Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 80

message: * Support --Durin 16:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Well I saw it. Entrenching a hard number in an official policy is not a good thing. There are a lot of people saying the same thing. I'll have to decide if I'm ok with the wording as it currently is. - Taxman Talk 23:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Support; makes sense to me. Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Support

message: *Um, my problem is with enforcement, or lack thereof. What if a b'crat doesn't follow this? Seems like it would be hard to enforce. If you could actually get the active b'crats plus Danny to agree to abide by this, I'd consider moving to neutral... but still, it doesn't seem enforceable. There's really nothing that could be done if a b'crat ignored the rule... aside from hoping ArbCom or Jimbo cared enough to de-b'crat them, which seems unlikely. --W.marsh 17:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I can't see how enforcement would be a problem. We have various methods of dispute resolution and ways to come to a consensus about removing access levels if a problem rose to that level. - Taxman Talk 17:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *It's a rule that has no easy way of being enforced though. Say Danny promotes an admin at 65% without discussion, what then? Is a steward going to reverse his promotion? A rule that can't be enforced is just instruction creep. --W.marsh 17:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Yes, a steward could reverse it based on a consensus that that is what should happen if the rule is ignored. In addition the bcrat could face sanctions if consensus called for them. That seems fully enforceable to me. Especially in the extremely unlikely situation it came up. - Taxman Talk 18:08, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Even if it's Danny, a foundation employee and steward himself? I know it's not a comfortable thing to talk about, but it is the most likely reason this policy would become very problematic. --W.marsh 18:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *If Danny promotes someone out of process, then he's doing it as a foundation employee, and not as a crat, so this policy (if it becomes policy) would not apply. --Tango 19:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *The issue of "enforcement" doesn't trouble me. Right now, a bureaucrat "could" physically pick any user and press the button to sysop him or her without an RfA, but it doesn't happen. There have been promotions that test the limits of discretion and consensus, but I've never seen a flat-out disregard of a specific policy requirement and I wouldn't expect it to start now. Newyorkbrad 17:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Still, it would be nice to know that the b'crats would actually be okay with following this policy, it's a fundamental change from the policy that existed when they were elected. Without the actual situation of what happens if a b'crat ignores this policy addressed, I think this could lead to highly volotile wheel warring if any b'crat ever did ignore this policy. I'm not saying that's likely, but it's something we should address. --W.marsh 17:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *I do strongly agree with that. Perhaps "less than the traditional range for promotion" could replace the 75%? - Taxman Talk 23:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: So the pages spent discussing controversial closures and bad faith spread by them isn't a problem? I don't see how this is instruction creep; it would only apply in these rarest of cases. Trebor 00:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So don't discuss it. We've got lots of backlogs, articles that suck, libels, stubs and an assortment of other things. Why all this time over the odd person that got promoted with only a majority of the community supporting? There is no evidence to suggest any of those promoted have gone on to do any harm. Indeed they've been working while you've been wasting time on fruitless discussions. We need more admins, and less talk. Most of the admins who have gone on to be trouble had nearer 100% support. This whole discussion does nothing to improve wikipedia.--Docg 00:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Precedent. If we let the 'crats get away controversial decisions and ignore it completely they'll get more and more free rein. And sooner or later one of the "troublesome" admins will be someone promoted on suspect grounds, and then all hell will break loose. There's also the matter of a personal affront; people who raise valid objections don't like to see their views being "ignored" (for want of a better word). Trebor 00:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow? Please assume good faith, rather than hypothetical future 'crat corruption! AFAICT all admin who've had to be desysopped passed RfA with flying colours. The evidence does not support your bad faith conjecture. And who is suggesting the crat ignores oppose voters, any more than he ignores supporters when he fails the nomination?--Docg 01:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't mean to assume any bad faith; sorry if it came across wrong. I'm not talking about 'crat corruption, just that giving them increasingly large discretionary areas while still relying on  a single person's opinion may cause problems. They are respected and trusted members of the community but that does not make them infallible. And just because controversially promoted admins haven't done controversial things (yet), that does not make promoting them right; I'm sure there are hundreds of users we could give the mop without trouble, but there is a system for a reason. And ignoring was the wrong word to use, but the 'crat is certainly discounting or reducing the weight of some oppose votes if choosing to promote (in these cases). Trebor 01:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that the 'controversial' promotions have so far only produced useful results vindicates the 'crats decisions. As for 'not right' the only 'right' here is the need to ensure we get quality admins, there is no other value. This policy doesn't help that, because it doesn't address any qualitative problem. As for 'reducing the weight' - the crat should examine all opinions very carefully (support and oppose) substantive comments that stack up should be given extra weight, frivolous ones (support or oppose) given less. More crat disgression means that users opinions  are MORE important, since they are not just counted, but actually considered.--Docg 02:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: More crat discretion means that some users' opinions are more important depending on how the crat weights them. If you disagree with the closure, you will probably disagree with the weighting anyway. And I would say that just because a controversial closure hasn't lead to a controversial admin yet, that doesn't make it a good idea; there is a system, it should be used. But I don't think we'll reach agreement on this, so I'm not going to push any point. I can see where you're coming from, I just happen to disagree. Trebor 02:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, Freestylefrappe (arguably our worst administrator to date) was promoted under controversial cirumstances.  The last three votes in his RfA were disregarded on a bogus technicality.  (They were posted after the announced closing time, but the RfA had not been closed.)  Had these been properly considered (an issue that this proposal doesn't address), it would have brought the support tally down to 73%.  Had a second bureaucrat been called in to evaluate this RfA (which contained a great deal of substantive opposition and unsubstantiated support), I don't believe that Freestylefrappe would have been promoted.  Here, incidentally, is a link to the ArbCom case in which Freestylefrappe's sysop bit was revoked, and here is a link to the discussion in which he was banned by the community.  —David Levy 22:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The best way to say it probably isn't "No controversially promoted admins have been bad", because that's unlikely. But unless admins promoted controversially are, on the whole, worse, it can't be said to matter whether or not they were promoted controversially. -Amark moo! 22:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Please explain how the involvement of a second bureaucrat reduces the amount of bureaucrat discretion.  —David Levy 22:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My position is stated above. It is a bureaucrat's duty to determine consensus and I believe this to be an unnecessary restriction on that duty. Let's not poke the opposers; viewpoints are stated as requested. auburnpilot talk 23:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not poking anyone.  I'm asking you to explain how the involvement of two bureaucrats results in a reduction in the amount of bureaucrat discretion.  (To me, it seems like exactly the opposite is true.)  Yes, it's a bureaucrat’s job to determine consensus, so what's wrong with having two bureaucrats on the case?  Do you believe that it's an insult to suggest that bureaucrats aren't perfect?  —David Levy 00:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think what AP is trying to say is exactly that. An insult. In the absence of any form of process for reproval, what else is there? OK, AP didn't say it, I did. Bubba hotep 00:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an insult to suggest that bureaucrats aren't perfect?!  Wow.  —David Levy 00:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Asking one bureaucrat to confer with another is not an indication that we don't trust the first to act in good faith.  It's merely indicative of the fact that bureaucrats are human beings, not infallible wiki-gods.  —David Levy 23:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: But "we" voted them in to do the job of an infallible "jurisprudence", for want of a better word. Notwithstanding the comments below: why wouldn't they take a second opinion, just because they don't tell us they do? Bubba hotep 23:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see how the two scenarios are remotely analogous.  —David Levy 23:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought it was quite obvious. Whatever decision a "higher being" makes is wrong. Someone will always disagree. And sometimes those "someones" are in the majority... for whatever reason. Bubba hotep 23:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Administrators, who protect pages, and 'crats, who promote people to admin status, aren't higher beings. They're just people who've been entrusted with some extra features to keep things running. Picaroon 23:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And you, my friend, have hit the nail on the proverbial head. We make our bed, we lie in it. Bubba hotep 23:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Come again?  —David Levy 13:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: RfA is a formal vote.  It's extremely frustrating to see this term constantly misused.  —David Levy 13:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear hear. Badgerpatrol 13:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then point me to the policy that says it is a formal vote. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 00:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: * I think Durin's suggestion would allow a repeat of the Carnildo case where a few bureaucrats agreed to promote even though the candidate was (signficantly) below 75%. I would agree with this proposal if the wording was modified to say that the raw percentage be "somewhat less than 75%" rather than just "less than 75%" as the latter would mean the entire interval from 0% to 75%. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  My preference would be 0% to 100% ;-) --Kim Bruning 19:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *Maybe polls are evil. I think that misses the point here. There's plenty of discussion above and seeming general agreement that this was a good idea. But, nobody seemed to know or be willing to go ahead with implementation. In other places where I've seen such lack of motion, a poll has a strong tendency to get things in motion. Lastly (and tongue in cheek) if polls are so evil and we could further conclude that what descends from them are evil, then the Wikimedia Foundation board is all evil, as is all of ArbCom :) --Durin 20:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutral

