Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 85

message: *At the German Wikipedia (the second largest by edit count), there is no bureaucrat discretion. It's 66% up/down vote with suffrage requirements. I had extensive discussions with two people familiar with their RfA and the adminship pool in general there yesterday. In general, the adminship pool is regarded pretty well. They do have de-adminships, but they do so without any functioning ArbCom, and no Jimbo stepping in either, and it is rare. 
*Interestingly, if you look at the history of this talk page, we get about 31 edits to this page per day (judging by the last 5000 edits). There, with 1/5th the number of admins, and 1/3rd the number of articles, they have 1/10th of the traffic (under 3 edits per day) at their RfA. There seems to be considerably less controversy there. --Durin 23:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The "bureaucrat discretion," to the extent it exists at all, is another artifact.  The way it used to work was that there was no concept of "closing" a nomination.  Developers would occasionally look through the page and make promotions, noting this fact on the page.  Any decision not to promote was tacit.  Others would then archive the page eventually.  At first, the bureaucrats were like that too, and there was no expectation that an RFA would close at a particular time, just that they would be left open for at least 7 days.  Bureaucrats would promote whoever they felt met the threshold, and didn't remove "failed" nominations.  That changed around the point when Cecropia became highly involved, at which time the concept that bureaucrats were supposed to "close" failing nominations gained currency.  Before long, it became tradition that only bureaucrats could "close" failing nominations, and that's where we are now.  When the percentages started to govern, the "discretion" range was a tip of the hat towards m:Voting is evil.  We should get rid of it.  The Uninvited Co., Inc. 23:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do agree with many of the points Durin and UninvitedCompany are making here. The exceptional pace at which we are filling up the WT:RFA archives isn't really bearing useful fruit for the Wikipedia project. So at that point why not just eliminate all the controversy and go with a straight vote, perhaps except for discounting disruption such as sockpuppets. The current system does seem to be working as a %1 "failure" rate is about as good as you can get in a human process considering it is impossible to fully predict the future. And while I do currently put a large amount of effort into the few RfA's that are close to the discretionary range to weight the arguments, look for disruption, etc, I can't point to any hard evidence that the end result is substantially better than a straight up down vote, nor that anyone could make it so.  But with the evidence that we are significantly wasting edits and time on controversy that we don't need, and no evidence that the result is substantially better, perhaps that means we should eliminate it. But since any threshold is essentially arbitrary, we could just stick with the 75% we have now or move to 66%. I don't see it making much difference which number is chosen. Then the few bad apples that do make it through (and they will in any system) can be dealt with as needed. - Taxman Talk 00:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it is made into a straight vote, I believe that also would address a large problem with RFB.  Namely, that people are scared of making more bureaucrats because of the potential impact a bureaucrat might have via his "discretion".  If the expectation is fixed and rigid then there is a lot less ambiguity about what is appropriate.  Dragons flight 00:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh I think the failure rate of this process is much higher than 1%, unless you feel that promoting qualified candidates is not one of the goals here. In fact, on nominations in the 70-75% range the failure rate is probably closer to 100% than 0%. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:20, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Good analysis.  I think changing the threshold would change voting patterns somewhat, both by discouraging "power votes" (i.e. oppose votes towards the end that sink a nomination) and by encouraging the "mild oppose" voters to actually oppose rather than declare themselves neutral.  I would like to believe that this would not change the overall figures that much but would improve the quality of the decisionmaking.  (I also realize that this is probably wishful thinking). The Uninvited Co., Inc. 23:20, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: One potential issue I see with the straight vote is the "Esperanza effect".  You get a block of people that vote for their friends and those votes can overwhelm any reasonable opposition.  Maybe this is more of a perceived problem than a real one, but I definitely had the sense for a while there that the Esperanza effect was not only real, but was getting to the point where it might start promoting poor candidates against community consensus.  I like the safety valve of the bureaucratic discretion if for no other reason than to dissuade people of the idea that voting blocks would go unchallenged. —Doug Bell talk 05:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know that's the idea, but we can't really use it now as it is. There is endless controversy any time anything is done outside the strict numerical guidelines. And the discretionary range is so narrow that we can't really fix many problems now anyway. If the type of thing you are talking about goes on, the best we can do is have people point out that such is happening and if there is general agreement there is a problem with an RfA then we can call for special treatment. That would essentially be the same with or without a discretionary range. The good thing about the way RfA works is people can take into account the reasoning of others and formulate or change their position accordingly. That will still be able to happen. - Taxman Talk 15:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, if Taxman, Durin, and I are all behind this maybe it's worth a vote.  I would suggest that we shoot for a 66% threshold, since it has worked well at de: and there seems to be some support for it here. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 23:20, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removing discretion and controversy

message: It occurs to me that perhaps we should just remove RfB from this page. When I look over the requirements for stewardship, and how that system works, I wonder if we shouldn't just do the same thing with Bureaucrats. Granted that there would obviously be a different set of criteria (such as suggesting that the cantidate be multi-lingual to be a steward, for example), but the actual process of gaining stewardship seems rather useful for gaining bureaucratship. I think this would deal with all the concerns and problems listed above. (If wanted, I can go through, point by point : ) - jc37 11:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't think your going to need to be multi-lingual on the English Wikipedia :) --TeckWiz ParlateContribs@  13:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I have a faint grasp on Frenglish and Spanglish - does that help? --Ozgod 16:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's hear it for humour and an intentional misread of the post  : ) - See also m:Steward policies#Processes, for more of what I mean. - jc37 22:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfB / Stewardship 

message: What's the process for handling fraudulent/inappropriate nomination pages. This user has 3 edits, and obviously didn't intend to fill out the nomination properly. Leebo T/C 20:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would suggest to close it stating that the user had 3 edits at the time of nomination, and leave a note in the user's talk page. He may be a sockpuppet, I barely knew how to edit by my third edit. -- ReyBrujo 20:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/peacefultimes]] 

message: Rather than preform necromancy by reviving the long abandoned thread at the top of the page (#Predicting RFA), I've decided to start a new thread to note that I have updated the probability image.
