Wikipedia talk:Discussions for adminship/Archive 2

message: This new idea for RfA reform is no better or worse than any other idea we've had for RfA reform over the last many months. The difference here is that it has the weight of a couple of bureaucrats behind it. Problem is, what they have their weight behind has not been evaluated for its ability to solve the problems RfA has. That's because, once again, this idea has been spawned and developed without any prior identification of what is wrong with RfA. Coming up with new ideas and even implementing them is easy. Having the courage to figure out what is wrong first and then coming up with a plan of action that responds to the problems seems to be beyond the members of this community that are bent on reform. 
I know in response to this that some are going to cite User:Linuxbeak/RFA_Reform#What_is_not-so-good_about_the_existing_RFA.3F. But frankly, that was far from sufficient. Those comments are just one facet of determination of what is wrong and many of them lack basis. Here's a list of the problems noted on that page (and rebuttals as appropriate): 
#Low standards: Problem is, quite a few people think the standards are too high. Also note that at Wikipedia:Admin_accountability_poll#The_standards_for_becoming_an_admin_should_be_higher_than_they_are_now, more people were opposed to standards being higher than people in support of them being higher. 
#Unfair to veteran [non-admin] users: I provided data that disproved this notion. 
#Use of RFA as a soapbox: Ilyanep suggests people vote to make a point. Maybe, maybe not. Any basis in fact? I don't know and I suspect nobody does. I'd like to see cites of how these 'point' votes actually changed the outcome of an RfA. 
#Lack of efficiency: Bureaucrats have to make 5 edits to promote someone. One bureaucrat raised this point, another refuted it. Doesn't seem supported. 
#Impersonal: This boiled down to providing diffs/not providing diffs. From discussions here on this page, this is obviously controversial. 
#Maintenance (RfA always the subject of reform): This isn't a bad thing; it's a good thing. When we stop having discussion about how to make RfA better, there's possibly a problem. Silence doesn't mean it's perfect. 
#Lack of standards for voters: People are encouraged to use their own standards, and there is a standards page anyways. 
#Herd mindset: No way to fix this that is community friendly. 
#Focuses on wrong qualities: The comments on the RfA reform page seem to more or less agree. Maybe this is a real issue. This is hard to know without having any feedback on how admins are failing in their work as an admin, and how often it happens. Maybe RfA as it currently is filters out >90% of the admins who would fail. We don't know. 
#Waves of oppose votes based on one edit: This isn't necessarily a bad thing. RfA can be oriented towards finding what is wrong with a person than what is right. RfA is something of an investigation into whether a person is suited to being an admin. Finding negative evidence is part of that process. I don't think this should be removed as a factor, nor do I suspect there'd be much community concensus for doing so. 
#The voters: RfA reform lists a long littany of different problems with voters. As a whole, too diverse a set of statements to adequately answer or consider as a basis for RfA reform.
#A small group can manipulate the vote: Implies people working behind the scenes trying to make certain RfAs pass or fail. Campaigning in RfA is widely recognized as bad, and is looked upon very poorly. I don't see the effect. Some citations of example cases would be useful for clarifying this problem (if indeed it is a problem). 
#Encourages vote counting: Bureaucrats have, can, and will discount votes from perfectly well meaning contributors to RfA in pursuit of consensus. This is a critical function of bureaucrats in discerning consensus. It isn't an easy job, but the bureaucrats have done a pretty good job of it. This job is in direct opposition to vote counting, and it works. --Durin 14:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a very good summary, and I endorse it. However, I don't think there are any problems with having a new process run parallel with the existing one, per above. Demi T/C 16:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

