny than to let pre-teens through. But I accept that even if the RfA process were to improve, there is still potential that certain young people could get through. IainUK talk 00:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

No you're not. It's a fictitious problem. There are plenty of grown adults who are not mature enough to handle some of the burdens of adminship on en.wiki. If we took your cunnilingus argument, would that mean that we would require Hugglers to be of the age of majority to revert vandalism on that article? Frankly, the many things that people think "children" aren't "fit" to handle are comparatively rare and often have to be dealt with by non-admins. We have no way of telling, short of identifying to the WMF, if someone is 7, 12, 18, 21 or an alien from outer space. Most people judge candidates based on their contributions rather than some arbitrary age threshold (and whose age of majority to use is another argument altogether). Basically, you're inviting a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, especially since most young editors show their age one way or another and tend not to do well at RfA. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... so you're suggesting that the candidate's skills and experience in real life should be evaluated? The first thing that comes to mind for me is that they could very easily lie about it. Again, as stated above, it'd be hard to enforce. Airplaneman ✈ 00:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Just one comment: Forcing underage admins to go underground reduces the amount of protection we can offer them. Not that they should say how old they are, but they should not feel obliged to state they are over the age of majority in order to ensure passing RfA. This will exacerbate the problem, since there is quite a large percentage of editors under 20 and if we make them all feel like they must be older to be accepted we are isolating a huge amount of our community- and those who need support most. sonia♫ 01:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I've written on this issue before, as it tends to come up from time to time, and I wish I had a link to what I said previously. The substance of it was that it is right that we judge our contributors by their contributions and their anticipated future contributions, rather than by their chronology. That is the attitude I hold toward all positions on Wikipedia; even the limitation that one must have attained majority to be a checkuser or an oversighter or more recently an arbitrator is in principle a derogation from that principle, though an understandable and (at least in the former two cases) a justifiable one.

Our teenage adminstrators (I don't know of anyone who's made it at as a preteen) have all the responsibilities and the powers of any other administrator. One of the responsibilities of any administrator, though—I have written this in arbitration decisions—is the obligation to self-select from among all the administrator tasks that our hundreds of administrators must perform, those that he or she chooses to perform. For the most part, this selection is based on one's individual aptitudes and abilities, of which age may be a part as much as anything else.

For example, suppose that a finely balanced AfD must be closed dealing with an obscure topic in, say, vector calculus. In general, an administrator who knows nothing of vector calculus will generally not be well-suited to closing the debate and would better leave the matter open for someone who does. It does not matter whether the reason the administrators knows nothing of vector calculus is that he or she is an English major who has never studied vector calculus, a senior citizen who has forgotten vector calculus, or a high-schooler who has not yet reached vector calculus; the impact is the same.

Relatedly, there have been I have strongly urged some younger administrators to steer clear of dealing with certain types of situations, such as users who have made credible legal threats, and leave those to the admins who are chronological adults to address. In my experience, most of the younger administrators, who believe strongly in the equality of their status within the project in numerous other respects, are perfectly willing to accept advice of this nature. Similarly, there are topic areas that I myself would not address for reasons unique to myself, such as disputes on issues that could impact directly on clients of my law firm. It is not the minors alone who need to use good judgment in recognizing when they should stay clear of some particular editor or some particular subject or some particular dispute.

The other aspect of the impact of administrating Wikipedia that's often raised, is that we can agree it's undesirable for a younger person to spend too much of his or her time administrating, or in editing, Wikipedia (or doing anything else online). But it's almost as undesirable for an adult to make the same mistake. When I see a long chain of quality edits from someone who is obviously a younger editor, I find myself thinking that this individual is improving our encyclopedia and hopefully learning something valuable in the process—but I also find myself hoping that he or she is editing Wikipedia in what would have otherwise been his or her video-game time or social-media time, rather than his or her book-reading time or ballplaying time. I've given that advice on a page that I wish had a little more prominence, and I hope that some folks are taking it to heart. But I don't think it's something that we can paternalistically enforce at RfA time.

And I, at least, would be a hypocrite to try. Too many years ago, I was the stereotypical nerdy kid with the classes, who might thumb through some interesting articles in the encyclopedia to wile away some time on a rainy say. (Sadly, sometimes, perhaps even on a sunny day.) I can only ask myself with wonderment how it would have worked out I'd had the opportunity to participate in creating the encyclopedia, whether through writing the articles or providing administrative support to those who do. So in sum, while I appreciate the good intentions of those who raise this issue time and again, I see little upside and much downside that could follow from changing our policies in this area. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

As a point of interest, what is the age of our youngest administrator? Furthermore, I suspect that users under the age of 13 years old may legally be unable to hold a membership without parental consent (certainly the case on child-oriented websites), which I imagine that the Wikimedia Foundation is already aware of. Esteffect (talk) 01:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Malcolm says on his User page that he was 11 when he started editing Wikipedia, and he was an admin within a year - so there's one example of a preteen with admin responsibilities and powers. I don't have time for a long reply, but I would like to say I'm all for encouraging young editors, I just don't think they should be given admin status - for the points given above. But I accept it would be hard to manage, however I think we could manage a far better way of scrutinising RfAs. IainUK talk 01:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