The two main changes are that I have added dashed lines to indicates the points above which all RFAs passed and below which all RFAs failed, and I have extended the time axis to 8 days after discovering that some of the blurring at 7 days was caused by RFAs that shifted a few percent between when 7 days was up and when they were expected to close.  This basically confirms Durin's previously remark that no RFA that closed above 77.1% support has failed in the last year, though there are examples of RFAs that lost a few percent support right before closing in a way that likely affected the outcome.
There are 654 RFAs that went into this sample.  This is a subsample of the 838 RFAs run in the last year after removing those that were active at times when my RFA summary bot was not working properly or that showed signs of corrupt data from the bot.  I also removed the RFAs run for adminbots as unrepresentative of normal RFAs.  Dragons flight 22:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your graph also factors in Carnildo's RfA, which may have somewhat skewed the results. Without his RfA, where would the lower dashed line be? --210physicq (c) 22:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would move up to basically trace Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ryulong 3 promoted at 69.4% support and then Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sean Black 2 promoted at 71.6% support, and no one else in the sample was promoted with less than 75% support.  Dragons flight 23:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: PS. As noted in the discussion below, there were only two RFAs in the sample that failed when closed with greater than 75% support.  So in total >99% of RFA outcomes could be predicted solely based on whether the support was greater or less than 75% at close.  Dragons flight 19:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Predicting RFA, round 2 

message: In agreement with the comments posted in #Changing the promotion threshold and #Removing discretion and controversy above, I'd like to seriously discuss adopting a German-like model of RFA.  Namely, I propose that:
*RFA is decided by a straight vote count after 7 days with 2/3 support required to pass
*Voters may continue to provide the reasons and arguments for their votes, and such arguments can sway others into changing their votes anytime before the 7 days are up. 
*Bureaucrats are election officials whose job is to eliminate sockpuppetry and other disruption, but have no other discretion in deciding what passes or fails.
*To vote in an RFA, a user must have at least 250 edits starting at least 1 month previously.
===Advantages===
*Straightforward and easy to apply.
*Increases the number of passing RFAs by ~20% (by moving from 75% to 66% threshold, see discussion above).  Hence addressing the percieved need for more admins.
*Retains the discussion elements, but drops the largely illusory concept of bureaucrat discretion (in practice every close above 77% has passed in the last year and every close below 75% has failed save 3, all of which were controversial).
*Allows more bureaucrats to be promoted by removing the perception that bureaucrats need to be super-human consensus judging machines.
*Recognizes that RFA participation is much higher now and hence the need for Bureaucrat discretion is much less than in the early days of RFA.
*Ensures consistency in how RFAs are handled.
===Disadvantages===
*Promotion is decided based on a vote.
*Increases the number of passing RFAs by ~20%.
*Eliminates discretion.
=== Discussion ===
Based on the comments in the sections above, both bureaucrats Taxman and Uninvited Company seem to be open to a change like this, and in my opinion there is no sense in getting worked up over a concept of "discretion" which in practice seems to not even exist any more.  I'm sure some people will say that RFA should be less like a vote not more.  However, I feel that this proposal is in many ways a reflection of what RFA has already become, but if someone feels that discretion ought to be increased then I would challenge them to make a counter proposal for how to accomplish that.
