Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 64

message: I've observed over the past few years that this process has drifted towards increasingly higher (sometimes unreasonably and unrealisticly high) expectations of prospective admins, and that worries me. In particular, those participating in these discussions are often fixated on edit count, rather than other more important factors like an user's trustworthyness and ability to work with others. We are far from the the original intent of granting adminship except where there's a reason not to, and while that isn't entirely bad, I think that the standards should be set only as high as necessary to protect the project from blatent abuse of admin powers - they were never intended to be an "elite" class of users. - - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 09:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Really it boils down to one question: is the user likely to abuse the tools? bd2412 T 09:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I think the only reason we need any consderation af all on time or edit count is to make sure that they have put enough effort into the project that we have a reasonable idea of who their are and their level of commitment - basically, look at it this way - it only needs to be enough to make sure that the amount of time and effort the candidate has put into the project outweighs the time and effort that would have to be spent cleaning up after them should they turn out to be a problem as an admin. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 10:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I prefer "misuse" to "abuse" - that way it includes unintentional damage an admin can cause simply by not knowing what they're doing. Abuse is always in bad faith. --Tango 11:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see what you are saying... I did actually consider wording it "misuse", but realisticly, to do serious damage generally requires intent. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 12:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps time to think about something in the line of adminship on probation? (I don't know if this has come up before). And there already is this. Lectonar 10:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I like that. I can agree with that essay. Unfortunately, I think that we do need some form of arbitrary standard if only to keep from having 50 million different arbitrary standards. What we are trying to determine by a RFA is whether giving someone adminship is more likely to help Wikipedia or harm it. Thats it. No Roman Inquisition required. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 10:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It all comes down to trust right? Do you trust the user, regardless of your personal feelings, to use the tools responsibly and for the good of the community? If so then they deserve a vote... -- Errant  talk(formerly tmorton166) 11:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Somehow, I prefer the plain and simple days when RfA was like [ this]. No indication of silly metrics there. :) Kimchi.sg 16:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Indeed, well said. --Cactus.man ✍ 19:05, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I could care less about the standards for supporting an RFA - I do find problematic the percieved standards for opposing one. I think opposition should be limited to demonstrating that it would be harmful to Wikipedia and its goals to give someone adminship - if you can't show that someone is likely to use the mop and broom to do harm, then theres no reason why they shouldn't be an admin. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 00:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Well RfA still is no big deal...all the technical actions can be reversed, so in the technical aplication it isn't. However, lack of diplomacy and incivility cannot be undone as it can damage trust, etc. so this is one of the big points in RfA. It would be the main point why your RfA failed, not because people think that your writing skills are bad or whatever....I haven't written any FAs....I think it would be better for you to not assume that people hate you.... Secondly, I feel that it is important to take RfA seriously as admins need to be good role models, and it doesn't take more than 20min to prepare a standard RfA, although for me it is more like three hours....Blnguyen | rant-line 00:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh no no no. While Adminship may not be a big deal, getting it (RfA) most certainly is. In this climate, candidates are expected to just through hoops to become Admins, but if they succeed, there's very little to actually being an Admin. -- Ec5618 21:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nah, I have a hate crowd. I actually know better about Pokémon grammar. Which makes me a prime target. People don't check a user, or read an RfA. They look at the first oppose and see if it is worthy to oppose. And generally it's who opposes, not what they say. Numph. Highway Return to Oz... 13:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thats true to an extent, alot of people do look at the opposes (or supports) that are there and base opinions on that; but to be honest that will happen anyway. I think there are enough regular or semi-regular voters around to ensure that a hate (for want of a better word) doesn't undermine an RFA! --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 13:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Adminship is, in essence, a security guard and a custodian blended into one job. Why do so many wikipedians think that becoming an administrator is the answer to getting power and becoming popular on wikipedia? Perhaps it is because so many administrators are influential and heavily involved—yet a normal user is not prevented from participating in discussions or requesting a block, protect, or delete, or helping change a policy (and as a side note, there are a decent amount of admins, even crats, who don't participate a lot in the community). We have processes so non-admins can work easily and get things done. Cabals do not control the system, a cabal is only created by one's lack of civility, communication, and/or knowledge of process and policy. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 14:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No offence Ikiroid, but what 'pedia are you on? New users who disagree with me on policy often have a go at me, until they find out I'm not an admin, and then it turns into, "you aren't qualified to tell me if I'm doing something wrong!" I also have a harder time at things like FAC, but that may be because I'm not popular, but when we're being frank, is why most people aren't admins. Highway Return to Oz... 23:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time to counter the drift in standards? 