text: *I don't have any problem with a parallel process running. In fact, I think it would be a good thing to do if certain prerequisites are met. One of them is to identify what is wrong with RfA so you can fairly evaluate whether the parallel, proposed process has been capable of solving the identified issues and/or if it raises other significant problems. In essence, by creating a parallel process without prerequisites, we are designing an experiment with no control, no targeted observations, and no experiment management overview. The results we get from such a parallel process will be debated, sometimes hotly, and at best yield dubious results. --Durin 16:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Just try running a parallel process. Then see how many complaints you get. You can't have legitimate results when people choose to go to either DFA or RFA. — Ilyanep (Talk) 02:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Until something is done along the lines I suggested above, it simply doesn't make sense to run an experiment. You might as well plow snow using a sledgehammer for all the good it will do. --Durin 05:16, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

text: *I'm not sure what problem there would be with legitimacy; RfA doesn't seem so broken that its results could be described as illegitimate, and certainly this draft doesn't contain anything that would make me doubt the legitimacy of the results. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

text: totally disagree.  The system is working somewhat fine as it is.
The above would only allow bad admin to engage the system.
The idea is to keep vandalism down to a minimum, a vandal with
Admin abilities is a bad idea.  Masssiveego 18:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  And once again, no list of "what is wrong" with RfA 

message: It's all well and good if a number of you have been working behind the scenes coming up with a new process to replace the current mechanism used at RfA. It's entirely possible you came up with an amazingly perfect method for evaluating RfA candidates (though I doubt that; see my comments in the prior section to this). But, suspending RfA (21:27 4 February 2006) and then telling all the people at RfA about it via the talk page (21:36 4 February 2006) isn't the way to sell this to the community.
If you want the community to back the reform proposal, then in the very least offer some time for public commentary on the plan that you come up with. What you have done is, in legislative terms, come up with a bill to be passed, discussed it in committee without public input, and attempted to pass it into law without the public even knowing it was about to happen. And you're surprised people are in opposition? You guys need a public relations officer :) --Durin 15:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  If you want this to work, you'd better sell it better 

message: The only way to prevent sheep voting (the reason why DFA is being proposed) is to have votes be emailed to a bureaucrat for counting. People are not going to bother to discuss when they can simply vote. Voters could put Support/Oppose in the subject line, allowing for easy sorting by bureaucrats. This is probably the best solution, though I doubt it will ever become a reality. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-7 01:46
:I hope you're not serious. Nothing (realistic) can prevent sheep voting altogether, but we can hope to deter it. — Ilyanep (Talk) 02:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: If you want this to work, you'd better do it right

message: I'd propose that we change the template as follows. It's clearly more work, and would for the more contentious candidates dictate some very careful editing, but would hopefully result in a nice balanced picture.  Could we get a volounteer to let us just do this section on them, regardless of taking it to RfA?  Yes, Lar, we see your hand poking up... - brenneman(t)(c) 05:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Bruning-brenneman method<sup><small>TM</small></sup> 

message: The following section is intended to allow editors unfamiliar with the nominee to make an informed decision regarding promotion.  Any editor is welcome to make additions, make changes, or remove items, as long as they it is unbiased and verifiabile.  Harmonious editing is essential, and use of the talk page highly recomended.  Please do not sign any comments in this section. Diffs are strongly encouraged, and presentation of items in chronological order is preffered.  
====Actions of nominee ====
AdminWannabe started editing on January of this year .  In his first month, AdminWannabe spent a lot of time on Article, which was subsequently promoted to featured article status. , ,  
In Feb, AdminWannabe engaged in personal attacks against User:IdiotMoronicTroll , as well as being involved in dispute with User:AnnoyingPerson on and responded in a calm and civil manner.
AdminWannabe hav frequently engaged in POC pushing on Cheese-related articles.
*If we're going to change the system but keep the basic 80%/counting framework, this suggestion is much more interesting than the current draft, at least. Much more potential to genuinely cause changes, but for the good or bad I don't know. It would be interesting to see a few of these done (I'd volunteer myself, though I have no interest in adminship). Christopher Parham (talk) 06:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Narrative structure 