If Malcolm was an admin, he doesn't appear to be one now, and I know of a few others. It would be interesting to see the reasons why. There a re also other teens who have been admins and are not now. Perhaps a bot could work out how many teens and preteens have been given the bit and then had it taken away again.--Kudpung (talk) 04:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Umm... [4] Malcom's an admin. Courcelles 04:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Ilyanep - admin at 11, 'crat at 12. And still here with 7 years of editing under his belt. Guettarda (talk) 05:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes. I remember him being around in 2005-2006. A lot of websites do have a "You can't be under 13 years old for legal reasons" sort of requirement, though, so I'm wondering if the higher profile Wikipedia that we have today could really allow that. Esteffect (talk) 15:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The "you can't be under 13" rules are because of COPPA: if your website is requiring users to provide personally-identifying information, there are a number of hoops you must jump through to collect it from children under the age of 13. It's simpler just to say "nobody under 13".

Wikipedia doesn't require users to provide this information. --Carnildo (talk) 20:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Correct. COPPA applies only to commercial websites and online services. Kingturtle (talk) 20:31, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Guettarda: At this rate of editing he'd need another twenty years to even consider approaching request for adminship. Ah, he already is? The point: examples from the past don't always help in understanding present-day realities. Anointing wikipedians with meager editcount was once acceptable. Now it's not. "Consensus" on age may just as well change, regardless of any examples from the past. East of Borschov 07:24, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Brad, I couldn't have said it better. Age should not be a factor in determining adminship here. If an editor can prove to the community that he or she is competent in Wikipedia policies and related matters, cordial and willing to learn, then that should be enough. Admins have no high-level authority or access, i.e. access that checkusers have. Being an admin is no big deal. Kingturtle (talk) 15:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

So far the only "argument" in favor of discriminating against admin candidates who are children I could determine is that this position might require them to read material unsuitable for children. But that has been refuted above already. Apart from that argument, do you have any others that are not simply "I think it's wrong" rephrased? Disclaimer: I, like most of those above, do not care about the age of a candidate if they have proven their maturity (just as I would oppose an immature candidate who was older than 18 years) but I'm curious why exactly you think the biological age is a relevant concern as opposed to their actual mental age and maturity. Regards SoWhy 15:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Judging "mental age" or "maturity" by whatever someone posts here makes about as much sense as judging their gender, or income group. In fact, children are quite used to being told off, and usually try hard to fit in with whatever they believe the behavioural norms to be, so arguably have an in-built advantage at RfA. In truth though no rational person can possibly argue that 12 year olds are mature in any meaningful sense of that word. That you or others may be willing to be deceived into believing that they are does not affect that simple fact. Malleus Fatuorum 15:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, recently, someone has pointed out that an admin was abusing/attacking an user's divorce and appearance, all in an off-wiki forum. The admin, who was previously desysopped, became an admin again after their 6th RFA (and that was conducted this January) where they received 55 opposes, and 181 supporters who, for one reason or another, trusted the user's judgement. My question is this: would it be so impossible/difficult to find a minor (eg; 12 years old) who has better judgement + maturity than that displayed by this particular example? If it's not so impossible/difficult, would it fair to discriminate against a minor due to their age? Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:57, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Malleus, can you explain why all minors should automatically be considered immature? I understand that you and others feel that no one can argue that minors are "mature in any meaningful sense of that word" but simply stating this as a fact does not make it an argument. I have known 15-year olds that behaved completely like 20 year old adults and unfortunately more than a few 20 year olds that behaved like 12 year olds. Regards SoWhy 17:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

You have set up a straw man, but what's worse you mischaracterise those who do not share your rather peculiar view of biological development as discrimination. Is it your view that western governments are discriminating against 12 year olds when they do not allow them to drive motor cars, take out loans, or buy alcohol or cigarettes? What about handguns? Is it discrimination not to allow 12 year olds to carry concealed weapons? Malleus Fatuorum 17:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

While I don't agree with Malleus, the fact is that all minors are immature by their very nature. They aren't adults. Thus they are immature. They may act mature, some may even look it but biologically they are immature. Aiken ♫ 17:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Obviously most, if not all 12 year olds, are not fit to do a lot of things, be it IRL or on-wiki. But I also appreciate that users who are more open to the ideas of making specific exceptions in specific cases can argue it is a form of discrimination - treating them differently on the basis of the one characteristic that is out of their control (though I'd say it's worth arguing that the different treatment is not necessarily unfair, if at all). Incidentally, one can only ponder over the question of age in regards to Wikipedia matters given that a lot of users don't reveal those sorts of details. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:50, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Reply to SoWhy: Because by any objective measure they are immature; neurologically, physically, and emotionally. To argue otherwise is to fly in the face of all available information. Surely you don't find the argument that because someone can pretend to be mature (however you're defining maturity in the wikipedia context) then they are mature, are you? Malleus Fatuorum 17:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Until we develop a magic wand that allows us to tell when how old somebody is simply by what they type into WP, we will have to go with what we've got and trust/hope that grossly unqualified or immature candidates will be filtered out by RFA. I imagine if I had tried RFA when I was 12 my first attempt would have made me very upset and turned me off WP forever. Most 12 year olds can't handle that level of harsh criticism of their actions. Neither can a significant percentage of adults. The ones that can are welcome to go ahead and be admins. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Damn! Malleus won't let me get a word in edgeways , he's said everything for me - again.--Kudpung (talk) 13:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