message: Many people above seem to agree that it is better if bureaucrats consult with each other before taking unusual actions that are likely to be controversy inducing.  However, many opposers to Durin's proposal (and some supporters) feel that including a fixed precentage (i.e. 75%) is a bad idea.  So, I would like to suggest moving this initiative forward, but without the fixed threshold.  A possibility that I suggested above is a declaration that:
:If a bureaucrat intends to close an RFA in way that may be potentially controversial, then he should consult with other bureaucrats and identify at least one concurring bureaucrat at the time of the closing.
Other formulations are of course welcome, and feel free to make suggestions, but I think the core idea here is the feeling that difficult cases would be resolved more effectively, and with less wikidrama, if the result is presented as a consensus among bureaucrats rather than the actions of a single individual.  Dragons flight 04:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that something along these is sensible.  The only problem I can personally see is the 'crystal ball' aspect of the "potentially controversial" clause.  I might be inclined to phrase it more in terms of the closure being a 'close call' or the presence of 'unusual circumstances', or something along those lines (at the risk of being even more vague).  Alai 04:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I've already suggested that something similar be added to the original proposal, so I obviously support its adoption with or without the numerical component.  —David Levy 04:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving forward with fewer numbers

message: Many times it's been tossed around: "XXX promoted YYY without consensus, as there was only 74.9999 support!!".
PEople need to understand that consensus is not the same as "passing a numerical threshold". If they don't want to understand it, they will have a hard time on wikipedia, probably get burned out and leave. Consensus has always been about judgement, and not about numerical limits. New users (and new is < 6 months old): here's advice, stop thinking about discussions as votings. WHoever tells you that's the wikipedia way, it's misleading you, and on the long run will be harming your wiki experience. --  Drini 19:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. And what about weak and strong supports? Are those all counted as 1.0? Voice-of-All 18:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *It's not a vote :) Besides, if such mention of "weak" and "strong" counted for more or less, everybody would mark as "ultra super duper incredibly maximum over-the-top" oppose/support, etc... --Durin 14:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Well, no, I weigh them in especially if they are backed with solid reasoning. Something meeting your example would get no extra weight, unless it was followed by something like, "but seriously, suppport due to X", and X was a solid reason. So in short, one of the things I do weigh in on close cases is the strength of the support and the strength of the reasoning behind them. It is illustrative in some cases that a large number of supports are weak and most opposes are strong, or vice versa. I'll say again and again, solid reasoning is much more valuable than a bare vote. - Taxman Talk 15:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would perfectly agree with you, if we are talking close cases, as you say (for me that means 75%-80% support, or slight deviations from it). If a bureaucrat would however say "This candidate had 72% support only, but the opposition was incoherent and unconvincing, so I promoted", that would violate the current community agreed process and should not be allowed. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, if the opposition is unconvincing then the 'crat(s) should be promoting. I'm not sure what you're seeing as being violated by following that standard. We don't allow unconvincing deletion arguments to stand at AFD do we? -- nae'blis 17:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is there is no consensus as to what an "unconvincing" argument or a piece of "solid reasoning" actually is. The 'crats must have their own opinions, and they are probably pretty accurate, but unlike AfD there's no page to point at and go "candidate is good/bad because of this"; everyone has their own standards and way of judging whether a candidate is suitable. Trebor 17:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's the biggest issue; whether something is unconvincing is really in the eye of the beholder. .V. [Talk|Email] 18:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The trouble is that there's a lack of common standards at RFA (not as true at *fD), as well as the inevitable disagreement over the application of those standards (just as there is at *fD).  I think that it's not an unreasonable step for a bureaucrat's "discretion" to be be extended in the direction of discounting or at least "downeighting" opposition (or indeed support) based on admin standards that clearly do not have community support.  Thus to make the distinction of fact explicit:  I'm suggesting that if an opposing comment makes the "finding of fact" that a candidate is uncivil, say, then the BC take that fully into account, even if they don't agree with it;  whereas if an opposing comment's "finding of fact" is that the candidate has very few image uploads, then the BC should have discretion to consider that opposition as not being in line with the generally expressed community consensus on the matter of standards, as against consensus on the particular case.  (Alter examples to reflect actual community consensus...  if any.)  This could be significant where someone has a number of "misc. opposes" for various reasons that are collectively "incoherent" (as against individually well-argued, or not.)  Alai 19:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What about arguments that have partial community support? For instance an admins activity in article-writing is viewed by some as vital, so they can understand editing disputes, and by others as an irrelevance. Trebor 20:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point.  I was thinking in terms of criteria for which there was an apparent "broad consensus against", i.e. only a small minority of people expressing or applying such a standard.  Thus "not enough article-writing" I'd see as something there's not a consensus on either way, whereas extreme versions of it, like "1FA" I'd say there was in effect, a consensus against not being a sensible standard.  Alai 21:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe I wasn't clear. By "unconvincing", I'm talking about things like "candidate is incivil", without a diff and with several people objecting to the characterization by showing diffs of clear civility in the face of adversity. Or "No projectspace edits", when a simple edit count will show this to be incorrect. 1FA is a valid reason for those who ascribe to it. -- nae'blis 19:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: (reset indent) Yeah, I was just wondering how the 'crats ended up weighing this sort of thing, in the absence of any established guidelines. I mean it rarely matters, as there is usually a firm consensus to promote or not; but in the cases where there isn't, how do they judge it? Trebor 21:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  what is CONSENSUS 

