Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Reform

message: I think different levels of adminship should be given. Currently there are 5 major levels of access on wikipedia. These are: anonymous, regular users, administrators (sysops), bureaucrats, stewards. Having levels between users and administrators would be productive. These levels should not however be "trial admins". -- Cat chi? 20:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with that 100%.  Tcrow777  talk  00:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Disagree, but could change depending on further explanation of these levels (and don't forget CheckUser and Oversight!) Diez2 14:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Disagree - I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's worth the extra bureaucracy that it would demand. — xDanielxTalk 18:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal #1 by White Cat

message: I think Requests for adminship should be refactored into Requests for Comment form; after reading the nomination statement and answers to the three standard questions, anyone who wants (besides the candidate) can make their own header and, under it, state why they think the nominee should or shouldn't become an admin. Others, including the nominee, can then endorse or rebuke these sections. After seven days, a bureaucrat (maybe two in tricky cases) evaluates the merits of the support and opposition, after which they either promote or they don't. The end. Picaroon 22:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with that 100%!  Tcrow777  talk  01:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Disagree This is already possible with the current RfA system, between the "Discussion" and "Support" headers. Besides, many people make their reasons out beside their vote. Diez2 15:00, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Picaroon

message: I think that all of this is aleady solved. According to a key policy, Wikipedia is not a democracy, and because of this many users believe that it would be better if we were to discuss instead of voting when it comes to new administrators; but really, it is perfect how it works right now. This is because users vote but behind-the-scenes discussing is what encourages those votes. Votes are the results of discussions, so we discuss voting, making Wikipedia a non-democracy but a place where decisions are easilly handled. ♠TomasBat (@)(Contribs)(Sign!) 02:59, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree The bureaucrats do know that consensus is important, but they do occasionally IAR an RfA depending on the strength of arguments made on both sides. Diez2 15:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by TomasBat

message: The problem as I understand it is that, while not officially, RfA is actually being handled as a vote. Many votes are based on pre-existing sympathy/antipathy or parotting arguments given by others. Many votes are not even accompanied by an explanatory comment at all. I believe there is no way to change that. But we do have the opportunity to enhance the meaning of the numbers: RfA should officially be a vote.
But to gain credibility, candidates and all supporters and opposers must be able to spread relevant info regarding new arguments/developments. Very often, support votes are not changed even in the face of substantial disqualifiers. Oppose votes are redundandtly discussed in the RfA page, distracting interested users (and the closing b'crat) from quickly assessing who said what. In my opinion there is an easy solution to all of this that would not increase the bureaucrat workload, but instead drastically decrease it.
WP:CANVASS—as far as canvassing for RfAs is concerned—should be abandoned, while commenting on other users' voting comments within the RfA page should be forbidden. The existing possibility to canvass only behind the scenes (via quick e-mail notification, for example) strongly favours established cliques while discriminating against all others. Currently, for example, it is forbidden as canvassing to inform voters of new developments and/or arguments on their respective talk pages. Commenting on support votes is easily seen as canvassing, commenting on oppose votes rarely so. Actual discussions as opposed to votes may be too controversial and tedious for any b'crat to sort through and decide upon. Most of these problems regarding the relative weight of the given votes and comments could be solved simply by the two things I propose: Allow canvassing and establish a rule that makes it possible to vote and comment, and to add to or change your comment, but forbids commenting on other users' comments within the RfA page. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 09:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree This would seriously throw out Wikipedia:Consensus. Diez2 15:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Kncyu38 

message: I think the root of the problem lies in the fact that people vote on the adminship of people that they do not personally know and trust. Perhaps a RFC style page that is not linked to some centralised page but instead linked only to the user's talk page and perhaps to their signature. That way, only people who had actually interacted with the user in some capacity would know they are up for adminship and only they would comment on whether they are trustworthy. I want adminship to be granted based on a candidate's past behaviour, not on how well they answer a set of standard questions. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 10:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, but needs more detail. How will we ensure that a person commenting had actually interacted with this user at all? Diez2 17:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Theresa Knott 

message: My proposal is written up at User:Sam Blacketer/RfA reform. In brief it aims at getting away from the vote-counting and looking at assessing adminship candidates in the round, based on their editing histories in several different aspects. By doing so it gives discretion to bureaucrats (who continue to be appointed in the same way as now) to decide whether concerns raised by other editors over aspects of the candidate's contributions demonstrate suitability or unsuitability for the admin tools. Sam Blacketer 11:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Sam Blacketer