There have indeed been many problems caused by child admins. There have indeed also been many problems caused by adult admins. Disputing this is pretty foolish. Sensible people will usually agree that as a general rule 12 year olds are not well suited to positions of responsibility. Sensible people will also usually agree that there are exceptions to the general rule. There's probably nothing to be said on this issue that hasn't already been said many many times. Friday (talk) 15:15, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Quite. There's never going to be any agreement on it. People have their own opinions and standards and that's all there is to it. Aiken ♫ 16:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I have to say that never in all of my time here on Wikipedia has such a thread disgust me to the point that I must make a comment in some group's defense. Society as a whole has come up with an arbitrary age that proves one's maturity. I cannot go one day without seeing a "You must be 18 years or older to call", "Must be 18 years or older", "No minors allowed", "You cannot do X, have possession of Y or have a driver's license until Z" statement. And that's not counting comments like "Because by any objective measure they are immature; neurologically, physically, and emotionally.", or "I just don't think pre-teen children ought to have the responsibilities and powers". This "age of majority" varies from nation to nation or from state/province to state/province and this fact alone under-minds the effectiveness of determining the maturity of a human being through their days spend on this planet. Who are we as humans to determine how or when nature will make another human fully "mature"? One fatal flaw that this project continually makes is it's overall discrimination of so-called "minors", "children" and "adolescents" who's very nature of being in such a category are determined by a certain group of people who are considered "adults" by the law, which as I have stated before, is subject to change between different regions. In the middle ages for instance, "kids" were considered adults by 14-15 and some had children of their own by 15-16! Sure there is a link between one's age and their maturity or lack thereof but people cannot group every single "minor" into the category of "being immature" yet several people do it on this site and in the real world everyday. It is this fatal flaw in our system that will one day come back to haunt this project. I cannot stress this enough, we are driving away this Project's future contributors and many people's sefishness and narrow mindedness are preventing them from realizing it.--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 15:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you not considered the reasons behind age limits? We can't very well say "You must be *this* mature to do this..." It's not measurable. They're convenience, and like it or not, children are biologically immature.

As for driving people away, if children are driven away because they couldn't get adminship, then it's probably better they weren't admins. It's not about being selfish, it's about considering the project's best interests. Would you want children running Wikipedia? I know there are many teen admins, but generally they aren't noticed because they don't act their age. What it comes down to is personal opinion. Some just don't like the idea of it. I'm not one of them; as long as the editors act like a mature adult, they may as well be one for all I care. Aiken ♫ 16:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Passing or failing an RFA is not what is driving them away, it's comments like the one's that I saw above that are. I understand the reason behind age limits but they are for things that could actually result in injury or death if handled the wrong way. Adminship, Bureaucratship or even this new "vandal fighter" proposal are not life threatening and the implementation of "age limits" on such petty things is quite frankly, overkill. Sure Children are biologically immature" but that does not make all children biologically immature.--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 16:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have said some abuse the fact that NPA and CIVIL are basically ignored on RFAs. It's definitely unpleasant but it happens to every unsuitable candidate.

Some consider Wikipedia to be a like a professional workplace. It isn't, but they think it is. Would you see a 13 year old working in, say, an office or factory? Would it be appropriate? Bear in mind Wikipedia is not a "petty thing" - it's one of the most visited websites in the world.

'Sure Children are biologically immature" but that does not make all children biologically immature' Actually, it does. There may be some who are physically and mentally mature, but biologically they are not. Aiken ♫ 16:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not true. I see excellent candidates being mistreated in RFAs all the time. some pass and others do not. Furthermore, what does "biologic maturity" have to do with the ability to push a few extra buttons or do other things that people want to restrict here?--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 18:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The very fact that you have swallowed the fiction that being an administrator is just about pushing a few extra buttons proves the point far better than I ever could. Malleus Fatuorum 18:22, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

It's just a figure of speech Malleus. While adminship should be considered "not a big deal", in reality, it is to some extent. I have not "swallowed" and "fiction that being an administrator is just about pushing a few extra buttons" at all and you know that based on your interaction with me.--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 18:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