message: Apologies if this has been brought up before, I'm not a regular contributor to the Rfa process unless a user I have interacted with regularly is nominated; however, after reading a few of the reasons for opposition in several discussions given by some users I'm curious as to their "validity" if you will, for example, the following statement (paraphrased) from Qwghlm's ongoing Rfa (my first nomination):
:Oppose • I am not entirely convinced you need the tools...No person "has a right" or "deserves" to be an administrator- it is not a status symbol nor some milestone to be achieved...Try again in a few months when you have more experience with images...
Now, one thing about the Administration process which stuck in my mind was the "no big deal" quote from Jimbo. I read this as "every good faith editor who isn't going to cause damage by being given the tools has the potential to be a sysop". The opposition I have read on several occasions, in some form or another as doesn't need the tools just doesn't sit well with me - what harm comes from giving someone the tools if they don't use them? I can see that if you gave sysop privileges to a user who had no idea of process then there could be some mess to clean up, and opposes for that reason are fine. But I can't see why people have issues giving administrator privileges to users who are clearly well versed in Wikipedia process - unless there is a strong argument against having too many administrators (if there is, what is it?). 
Sorry for the rant, but I wanted to see what the opposing views were. Cheers. QmunkE 21:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The issue isn't, literally, that someone doesn't need the tools. (At least, not to me.) The issue is that if you have not participated in areas concerning the tools, there is no way to evaluate if you will use them well. -Amark moo! 21:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Amarkov makes an excellent point, if someone who has been around for 3+ months and isn't showing any activity in the areas where an admin will work, it's reasonable to assume 2 things, 1 - the user isn't overly interested in administrative tasks and 2 - the user probably doesn't have the necessary experience. With the huge backlogs and workload on existing administrators, it's unreasonable to promote editors who will only use the admin tools when they come across a problem, we're needing admins who will seek out and address problems through the use of WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:AIV, WP:XFD, WP:COPYVIO etc. It's unfair to the project and to existing administrators to promote editors who won't make regular use of the tools; promoting editors who won't use the tools could have the side affect of creating !voter apathy whereby those who do need the tools can't get the tools thanks to there being "too many admins". I'd say those who don't need the tools, no matter how well known or how good, shouldn't waste the projects time with RfA, and leave RfA for people who do need the bit, for whatever reason. Admins on Wikipedia should be downtrodden janitors, not the arrogant and vengeful idiots some are at present, and until our admins actually stop with the arrogant crap, we'll never be able to sort out RfA and promote the right editors. -- Heligoland 22:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Admins can do a lot of damage. It's a limited amount, but that limit is still quite high. Therefore, promoting anyone is a risk (it doesn't matter how great the risk is or isn't, there is definitely a risk), so there needs to be a reason to take that risk. If someone isn't going to use the tools, then there is no reason to take the risk. This is actually in keeping with the "no big deal" concept - adminship should be given out as it is needed. It shouldn't matter who the person is (beyond the obvious trust issues), what matters is what they'll do with the tools. Adminship isn't a status symbol, it's a toolkit. If you don't need to use the tools, there is no point in you having the toolkit - you don't gain anything by it. --Tango 23:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was going to make the same sort of point as Tango. Entrusting people with the more destructive tools is a step of faith by the community. They can never be certain that the admin won't misuse them (even if it would only be under extreme circumstances) or even that someone else might access their account and cause damage. This faith is worth putting in when the access will help the encyclopaedia, but an unnecessary risk if it will not (or if it would help only minimally). The points made further up are important too; if you haven't participated in administrative areas, then it's hard to judge if a candidate understands how to. Trebor 23:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It strikes me as too extreme to say that admin tools should only be available to those that need them. I don't need the tools, but if I didn't have them there would be one less person available to take a whack at CAT:CSD or do a blocked move or whatever. I think this is the most common mode of admin-tool use and you get a skewed view of 'what admins do' by reading the posts of the most common AN participants or whathaveyou. That said, Amarkov is right; 'doesn't need the tools' is often shorthand for 'has no experience in relevant areas and it's hard to tell if the candidate knows how to use the tools properly'. Opabinia regalis 02:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By "need", I guess we mean "need in order to do what they intend to do to improve wikipedia". If all someone intends to do is write articles, then they don't "need" the admin tools. --Tango 16:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: My interpretation of this issue is that there are some administrators who don't seem to do administrative tasks. I've noticed admins who don't seem to use the tools at all. I don't know if they've forgotten about it or if they just like the clout... but this is a big issue in my eyes. .V. [Talk|Email] 18:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Tango: until they need to delete one, that is ;) Since the question was asked, it seems helpful to point out that - extravagant answers to question 1 aside - "need" is a somewhat subjective assessment. V, I'm not sure what's a 'big issue' here; the fact that some admins don't regularly take admin actions? Why? Opabinia regalis 01:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Two reasons. For one, having the tools and not using them creates a bit of an administrative dead weight. Optimal administration systems work when the admins are constantly being involved in their administrative field. Otherwise, it makes for a stale system. You can see this in places like Categories for Deletion... there's always a massive backlog there. Secondly, it pads the admin count so that aspiring admins have a harder time getting in. Obviously, not every admin can be sitting on Wikipedia doing admin actions all day. It's just that there should be some degree of regularity, especially with the various admin backlog issues that WP has. .V. [Talk|Email] 17:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rationale for opposition 