As a footnote, I would mention that my proposal actually breaks with the practice on the German Wikipedia in that they do not allow discussion to directly accompany votes.  Personally, I feel our existing system is superior in that regard.  Dragons flight 23:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no real problem with keeping the neutral section, as the comments appearing there are often helpful to allowing others to make up their mind.  Dragons flight 17:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Couldn't this be achieved with a "comments" section? --Ginkgo100talk 03:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't mind this, but may I suggest that maybe we adjust the percentage required to pass to 70% as a middle ground?  Even though 2/3 is less than 4% lower than that, it just "feels" wrong (I guess symbolically more than anything concrete) to me that if a third of the people !(?)voting opposed, the candidate could still pass.  I think it would be easier to swallow a change from 75% -> 70% than from 75% -> 66.7%.  If adjusting the percentage to 70% results in more passed admins with no adverse effects (not that I'm anticipating any), then we could revisit it at a later date.  I do like the minimum requirements for voting, although I suspect some might object.  Anyway, just my lowly opinion.  —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 05:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If this were to be implemented, I would rather keep it at 75% As Dragons flight indicated above, all RfAs with less than 75% support have failed, with the notable exceptions of Carnildo, Ryulong, and Sean Black. Considering such minute chances of attaining adminship with an RfA that a quarter of voters oppose, might as well keep it that way. Remember, this is not the German Wikipedia. We have more people here, and hence have higher standards here. —210physicq (c) 05:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the discussion at the top of the page.  We have a similar number of RFAs as a year ago, but we promote only about half as many and the ones we do promote on average have 50% higher edit counts (10000 edits today vs. 6000 a year ago).  The ratio of admins to other active users has been falling steadily for a long time.  Many people feel that actual promotion rates need to be higher, and this is one way to address that, just as the threshold moved from ~80% to ~75% a little less than 2 years ago.  Though a 20% increase certainly won't address the entirety of the disparity, it would put a dent in it.  Dragons flight 17:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with Nichalp. RfA is not a vote- nearly but not quite. Crat discretion is in my opinion one of the things that's right about our system. The knowledge that !votes must have some valid rationale to be counted by crats and that a decision will be made by a thinking person in tight cases are what IMO keeps the system sane. If all crat judgment is removed, we may as well have BureaucratBot... WjBscribe 13:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Discretion, i.e. the concept that bureaucrats should apply their superior consensus judging ability to cases in the range of 75-80% support, is a myth.  The statistics show and the active bureaucrats admit that it isn't being used, and a 75% throshold is the de facto standard.  The core problem is that crats are human, and their judgment isn't really vastly superior to the mob, so once you have several dozen people commenting on an RFA crats generally don't feel comfortable using their power as if it were like ten votes to tip things away from the rest of the community's preferred outcome.  Not to mention that many crats seem to agree promotion standards are too high, which gives another force causing things to be compressed against 75% anyway.  At the same time, the appearance of dicretion makes people afraid to supprt RFBs because they feel any new bureaucrat must have superhuman discretion judging abilities.  It is a concept that is a) not used, b) not particularly helpful (evidence suggests that problem admins rarely have marginal RFAs), and C) creating other problems via the inability to create bureaucrats who would work on other processes.  Altogether I believe it is better in the current environment to embrace the de facto situation and eliminate the notion of "discretion". Dragons flight 17:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Am I the only one who sees this as a democracy forming? Vote counting? I think arguments should be weighed on their merits. "Support because I like his userpage", or "Oppose because he sucks" should not have the same weight as well put reasoning. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 17:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And what difference would there be if someone voted that way now? However, if people want to have a discussion about valid vs. invalid rationals, I don't mind. I wouldn't mine bureaucrats (as election officials) marking out frivilous votes. But after accounting for sockpuppetry and frivolous votes, I think direct tallying is the most fair, consistent, and realistic way to run a process that has grown to this size, so yes democracy. To say nothing of the fact that it is already being run as a democracy in >99% of cases. Dragons flight 17:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes, after removing frivolous reasons for opposition, it should probably be a straight democracy. But that's what bureaucrat discretion is; discounting frivolous reasons. I don't think anybody's seriously advocating bureaucrats being able to make the decision, instead of just interpreting consensus. -Amarkov moo! 17:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: With respect, no, crat discretion is explicitly supposed to be the ability to make the close calls (where close was defined in practice as 75-80% support).  Allowing highly trusted users to make close calls had a lot of logic to it when the average RFA had only 20 opinions, now I feel it is outdated.  We talk about them making these calls by interpreting consensus, but there is historically a lot more power there than simply discounting frivolous opinions.  Dragons flight 17:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That doesn't mean we allow Boothy type votes to rule the Oppose section. The reason why bureaucratic discretion is hardly seen these days is that very few of the RFA noms fall in the discretionary range near the time of closing. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A little more than 4% of noms end up in the discretionary range, and yet in the last year only 2 noms closing above 75% support were failed (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Badlydrawnjeff - 75.7% and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kafziel 2 - 77.1%).  There have been dozens of opportunities to use that discretionary range, and yet it isn't used.  