This 'children' thing is very arbitrary. Anyone who has researched their family history will almost certainly have found ancestors about 150 years ago at work in the mill or the factory from around 12 or 13. Out in the country, children on farms worked from a younger age. Two of my ancestors were working in the family trade (bootmaking) from around 10 years old. The age of consent at the start of Queen Victoria's reign was 12. Children were only barred from purchasing alcohol at the start of the 20th century. Boys as young as 14 could enlist in the army or on board ship up to about 1880 - my great grandfather and two of my mother in law's uncles enlisted at the age of 16. In the Falklands War, at least one member of the UK merchant marine who lost their life was only aged 16. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:28, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Were those ancestors in charge of the old factories and mills they worked in, able to hire and fire? Malleus Fatuorum 22:57, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I was introduced to a 12-year-old yesterday and I thought wow he could be a Wikipedia editor. Seriously, I forgot how young 12-year-olds are! Being an admin requires discretion and judgement. There is a reason you have to be over 18 to run for office. The fact it would be hard to prevent really doesn't make it any less wrong. And I like the flowery theory of age is just a number etc. but no, seriously now, kids are kids! IainUK talk 23:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:CIR, please. If they can do the job, go for it; if they're immature and unclueful, GTFO. Competence is required. —fetch·comms 02:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Via my friends and family I know a number of teenagers, adolescents, and younger children. Some would be perfectly capable of editing Wikipedia and I believe would do so responsibly, others I wouldn't trust to do so seriously. Age is not in my view the prime consideration here, yes people tend to become more mature and responsible as they age, but they do so at different rates. Of course Politicians when setting rules for driving and drinking have to take cognisance of age as a variable, both because it is available to them and because unlike us they don't have the luxury of being able to make a considered decision on each individual. ϢereSpielChequers 11:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there potential of us running afoul of the US internet privacy law that protects those under 13? FWIW, I was an admin at 15 (5 years ago) and didn't have any major issues with adminship. There are probably some things that younger editors should probably defer to those older to do (dealing with pedophiles, dealing with users that have been known to issue death threats, etc.) as a matter of safety, however. --Rschen7754 20:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Poll on new user right

Based on the above discussion on a new vandalism patroller user right, we are now polling on whether we should persue the idea further. Link here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aiken drum (talk • contribs)

Poll has been closed as premature. - Pointillist (talk) 22:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Slow-moving edit war over A3RO's recent votes

See also: Wikipedia:ANI § User:A3RO

It would be ideal if the community came to a consensus as to whether recent votes by A3RO (talk · contribs) should have a #hash mark before them, or if they should be :indented. There's a slow moving edit-war ongoing across several RFAs. –xeno^talk 18:54, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

A3RO has been blocked, not banned, and there appeared to be opposition to a ban before the discussion was closed. I'm not comfortable indenting !votes of blocked editors. I'm far more comfortable leaving it to 'crats to decide how much weight to give to individual !votes. TFOWR 19:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I initially thought we should indent it, but responding to and indenting trolling only increases the drama. If someone writes a silly oppose, it might just be better if everyone stays quiet. There are no prizes for passing RfA unanimously (perhaps to re-inforce that we should consider leaving out the "count" from our chronology pages). --Mkativerata (talk) 19:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

For the record, the user in question has opposed at Fainites', Dabomb87's (mine), and Nikkimaria's RfAs. The !vote is currently indented at the first, and is counted as normal in the last two. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Whether one considers it a prize, or appropriate, there is the listing at WP:100 (nnn in unanimous support). Whatever the outcome, the votes should be treated in a consistent manner. –xeno^talk 19:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there some big secret set of extra admin buttons you get if your RFA was unanimous? Mine wasn't, so I'm just curious if I've been missing out on the "nuke wikipedia" tab all these years. Pedro :  Chat  21:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

That makes me wonder, what does Special:Nuke do? Access Denied ^talk _contribs editor review 21:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This tool allows for mass deletions of pages recently added by a given user or IP. Input the username or IP to get a list of pages to delete. Pedro :  Chat  21:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, people like Pedro and me can see that page, so it can't be the secret unanimous-support-hidden-page-prize. ;-) Regards SoWhy 21:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Although I should not have heard, I heard that the first rule of the secret admin button is: do not talk about the secret admin button. They never did tell me what the second rule was... –xeno^talk 23:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe it's the same as the first rule. --John (talk) 01:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, if you got through unanimously, you get the t-shirt with "administrator" spelt correctly rather than the one which is spelt "adminnistrator" - or was that just my shirt? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 21:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Indenting votes made before a user is blocked just reeks of dishonesty. X! has twice in a few days shown that he does not have the judgement to be a bureaucrat. Malleus Fatuorum 19:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Indenting votes made simply to be disruptive is appropriate regardless of whether or when the editor is blocked. Resolute 19:50, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Your mind reading skills are clearly superior to mine. I do not presume to know what the motivation of any editor might be. Malleus Fatuorum 21:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

These kind of comments are not appropriate. He was clearly being disruptive, and now he is blocked. Please drop this issue.--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