message: I'm going to give my suggestion again, with a slightly different rationale, so please forgive the repetition.
RfA is a consensus gathering exercise. The job of the bureaucrat is to determine that consensus. However, if a consensus truly exists, there is no need for anyone to determine it, because it will be obvious to all, by the very definition of the term. Therefore, consensus should be determined simply by seeing if anyone disagrees with the determination (that's different from disagreeing with the decision, a reasonable person should be able to agree on the fact that there is a consensus to do something even if he doesn't agree with that thing itself).
The easiest way to use such a consensus determining method for RfA is having a crat make an initial assessment, and then see if anyone disagrees with that assessment. If, after 24 hours, there are no objections, the candidate can be promoted (or not, if that's the decision). If there are objections, their validity is determined by a second crat (after a community discussion if necessary), and they either carry out the decision of the first crat, or reopen the nomination (possibly making an initial assessment immediately). Any objections should be to the way the conclusion was drawn, not to the conclusion itself (if that makes sense). Anyone objecting to a promotion for the kind of reason you would expect to see on an oppose !vote will simply be ignored (however, they will be ignored by a 2nd crat, not the one that made the initial assessment, there is no need to make an exception to that rule and such an exception would be very hard to define).
This idea does require slightly more work on the part of the crats, however they don't appear to be overloaded at the moment, and we can always promote more if we need them. It also adds a delay to promotions (even in obvious cases - the problems caused by introducing a cutoff point aren't worth it), but 24 hours isn't long, so I don't see it as a serious problem.
If this idea works, it may even be possible to relax the rules on who can make the initial assessment (to all admins, or maybe even all registered users). If there is a consensus, it doesn't matter who speaks up first, there still won't be any objections, and a crat can come come along after 24 hours and carry out the decision.  --Tango 00:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: RfA is a consensus gathering exercise.  No, it's not.  If you look at Wikipedia:Consensus, you'll see that "consensus" basically applies to what appears in articles - and that makes sense because when there is disagreement, one side or the other ultimately stops fighting about it (with rare cases going to ArbComm).  As stated at that policy, RfAs are decided by a supermajority. -- John Broughton   (♫♫) 00:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  There's a bunch of people working on that page right now, the contents are in flux, so don't quote it. En.wikipedia is run by consensus in different forms and flavors throughout the entire system. Requests for Adminship is not run by supermajority. That and it's a tradition that anything actually going supermajority gets killed outright. So be careful saying that too loudly, someone might hear you.  --Kim Bruning 06:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: RfA may be decided by de facto supermajority, but it's definitely meant to be consensus, or at least "rough consensus". --Tango 14:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not even today. See Wikipedia talk:Consensus. --Kim Bruning 15:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Determining concensus 

message: The current tally for Support/Oppose/Neutral is frequently wrong, especially for the Oppose count. And I don't see any edit problems in how folks inserted their #Vote. Thoughts? Keesiewonder talk 11:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah - Maybe this needs to be updated manually?! Silly me. Keesiewonder talk 11:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep. Cue brand new (probably unnecessary and repetitive) discussion about whether we even need the tally in the first place. – Chacor 11:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So true. Sorry to contribute redundancy. Too bad all the computers and software involved with WP cannot keep accurate tallies for us. Keesiewonder talk 11:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are automatically updated (although with a time delay) RfA-vote counters at WP:BN. The ones on the RfA page are updated manually (normally someone will update them pretty quickly if the previous voter didn't, although sometimes they stay wrong for a while). --ais523 13:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the occasions that I add my recommendation, I don't update the counter as I made a recommendation and didn't vote so I don't correct the tally.  MLA 14:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can usually tell who is going to run for adminship fairly soon by spotting the people who update the RFA scores every time a vote comes in, solely to get their Wikipedia: space edit count up. Proto::► 10:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Those edits should be marked as minor and they still need to have more than just Wiki-namespace edits. GizzaChat © 10:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It would be rather simple to write a bot to automatically update the tallies every few minutes, but that would be a very silly use for a bot. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

text: That's an incredibly pessimistic view. -- Renesis (talk) 16:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I, too, disagree with Proto. I've been in the habit of making such tally updates for months, merely so it is easy to tell how someone is doing at a glance - inaccurate bellwether though they be. The fact that I just accepted a nomination is really unrelated, and I don't think I could care less about the effect on my Wikipedia namespace edits. Picaroon 00:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Because for all practical purposes RfA really is a vote.  In general a candidate with at least 80% favorable votes is made an admin, a candidate with less than 70% favorable is not, and those in the range 70-80% can be admin'd at bureaucrat discretion. Yes, there are exceptions, but most of the time it's straight up or down. Raymond Arritt 00:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's up with the counters (X/Y/Z)? 

message: Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Cydebot 3 for an ongoing disusccion of a bot account that may require admin rights. — xaosflux Talk 13:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be worth some thought on creating some different standards for adminbots going through the RfA procedure, as a way to increase the likelihood of approval for useful adminbots. I have written some ideas I had at User:NoSeptember/adminbots.  It would be nice to have a smoothly operating adminbot RfA system, as such requests are likely to become more and more frequent, and the time to do this is before a particular bot is undergoing an RfA. NoSeptember 14:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This does need to be addressed more formally but for now lets kick it around on User:NoSeptember/adminbots, I've added some thoughts there already. Gnangarra 15:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New bot request for a potential adminbot 

message: This is in reference to this edit.I'm, of course, AGFing on this, but I must really, and emphatically, ask people to reallly not do this.  Assessing consensus and either promoting or delisting is a Bureaucrat job.  If we seem to be delaying in closing an overdue RfA or RfB, please contact us on the noticeboard, or one of us directly on our talk pages, but don't close the RfA/B and delist — considering that this is an issue only in cases where the result would be "failed", since in the case of promotions, only a Bureaucrat can actually perform the action.  Generally, we ask that non-Bureaucrats limit themselves to closing and delisting only in the specific cases where 1) the RfA/B is clearly either a disruption or a result of a complete misunderstanding of the guidelines for requesting adminship (e.g.: an account with 10 edits posts a RfA; or a notorious vandal does so); 2) when the candidate withdraws, because in this case there is no assessment of consensus.  Other than that, please leave it to Bureaucrats.Now, considering the case of Deskana's RfB.  In cases like this, the candidate or any member of the community is entitled to request that a Bureaucrat assesses consensus and renders a final outcome.  So in this case, I'm posting here to clarify that I've assessed this RfB and decided that the result is in fact "no consensus".Per WP:NOT and WP:IAR, I'm not going to reopen this symbolically just to close it again with the same result, since that would make no sense, but again, please leave Bureaucrat work to the Bureaucrats.  Thank you.  Redux 13:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But if someone messes up and closes a close call RfA, we will have a Big Mess and a lot of unnecessary drama. I think we should be more interested in ensuring a fair and proper close for the candidates of RfAs than of measuring the closing talents of potential future bureaucrats. There is no need for the impatience to close RfAs past their 7 day scheduled deadline. In the pre-bureaucrat days, RfAs often sat unclosed for weeks (until a developer got around to it). See this for a history of closes in 2002/2003. NoSeptember 16:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: What previous discussion? I don't remember any such consensus and find it unlikely. --Tango 16:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It should also be noted that this very project page says "Only bureaucrats may close or de-list a nomination as a definitive promotion or non-promotion." I have noticed a lot of snowballing of RfAs lately by non-bureaucrats; this may not be a big deal, but closing any non-snowball one should definitely be reserved for bureaucrats, or, if there is consensus against this, the instructions on the project page should be changed. Heimstern Läufer 16:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The only consensus in existence for "anyone to close" refers to the situations I mentioned in my post above.  There certainly is no consensus for anyone to close any RfA, especially since that wouldn't make much sense, either logically (that would negate the need for Bureaucrats as a separate access level, with specific duties, as it exists presently) or technically, in the cases where a promotion would be in order.  There has been discussion on whether or not any user should be able to close snowballing RfAs, that is, early delisting.  Ordinarily, the only situations where non-Bureaucrats should close a RfA early is if it is snowballing exactly because it fits the situaton n.1 from my post above (e.g.: user with 15 edits posts a RfA, either because the user misunderstood the guidelines for requesting adminship or because it is an attempt of disruption/trolling — specifically when the user requested adminship because s/he misunderstood the minimal expectancies for requesting the tools, we discussed the utility of having the misguided RfA closed asap in order to avoid loosing a potentially good new contributor because of excessive criticism brought on by the premature RfA).  Redux 18:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the clarification; this matter has confused me for a while. Heimstern Läufer 00:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please don't 