message: The first entry under Commenting and expressing opinions" says "Who may comment: Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to express their opinion, including the nominator." This would seem to indicate that anonymous (IP) comments are stricken. The last entry says "Threaded discussions are held in the Comments section. Long discussions are held on the discussion page of the individual nomination. Anyone may comment or discuss, including anonymous editors." This indicates that IP comments are welcome (even though they have to have an account to vote).
Which one of these is correct? The incorrect one needs to be fixed. - CheNuevara 15:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This looks like another result of the infamous "votes to comments" conversion. Back when it wasn't taboo to use the word "vote", RFA had a suffrage against anonymous users making votes but were still allowed to make comments (ie, in the "Comments" section). Therefore, it used to be that any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to vote, but anyone may comment, including anonymous editors. Since I doubt "!vote" will be used in "official" documentation, I think "express their opinion" should be changed to something like "support or oppose" (which doesn't cover neutral, but is the best in terms of minimalistic text), or "leave a support, oppose, or neutral comment" (which is unwieldy, but is technically the most accurate). Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if we just used the damn "vote" or "!vote". ;-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We should just use the term "vote" anyway unless we change RfA to a pure discussion. Kusma (討論) 16:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Anons can comment, they just can't comment. Heh. --W.marsh 16:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: How about we post a picture of someone bending over backwards alongside this language... --W.marsh 17:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about bending over forwards? Bending over backwards may be offensive to some. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about just :Image:pretzel.jpg? Oh wait, that'll be offensive to those with wheat allergies... -- nae'blis (talk) 19:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps "Anyone is welcome to express thier opinion on any candidate. Commments by non-logged-in users are restricted to the "Comments" section, as they are intended to aid others in the formation of thier comments, and are not utilized in determining promotion." That says, in an addmittedly much longer form than before, that anons can bring stuff up, but thier opinion on promotion isn't counted towards the standard for promotion (the minimum 75% support one nobody wants to admit exists but won't stand for anyone "violating"). Essjay (Talk) 21:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: You're saying what most of us are thinking, I'd wager, or perhaps what we're already saying in our own, twisted, humourous ways. --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Twisted humour. I agree with you both. -- Ec5618 21:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps bureaucrats should only count reasoned opinions. As WP expands, people know each other less, and giving WP over to drive-by voters would be a undesirable. Stephen B Streater 13:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: RFA isn't really suited to reasoned opinions- either you trust someone or you don't. In any case, either you would need an inventive new reason from every supporter/opposer, or you would end up with 50 'per Mr X's. HenryFlower 13:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I only half agree - there are no real reasons to support, but every oppose should be for a specific reason (or combination of specific reasons).  However, most people do give a reason - the problem is in deciding if it's a good reason. That can't be a crat's job, as that would give them power to decide for themselves, rather than just determine concensus. --Tango 14:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It's been a vote for a long time, whether we've called it that or not. It's not 2003 anymore. And no one's stopped it. --W.marsh 13:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not really a vote, it only appears to be so because of the volume of people involved in each decision nowadays. Counting heads does get you to a general idea of consensus, and then contemplating the nature of comments gets you the rest of the way. I would point out that AfD is a lot less predictable because the judgment of the closing admin makes a huge difference, and admins have quite a variety of ways that they interpret consensus. I think RfA works better than AfD. NoSeptember 14:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well this argument has been had before, but as long as you always pass by getting 80% and always fail at under 75%, regardless of the quality of arguments... it's a vote, even if we choose not to call it that. No one's ever going to get "contemplated" out of adminship when they have an 81% showing on one of the vote counters after 7 or 8 days, so I find it hard to believe that the discussion is more important than the head count at that point. We wouldn't even want people with 81% failing, anyway. And frankly, that's what works best now with 50-100 people commenting in every RfA. --W.marsh 14:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look at the topic immediately below here, you'll see someone being promoted with less than 75%...  although, to be fair, going by the closing b'crat's statements there they were influenced as much by the unique situation as by the comments. --Aquillion 18:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's only the second time someone outside of the 75%/80% range hasn't gotten the default decision in the past few hundred RfAs. And to be honest, the B'crat who closed it enjoys much more discretion than any other b'crat - that's just how it is. --W.marsh 18:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That could be because he is a Steward. Stephen B Streater 18:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Danny is both a steward and a bureaucrat, and he went through an RfB and was promoted by community consensus. NoSeptember 19:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  apparent contradiction 