So how exactly was the vote disruptive? Nev1 (talk) 21:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The user disrupted numerous AFDs and RFAs with ridiculous, rude and nonconstructive comments. It was obvious trolling intended to result in a response that it has produced numerous times. This is disruption. Unfortunately, this discussion is also part of the problem because it is encouraging the particular user and future trolling.--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The user has disrupted nothing at all; it is editors like yourself who are being disruptive, by insisting that oppose votes that will in the end almost certainly be discounted should be removed because you don't like what the editor has said elsewhere. Malleus Fatuorum 21:57, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) That they posted vague or odd comments to multiple RfAs is a description of what A3RO did, not how it's disruptive. The act in itself is not disruptive. In a process decided by consensus (RfA is not a straight vote), where the closing 'crat is supposed to weigh up the arguments on each side and gauge consensus, one perturbing vote is not disruptive. To call it such is speculating on A3RO's motives. Nev1 (talk) 22:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps then you should unblock the user since you don't believe he did anything wrong.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you ought not to encourage wheel warring and instead try listening to what's been said. Malleus Fatuorum 23:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

That comment is not necessary. You seem to have a civility issue. --William S. Saturn (talk) 23:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh wait, this proves my point. Anyways, comment as you will, but I will cease to feed your trolling encouragement.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Your attitude appears to be that anyone who disagrees with you is de facto incivil. I suggest that you try consulting a dictionary. The civility issue is one that you ought to consider very seriously yourself. Malleus Fatuorum 23:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Editors who have trolled RFA, XFD, etc with useless arguments have long been blocked for being disruptive. The issue is not the vote count - indeed, anyone capable of becoming a crat would simply ignore A3RO's comment, but as we've seen in these RFA's, repeated useless comments create side discussions of no value, "slow moving edit wars", ANI reports, etc, and waste everyone's time. That is a textbook example of being disruptive. No mind reading skills are necessary. Resolute 01:59, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with TFOWR in that blocked users should not have !votes indented (unless they're specifically blocked for disruptive comments at RfA, obviously). As the blocking admin said here, the block was not just about the RfA votes; it seems that the majority of problems occurred outside of RfA. The RfA votes were very weak as it is, and I wouldn't think they would hold much weight in the eyes of a crat. But do they have the right to maintain an opinion at RfA. If the comments did play a role in the block, however, I believe they should be indented. Indenting all of the !votes prior to a discussion regarding them was probably not a good idea. Swarm^Talk 19:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

A number of users expressed that the vote should be indented at the ANI discussion. The user is blocked for the duration of the RFA. There is no need to allow the illegitimate vote to stand. Also there is no need for further discussion on the matter, as this is exactly the intent of the trolling.--William S. Saturn (talk) 19:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. The !votes were purely disruptive and should not be counted. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive or not, they were not cast in violation of a ban or a block, so it should be the closing crat's decision what to do with them. People should stop indenting or removing !votes in any scenario where it's not clear-cut because that's exactly what causes such discussions and edit-warring with no benefit whatsoever. Regards SoWhy 21:27, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with SoWhy, and indeed said as much a few days ago [5]. Indenting causes needless discussion, as we can see here. As I noted above, somewhat with tongue in cheek, if an RFA passes it passes - you don't get bonus buttons for unanimous support. Pedro :  Chat  21:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The user indicates here that he did it to disrupt (to be an "attention whore"), for what that's worth. Agreed it might be useful to establish a consensus position on this, with the default being the votes stand. --John (talk) 22:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Whatever one thinks of this A3R0 situation, I feel it only fair to all three candidates to treat the opposes the same - ie, count them all or don't count any of them. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

That's the least that these civility warriors ought to have done, but it was obviously too much to expect. Malleus Fatuorum 23:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Civility warriors? Isn't that an oxymoron? ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:46, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Sadly it's not, because most of them are blind to their own incivility. It's rather a farce. Malleus Fatuorum 02:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, let's be realistic here for a minute - counting it or not counting it doesn't appear likely to affect the outcome of any of the !votes. If there's suddenly a huge pile-on of opposes on one or more of them, fine, maybe we'll talk about this again then. However, consider this: if the !votes in question are disruptive, discussing them at such great length, both here and on the individual RfAs, is compounding the disruption. Count them all, don't count them all, but don't make a drama-fest out of it. If A3RO truly is a troll, then all you're doing is satisfying him; if he's not, then you're satisfying everyone who likes to point at Wikipedia's often needlessly acrimonious "debates" and snicker. </stands down from soapbox> Nikkimaria (talk) 02:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

The only issue here worth discussing is the judgement of a bureaucrat who felt it necessary to indent the vote of a blocked editor in one RfA but not in the others, and the credibility that gave to others who chose to follow the same path to corruption. Malleus Fatuorum 02:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Why does this even matter? No crat is stupid enough to count that as a serious oppose; the candidates were all doing fine, anyway. This discussion is really just a waste of time, because the closing crat is the one deciding in the end anyway. —fetch·comms 02:39, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