Dragons flight 18:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which RFA do you feel that a bureaucrat has not used his discretionary powers to close it? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text:  We can draw the conclusion that because bureaucrats decide to promote users in the discretionary range, they're not using it. However, it could also mean that they decide to ignore frivolous opposition (let's face it, it is much, much easier to demand reasoning from those who oppose than from those who support, due to our AGF culture), or because they agreed with nominators, etc. In short, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't ignore the two bureaucrats farther up the page arguing in favor eliminating the discretion as unused and counterproductive.  Dragons flight 04:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, not completely unused, just enough so that perhaps it's not worth the fuss. So in that sense it's counterproductive (globally for the project), not that it may not be effective for an individual case when used. - Taxman Talk 12:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I like the 80% mark, to lower the bar would cause real problems. If more than 1 in 5 people are opposing you(after discounting frivolous and sock puppet votes), then there is a problem to be addressed. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 18:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: *The mark is currently 75%, see directly above.  Dragons flight 18:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: *Yes there is a problem to be addressed. However, usually the problem is the terribly poor judgment of the people opposing. Lowering the threshold would have the beneficial effect of giving these individuals less influence in the process. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The German RFA Solution 

message: Based on the comments in the sections above, both bureaucrats Taxman and Uninvited Company seem to be open to a change like this, and in my opinion there is no sense in getting worked up over a concept of "discretion" which in practice seems to not even exist any more.  I'm sure some people will say that RFA should be less like a vote not more.  However, I feel that this proposal is in many ways a reflection of what RFA has already become, but if someone feels that discretion ought to be increased then I would challenge them to make a counter proposal for how to accomplish that.
As a footnote, I would mention that my proposal actually breaks with the practice on the German Wikipedia in that they do not allow discussion to directly accompany votes.  Personally, I feel our existing system is superior in that regard.  Dragons flight 23:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no real problem with keeping the neutral section, as the comments appearing there are often helpful to allowing others to make up their mind.  Dragons flight 17:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Couldn't this be achieved with a "comments" section? --Ginkgo100talk 03:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't mind this, but may I suggest that maybe we adjust the percentage required to pass to 70% as a middle ground?  Even though 2/3 is less than 4% lower than that, it just "feels" wrong (I guess symbolically more than anything concrete) to me that if a third of the people !(?)voting opposed, the candidate could still pass.  I think it would be easier to swallow a change from 75% -> 70% than from 75% -> 66.7%.  If adjusting the percentage to 70% results in more passed admins with no adverse effects (not that I'm anticipating any), then we could revisit it at a later date.  I do like the minimum requirements for voting, although I suspect some might object.  Anyway, just my lowly opinion.  —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 05:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If this were to be implemented, I would rather keep it at 75% As Dragons flight indicated above, all RfAs with less than 75% support have failed, with the notable exceptions of Carnildo, Ryulong, and Sean Black. Considering such minute chances of attaining adminship with an RfA that a quarter of voters oppose, might as well keep it that way. Remember, this is not the German Wikipedia. We have more people here, and hence have higher standards here. —210physicq (c) 05:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the discussion at the top of the page.  We have a similar number of RFAs as a year ago, but we promote only about half as many and the ones we do promote on average have 50% higher edit counts (10000 edits today vs. 6000 a year ago).  The ratio of admins to other active users has been falling steadily for a long time.  Many people feel that actual promotion rates need to be higher, and this is one way to address that, just as the threshold moved from ~80% to ~75% a little less than 2 years ago.  Though a 20% increase certainly won't address the entirety of the disparity, it would put a dent in it.  Dragons flight 17:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with Nichalp. RfA is not a vote- nearly but not quite. Crat discretion is in my opinion one of the things that's right about our system. The knowledge that !votes must have some valid rationale to be counted by crats and that a decision will be made by a thinking person in tight cases are what IMO keeps the system sane. If all crat judgment is removed, we may as well have BureaucratBot... WjBscribe 13:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Discretion, i.e. the concept that bureaucrats should apply their superior consensus judging ability to cases in the range of 75-80% support, is a myth.  The statistics show and the active bureaucrats admit that it isn't being used, and a 75% throshold is the de facto standard.  The core problem is that crats are human, and their judgment isn't really vastly superior to the mob, so once you have several dozen people commenting on an RFA crats generally don't feel comfortable using their power as if it were like ten votes to tip things away from the rest of the community's preferred outcome.  Not to mention that many crats seem to agree promotion standards are too high, which gives another force causing things to be compressed against 75% anyway.  At the same time, the appearance of dicretion makes people afraid to supprt RFBs because they feel any new bureaucrat must have superhuman discretion judging abilities.  It is a concept that is a) not used, b) not particularly helpful (evidence suggests that problem admins rarely have marginal RFAs), and C) creating other problems via the inability to create bureaucrats who would work on other processes.  Altogether I believe it is better in the current environment to embrace the de facto situation and eliminate the notion of "discretion". Dragons flight 17:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Am I the only one who sees this as a democracy forming? Vote counting? I think arguments should be weighed on their merits. "Support because I like his userpage", or "Oppose because he sucks" should not have the same weight as well put reasoning. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 17:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And what difference would there be if someone voted that way now? However, if people want to have a discussion about valid vs. invalid rationals, I don't mind. I wouldn't mine bureaucrats (as election officials) marking out frivilous votes. But after accounting for sockpuppetry and frivolous votes, I think direct tallying is the most fair, consistent, and realistic way to run a process that has grown to this size, so yes democracy. To say nothing of the fact that it is already being run as a democracy in >99% of cases. Dragons flight 17:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes, after removing frivolous reasons for opposition, it should probably be a straight democracy. But that's what bureaucrat discretion is; discounting frivolous reasons. I don't think anybody's seriously advocating bureaucrats being able to make the decision, instead of just interpreting consensus. -Amarkov moo! 17:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: With respect, no, crat discretion is explicitly supposed to be the ability to make the close calls (where close was defined in practice as 75-80% support).  Allowing highly trusted users to make close calls had a lot of logic to it when the average RFA had only 20 opinions, now I feel it is outdated.  We talk about them making these calls by interpreting consensus, but there is historically a lot more power there than simply discounting frivolous opinions.  Dragons flight 17:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That doesn't mean we allow Boothy type votes to rule the Oppose section. The reason why bureaucratic discretion is hardly seen these days is that very few of the RFA noms fall in the discretionary range near the time of closing. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A little more than 4% of noms end up in the discretionary range, and yet in the last year only 2 noms closing above 75% support were failed (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Badlydrawnjeff - 75.7% and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kafziel 2 - 77.1%).  There have been dozens of opportunities to use that discretionary range, and yet it isn't used.  Dragons flight 18:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which RFA do you feel that a bureaucrat has not used his discretionary powers to close it? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text:  We can draw the conclusion that because bureaucrats decide to promote users in the discretionary range, they're not using it. However, it could also mean that they decide to ignore frivolous opposition (let's face it, it is much, much easier to demand reasoning from those who oppose than from those who support, due to our AGF culture), or because they agreed with nominators, etc. In short, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't ignore the two bureaucrats farther up the page arguing in favor eliminating the discretion as unused and counterproductive.  Dragons flight 04:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, not completely unused, just enough so that perhaps it's not worth the fuss. So in that sense it's counterproductive (globally for the project), not that it may not be effective for an individual case when used. - Taxman Talk 12:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I like the 80% mark, to lower the bar would cause real problems. If more than 1 in 5 people are opposing you(after discounting frivolous and sock puppet votes), then there is a problem to be addressed. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 18:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: *The mark is currently 75%, see directly above.  Dragons flight 18:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: *Yes there is a problem to be addressed. However, usually the problem is the terribly poor judgment of the people opposing. Lowering the threshold would have the beneficial effect of giving these individuals less influence in the process. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion 

message: Would only votes of Support and Oppose be allowed?  In other words, do we get rid of all the silly Neutral so I don't hurt your feelings nonsense? --After Midnight 0001 01:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no real problem with keeping the neutral section, as the comments appearing there are often helpful to allowing others to make up their mind.  Dragons flight 17:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Couldn't this be achieved with a "comments" section? --Ginkgo100talk 03:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Question #1

message: I really like this idea. For one, it eliminates the hazy requirement of b'crat decision, and makes it so that the decider is ultimately the voters; the swaying lies with the oppose/supports, etc, which I like. You are correct about the percentages in practice, and I think this would be a great step forward. .V. [Talk|Email] 02:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't mind this, but may I suggest that maybe we adjust the percentage required to pass to 70% as a middle ground?  Even though 2/3 is less than 4% lower than that, it just "feels" wrong (I guess symbolically more than anything concrete) to me that if a third of the people !(?)voting opposed, the candidate could still pass.  I think it would be easier to swallow a change from 75% -> 70% than from 75% -> 66.7%.  If adjusting the percentage to 70% results in more passed admins with no adverse effects (not that I'm anticipating any), then we could revisit it at a later date.  I do like the minimum requirements for voting, although I suspect some might object.  Anyway, just my lowly opinion.  —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 05:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If this were to be implemented, I would rather keep it at 75% As Dragons flight indicated above, all RfAs with less than 75% support have failed, with the notable exceptions of Carnildo, Ryulong, and Sean Black. Considering such minute chances of attaining adminship with an RfA that a quarter of voters oppose, might as well keep it that way. Remember, this is not the German Wikipedia. We have more people here, and hence have higher standards here. —210physicq (c) 05:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the discussion at the top of the page.  We have a similar number of RFAs as a year ago, but we promote only about half as many and the ones we do promote on average have 50% higher edit counts (10000 edits today vs. 6000 a year ago).  The ratio of admins to other active users has been falling steadily for a long time.  Many people feel that actual promotion rates need to be higher, and this is one way to address that, just as the threshold moved from ~80% to ~75% a little less than 2 years ago.  