message: The "vote here" icon in my RFA is not showing up as a link, and I don't know why.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. They have nowiki tags around it by default, I can't say I know why (someone who's familiar with  might be able to answer that one}}. Good luck with it, hope it doesn't end up being a too stressful experience :) Petros471 15:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't worry, I'm not too worried either way....after all, adminship is no big deal ;).--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah right. I'm off to oppose his RfA... "Malformed RfA! Clearly not admin material." (it would be funny if stuff like that actually hadn't been done in seriousness) --W.marsh 00:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if he doesn't even provide a working "vote here" link, then he clearly doesn't us voting to support and therefore lacks enthusiasm and committment. :P RandyWang (raves/review me!) 05:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The technical guy comes to answer questions! The reason for the nowikis is there, in their absence, the link to the pagename would subst: in the template to Template:RfA, and , as it's subst'ed, would not change. fetofs Hello! 01:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Haha, well, I'd just give a person an FYI for a restart on their talkpage if they had built a corrupt one. Better to help someone improve then slap them on the wrist w/o any advice. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  URL not working 

message: I think we've gone into this enough, I'd just like to throw in 2c before this becomes a "we don't trust anyone" type argument.  Sean Black's RFA was a unique case (and before someone screams bias, yes, I did support) - are we here to write articles or are we here to freak out about every little policy decisions. If Sean screws up, ArbCom can take care of it. If I screw up, I'm sure ArbCom is going to take care of it. It's not exactly the hardest thing in the world to de-sysop, so I say let's let this one rest and move on to bigger and more important things (like breakfast for me for one) -- Tawker 06:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems Danny and others have misunderstood the reasons given for the opposes. I don't think that anyone is suggesting Sean's actions might warrant ArbCom. Stephen B Streater 08:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, I guess I will ramble a bit :). Sean's RFA got me thinking about the process, and comments about contributers even more. Much like AFD, these RFAs often have one or two (sometimes relatively minor) points raised and then often having people latch on these; both the candidates and even the people who oppose them often get HAMMERED. In addition, many of the comments make character judgements about people. Much of this was prevalent in Sean's RFA - when I read it, I was overwhelmed - over 100 opinions on the page; some claiming gross incivility and others claiming much the opposite. I guess you could say I was "looking for a good reason to oppose" since my opinion was somewhat biased towards the negative side from the little I thought I knew from various WP:ANI posts and such from when I was A7ing pages and other routine activities. Originally, I was more convinced of this after reading some of the good points raised by the opposition; had my "vote" written up and everything (something like "incivility and claims of not following process are troubling"). It wasn't until I started doing comparisons to myself that I started to invest even more time and even more contributions - nothing appeared to be particularily systematic either way to me; which made me realize even more how hard it is to determine whether particular groups of edits are evidence of systematic editing or just an attempt to paint a broad brush, as it were. I thought about the fleeting nature of editors in general - about how I could be responsible for possibly denying a possibly good administrator based on general feeling and a few random edits while deleting pages (in particular the run on meta with David Gerard and others). The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was more confused about how much personal opinion I wanted to interject - on AFD it is much easier because there are rather concrete policies (WP:V etc.). I suppose one idea would be for comments about contributers themselves were not allowed and instead comments were directly specified for particular edits, and more emphasis was made on improvement; less on "renomination time." Also, as per Voice of All's comment below the policy for renomination gets even more interesting with former admins and more longer-time contributers because of the greater chance of the latching-on; keeping it in perspective is difficult for any process I suppose. RN 09:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: OK