It matters because a bureaucrat did not remove votes even handedly. Malleus Fatuorum 02:43, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Then someone talk to the crat, not complain about it here. It's not like a crat is going to close a request as unsuccessful due to a troll's lone oppose, struck or not. Whoever thinks it's a big deal should read WP:DENY and WP:COMMONSENSE. —fetch·comms 03:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Why not check that bureaucrat's talk page before mouthing off here? Has that bureaucrat recognised that he fucked up? Malleus Fatuorum 03:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I did; my point was, why was this thread not closed earlier (and why was it really needed in the first place?). Anyway, it's over. I'm going to sleep. —fetch·comms 03:33, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, X! re-added the #hash mark, unindenting or restoring the vote (i.e. adding it to the tally). Since consistency was achieved both ways in a trickling fashion and the candidates (to their credit) don't seem to give a toss, I suppose this can be marked resolved. Any discussion over whether (so-called) disruptive votes should be indented and what actions bureaucrats may take when disagreements or inconsistencies arise would be best discussed in a more general fashion. –xeno^talk 03:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

So as I said, votes were not removed even handedly. Malleus Fatuorum 03:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Nikkimaria. As long as A3RO's votes are handled consistently (as they are now, after some dithering), I couldn't be bothered as to whether they count or not, given the circumstances. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:56, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the closing bureaucrat took note of this thread when closing Fainites, but they have eliminated A3RO's vote from the tally [6]. Since this represents an official bureaucrat decision, I have applied consistency to the remaining open RFAs of the same character. –xeno^talk 13:32, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Establishing a more general rule for the future

Not that this makes much of a difference to anyone in the grand scheme of things, but since it's been raised as an issue, I propose we go with:

• IPs: can't vote (existing status quo)
• Banned users: can't vote (ditto)
• Sockpuppets: can't vote; vote is removed if sock discovered before RfA closes (ditto)
• Subsequently blocked users: let the vote stand to be dealt with by the closing bureaucrat, though a short note may be appended at RfA if the block reason is relevant to the RfA (as in the case we were just discussing)

Any support for this clarification? --John (talk) 03:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

1. Support Great idea!--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 03:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
2. Support ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 03:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
3. Support Sounds good. Swarm^Talk 04:28, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
4. Support generally, with a dash of IAR whenever appropriate. —fetch·comms 04:51, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
5. Support and definitely clarifies things. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 05:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
6. Support this proposal and agree with Fetchcomms that IAR could help, in some rare cases. Salvio ^{Let's talk 'bout it!} 10:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
7. Support, with the "Fetchcomms proposal" too. TFOWR 13:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
8. Somewhat support in-theory all sounds fine, however i do believe IP with a long edit history should not be excluded. Although rare there are IP's that simply refuse to register, but have a great history here. So i would say we need to say something like IP with less then 2000 edits or less then 3 months cant vote. Moxy (talk) 14:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

   Unfortunately, that becomes needless instruction creep. It's so simple to register and there's not really much excuse not to. If you want full benefits of Wikipedia, you need an account. Like it or not, IPs are pretty much treated as second class citizens in the wiki world. Aiken ♫ 14:05, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

   I also think it's covered by WP:IAR - there's at least one RfA I can think of where an IP !voted with barely a murmur of dissent. TFOWR 14:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

9. Support, including IAR per fetch-comms. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:56, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
10. Support. I can't vote on RFAs, but I assume I can vote on a vote about RFAs. 67.136.117.132^{Also 174.52.141.138}16:09, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

    Heh! You were one (of three) IPs I was thinking of, that I'd have no problem with an WP:IAR response to your !voting at an RfA. TFOWR 16:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

    I tried to psuedo-vote in the discussion area rather than the support section, but I got shot down. Maybe now that I have a userpage...67.136.117.132^{Also 174.52.141.138}16:34, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

    67.136.117.132 was also in my mind, as a respected user with perfectly good reason for editing as an IP. I'd still favour an experiment to explicitly allow IPs to comment and indicate support/oppose (perhaps in the Discussion section as was attempted). At least until it was demonstrated to be disruptive, I'd rather we attempted to be inclusive, and it would avoid having to invoke IAR each time. The 'crats will be familiar with these exceptional cases, and it would give a little more dignity to valued contributors who have chosen to now edit as IPs. --RexxS (talk) 19:06, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

    I wouldn't be against that, but I think it would require a wider consensus than the discussion here will provide. I mainly wanted to focus on clarifying the blocked user vote indenting issue that one or two folks have identified as a problem. --John (talk) 19:32, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

    Indeed, John, and I apologise if I gave the impression that I was trying to coatrack it onto this discussion. It was merely something that occurred to me, and I felt might be worth flagging up for the future. --RexxS (talk) 23:41, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

    No need to apologize, it's a good idea; hasn't it been discussed before though? --John (talk) 05:33, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

11. Support -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 18:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
12. Support --Rschen7754 20:51, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
13. Support Diego Grez ^{what's up?} 20:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

• It may be worthwhile to amend the proposed clarification to "Subsequently blocked users: let the vote stand to be dealt with by the closing bureaucrat". This would prevent edit-warring by RFA participants while the RFA is ongoing, and allow the closing bureaucrat to exercise discretion based on the unique situation. IAR would of course, be available, as well as discussions at WT:RFA regarding instant cases. –xeno^talk 14:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Agreed, amended. --John (talk) 14:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