message: AdminWannabe started editing on January of this year .  In his first month, AdminWannabe spent a lot of time on Article, which was subsequently promoted to featured article status. , ,  
In Feb, AdminWannabe engaged in personal attacks against User:IdiotMoronicTroll , as well as being involved in dispute with User:AnnoyingPerson on and responded in a calm and civil manner.
AdminWannabe hav frequently engaged in POC pushing on Cheese-related articles.
*If we're going to change the system but keep the basic 80%/counting framework, this suggestion is much more interesting than the current draft, at least. Much more potential to genuinely cause changes, but for the good or bad I don't know. It would be interesting to see a few of these done (I'd volunteer myself, though I have no interest in adminship). Christopher Parham (talk) 06:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Actions of nominee 

message: Just a quick note, as I haven't been following the thread. 
I think it's great to have a small period of discussion previous to "vote". I mean, if someone has waited a few months, can he not wait for 1 week more? I don't see what's wrong with having a previous discussion period before poll to enable us to make informed decissions. So I wonder, can anyone point me briefly what are the man concerns about (what I think is) this great idea? --  ( drini's page ☎ ) 19:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, if an idea is for good (and not-voting-out of the blue and putting the crads on the table I think are) why ask for more reason? Indeed, the RFA disabling may have left some people at unease, I'm just hoping that people isn't opposing it just on the basis how was it attempted to be done. Thanks for your reply. --  ( drini's page ☎ ) 21:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  joining the discussion 

message: I've just added User:Lar as a test case, just to see how it might work.  He'd indicated that he was willing elsewhere, but I'm re-pinging him now.  And I know I haven't changed the template, I wanted it to be easier to back out if we hate it.- brenneman(t)(c) 11:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Test case 

message: I honestly don't see what this "test" is trying to discern. I note that the "In a nutshell" contains suffrage requirements that are unsupported by consensus (see  which showed only 66% support), and contains requirements that nominees must have at least 500 edits (which has no consensus and no poll asserting such). The entire proposal centers around more discussion, which suffers from even less support at 59% (). Put that aside, and you're running a test run with Lar as the subject. Can people discuss someone before voting? Certainly. You can 'prove' that with this test, but you don't really need this test to ascertain that. Is this 'test' going to prove that this new process can prevent potentially bad admins from getting through? Impossible, especially with just one test subject, and especially without any understanding of how RfA is or is not failing in this regard. 
I'd also like to note that page is poorly written and needs a lot of editing. For example, it's nonsensical to have "see also Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts" at the top of the section of nomination standards. Another example; "Any user in good standing..." with no accompanying description of what "good standing" means. I.e., it's meaningless. On the template, you have "The poll isn't open yet. Please wait a couple of days, and join the discussion above." So, I can start voting two days after it opens? Not according to the instructions at the top which says three days. Oh wait, no, it's four days according to "Discussion will last for four days after that" at the top of the template. Bottom line, this is poorly organized, and is wanting for a great deal of copy editing. 