Though a 20% increase certainly won't address the entirety of the disparity, it would put a dent in it.  Dragons flight 17:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with Nichalp. RfA is not a vote- nearly but not quite. Crat discretion is in my opinion one of the things that's right about our system. The knowledge that !votes must have some valid rationale to be counted by crats and that a decision will be made by a thinking person in tight cases are what IMO keeps the system sane. If all crat judgment is removed, we may as well have BureaucratBot... WjBscribe 13:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Discretion, i.e. the concept that bureaucrats should apply their superior consensus judging ability to cases in the range of 75-80% support, is a myth.  The statistics show and the active bureaucrats admit that it isn't being used, and a 75% throshold is the de facto standard.  The core problem is that crats are human, and their judgment isn't really vastly superior to the mob, so once you have several dozen people commenting on an RFA crats generally don't feel comfortable using their power as if it were like ten votes to tip things away from the rest of the community's preferred outcome.  Not to mention that many crats seem to agree promotion standards are too high, which gives another force causing things to be compressed against 75% anyway.  At the same time, the appearance of dicretion makes people afraid to supprt RFBs because they feel any new bureaucrat must have superhuman discretion judging abilities.  It is a concept that is a) not used, b) not particularly helpful (evidence suggests that problem admins rarely have marginal RFAs), and C) creating other problems via the inability to create bureaucrats who would work on other processes.  Altogether I believe it is better in the current environment to embrace the de facto situation and eliminate the notion of "discretion". Dragons flight 17:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Am I the only one who sees this as a democracy forming? Vote counting? I think arguments should be weighed on their merits. "Support because I like his userpage", or "Oppose because he sucks" should not have the same weight as well put reasoning. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 17:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And what difference would there be if someone voted that way now? However, if people want to have a discussion about valid vs. invalid rationals, I don't mind. I wouldn't mine bureaucrats (as election officials) marking out frivilous votes. But after accounting for sockpuppetry and frivolous votes, I think direct tallying is the most fair, consistent, and realistic way to run a process that has grown to this size, so yes democracy. To say nothing of the fact that it is already being run as a democracy in >99% of cases. Dragons flight 17:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes, after removing frivolous reasons for opposition, it should probably be a straight democracy. But that's what bureaucrat discretion is; discounting frivolous reasons. I don't think anybody's seriously advocating bureaucrats being able to make the decision, instead of just interpreting consensus. -Amarkov moo! 17:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: With respect, no, crat discretion is explicitly supposed to be the ability to make the close calls (where close was defined in practice as 75-80% support).  Allowing highly trusted users to make close calls had a lot of logic to it when the average RFA had only 20 opinions, now I feel it is outdated.  We talk about them making these calls by interpreting consensus, but there is historically a lot more power there than simply discounting frivolous opinions.  Dragons flight 17:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That doesn't mean we allow Boothy type votes to rule the Oppose section. The reason why bureaucratic discretion is hardly seen these days is that very few of the RFA noms fall in the discretionary range near the time of closing. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A little more than 4% of noms end up in the discretionary range, and yet in the last year only 2 noms closing above 75% support were failed (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Badlydrawnjeff - 75.7% and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kafziel 2 - 77.1%).  There have been dozens of opportunities to use that discretionary range, and yet it isn't used.  Dragons flight 18:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which RFA do you feel that a bureaucrat has not used his discretionary powers to close it? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text:  We can draw the conclusion that because bureaucrats decide to promote users in the discretionary range, they're not using it. However, it could also mean that they decide to ignore frivolous opposition (let's face it, it is much, much easier to demand reasoning from those who oppose than from those who support, due to our AGF culture), or because they agreed with nominators, etc. In short, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't ignore the two bureaucrats farther up the page arguing in favor eliminating the discretion as unused and counterproductive.  Dragons flight 04:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, not completely unused, just enough so that perhaps it's not worth the fuss. So in that sense it's counterproductive (globally for the project), not that it may not be effective for an individual case when used. - Taxman Talk 12:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I like the 80% mark, to lower the bar would cause real problems. If more than 1 in 5 people are opposing you(after discounting frivolous and sock puppet votes), then there is a problem to be addressed. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 18:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: *The mark is currently 75%, see directly above.  Dragons flight 18:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: *Yes there is a problem to be addressed. However, usually the problem is the terribly poor judgment of the people opposing. Lowering the threshold would have the beneficial effect of giving these individuals less influence in the process. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: I do not care if we all agree on above two mentioned points. However there is a need to develop a process that makes admins accountable to community. Such a process should not so hard that one person spends many days writing an arbitration case and that case takes months to finish. It should be a process that gives power to each individual and each individual take a tiny step towards removing a bad admin. A good admin should not be worried about annoying other people while taking right decision and only a very large majority should be able to remove a bad admin. If you agree that we need such a process (do not think about what exactly that process should be right now) then please vote below as yes.