message: Well since Sean asked to have his tools taken away voluntarily and then re-applied, I think that only a consensus to NOT promote should be what makes his RfA possibly fail; so when I look at it that way, I don't see anything wrong. There was a consensus to promote him the first time, he gave it up after some issues, and asked for it again; we then tested to see if there was a consensus to overturn the first consensus and confirm that he should not be an admin. That did not happen, as he still has majority support.Voice-of-All 19:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dmcdevit had a proposal in which these standards were discussed. NoSeptember 19:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Yep, that makes sense to me.  Thanks.  --Cyde↔Weys 21:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would depend on the "issues" that cause someone to resign.  They don't seem to have been problematic this case, and if someone just resigns because of general stress then I have no problems with it just being a temporary thing...  but if an admin 'voluntarily' gives up the tools as part of an agreement in an ongoing ArbCom settlement or something similar, they shouldn't get any special treatment if they decide to try and get them back.  When someone resigns in a situation like that (or decides to 'fall on their sword' rather than go through de-adminship), there's an understanding that they're not just going to turn around and regain the position next week. I would hope, in any case, that the closing b'crat would be able to take all this into account without needing pages of detailed rules and guideline percentages... --Aquillion 21:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd agree that doing a "Nixon" resign should not give them the respect of "voluntarily" resigning. On the other hand, if it was that bad, I'd image that consensus would swing the other way.Voice-of-All 22:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: If so, we should call it something else - not RfA - or change the rules, rather than bend/break the rules and conventions of RfA when it is convenient. We already have some proposals in that direction. Tintin (talk) 04:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I understand it these are the rules now, we would have no need for bureaucrats or admins if a simple supermajority was enough in our Rf*s (a bot could close all debates in such a situation). Any number we choose as a limit for supermajority is by definition arbitrary, the 75%/80% numbers that are often mentioned serve as indicators of consensus rather than its minimum bounds. It is worth pointing out that the use of these numbers is not policy, it just kind of developed over time. Rje 18:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps naively, I always saw the 75-80% "threshold" as an example of what most passing RfAs recieve, and not necessarily the absolute must-reach number.  Thus, in a case like Sean's, a 70% could pass and perhaps an 82% could fail if the arguments went heavily in one direction.  Perhaps calling it a "threshold" is part of the problem? --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Tango. With no comments about this particular case, bureaucrats should generally steer clear of closing RfAs in which they have voted, unless the consensus is very clear, just as admins should avoid closing AfDs that they started or have voted in. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 19:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just hope Sean appreciated all the advice which we spent so much time crafting. I think it is good practice to suspend Adminship before a long Wikibreak to reduce risk of hacking. Suspended accounts should be restarted without an RfA. This is different from someone resigning, when they lose the automatic right to re-promotion. As others have also said, the re-RfA percentage should be lower: it can be quicker to make enemies who will oppose than friends who will support, as most support is tacit. Stephen B Streater 20:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  A brute-force password attack is so easy with this software that there's really no point in going through the hassle of desysopping and resysopping every time an admin wants to go on vacation. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What should "consensus" be in a re-RfA?

message: Some IP editors have been creating a lot of trouble in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Eluchil404. A semi-prot would help. Tintin (talk) 11:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. I've also struck the faked Supports, rather than deleted them, as its useful to see a record of this sort of attack. Gwernol 12:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semiprotection request 

message: Copied from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jersey Devil
Oppose For the same reasons I have given on other nominations recently, namely Misza13, Grendelkhan, and others. That is: The unusual support, both in numbers, and in the cliquiness involved. Although the number of supporters is not as large at this rfa as in the others that I opposed, the support editors are basically the same. The same or many of the same editors are supporting all of the nominations as of late. I still find this questionable and highly suspicious. I will continue to oppose these cliquey rfa's as a matter of principle. If however one of these rfa candidates shows me a reason to change my vote, I will change it. Shannonduck talk 01:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The best course of action is to ignore the user. We've had routine oppose voters with questionable justifications in the past, they will eventually go away. NoSeptember 05:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Appears she's struck out that opinion. Alphachimp talk 05:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It's pretty symptomatic of the issues others have noted about the whole process.  The process becomes a beauty contest so at least appears if not becomes an effort in establishing oneself in the in crowd.ALR 18:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonetheless, if the reasons for support are similar, that attests to the user's abilities and reputation.  All we can assume is that people are voting on a basis of merit as opposed to coming along and voting along with the majority group.  To oppose because of others' reasons for supporting is nonsensical. Michael 22:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Crats please look at this oppose opinion in current RFA

message: Is it in bad taste to tell a user on their talkpage that you responded to their concerns? I see wikipedians raise valid points on my RfA, then I reply, then I get no answer. I get the feeling they forgot about it. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 17:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Honestly, I don't really think that's in bad taste, provided you don't end up badgering them about it. Go for it, methinks. :) RandyWang 17:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It's probably very polite to do so, as long as you remain civil and the other party is cooperative.  If things get heavy, disengage. --Tony Sidaway 17:58, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, so long as you avoid being pushy, I doubt anyone will regard it as a problem. Kirill Lokshin 18:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text: One more comment I tried to post from my phone... I watchlist the RfAs I take part in, so I'd know if you responded there. The talk pages are the official way of contacting someone, so they shouldn't take offence, but I'd rather have the entire discussion on the RfA so everyone can see it. Stephen B Streater 18:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was about to ask the same question. Cool.--Firsfron of Ronchester 18:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that it is quite polite to do so. --Siva1979Talk to me 20:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with you with one exception. If the "response to Foo" was written after the "oppose per Foo" then Bar wouldn't have had an opportunity to read much less understand the response. This is one of those times where reading the time signatures becomes important so that you don't make false assumptions. —WAvegetarian•(talk) 06:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand that position and it's more appropriate than when editors simply repeat the same comment multiple times or tell many other editors to see above/elsewhere - yours was within the scope of reasonability in my opinion though it was on a very small sample of possible comments for commenting on.  I'd suggest that a reply encompassing different responses might be more effective than a reminder to editors to see elsewhere as I for one don't like to be told that I haven't read or understood something though I'll concede there may be times when that's an appropriate comment.  For instance, I did read the time stamps in WAVegetarian's RfA and took that into consideration.  This does link with the voting issue as if it's just a vote then there may be a feeling that each voter needs to be persuaded.  My stance is based on my belief that RfA is a discussion with a set of independent recommendations then rather than a pure tally so a continued refutation of each similar response shouldn't be necessary. MLA 08:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replying to oppose and neutral votes 