message: Just take a look at recent sizes of CAT:CSD over time.  It's getting above five hundred.  Many of these pages are now leaving the list not by being deleted, but because the creator has had enough time to return, check back up on them, and remove the speedy deletion templates.
It's very clear that we need more admins.  Why is why I am so disgusted every time I see an oppose in an RFA vote along the lines of, "But e's not a great article writer."  So what?  This isn't a promotion process to recognize good writers.  It's a promotion process to get new admins.  And you don't need to be able to write a literary dissection of a Hemingway novel to know that an article that starts with "Greg Macey is a fucking tard..." should be speedily deleted.  Whatever happened to "adminship is no big deal"?  Why isn't it being given to everyone who has proved themselves trustworthy?  We're shooting ourselves in the foot here.  A lot of the people opposing our RFA candidates are "expret article writers" themselves (at least in their own opinions), and barely ever step foot into CAT:CSD.  Who exactly do they think is going to take care of all of the routine administrative tasks around here that have fuck-all to do with article-writing?!  Anyone using "doesn't write enough articles" as an oppose rationale needs to be ostracized and forced to wear a shirt with scarlet text of ten recently-created crap articles on it.  And the rest of us, the majority of us, need to take a stand whenever we see some silly and irrelevant rationale being thrown out as an RFA oppose.  --Cyde Weys 15:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As to the issue of people improperly removing the CSD tag: I suggest that we look at old versions (24 hours old I would suggest) of your bot's output page and check on all of the non-red links. Some will be protected deleted pages, some will be improved articles, but some will be articles that should be re-added to CSD. Your bot output keeping track of what was historically in the category makes this possible. Thanks. NoSeptember 15:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, this was the main reason I started making and updating those lists.  Unfortunately, they still can't catch people who remove the speedy tag before the next update of the list.  --Cyde Weys 15:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you do a test on that? Do an output every minute for a brief period (10 minutes during prime time) and then see how many additional articles you picked up versus what you would have caught with the usual 5 minute schedule. NoSeptember 15:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: We need more admins who fuck? *chuckle* Sorry, couldn't resist. I don't think it's fair to attack people who oppose due to lack of mainspace contributions, although if you specifically mean those who ask for great articles I'd understand. WP:ENC, so it's only fair to expect some work on the actual encyclopedia. – Chacor 15:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there is a bit of a disconnect when it comes to that.  There are many editors who write great articles and there are many editors who devote there resources to counteracting vandalism (whether rc patrol ore new page patrol).  Perhaps these editors are not masters of the english language but still want to contribute to the encylopedia in some way.  I personally think it is a bit offensive to oppose based on an editors massive amount of work reverting vandlism but little article contributions.  I would rather an editor work where they are comfterable than feel forced to add uncited content in articles just to get contributions up.  When it comes down to it, some of the rc patrollers spend so much time on wikipedia protecting the article created by the main contributors and when it comes to RFA, it often seems like they are slapped in the face for doing it. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 15:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright alright...I'll get back to clearing CSD backlogs. :-P Nishkid64 15:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: At this rate it'd have to be every active admin clearing seven items of CSD backlog every day, with an exponential growth curve in the number per admin per day over time.  --Cyde Weys 15:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I fear that too many pages are being put on the CSD backlog.  I'm seeing what in my opinion are reckless deletes not based on any wikipedia policiy.  Mathiastck 14:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: /me puts in an order for one of those shirts. sounds nice, fashionable even. :D Bubba hotep 15:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: <ironic edit conflict>I second that! Great bot. Also Lightdarkness ARV cuts the time spent on the page reporting by half and reduces the chance of edit conflicts and double entries. All in all some good work all round. Bubba hotep 16:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you may be misunderstanding my point in listing the bot-updated page.  I'm not using it to say that anything has gotten appreciably worse in just a week, but rather, to illustrate how persistently high the number of pages in CAT:CSD is.  --Cyde Weys 17:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *I understand what you're saying. I simply disagree. 6 days of traffic analysis does not a pattern make. DF's graph shows considerably more data, and shows a slow rise of 33% over the last six months, not an exponential rise. The spike we saw of late has now been reduced to 104 entries. I think the recommendation to have the bot notify WP:AN when the list gets over 500 is a great idea. --Durin 17:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: since making note of the problem... - making note of it is obviously the cause of this decline. Maybe the bot should be programmed to notify WP:AN whenever the count goes over 500 ;). NoSeptember 16:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *Not a bad idea. I did some quick stats on this and found that the 2nd standard deviation is at 441 entries on CAT:CSD. There's been three spikes above that number over the last few days. There certainly isn't a pattern of exponential growth though. Looks more like some regular CAT:CSD cleaners just went off and did something else temporarily. The list of active CAT:CSD entries is now down 40% from when Cyde made mention of the problem here (and it was only here that he made mention of it). I suspect if instead the bot made notice as you suggest that the backlog would be cleared in short fashion. --Durin 16:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the sentiment behind Cyde's comments. I feel many of the RFA "requirements" that candidates are forced to meet in order to pass an RFA aren't helpful. I've been saying this for six months, however, and it doesn't seem likely to change now. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I've been tracking CSD for just over 6 months. 500 is unusual. I've added a chart at the top of the thread. Dragons flight 16:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Time of day is an issue. A surge of junk article creations occur late evening (USA time), they get tagged quickly, but it takes a while for the admins to delete them. NoSeptember 17:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, averaged by hour, the peak time of day (6 AM EST) is only ~25 more CSDs than the min time of day (7 PM EST).  The fluctuations from other sources are much larger than the daily cycle.  Dragons flight 18:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: What about the fucking admins who were fucking promoted in the last six fucking months? Why aren't we fucking asking them to do the fucking work? In fact, if someone will fucking give me a fucking list of their fucking Usernames, I'll leave fucking messages on their fucking talk pages fucking asking them to fucking help. ;-) Anchoress 18:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's your list.  Get cracking!  --Cyde Weys 18:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No probs. Anchoress 18:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As a non-admin who wouldn't mind getting digging into the CSD backlog if he had the tools, I can say that the appproach some people take when weighing in at RfA do make the whole thing pretty intimidating. At present I'm reluctant to think too hard about making an RfA with how hard some people are on candidates. Frankly, I kind of think we could rethink how we talk on RfA: for example, is it really necessary to write Strongest possible oppose for candidates you feel shouldn't be given adminship? I really think all this does is make the process more intimidating for users considering it. I'm not looking for sympathy here (heck, if I never get the tools, that's OK by me), I just think it's worth noting that the currently grueling nature of RfA does make it hard to approach and that it might be worth hearing from a non-admin about such things. Heimstern Läufer 18:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: true. if we had a working de-admining process, people wouldn't need to be so concerned about promoting the wrong guy, and it consequently RfA wouldn't need to be so intimidating for bona fide candidates. Alternatively, we could introduce "deletors" that have delete buttons but no block buttons. I would be most happy to give out delete buttons by the dozen as long as I don't have to consider if the person in question will know how to block users with the required decorum. User blocks as a rule are far more emotional than article deletions (at least in my experience), and we don't have a backlog of users in need of blocking. dab (𒁳) 18:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Some education of editors may be in order, though. How many of those speedy requests are without merit? I probably remove 5 speedy tags a day when I have the time to look due to them not meeting the criteria. The last thing we need are more "fucking admins" who can't read the criteria, given the amount of poor speedies in some aspects that have been discussed at CSD's talk page. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: This f'ing admin checks CAT:ASD several times a day (when near a computer, of course) and helps make sure those in particular are emptied out. Where I see the big backlog lately is in image deletion; a few days ago it was backlogged to Jan 19th. But my world has been busy elsewhere, so I haven't been able to delve into the main speedy category, except where it intersects with those who like to write pages about their friends being goat fanciers. I've never heard anybody say we don't need more admins, Cyde, so I wish you'd stop with that mischaracterization or provide diffs; on the other hand, a few more active ones would help. It's still 80% (or more) of the work being done by 20% (or less) of the hands. -- nae'blis 19:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think he's arguing that people literally say we don't need more admins. Rather, they put that idea into practice by opposing RfA candidacies by applying standards that are either unreasonably strict or not relevant to adminship. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: * Looking at the "Images / Proposed deletion" having in some cases over a week's worth of old speedies not done says something about the real CSD backlog, IMO. Having them in subcategories doesn't mean there's no backlog currently. feydey 00:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Being an admin doesn't mean you must use your tools. Rather, you are given the tools because you are trusted to not misuse them. People contribute where they find it fun to, that's the reality of a volunteer project. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well said. We should promote potential part-time admins when they come up on RfA. Just because someone can't dedicate full time to this website doesn't mean they can't contribute as a good admin. Indeed, they are less likely to burn out than many very active admins are. Slow and steady sometimes does win the race ;). Simple rule: If someone is not going to misuse the tools, promote them, regardless of how active they are. NoSeptember 16:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Precisely.--MONGO 05:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: It's a volunteer project though.  There can't be any pressure on anyone to do anything because there's no payment involved.  This characterization of "lazy" is unfair.  --Cyde Weys 16:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  We need more admins 