NOTE: Please do not vote below. Go to discussion at Wikipedia:Adminship survey/N. --- SAndTLets Talk 16:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't fork discussions; there is ongoing discussion about this at Wikipedia:Adminship survey/N. --ais523 15:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you for pointing that out. I was NOT at all aware of it. I go there now. --- SAndTLets Talk 16:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  And I realised after I wrote that that it might have come off the wrong way (it's hard to read tone in online communications); I meant something like 'please contribute at Wikipedia:Adminship survey/N, to avoid forking discussions'. Sorry for any confusion! --ais523 16:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  No problem. --- SAndTLets Talk 16:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we agree on a simple thing? 

message: Is there anyone left who feels this essay has it wrong? http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html  --Durin 21:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: God, that keeps being brought up. Does anyone have a solution, or are we just going to keep hearing "waah waah the group is broken"? -Amarkov moo! 00:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Why would it be malformed? --TeckWiz ParlateContribs@  00:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: IIRC, that was done before, and then people started opposing for not allowing the votes. It's not easy to force people to accept a different process. -Amarkov moo! 00:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lots of discussion, and no agreement again.  

message: If the whole RfA process receives a massive makeover, whether now, or in the future, are present administrators willing to stand for reconfirmation of their status under a new RfA process? I am personally open to voluntary dropping of tools, and community re-examination, at any time, but I wonder how other admins (particularly those who have become very comfy with the tools :) ) feel about it all. – riana_dzasta 14:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How do you suggest going about the processing of 1000+ admins in an efficient manner?  Alphabetically by username?  Is  there even a requirement of reconfirmation if no foul play on the part of the admins is detected through an examination of their contribution logs? It would make sense to use the RfA time in an efficient manner and a reconfirmation of established good faith and sound actions wouldn't be the best way of doing this.  Better to set up a review panel with criteria for pass/reconfirmation clearly defined so as to not create grounds for equivocation. (aeropagitica) 15:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not suggesting everybody does it. I'm asking if people are willing to resubmit themselves for RFA voluntarily, much like the present recall process. I'm working under the assumption that if the process changes, people's ideas about the process, and hence their ideas about administrators, will change; hence, their opinions about present administrators, and how they attained their status, might change. Obviously, forcibly putting 1000+ admins through RfA would be foolish. – riana_dzasta 16:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I still don't see what you're trying to gain here. A good 30% of those standing for reconfirmation might be declined, which would reduce our active admin corps. A functioning involuntary de-adminning process between :CAT:AOR and ArbCom seems like a better use of our time. -- nae'blis 16:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: (conflict)  	:::Most of the ideas seem to be aiming to make RfA easier to pass, so you could probably assume that if they passed the "old" version, they'd pass the "new" one. And if you've been a relatively trouble-free admin, then you should easily pass any test (what better way to judge if someone would be a good admin than by looking at them...being an admin). I'm sure many (most?) admins would be willing to put themselves through the new system, but I don't feel it's that important. (This is all pretty hypothetical anyway, as if present discussion trends continue, nothing will ever get changed.) Trebor 16:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I don't see what I'm trying to gain either. I'm thinking aloud (typing aloud?) and wasting people's time :) I know it's not that important, I'm not trying to force people to resubmit themselves or anything like that. – riana_dzasta 17:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While I am for admins going back through the nomination process (maybe not every year, but maybe every three years), current admins should not have to go back through the process again just because the process changed.↔NMajdan•talk 19:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. If you feel the burden, you could possibly do so, but it would really be uncalled for. You earned your mop, why should you be screened to see if you're holding it right? bibliomaniac15 01:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text:  If mass admin recall ever happens it should be 50% the promotion rate as most admins gotten a few enemies. Jaranda wat's sup 03:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, admins also tend to make friends and increase their exposure to other long-term contributors.  While "there is no cabal", I would be surprised if admins didn't often band together to support each other.  Personally I would be concerned about any sitting admin who couldn't get at least 75% support to continue as an admin.  Dragons flight 06:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Friendship may fade, but enemies never forget. Raymond Arritt 07:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Want to be the Guinea pig that Opabinia regalis mentions above? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: To answer Riana's question: I wouldn't mind going for reconfirmation. I would mind 1,100 admins going for reconfirmation, 600 admins going for reconfirmation, or even 150 admins going for reconfirmation. Time is a scarce resource in Wikipedia; let's not waste it that way. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I would not stand for reconfirmation. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 04:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: That's the point. Why would we? bibliomaniac15 05:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  If I felt I didn't meet any criterion set forth in any new system then I would happily seek the communities reconfirmation. Otherwise I wouldn't see the point. Rockpocket 05:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: You are indeed confused. The point is not to make it easier to pass. %-) --Kim Bruning 15:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooh, ooh. I know this one! :-) The point is to find those suitable for doing the job, while somehow coping with the problems of scale? Right? Carcharoth 15:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I guess there is an underlying assumption here, that in the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, that there will be enough people trusted to do admin stuff and avoid backlogs, even if everyone in the world really was editing... This is more a problem of scale for the encyclopedia as a whole, rather than purely a case of RfA scaling up. Carcharoth 15:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ''If'' RfA is revamped...