message: Does anyone know why we are being invited to "Vote here" on current RfAs for Ikiroid, Firsfron, ERcheck, Wickethewok, Pegasus1138, and "Discuss here" for WAvegetarian, Yanksox, CheNuevara? Tyrenius 03:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably someone changed the wording on the template from discuss to vote. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 03:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The template was changed.....there's a big debate about it (see above on this talkpage). Basically, you should choose a side and give a variety of good reasons. But supports are often one-word posts because theoretically one should assume good faith unless there is a good reason. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Specifically this is the diff where the change was made. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 03:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So W.marsh has decided we're officially voting instead of discussing? Do we have a reason for this, let alone a consensus? Tyrenius 03:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I still think we should use "!vote" officially. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 05:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just because all the cool admin candidates are doing it....I rather like "opine" as the verb describing the giving of one's opinion. This is what mine used to say.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 06:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't see why everyone wants to call everything votes on wikipedia - to me it's always been providing a recommendation not a vote. MLA 06:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I prefer discuss to vote. Alternatively Express your opinion. Stephen B Streater 11:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anons may not vote in RfAs, but they may discuss and are welcome to express their opinions. It is hard to formulate this distinction if we use the same word for everything. Kusma (討論) 12:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Using words like "discuss" or "express your opinion" has led to confusion in the RfA headers and instructions before. While I am against political correctness in general, I do like the "suggest" or "recommend" words, similar to what's currently being used at AfD. This has the additional benefit that suggest or recommend is a clear action, differentiating it from "comment". This lead to confusion in various versions of the RfA headers stating that all users (including anonymous users) are allowed to comment, while only registered users are allowed to discuss/express your opinion/comment. Voting, !voting, suggesting, or recommending are clearly different verbs to commenting. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't we just say Build Consensus or something, since that's what RfA is about, last I checked.--digital_me(Talk•Contribs) 17:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So we click on a link to "Build consensus", and all users are allowed to comment, while only registered users are allowed to build consensus? Sounds confusing. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Meh. "Discuss here" seemed to be fine..."Express your opinion here" is slightly wordier, but more permissive.  -- nae'blis 18:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I darn well hope not! Kim Bruning 11:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discuss or vote

message: I'll admit that I'm somewhat biased after going through so many RFA's but I honestly believe that people have lost track of the spirit of RFA which is to give adminship to those who would be trusted with the tools, it has now become nothing but a political contest mixed with drive by voting from people who don't give a damn about the candidate's merits and only vote on the previous votes. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 18:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm waiting for the first "Oppose too few portal talk edits". :-) — Deckiller 18:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's already been an "Oppose too few help space edits".--Firsfron of Ronchester 18:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Laugh if you want but I'm dead serious, we already have a bunch of admins who won't do the job as shown by the stats presented in the above threads and by the time anyone gets admin nowadays due to people's high standards they're at the end of their Wiki-work and are about to leave the project anyway. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 18:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely. RfA candidates spend months tailoring their edits that by the time they get the tools, they are burnt out. Furthermore, the process alone turns the new admins off, since they're afraid to even bother doing admin work due to the "high expectations". Expectations should be reasonable, attainable, and good enough to prove that the user is professional and trusted enough with the tools. — Deckiller 18:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Not everyone votes the same way. Most of the criteria I use have nothing to do with "who can be trusted with the tools" mentality. I like to see good knowledge of the workings of wikipedia. I like to see someone who has proven they can interact contructively with other editors to help reach a consensus.  I like to see users who are constantly improving content as well as house keeping type roles.  I have to say i really do not like to see people popping up again and again in RfA without any real lapse of time to deal with previous criticism. If admin ship really is no big deal then just give everyone with 3000 edits the tools and remove them if disruptive behaviour becomes a problem.  Until that day people will always vote based on their check list of many criteria.  David D. (Talk) 18:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The issue nowadays is people aren't even checking against their criteria, they're just looking for 5 seconds at the RFA, they see a single oppose vote for whatever reason and they oppose then the floodgates are opened. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 19:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A well worded defense, that is not too defensive, would probably make people switch votes, if there really were no merit to their oppose votes. I know I have often switched votes based on discussions in the RfA itself. But this is usually when the candidate does a great job of representing their case to their critics. An example of a less than impressive response would be when an opposer suggests that the candidate has come back too soon since the end of the last RfA in June (let's assume it ended in early June) and the defense is along the lines of actually my last RfA started in April. David D. (Talk) 19:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spirit of RFA 