message: Every admin reading this who uses the pyWikipediaBot framework, please update to the latest version from CVS.  I have coded a new bot named csd.py.  It is the fastest semi-automated way to process speedy deletions that does not require the development of strong AI.  Please tell me what you think.  I've been using it to clear out CSD backlogs and it goes really, really, fast.  --Cyde Weys 17:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: great. we could also have a bot replacing unmet CSD with prod after some time, and deleting unchallenged prod articles after a week. Come on, a prod tag that stays on an article for a week? How bad can it be to have a bot delete those? Maybe require that the article is younger than a certain number of days so very smart vandals don't start prod-ing valid articles with little visibility. dab (𒁳) 17:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Very bad.  I've seen many week-old prods that shouldn't have been deleted.  Just because no one looks at a prod over the course of a week doesn't make it valid — remember, we do have over 1.5 million articles!  We always need human eyes on it at the last step right before deletion.  --Cyde Weys 17:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ideally, yes. not below a certain content:crap ratio. csd/prod is added by a human, and if nobody challenges that, hey, it's a consensus. The human could just as well have blanked/redirected the article, and it would never have shown up on any queue. plus, articles can always be undeleted. This goes for new articles. Remember, Jimbo also blocked anons from creating new articles, a move that would have been unthinkable in, say, 2004. I agree that an article aged more than one month or so should not be deleted by a bot. dab (𒁳) 17:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One potentially untrusted person adding a prod cannot count as a consensus. If a human has blanked or redirected an article, that is simple vandalism, and can be fixed by anyone. But if it ends up being deleted as a result of vandalism — well, I'm sure you can see how this is a completely different situation. --Cyde Weys 18:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Keep in mind that I've seen some prod tags on articles a couple years old that had maybe 1 edit every six months all by inactive users. Assuming they're going to magically come back to remove the tag is crazy, so I agree that it would need to be looked at manually.Wizardman 18:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Automated PROD deletions is a bad idea. The policy behind PROD is that two people (the prodder and the admin) wanting an article gone, and nobody wanting it kept, is sufficient consensus to delete - if a bot replaces the admin, you end up with one person being enough to delete an article. --Tango 18:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I strongly agree that we mustn't automate prod deletions. Part of why we have admins is so human reasoning is required in the final to delete or not delete, especially in the case of a prod, where there has been no discussion. Heimstern Läufer 18:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: alright, alright, I sidetracked this. I agree this would be some sort of last resort solution, in case we really got buried in CSDs. As it is, I agree the cost/benefit ratio of such an approach is not attractive. Let's still try to make CDS handling as automated as possible. We want an admin to be able to deal with about 10 CSDs a minute (take 5 seconds to decide, click a button, next) dab (𒁳) 18:38, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: csd.py does exactly this.  Although if you're a fast reader/assessor (and have a fast net connection), you can go even faster ... Cyde Weys 18:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  so, dealing with the backlog of 500 CSDs would be a matter of 45 minutes? Surely we have enough admins to do that! dab (𒁳) 18:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, but it needs admins who use the pyWikipediaBot framework.  Unfortunately, we don't have nearly as many of them as we should (which is what makes all of these opposers of Werdna's RFA even more ludicrous).  --Cyde Weys 19:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think I agree that the final keep/delete decision on a page marked for deletion can be made in as little as 5 seconds. This is the final step before deletion and the admin hitting the button needs to be sure this is the right step to take. Yes, there are articles that can be fully reviewed in 5 seconds but I wouldn't say they are the majority of what's marked for deletion at any given time. Newyorkbrad 19:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, 5 seconds isn't enough time for non-obvious deletions. I wouldn't trust anyone to make a 5 second deletion on a regular basis. Many can be for sure, but we shouldn't be trying to make speed a core value in "speedy" deletions. RxS 20:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: you make it sound as if "deletion" meant "wiping from the face of the earth". While all it is is setting a flag in the database. Honest mistakes can be made, no problem, it's a question of healthy balance between "establish watertight notability or we'll nuke it" and having pages of debate on every garage band. Anyway, I think we've established that the CSD backlog is no real problem. As soon as it starts to loom, start complaining about it and it will be gone within the hour :) dab (𒁳) 22:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not at all, but try telling a new user that the flag got changed on that new article they created that they can't find anymore. I'm not concerned about the lost content so much because you're right, one way or another if it belongs we'll get it back somehow. I'm always more concerned about newbies who don't understand why their good faith contribution was deleted. If we did a better job with new users, deletions wouldn't be such a big deal. RxS 22:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Surely you don't think this is an acceptable "solution" (or a solution at all, for that matter).  The backlog can balloon to hundreds of entries in just an hour or two.  We can't constantly be yelling at everyone to deal with CSD.  Hell, the only reason it worked here was because a lot of the people at WT:RFA haven't done it in a loooong time, so they see this message and either figure, "Hey, I can help", or "Hey, let's shut Cyde up" (depending on how sinister they are, of course) and work on some CSDs.  But there's the problem of diminishing returns.  If I come back here tomorrow saying there's a CSD problem, and then the next day, and the next, eventually, nobody is going to be doing anything special about CSD based off the messages here.  We need a sustainable solution.  Yelling about the CSD backlog when it frequently gets too big just isn't sustainable.  --Cyde Weys 22:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Except that deleting a page is removing it from the face of the Earth. You can't count on the archive table holding deleted edits permanently. Titoxd(?!?) 01:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aah! (satisfied sigh) Thank-you Titoxd for quoting that quote from Brion. Can we please, please stop saying that deletion is not a big deal. If it is spotted and reveresed quickly, then there is no problem. But the deletion archives are (a) so MASSIVE and (b) prone to permanent deletion at some stage, so we must maintain high standards at the point of deletion. Carcharoth 13:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm wondering if it's possible to automate the process of leaving notices on the pages of users who created articles that get deleted, particularly the blatant nonsense articles. I have a feeling that some users are being ignored who could benefit by being given notice that their content was deleted, and why. IronDuke 01:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