The "discussion" period (is it three or four days? I don't know, neither do the editors of this proposal) isn't a discussion period. That implies dialogue going on. That's not what is proposed here. What is proposed is a group effort to develop a summary of the nominee. That's not discussion. 
This proposal sets the stage for revert wars. Why? One, because of this easily contended statement: "Overly lengthy comments or discussions can be moved to the talk page". I'm wordy when I type. Thus, there's a far better chance my comments will be moved to the talk page, favoring less wordy editors. For two, the fact that people can edit others comments during the "discussion" period means a higher likelihood for people making reverts of each other to characterize/recharacterize different pieces of evidence regarding the nominee. And you think RfA is contentious? I shudder to think how bad DfA would be in comparison. People revert war over biographies of people they've never met. I think they're considerably more likely to revert war over people they care about or strongly dislike. --Durin 15:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Quite frankly, I agree with Durin and Demi above that this nomination is premature. Not only has the community not expressed widespread support for implementing or testing DfA, but discussions are still ongoing regarding these reforms. In addition, note that bureaucrats are trusted to interpret community consensus; if there's no consensus to run this trial, there probably won't be a consensus to promote, either. Personally, I'm also against this trial; as Durin points out above, what exactly are you trying to test? We're changing several elements at once, using an extremely small sample size (1), which was done by volunteer. I don't think we'll get conclusive results about how this will work. Thus, I urge both the nominator and nominee to consider holding off until community consensus has been reached and more discussions have proceeded. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm the "nominee". I think I'm a good test case because I'm borderline qualified editwise (just under 2000 but not too far under), timewise (around 3 months of serious editing), broadness of edit activitywise (articlespace, projectspace, templatespace, imagespace, userspace, all have some action from me) civilitywise (I'm fairly civil but no angel, I've been in some scuffles I'm not proud of) and a number of other ways. So just the sort of candidate that is neither a slam dunk 100/1/0, nor a clearly not qualified easy early WP:SNOW exit. If the entire community thinks it's a waste of time then perhaps Aaron misjudged where this proposal was at done-ness-wise. But note the scare quotes around nominee please!!!! I agreed to this because I think Aaron's on to something interesting, and because I personally want the feedback, NOT because I want the job. When you're running the test, evaluate me as if I actually wanted the job. please. But if you're talking meta, like here, remember this: I don't. I probably won't ever want it. SO (and I appreciate the concern, Flcelloguy!!!), it doesn't matter if doing this "spoils my chances" at the "real" process. Durin, who I respect highly, said this is nothing more than a typing test. I sincerely hope not. What *I* am getting out of it, or hoped to, other than doing it for the good of the project, is honest feedback. Those of you critiquing the process, have you tried to contribute? Maybe you should try first. I'm starting to think the requirement for all diffs is a hard one. Certianly when I wrote the starting summary I didn't take the time to do diffs, I just sketched out the stuff I knew I had been in on. I didn't put it in timeline order either. That's all pretty hard work!  Now, on the other hand if you're saying that more proposal refinement should occur and then the test should be restarted, that's fine with me, I'm willing to be the guinea pig a bit later instead of now. ++Lar: t/c 02:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More concerns 