message: appears to be leaving Wikipedia (deleted userpage, deleted talk page, etc, etc). I originally removed the nomination for the user, but reverted as I didn't want to step on the bureaucrats toes (after all, we all though HolyRomanEmperor was dead, but left it there for several hours). What should be done? -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 19:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Remove it, burn it, be done with it, smite it I don't really give a flying fuck atm what you do with it. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 19:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To be quite blunt, you're really only proving the point that RfA usually does work. Having a temper tantrum when your RfA is going poorly isn't a sign of a good admin candidate. Aren't I Obscure? 19:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: See what i wrote below.  Seriously, you could easily have got promoted with strong arguments. Instead we get this? David D. (Talk) 19:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: There is a chance s/he may come back so I would do nothing and let it run its course.  Problem now is that such behaviour will torpedo any chance the RfA may have had.  It's a shame, since with well reasoned arguments and diffs i suspect s/he could have changed turned the tide. David D. (Talk) 19:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Don't you think this reaction is a little extreme considering that non of the criticim in your RfA was particularly harsh? If you decide to come back, and i hope you do, consider that people respond well to reasoned arguments.  Your actions here, on the other hand could turn people off for a long time. David D. (Talk) 19:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: In this situation, "from whatever name he chooses" is the best we can hope for. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pegasus1138  