<sigh of contentment>

Delighted to see six RfAs running and even more delighted to see them all currently "green". A pleasant interlude in a decidedly awful day. --Dweller (talk) 19:15, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, today's weather alone is enough to make it a dreary day, let alone having to work an extra three hours at work. 67.136.117.132^{Also 174.52.141.138}19:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

That's perhaps what happens when those who might oppose are chased away, or their arguments dismissed by bureaucrats. I've long wondered why wikipedia doesn't just ban all oppose votes as disruptive, unless the candidate is generally unpopular of course. Malleus Fatuorum 21:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the current surge of good candidates coming forward is nice. One might even pretend for but a moment that the overall atmosphere at RfA has changed; that RfA is now a pleasant, fun, world of positivity :P. Swarm^Talk 23:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

That'll be the day. Tyrol5 [Talk] 17:01, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

AFAICS from the recent unopposed RFAs, it's a piece of cake when candidates have sufficient content skills in addition to the traditional process and policy experience. - Pointillist (talk) 00:19, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

It also helps to block unpopular editors expressing unpopular opinions. Malleus Fatuorum 00:41, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course the system is far from perfect. But there's aren't so many dodgy admins active nowadays, and over the past two years content has become more necessary for candidates, so I think things are going in the right direction. I'm beginning to accept that promoting unpopular opinions on wikipedia requires more planning, intelligence and self-control than I'm prepared to invest day-to-day. If I had that much self-discipline, I'd rather get the benefit of it in real life than here anyway. - Pointillist (talk) 01:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Look, it is in perfect order: [7] —Soap— 12:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Hooray, RFA is officially no longer broken! :-) Aiken ♫ 12:45, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Its great to see the number of active currently active RFAs rise to near the 2005-2007 average. But I think we need a little more than that spike before we can consider the drought over. I'm hoping that August will see the highest number of RFAs of any month this year, and it could even reach the 2009 average. But we'd need to have a month of RFA having 5 or 6 in the green before I'd accept RFA had been repaired. ϢereSpielChequers 17:53, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Votes versus !votes

Just an idea to shoot the breeze - could one way of de-dramatising RfAs (particularly those that are close to unanimous and there are one or two opposes) be to reduce the extent to which it is considered an exercise in voting? Should we consider:

• Not recording the final "tally" on a closed RfA.
• Not recording the final tally in the chronology pages.
• Not recording RfAs on WP:100.

It is, after all, not meant to be a vote. So why have a formal tally? --Mkativerata (talk) 19:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

If other people are like me then they: 1) Enjoy numbers and statistics; and 2) Think that recording information is superior to not doing so, whether it be for historical or statistical purposes, for gauging trends, etc. That's what I think the purpose of the numbers is. 67.136.117.132^{Also 174.52.141.138}19:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with point 3; not with 1 or 2 though. Access Denied ^talk _contribs editor review 19:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Ideally, RfA wouldn't be a vote at all, but at present it's so transparently a vote (as compared to how similar group weigh-ins are evaluated) that this wouldn't be productive. Tne voting aspect needs to be tackled before removing the tally will work. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Access Denied. WP:100 is an achievement based solely on number of votes one receives. While some pure "votes" (such as "# ~~~~") may hold no weight in a 'crat's eyes, the fact they count towards an award is ridiculous. Swarm^Talk 23:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:100 is an award? My RfA's on there, do I get a certificate or something? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:50, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Sure is! Just email me your bank information and I'll have your certificate sent to you right away! Swarm^Talk 04:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

RFA is a vote, and it seems to be meant to be a vote for the sake of consistency and fairness. +80 passes, -70 fails, anything in between the bureaucrats make a random decision based on which bureaucrat you get and what they've recently read. But for some reason, enough of the community imagines RFA as a consensus-building exercise to block this reality from formally being recognized. Townlake (talk) 01:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Duh, it's a vote. User:MZMcBride/Memes#X is not a vote. And, I like numbers and statistics and whatnot. Anyway, RfA seems to be going great these last two weeks. Maybe if the Signpost runs another article, we'll being voting more and more every day (sp. !voting?). —fetch·comms 02:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Not true. There have been cases of -70 passes, depends on how popular you are. Malleus Fatuorum 02:46, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I've been bouncing in and out of RFA for a couple years, and I can recall one that passed with under 70. There may be more recent ones, in fact there probably are, but they're sure the exception to the rule. Townlake (talk) 04:21, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

• I don't have much opinion on the whole voting and tally thing, but I think it's worth recording things like percentages and number of participants etc because, as 67.136... says, they can be useful for measuring trends and things, for example to see how RfA has changed over the years- from Jimbo's "anyone who wants sysop, just email me" to holding every mistake anyone has ever made against them. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:04, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