text: "Every admin reading this who uses the pyWikipediaBot framework, please update to the latest version from CVS."  Seems pretty self-explanatory.  Ohh, and the bot has been renamed to speedy_delete.py.  --Cyde Weys 01:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not an admin (and I don't want to sound dumb), but where's the CVS? Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 01:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here  --Cyde Weys 01:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks . Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 02:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  CVS is the inferior version control repository to RCS. :)  (flamesuit on) 
Just an observation on the section title:  What I don't need is any fucking automation.  Python is good for a lot of things but fucking isn't one of them.  I prefer to use Python in totally different ways.  Cyde's mileage may vary, but I don't thing I will be downloading any fucking modules regardless of supposedly how good the latest version is.  How do we know if it's viruse free?  The internet is cool but not that cool.  To quote my Marine drill sergeant "This is my Python, this is my snake, this one is for the internet and this is for making stupid rhymes."   --Tbeatty 01:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  Um, you can't download compiled code, only the source code.  He doesn't have any virus embedded in the code I've looked at.  (And a gigantic number of people review the code, besides me.)  Dozens, perhaps hundreds of people run parts of the pywikipediabot framework.  Any attempt at dropping in a virus would have been caught years ago.  --Connel MacKenzie -  wikt 01:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: If the user is trusted enough to instruct a bot to delete an image, then they should just become an admin. --BigDT 12:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I can't see why we need "fucking" need any more administrators, we just need more non-lazy ones who don't make it their goal to get the extra powers.. and then over time reduce there activity to nothingness. If the powers where say remove from the lazy/inactive I'm sure that would be a good kick-up-the-ass to get other admins doing some work and/or make a real need for administrators. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 12:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Accusing others of laziness isn't helping here, Matthew.  You personally have never handled any CSDs.  --Cyde Weys 16:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ... or, we need more  automation

message: ...Or has the number of candidates who are "underqualified" increased recently? bibliomaniac15 05:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the snow has melted due to global warming... MER-C 08:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it just me... 