message: I know it has been practice to not have section headings in RfA nomination subpages for some time. However with the very high volume of traffic on User:Phaedriel's RfA (including at least two enthusiastic and unauthorised co nominations) I decided to put section breaks in... this of course unbalanced the table of contents in the main WP:RFA page, which User:Hoopydink and I discussed. We decided to change all of the current RfAs to see how they look with section headings in. If this change is acceptable the template that is used to generate a new nom can be changed, and if not, well, it's a wiki. The pages look cleaner (I chose level 5 section heads for no particular reason other than to keep them well below any page level stuff) and I think it really does cut down on edit conflicts... the downside is that the WP:RFA table of contents is massive unless something else is done to suppress it. Comments? ++Lar: t/c 06:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To echo what Lar mentioned, the section breaks allow for less edit conflicts and are quite useful.  We thought it best to add section breaks into all of the current RfA's so as not to skew the contents section.  Again, the section breaks do make the table of contents at least seven times larger, so I can see how that might be an issue.  I suppose we'll just have to determine which is the lesser of two evils; edit conflicts or a ginormous table of contents. hoopydinkConas tá tú? 06:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note I think there are templates that can limit a TOC to just the first two levels but I don't offhand recall which ones... that's a possible fix I think. Unless I'm misremembering. And thanks again H for your help! ++Lar: t/c 06:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Well you killed the RfA Bot which is also on the B's noticeboard. Now the B's can't view the support percentage of any that need to be closed.--Andeh 07:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am sure that the owners of the bots will be able to program their bots to recognise the new format (hopefully with not too much work). DarthVader 08:03, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it might be because of the format of this discussion, but I didn't kill the bot - I wasn't the one who made the change. I was just commenting with my initial reaction to the change. That said, I noticed afterwards that the change killed the bots (or maybe it was Sarah Connor). I was willing to test the practicality of the change and try not to be resistant to change, but when I noticed this side affect my opinion was swayed. Moot point now that the change has been un-done. Agent 86 17:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I definitely prefer the old format; the TOC looks terrible. And to be honest, if I have to make an additional edit to update the tally, then I'd rather just leave it and let someone else update it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, just from a reader's perspective the TOC is very hard to read now and it's a chore to scroll down through each nom, also even though I haven't added a vote/opinion since the change I imagine per the comments above that it wouldn't be much easier. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ---- 08:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Furthermore, on Phaedriel's RFA, you request people not remove the section headings to avoid edit conflicts and such. I cannot see how this will have a significant impact on edit conflicts, given that she has 68 or so supports and no neutrals or opposes. Furthermore, is it necessary for each nomination to have a separate heading? That seems to bloat the TOC further without purpose. And this is just sad. Please change it back until you can develop methods to overcome these difficulties (bloated table of contents, breaking bot summaries, etc.). — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Seconded. I don't see it make much difference in the amount of edit conflicts, and I don't think having to scroll to look at a table of contents is a good idea. I appreciate that it might be easier to navigate on a phone this way, but to be honest, I think the amount of people using a phone to vote on RFAs is too small to be of a large concern for the layout :) --JoanneB 09:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Now we know why ;-) Stephen B Streater 09:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The new section breaks are long overdue. Thanks to Lar for doing it. At least please let's give it a try for some time now (two weeks at least). --Ligulem 09:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know we have WP:BOLD and everything, but I would have preferred if we (Dragons flight, possibly Oleg Alexandrov, and I) were notified before this change. There have been several instances of this kind of thing happening over the past few months, and it isn't very nice to open my e-mail client and discover several error messages waiting in my inbox. It would be courteous if people contemplating changes could provide a test case so that we can calibrate our bots before the actual changeover. (P.S.: Tangobot and the toolserver tool now support the new format - or rather, formats, as some RfAs seem to use ====, others =====). Cheers, Tangotango 09:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: This apparently was just suddenly decided and the urgent reason for it is some "high volume" of support and co-nominations, neither of which are affected by this change: edit conflicts in the support subsection aren't resolved by this, and co-nominations are rather static, if a change to facilitate 6 of them would be needed anyway. This is a null justification. —Centrx→talk • 10:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It's a bad idea. As someone else mentioned, this doesn't affect Phaedriel's RfA since it's nearly unanimous right now. Instead it just makes the table of contents longer, messes up some of the RfA counters, and allows people to easily forget to manually update the counter. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 10:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Tariqabjotu. This sort of change should have been discussed before it was made. While WP:BOLD is great and all, the fact that a number of widely-used tools and bots are now broken and that tally updating is harder alone are enough to have warranted a discussion beforehand. Gwernol 10:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Request, will the users whom added the additional headings please revert it back. Not only will the Bureaucrats want their bot working again to review the current noms, but making such drastic changes to the entire RfA page without discussing it on the talk page is quite out of the ordinary. Yes, Phaedrial may be a special user, but did we really have to edit the entire RfA page to suit her RfA needs?.. --Andeh 11:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like someone did it whilst I was writing that.--Andeh 11:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Hoopydink and I changed it back (mostly Hoopydink, he's fast!) I'd like to continue discussion though, I think the idea has merit...++Lar: t/c 11:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lets see if the bot updates properly and the percentages return.--Andeh 11:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Yep it's fixed.--Andeh 11:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Yep, Lar and I started reverting ourselves just after I posted.  Again, we hadn't anticipated any bot problems and didn't think what we were doing was at all drastic.  We simply thought it would be a helpful formatting tweak.  We now know that any tweaking with the RfA template could send the bots off-kilter.  We did anticipate the table of contents issue and perhaps at some point we can minimize that.  The issue wasn't really with Phaedriel as a user per se, just to point out.  The issue was with a high-volume nomination.  Other nominations have been quite high volume as well, but Phaedriel's case is what brought the issue to Lar's attention and then to mine.  If you'll look at the edit history, I actually reverted Lar due to the inconsistency in the table of contents.  We then discussed the matter and felt that section breaks were a good idea (and obviously if one nomination had a certain formatting, we would have to implement uniformity across the board).  I hope this clears things up, and all of the nominations are back to "normal".  Once again, apologies to anyone who was put out as a result of our adding section breaks (I do hope to revisit this idea if we can get the bot and table of contents issues correct first). hoopydinkConas tá tú? 11:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A noble effort at improvement, but perhaps too hasty without prior discussion. Thanks for reverting. I use the output from Dragons flight RfA summary bot, so it's nice to get that back working again. Section breaks are a good idea in principle, but I think the pro's are heavily outweighed by the con's. The bot issue can obviously be worked around, and the edit window is more compact because of the sections. However, the reduced risk of an edit conflict as a result of the section breaks is minimal IMHO. The massive increase in the TOC length is horrendous, and an extra edit is required to update the tally unless not editing within sections (in which case the small benifit has already been lost). --Cactus.man ✍ 12:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it seemed the thing to do at the time! (hey, I think it was 2:30 in the morning for me, what can I say). Note of course that as soon as it became clear there wasn't consensus we cheerfully and speedily changed it back, no long drawn out warfare about it, or making other people clean up the mess we made. I think that there is a way to fix the ToC bloat problem, I just have to do research on it. The extra edit to fix the tally doesn't strike me as a problem, actually... a small edit gets done faster and with less conflict than a bigger one. Those seem like the major two objections (other than Bot changes... Tango says his already can handle both versions) ++Lar: t/c 13:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section Breaks 

