Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Defining the problems

message: Somewhere along the line, the "adminship is no big deal" text was removed from RFA. It really isn't a big deal, as admin actions are reversable. The process we have now resembles senate confirmation hearings. Its too complex, too political, and fails to focus on the main issue, which should be trust. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 21:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is, unfortunately, not the case (as a number of quite recent situations have amply demonstrated).  While blocks may be reversible in the technical sense (although there are some subtleties even in this regard), the personal effects of being blocked on the subject of the block are often not.  A great many of our problems seem to stem from certain administrators believing that blocking someone is "no big deal" and acting accordingly. Kirill Lokshin 21:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: In what way do you think people are getting rejected that does not relate to trust? Some people don't trust users with low edit counts, others don't trust users with civility problems, maturity issues for others and yet others lack of knowledge re: copyright etc. All of these relate to a lack of trust. The one criteria that might be questionable is 1FA but even those users invoke it as they don't trust a candidates editing knowledge enough for them to be an admin.  Qualities in a editor that cause you trust some one are not necessarily reflected by others. Are there any good examples of RfA candidates being blackballed for a political reason? David D. (Talk) 03:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Experience and trust are two seperate things. Editors and admins with lack of experience make mistakes. Mistakes are no big deal, we revert them, discuss them, and move on. Trust is an issue of whether or not we expect someone to use the tools maliciously or abusively. There is a relationship between the two, but an editor with less experience may be very much trustworthy. The worst an admin can do accidently isn't very much - the worst an admin can do maliciously, well that's another story. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 04:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Further... meatball:PrincipleOfFirstTrust and WP:AGF should be required reading here. Trust and good faith should be the default in a Wiki. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 04:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would still like to see an example of an RfA that you think was unfair due to politics. What kind of potential admins are not gettng through the process?  Also, AGF and trust could mean very different things to various people.  You're of the opinon that anyone that can edit and has shown trustworthy behaviour should be an admin, others have a higher bar.  There is nothing that makes that higher bar unreasonable. David D. (Talk) 05:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it's wrong for me to use my self as an example, but: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/AzaToth →AzaToth 15:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not wrong, i'll take a look at it. David D. (Talk) 15:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd also like to point out Ambuj.Saxena's RfA. — Werdna talk criticism 06:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Adminship shouldn't be a big deal"

message: I think this was an intentional part of the design, since this was originally not supposed to be a vote, however, with RFA having long ago turned into a de-facto voting process by its participants, this now causes heated debates whenever someone doesn't agree with the closing 'crat's interpetation of the discussion. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 21:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that the line should be left blurred. One of this great things about Wikipedia (in all aspects) is that rules are not set in stone. Wikipedia is not mechanical (i.e. if the bar is set at 80% for consensus and the editor gets 79.9999% approval, the RfA fails), and should be allowed a decent range for individual interpretation. --physicq210 21:23, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agreed.  What's the problem with heated debates?  If you get annoyed, discuss it.  Ral315 (talk) 05:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  it is intentionally left to the bureaucrats to make an informed good faith decision. this has worked very well in the past. The guidelines to be observed by the bureaucrats is that 80% is sufficient for a consensus. I believe it happens more often that a 75% result is taken as a "successful" RFA than a 85% as a "failed" one, althogh both would in principle be arguable. Bureaucrats should be very careful not to indulge in opaque or partisan decisions. It wouldn't hurt to impose solid limits of 70%-90% on their good judgement: it would be very hard to justifiy failure in the face of a >90% result, or "success" in the face of a <70% majority. This did not need pointing out in the past, and in the sprit of "don't fix it unless it is broken", things worked fine. But now we have a precedent of bureaucrats considering a 61% majority a "success", so this needs to be addressed. Either RFAs are simple majority votes, in which case 61% is obviously good enough, or we stick with the "consensus" system, in which case it obviously isn't. Seeing that we are not in desperate needs of more admins, I think it would be a terrible mistake to move from "ca. 80% consensus" to "simple majority". And if bureaucrats begin to make too much of their power to interpret results, it will sadly be necessary to impose on it a fixed limit (such as the 70-90% range I mentioned). dab (ᛏ) 08:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hate to be pedantic - consensus isn't about a defined value, its about general agreement on the action to take. Simple majority would mean 50% or greater. "Supermajority" is usally defined proceedurally as either 2/3 (66%) or more depending on the voting body. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 08:49, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The lines between rejection, no consensus, and acceptance are too blurry

message: Rather than being a test of whether or not someone can be trusted with the tools, its often a place where anyone with a grudge comes to air it, and people seem to hold grudges for a long time. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 19:47, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: RFA is often a grudge match

message: One problem facing RfA at the moment is that of a pile-on; there are too many votes saying the same thing. Votes which don't bring up new points may be useful in gauging the proportion of RfA regulars who approve of a candidate, but they aren't very usefull in determining consensus. This is especially true of support votes; normally there isn't anything to say but 'per nom' or just 'Support', but the proportion of support to oppose votes is what matters in deciding the decision. --ais523 15:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pile-ons

message: Occasionally, there are RfA votes based on reasoning much of the community would disagree with (the parody 200MWTE condition somewhere in the WT:RFA archives explains this better). It isn't clear how much discretion is allowed in ignoring these, or even whether it's fair to ignore them. This is especially true with spurious-vote pile-ons (for instance, inexperienced users opposing a candidate due to the candidate enforcing policy they didn't like); whilst rare, RfA would be better if this sort of thing didn't skew the outcome of votes. (One possible solution would be to move to a less vote-based system.) --ais523 15:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spurious reasoning

message: Many participants do little more than a cursory glance of the RfA before making their opinions known. This results in ill-informed decisions based on spurious, non-existent, or contextless evidence. Moving away from voting is a solution to this problem. — Werdna talk criticism 15:07, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm the opposite in that regard; I often do quite a bit of research and then can't make up my mind and don't vote. You have made a valid point, though; this is probably the reason why the fixed percentage that is designated to mean 'consensus' isn't lower. There are still too many users who have a fixed list of standards based on edit counts or suchlike, and just use various tools to find out whether the candidate satisfies them. (This is why recently, when I've use my counter on an adminship candidate, I've been generating diffs (encourages research and highlights areas) rather than just counting (even a detailed count isn't enough, and counts stifle further research).) I agree that moving away from voting will solve this problem more or less altogether. --ais523 15:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Insufficient research by participants

message: The current adminship process is confused by the lack of firm standards for qualification. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 08:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lack of hard standards

message: The unofficial "standards" of qualification drift increasingly torwards tougher and tougher requirements, with little rationale, and tougher standards tend to get adopted by participants over time without understanding if they are needed or why they are needed - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 08:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Drift in standards

message: The process for removing administrators, while established, isn't well understood by the community, and is seen as an extraordinary measure. The percieved difficulty in removing an administrator leads    many participants in the process to be overly critical, since adminship is rarely taken away. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 09:06, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of administrators