message: From my close to two years experience in following RfAs and RfArbs, I've got the impression that the current RfA process works extremely well in the sense that very few people who got promoted end up misusing the admin tools consistently, and those doing so have been very orderly de-adminned by the ArbCom. 
Perhaps the current process works too well, by sometimes filtering out people who may not satisfy all the requirements du jour for being an admin but who still are mature enough to not misuse the tools (I don't have hard data for these statements though). 
Anyway, I'd think that by letting bureaucrats promote over 70% we have more to gain than to lose. Bureaucrats would of course still be able to not promote people who are over 70% but whose opposers raise serious concerns. 
So, what do people think of this proposed reform? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, with emphasis on the opposes; in RfAs with large numbers, there are usually several big concerns raised, which are drowned in a sea of supports. — Deckiller 06:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I think that the process for dealing with admin promotions (RFA) works better than the process for dealing with admin abuse (WP:AN? WP:AN/I? RFC? ArbCom?). As such, I think the promotion threshold is better left at 75-80%, above which it is quite clear that the community is comfortable with offering the tools and responsibility to the candidate.  I think that while it is true that relatively few administrators have had to go through the process of involuntary desysopping, it is no indication of everything sailing smoothly once a use is made an admin.  I think there are far too many cases of administrator "abuse" that end up as nothing more than hurting users new to the community, and a quick post on the noticeboard which, while other administrators may agree that the actions were out of line, were not "serious" enough to do anything about.  Because there is no deterrent to administrator abuse short of arbitration, there is too much abuse in somewhat smaller doses.  As such, I think the threshold should be left where it is, because the only candidates that seem to fall in the 60-70% range are those who concern many users over incivility, the exact problem which we have no solution for among existing administrators. -- Renesis (talk) 06:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I strongly agree (I tried to bring this up in the past, but was shot down). Our current criteria are too high and lead to many good candidates failing at 70%+. The filtering process of RfA works very well (and in any case is independent of the support percentage: those recently forcibly desysopped all had more than 80%, sometimes more than 90% support on their RfAs). However, RfA is not only supposed to filter out bad candidates, it it supposed to promote all trustworthy candidates. It is not currently doing a very good job at promoting all of them, and lowering the promotion threshold is an easy way to increase the number of administrators. Looking at who failed with 70%+ recently, I don't think we'd be sacrificing too much quality. Kusma (討論) 06:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of lowering the threshold too.  I think the standards that are frequently used and that a lot of RfAs fail because of (high edit count, percentages of edits in various namespaces...) are kind of irrelevant to the real question of whether the user's going to abuse the tools. These standards seem to me to have been going up for a while, so it's been getting harder to become an admin while our need for admins has also been increasing. In the spirit of no big deal-ness, I think it's important to give out the tools to qualified folks without too much difficulty, to prevent adminship from being treated as a status symbol.  However, I think the points that Renesis13 brings up are valid and important, and I think it's important to work on making it easier to get folks de-adminned as well, and to figure out other means for dealing with these issues.  Obviously that will take time, but I don't think that keeping the standards so high is a direct or effective enough way to deal with the problem.  For example, someone could be on their best behavior until they're adminned and then let loose.  So I suggest lowering the margin, and also working more directly on the problems of admin abuse. delldot | talk 07:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmmm, in early 2003, there were probably < 100k articles on English Wikipedia, and there certainly was no 3RR rule and probably a negligible amount of edit wars, and thus, in those days nobody will get on the wrong end of the stick because of a religious or ethnic dispute and get in trouble for it: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jersey Devil 2, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Soman and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Dev920 in the last week all had a bit of damage due to being in content disputes. In early 2003, probably only the "important" articles were created, so don't get into trouble for being an (extreme) inclusionist or deletionist. Now you do, because different admins will close things differently....In the old days, good faith users probably never disagreed, because WP was empty and people were only adding new content, so everybody who wasn't a vandal became an admin in order to block them, but these days, not so. That's life I guess. Blnguyen  (bananabucket) 08:19, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably the only thing that couldn't be disputed/interpreted differently is deleting unsourced/unlicensed/orphaned fair use images (AfDs, etc, blocks, and protects can be debated) - I guess having a separate image deletion tool given out liberally  cool speed things up, since the images are always 7+ days overdue now that Kimchi.sg is away. Having said that, how many people would want to delete them? Blnguyen  (bananabucket) 08:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I think 70% would be fine, so long as another stipulation for adminship was that candidates had to be editing seriously and usefully for a year before being considered.  That way one would know the candidate better at the time of voting Giano 08:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Is 70% after a week of discussion considered to be consensus? GizzaChat © 09:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think 70% is consensus, just as 80% is not consensus. It is just a supermajority. I don't think a (200/50/70) RfA can be said to have reached consensus, but we should promote the candidate anyway. Kusma (討論) 09:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And personally I dont think 70% is a super enough of a majority. ViridaeTalk 09:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't care what the exact number is. I think we currently do not promote enough administrators, and I think that is because we filter too strictly. Kusma (討論) 09:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The current system discourages diversity and progress, because it favours people who have not pushed any boundaries. On the other hand, we should consider the possibilty that it doesn't matter that much who the administators are, as long as they behave themselves. Stephen B Streater 10:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Define pushing boundries - I can't see why we should lower the % - if it aint broke why fix it. Werdna (as an example) right now has about 70% support - yet 80 people have opposed citing some serious issues. 80 opposers hardly seems consensus to me Glen 10:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, but do you think it would magically become consensus if he had 240 or 320 supporters? Kusma (討論) 10:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Note that I am arguing that the 80% mark is broken. The number of articles and editors is growing a lot faster than the number of admins, and we should fix that problem. Kusma (討論) 10:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Have a look at my own RfA, and you'll see what I mean by pushing boundaries. In such a varied place as this, any visionary change will not achieve consensus until the man-on-the-street has caught up with the visionaries. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but a handful of fanatics can lose sight of the fact that Wikipedia was set up by visionaries, not plodders. By spreading FUD, they can derail any RfA which is based around a radical agenda, however positive or necessary to the long term success of the project it is. Stephen B Streater 18:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: (de-indent) Is it that 80% is too high a percentage, or is it that too many people (particularly non-admins) oppose for ludicrously nitpicky reasons (edit count, and the even more pernicious 'balance of edits across the namespace'), yet their oppose still carries as much weight as four well-reasoned and thought out supports?   Bureaucrats aren't just bean counters, they were put in place for a reason, let them ignore any stupid opposes or supports, bringing it closer to how AFD works.  This would also, however, require people to actually put some kind of explanation to their support vote.  Proto::► 10:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this, but it seems pretty clear to me that the crats are bean-counting  -- possibly because if they act otherwise they get twenty sections of complaints on WT:RFA. This seems like a simpler way to work around the problem that takes the pressure off the bureaucrats. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Kusma if there was 300 supports there would be a mindblowing 90 opposes, which I doubt would make it through. A beuracrat cannot look at that and think it is a good idea to promote unless all the opposes are suspected socks disruptors etc. ViridaeTalk 10:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is part of the bureaucrat's job to consider whether apparently ignoring the concerns of 90 people in order to promote one person is going to be good or bad for Wikipedia. Kusma (討論) 11:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Proto, generally supports sound pretty lame. "seems to be good, I see no reason not to support" there is no real argument or reason to give most of the time. ViridaeTalk 10:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Many support or oppose votes are pile-ons "per X" or "per nom". You can't expect people to make a good argument for every vote. I do support large bureaucrat discretion, but I don't think they should explain which votes they discounted or why. Anyway, the 80% rule was made up some years ago, when RfA was a much less stressful process for the candidates and people did not pile on opposes for silly reasons. I think that adapting the cut-off percentage could be a good way to adapt the procedure to the changes in the way people vote. Kusma (討論) 10:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note I do also support lowering the margin for bureaucrat discression to 70-80%, from 75-80. Given that every admin who has been desysopped had more than 80% approval, there's no evidence that the borderline candidates are worse at administrative duties than those who passed with flying colours. In fact, given that the borderline candidates have never had a de-sysopping amongst their numbers, and those who got 90%+ have, you could even draw the conclusion that those who barely passed are on average 'better admins'. Proto::► 10:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What about this one? NoSeptember 11:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Would it be churlish to point out the 8th oppose vote? :) Proto::► 12:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Was that a sneaky way to get us to click on the link in your vote? :) NoSeptember 12:19, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Did the concern of most of the oppose voters (cares too much about edit counts) have any relation to the desysopping? Kusma (討論) 11:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since we can't see into the future I doubt many issues raised in an RfA directly relate to the case that results in a desysopping. We've had people pass by 100% and then get desysopped, but that doesn't mean we can't trust those shady unanimously supported users ;). Though it may suggest that we have work to do on focusing our standards on things that really matter to what makes someone a good admin. NoSeptember 12:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or at least finding some consensus as to what isn't important to being a good admin. For instance 1FA was rejected as a reason to oppose, but some people still feel article writing is important. At the moment, everyone sets their own standards. Trebor 12:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And these standards vary so wildly that it is getting very hard to get more than 80% support votes. Many people who passed RfA a year ago might not pass now (for example, people might oppose me for lack of image experience). Instead of changing everybody's standards, changing the promotion threshold is an easier way to get the job done (more admins). Kusma (討論) 12:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah to the first bit. I think this is most clearly evidenced where people who are obviously suitable to be adminned frequently turn down the first (or second, or third) nomination. Although users who have interacted with them know they would be good (or even great) admins, they may not have the "right" number of edits or they may not have been here for "long enough" or they may not contribute enough articles or they may not want to appear "too eager" for the bit, etc. RfA seems to be becoming increasingly hard to pass; I think the ethos should be "why shouldn't we give this user the tools" rather than "why should we". Trebor 12:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: LOL! Now this is how to vote-stack. Carcharoth 14:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not really in favour of changing this.  The current ratio is 1:4 which shouldn't be insurmountable.  I'd be hesitant to see the margin drop below 75%.  That's Only 1:3.  70% is not much more than 1:2.  But perhaps people should be encouraged to take this apparent need for admins into account when voting?  I guess it doesn't really matter anyway.  If we do drop the bar, I predict we'll see voters being more ready to vote oppose and less ready to vote support.  Regards, Ben Aveling 12:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: As we expand most editors are going to become involved with more disputes their RFA will attract more oppose votes. I think that admin tools should become semi automatic. Any editor who's been here for a specific time and has a minimum number of edits can get the tools providing that two other admins support the request. Then all thats needed is quicker reversal process that can remove the editors tools if they are being abused. Gnangarra 12:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Decreasing the promotion margin to 70%