message: Who may vote: Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to vote, including the nominator. 
Who may not vote: Editors who do not have an account and/or are not logged in ("anons"). Votes of very new editors may be discounted if there is suspicion of fraud such as sockpuppetry. Voting on one's own nomination is not allowed and will not be counted by the closing bureaucrat. ''
:Shouldn't RfAs be sprotected, then? — Deckiller 00:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe anons and new users are allowed to participate in the discussion even if they can't !vote. -- Steel 00:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, anons may not participate, but new users can, although their recommendations "may be discounted if there is suspicion of fraud..." (emphasis mine). Semi-protecting by default would run counter to this since it would bar both anon IPs and new users. It might be worth discussing changing that, but until we have, semi-protecttion should not be applied by default. Gwernol 00:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a good idea to encourage at least somewhat established editors, and not new users. I mean, let's face it. This is a request for adminship; community consensus and all. New users do not understand the concepts and the necessities (and, if they do, then they are sockpuppets). It's obvious that most cases of this are bad faith; a large enough of a majority to afford changing this rule to conform to sprotect. But that's a discussion for a different heading :) — Deckiller 00:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (edit conflict) Surely if the anon raises some valuable points (like a diff to where the candidate moved a page to "... on wheels"), you can't ask people to ignore that on the basis that it was an anon who brought it up? -- Steel 00:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Anonymous users, like everyone else, are allowed to comment in the appropriate section; for this reason sprotect is not an option. Rje 00:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Random question

message: I think it may be because the neutral section was not bolded, so I fixed that, but I won't know if that solved it for another 15 minutes, and my 2nd guess is that there's a whole "nominations" section that the bot isn't expecting. Someone who knows how it works may want to make sure it'll be ok for the next update. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 01:48, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it is the strange formatting caused by the "co-nom"s?  Jkelly 01:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, no one else changed any formatting since my neutral bolding, and it's working now, so I guess that was it. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 02:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed... Michael 06:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phaedriel's RfA not parsing correctly in report 

message: For a first time visitor to the RfA page, it would look like the process is very easy. As of now, there are five candidates, all above 90% support. Also, apart from User:Wickethewok, the others have 97%+ support. This would look like a good time for aspirants to join in and "make hay while the sun shines". Ever since the summary creation started, I don't remember seeing such a good scenario. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Either it's the self-correction of standards mentioned above, or these five candidates are that much better than recent groupings. I'm inclined to think the former, with no offense intended toward our current crop of nominees. :) -- nae'blis 17:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ...and you get to discuss here, vote here, and voice your opinion! all on one page. This truly is a historic moment. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 20:18, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems like RfA's are now falling into two distinct groups: a) the ridiculously qualified and b) the ridiculously unqualified. The latter group is simply getting removed, whether on their own or by beurocrat (sp). That's probably a large reason behind the huge percentages on this page. alphaChimp laudare 20:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Perhaps the recent high qualification levels mean only the most experienced and innocent will risk the gauntlet. Stephen B Streater 22:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed...And if such is the case, it is likely that people would be more critical of those who may not be as experienced as some other users. Michael 01:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Also, several people have withdrawn their nominations lately, so on further reflection it may not be that we've recalibrated our standards for approval, just our standards for letting your RfA run to completion. I'm not sure that's such a good thing... -- nae'blis 01:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that could prove problematic.  In that case, one could re-submit him or herself a great number of times, withdrawing if the votes do not go in his or her favor, and then, he or she has the right to re-submit without the burden of having been rejected once or twice in the past. Michael 01:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I can immediately think of a few recent attempts where the candidate was neither highly qualified nor highly unqualified.  One is me, one is Werdna648.  Another is Badlydrawnjeff, still another is Sean Black.  All but the last closed with supermajorities insufficient to promote, the last also closed a bit under the usual standard but was promoted.  At this precise moment we do happen to mostly have landslides open, certainly.It would be interesting to see how the distribution varied with time: how many clear winners, how many clear losers, how many with really no consensus. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  One of the best times 

message: Not much else to say. Sorry if I'm missing discussion on this somewhere else. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 00:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There was no discussion. Michael 04:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not entirely true.  It was discussed a month ago: Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 60#Moving around stuff in RfA.  Dragons flight 05:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if you refer to the below discussion, not many people saw this. Michael 08:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did indeed see that discussion, but wasn't expecting sudden implementation a month later. Anyway, my bot is fixed. Cheers, Tangotango 09:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New RfA template makes parsing think supports are opposes