message: I'm sure this is a perennial proposal as well, but would separating out admin powers in a logical manner help resolve some of the issues that are raised here? For certain types of administrative backlogs (those often called 'housekeeping' tasks), there would probably be more chance of getting more people to apply and successfully pass RfA, though really, automation and more bot-work might be a better solution. For the other admin tools, such as blocking and making difficult judgements and decisions, higher thresholds and standards are quite rightly applied. Would there be any chance of achieving some sort of separation of these tools into two roles? We already have bureaucrat, steward, checkuser and oversight flags, so splitting admin into two flags wouldn't really be that big a step. If this has been discussed before, could a link be provided, please. Thanks. Carcharoth 13:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is indeed a perennial proposal. See Wikipedia:Limited administrators. It's a nice idea in theory, but it's just not practical. It's too confusing, not only for other administrators, but for non-admins who are looking for help and have to ask 5 people before they find someone who can do what they need to get done. If you can trust someone with the tools, you can trust them with the tools. If you can't, you can't. Kafziel Talk 14:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I have yet to see any problem that would require this sort of change. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 14:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: This could be practical IMO if we kept it very simple.  Separate out blocking from the other functions.  This is what gets people in the most trouble when they abuse it.  The non-blocking admins could be called "janitors" and people with the block button could be called "bouncers".  Friday (talk) 14:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Admins should not think of the block button as a bouncer tool, it is also a janitors tool. I don't think it would be a good thing if an admin had the block button, but not the protect button, sometimes it is better to protect than block, but if I only have one button... HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 14:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I was assuming block included the other functions as well.  Since blocking is what gets people in trouble, anyone who's trusted with that is also (presumably) able to be responsible in the use of deletion and protection.  A pure wiki deletion system would remove deletion from the admin picture altogether, but I suppose that's a matter for another page.   Friday (talk) 14:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've suggested this before (several times, I think : ) - That the ability to block/unblock be separate from the admin package of userrights, the way checkuser is separate from the admin package of userrights.  I think that this would go a long way towards dealing directly with the questions of (dis)trust. - jc37 14:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Everyone should be able to see deleted revisions (except those that were oversighted, which is a tiny tiny chunk.)  This transparent deletion is all advantage with no disadvantage.  Friday (talk) 15:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, this is a big day for hauling tired old discussions out of the attic, isn't it? ;) We've got three going at the same time! Kafziel Talk 15:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the Wikipedia:Transparent deletion one. It doesn't seem to have got much coverage (and is not really relevant to RfA in any case), but probably deserves more coverage. I remember being shocked when I realised that any edits I made to articles that were later deleted were also deleted from my contributions history. Well, not technically deleted, just no longer visible. This includes prodding articles that get deleted (nominating at AfD leaves more of a trail), and any edits to articles that were later deleted. It is also incredibly frustrating to come across old discussions when following a trail of some sort, and to not be able to see what the discussion was about (when the page being discussed has been deleted). Another problem with deletion is what Brion Vibber said here in January: "Deletion means deletion" (he said more as well). The balance between: (a) oversighting inappropriate stuff; (b) keeping deleted revisions to check on them and restore them if necessary; and (c) getting rid of rubbish - needs to be made clearer. But I should get back to the limited admin idea I resurrected at the beginning of this thread... Carcharoth 15:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Folks, let's just wait for Bitfields for rev_deleted. It is coming Real Soon Now™. And yes, I do mean real soon, I've actually tested the thing. See the gallery at the bottom of that page. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separating out admin powers