• I don't see any benefit in these proposed changes. But I think it would make RFA more of a serious review of a potential administrator if some of the incivility and and the more spurious opposes were removed by the closing admin. It isn't unusual nowadays to find me in the oppose column at RFAs, but sometimes it is embarrassing to be in the oppose column. I hope that every oppose I've made has included a clear civil explanation as to why I think the candidate's contributions indicate that they are temperamentally unsuitable or not yet sufficiently experienced for the role; Sadly I don't think that all opposes are both civil and diff supported. I suspect that such opposes make it easier for candidates to pass with little scrutiny by discouraging other more serious opposes, and prompting supports along the lines of "I find the oppose section unconvincing". Also looking at the proportion RFA candidates who use pseudonyms, there seems to be something about the system that deters editors who edit in their own names from running. My suspicion is that it is one thing to have an RFA on the internet under a pseudonym that you only use for Wikipedia, quite another to have that in your own name. So a cleanup by the closing crat might make the process more inviting for editors who use their real names ϢereSpielChequers 10:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure it makes much difference whether running under a pseudonym or one's real name. I edit under my real name (well, my 2 initials and surname) and I went through 2 RfAs, both of which I found rather gruelling (though the second far less so than the first), but I don't think I would have found it any better or worse under a pseudonym or as User:Harry Mitchell. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Regarding WereSpielChequers' observations about pseudonyms: That's an interesting point. I wonder if the proportion of pseudonyms you see among RfA candidates would mirror the proportion of pseudonyms among the general population of editors? Like HJ Mitchell, I also edit with an abbreviated version of my real name (initial plus the Croatian spelling of my family name). This is deliberate to foil google searches for my actual name. I hesitated to start an RfA for myself for many reasons (the main one being, why be a janitor?), but I must admit that if my account used my full real name, I'd be unlikely to nominate myself at all. I don't really know why the idea makes me uncomfortable, but for me it isn't "something about the system" as WereSpielChequers suggested. This is just a personal view to contrast with HJ Mitchell's. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:47, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:100 is a trophy, just like people consider Did You Know? entries as a trophy too. Esteffect (talk) 19:08, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have stats to reinforce my perception that realname accounts are rare at RFA, though I think it would be an interesting if complex task to measure this. Of course accountnames that appear to be a realname may not actually be so and some accountnames that look like pseudonyms are actually based on realnames, so its hard to be definitive. But I've approached quite a few possible candidates about running at RFA and I have had candidates editing in their realnames who've been reluctant to run because of concerns about having an RFA in their realname on the internet. I'm not sure if the fact that I have a driving license is publicly available, but I'm pretty sure that there is no blow by blow account of the test, let alone one including the question I fluffed, and my driving examiner was rather more courteous than some of our RFA regulars. ϢereSpielChequers 16:48, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

It's interesting to hear that it an issue for some people. When I chose my username, I had no idea what RfA was (or what an admin was), so I certainly didn't expect to be one a year an a bit later. Is there any particular reason (general question) people might be more uneasy about an RfA under their real name than about editing and being involved with WP generally under the same name? It's interesting to note that one fairly new admin had a username change not long after their RfA from their real name to a pseudonym, but there must be a fair few admins who edit under their real names or, like User:Thumperward, openly disclose it on their userpages. I guess there's be no way of gathering stats on it without interviewing every single admin and hoping they're honest. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I can hypothesize one reason: employer snooping. An RfA candidate may fear being found by his/her employer, and the employer may assume that an admin on Wikipedia, as opposed to a regular editor, equates to a time suck that impacts the employee's productivity at work. I'm self employed so it isn't an issue for me, but I can see it becoming an issue in a job search, because the first thing employers and recruiters do for an interesting applicant is Google the applicant's name to see what comes up. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:56, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

"an admin on Wikipedia, as opposed to a regular editor..." - wishful thinking. Most personnel clerks (of the advanced variety that can type in google searchbox) wouldn't know or even see the difference. East of Borschov 14:17, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

One option is to have a very common name, John Smith or whatnot. Also, I went through the successful RFA archives. Of the 1515 successful ones between January 1, 2005 and now, 140 appeared to be using a full name as their moniker. That's 9.2%. 67.136.117.132^{Also 174.52.141.138}22:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The moons have aligned...

As of right now, the percentages are 96%, 97%, 98%, 99%, and 100%, in that order. (X! · talk)  · @833  ·  19:00, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

This might very well be the best streak of RFA's I've seen in a while. Tyrol5 [Talk] 19:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah good. Will someone please give Chicken Little her bus ticket home? After that, I suggest we take this talk page to AfD, with the process fixed, there's nothing left to discuss!--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I certainly do hope that RFA becomes less abrasive in the future; however, I would need to see more evidence (successful RFA's to great candidates who would otherwise be shot down for not having 10,000 edits in every namespace) in the coming months to be convinced that RFA is 'fixed'. Tyrol5 [Talk] 19:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Someone ought to tell Fainites that, as the previous RfA in the sequence, they actually passed with 101% and hence are now the new admin king. ~ mazca ^talk 20:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Now I've seen everything. 67.136.117.132^{Also 174.52.141.138}22:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)