message: I'd like to express, essentially, the opposite opinion to Durin's, who seems to say that this proposal shouldn't even be worked on until it has community consensus. I think that the community consensus can't happen unless the proposal is worked on first. Following Durin's suggestion would put us in essentially the same situation as deletion reform was before WP:PROD: months and months of discussion where everyone says "I kinda like foo, but I think bar would be better", with the community at large quickly losing interest. Fake RfAs (er, DfAs) for people who don't actually want to be admins yet is a great idea, too. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  06:17, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *I TOTALLY agree with that. This trial run (featuring me) is, I believe, a part of working on it, not implementing it. ++Lar: t/c 14:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good proposal -- now fight inertia and move forward 

message: I added a line between nominations as at RFA.  There, the line is magically added automatically as the result of something within the template that produces the nomination.  I've never understood how that works, but there ought to be something similar here, yes?  I really should understand templates better. . . Chick Bowen 20:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  line 

message: Alright where'd you all go? Ought I do something insane again just to create a firestorm so that this will be discussed?
I'm not a proponent of discussing to death, but I think that not many of you will like it if I take this silence as a signal of acceptance *wink* — Ilyanep (Talk) 21:44, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm still here!  The "Lar" hasn't shown what I was looking for: he's too good a candidate, plus I'm realising that very few people are going to have the drive to do the extra work that this takes from contributors when there is nothing at stake.  Voting is too easy, but for anything excpet for the worst and best candidates, this is too hard.  I'm still thinking and listening. - brenneman{T}{L}  03:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps find a candidate who wants to be an Admin now/nowish, and get them to agree to be run through this process, then through RfA? The RfA intro could point here and everyone who supported/opposed here could just say in their support/oppose there "see Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/MumbleGuy" and give no other reason. That would leverage the work done here as well as increase publicity. I know a few people thinking of being admins that might be willing to do that (not sure, it IS a fair bit more work/delay)... As for me, someone asked more questions on my list just now, so I answered more. But it's well past when people were supposed to be pretend voting so...  OR maybe I could do some rash/disruptive things to make me less good a candidate? Anything for the good of the project.... Aaron Brenneman, your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries! (how was that?) ++Lar: t/c 04:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hehehe, I'd volunteer to be desysoped and then go through this process again. :p It'd be a lot cooler to say (when adminship is the discussion topic), "Oh, I was the first guy to go through DfA and pass, with a hundred supports!" than "Oh, I got sysoped in 2004 with 14 supports, 2 opposes, and 1 neutral". ^_^ Johnleemk | Talk 04:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Try this ... I was one of the last to be sysopped before RfA was created; on the mailing list with a decision just (basically) from Angela :P — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Re. Hamsters: It needs to be untrue before it's slander, you know. I think that's a bloody good idea, and even the nominations could be the MumbleGuy link. But as my recent example shows people charge at the gate and start voting post haste. *kicks Lar* It would probably take working on the pseudo-article before it was linked to an RfA to avoid that. The person would also ideally have at least one or two people who had the knives out activly opposed them to make it a good trial, so Johnleemk would clearly be a good candidate. :P brenneman{T}{L}  04:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text:  Edit counts aren't a factor in RfA's, mostly it's what you've done. Tawker 05:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Besides, you have 2106 edits! — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps I'm being pessimistic, but extrapolating from other RfAs: "Only 2000+ edits in two years. Candidate should be more active." I'd love to be wrong, though. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  06:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And I've decided that I do have the time, and the best way to find out if RfA really works like I think it does is to try it. I'm going to go nominate myself now. I'm not trying to solicit votes, just pointing out that I may not be available for a test run anymore. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  17:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? 

message: I'm not prepared to offer an opinion regarding the proposal itself, but I will say that its title is not good.  I realize that the idea is to stress the emphasis that would be placed on discussion, but "Discussions for adminship" is linguistically awkward.
I can understand why process reform might be warranted, but I see no reason why the "Requests for adminship" designation should be thrown out with the bath water.  It's a perfectly good name, and I believe that it should be retained.  —David Levy 02:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Johnleemk | Talk 09:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: It was meant to emphasize the difference between the two. But I don't know. — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree, the name is needlessly clumsy, and as this only changes the methodology, and not actually the consensus/result, a name change shouldn't be needed. The requests remain, the voting is de-emphasized/informed in this version. -- nae'blis (talk) 02:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The name has to go.

message: I was wondering if anyone wants to rewrite this page and the subpages as well as  to emphasize the difference between the two processes. Also, I like this idea of making it more of a narrative-like thing. — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm wondering if this is still in the works. I would like to start putting it in the field as soon as possible. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 00:51, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh? Putting what in what field? — Ilyanep (Talk) 16:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for rewrite 

message: Per the note above I've placed a link to the RfA frontmatter page and created a holding pen for victi... er, volunteers.  If anyone who's keen could put Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/Nomination cabal on your watchlist, and anyone who hates it can delete the whole thing and I won't be fussed at all. - brenneman{T}{L}  05:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's what happens when you use Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/nominate. It's the fault of Template:DfAsubst, really. Johnleemk | Talk 17:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, whoops. Well like I said, I think we should re-write all the pages associated with Dfa, cause it's currently a really bad imitation of WP:RFA. — Ilyanep (Talk) 23:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linked to RfA page 

message: There have been some highly vocal requests for metrics to define the problem.  One suggested was the number of administrative actions that were reversed.  This strikes me as a good start, but fiendish to collect.  Any thoughts as to how that data might be collected and massaged, or other ways to test the bounds of the perceived problem? - brenneman{T}{L}  04:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Other possible metrics (but probably useless ones) would be total desysopings, average length between oping and desysoping, and so forth. Johnleemk | Talk 08:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We're starting to get a few more data points on that but I think it will stay sparse.  If you put requests for comment, mediation, and arbitration in that would be interesting.  I'd like to see non-certified of rejected ones in that data set as well. - brenneman{T}{L}  12:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other business: metrics