message: Perhaps rather than a pure vote, rfa should be more like rfar.
* On arbcom people (arbitrators) decide based on intense /evidence and /workshop work. Voting is based on "Evidence" and "Workshop". 
*RfA should not be rushed to a one week long vote. What is the rush? Candidacy should be discussed to its fullest before a vote.
*Voters would be "good" wikipedians (people who can edit semi-protected pages). (Or this could be bureaucrats themselves casting the final vote rather than a single one passing/failing)
*I do not find "questions to the candidate" particularly useful. A persons admin-worthyness should be based on his/her/its existing contributions and not his/her/its ability to answer questions.
-- Cat chi? 20:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree RfA is not an arbitration case, where there is a dispute already ongoing. Pusing the RfA process longer than 1 week would only slow things down further. Finally, there really isn't much of a problem with the newly registered voters voting. Sure, the occasional new user will vote, but for the most part, they aren't a problem. Diez2 17:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal #2 by White Cat

message: Reduce the amount of work that admins have to do by allowing normal editors to close AfD's etc. Then admins would only be required to deal with problem cases, essentialy blocking editors that close incorrectly, vandalise, etc. There would have to be a concurrent improvement of the current policy guides for closing AfD's etc. but that would happen naturally as a way of avoiding anarchy. RFA's could happen the same way. Regards sbandrews (t) 20:18, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree Bureaucrats have that job, and there really aren't that many problems with it. I mean, the bureaucreats are chosen mainly because they are good at recognizing what consensus is. Diez2 17:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Sbandrews

message: As linked. Discuss on proposal's talk page. --Random832
I've written up a brief proposal for improving RfA. The process would remain the same up until closure. RfA that aren't obvious pass/fails enter a discussion period of all bureaucrats. I believe this would help to reduce the perception of "rogue" bureaucrats and also increase the number of successful RfAs by widening the discretionary range to 60-80% support. I welcome any feedback and hope this can be refined into a workable process. Thanks! ChazBeckett 17:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, but leave the bureaucrats enough discretion to IAR a vote. For example, if the opposing side only has 5 votes, but makes a much more clear case against the support side, which has 35 votes, then the RfA should be declared as a failure. Diez2 17:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:ChazBeckett/RfA Proposal|Proposal by ChazBeckett]]

message: I know, radical idea, right? :) Seriously, there have been a bazillion proposals dating back to not long after RfA began. Virtually none of them gained any traction, and the very, very few that did were for very minor changes. For example, creating a subpage for each RfA. Ooo what a radical idea that! :) Proposal after proposal after proposal that has suggested significant change has fallen flat on its face. The long list of proposals on this page will be no different. There will not be significant traction to any of them. Enough of the proposals already!
What I think should be done is a more careful analytical process. One of the first steps of this should be ascertaining what is wrong with the current RfA system. Please contribute to the beginnings of this at User:Durin/What is wrong with RfA. Another early step should be ascertaining the goals of RfA. I did this at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_82#What_are_the_goals_of_RfA.3F, though I don't think there was enough discussion. 
In short, before we can decide what direction to go in, we should get a firm understanding of where we are (what is wrong), why we are here (what causes these problems) and where we want to be (the goals of RfA). Only then can we start intelligently discussing what car to jump in to get from Point A to Point B. Lots of shiny cars here. All of them might be wheel-less or out of gas for all we know. 
Enough proposals :) --Durin 18:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Amen. RfA is fine. Cool Bluetalk to me 22:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Disagree Completely RfA is a very flawed process. the problem that we have is identifying the real problem, and then iding the solution. Diez2 17:16, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Durin; stop offering proposals

message: The only real problem on RFA is people employing arbitrary and meaningless benchmarks to judge candidates by. This is a matter of culture. The assertion that RFA is horrendously difficult to pass is self-perpetuating because some people who would pass easily don't dare to face it, and inexperienced people who shouldn't be admins are unaware of this, thus skewing the results. The way to fix this is simply by nominating candidates. Therefore I propose that everyone active on this page finds a suitable nominee this week. >Radiant< 10:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Neutral Nominees do help, but it ould be a WP:CANVASS violation to just go out and ask "Will you nominate me?" That's why we have self-noms to begin with. Diez2 17:18, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Radiant

message: Abolish the "support", "oppose" and "neutral" sections and lump all the votes, and !votes into one section as is done on AFD (where "keep", and "delete" sections are a rejected idea except on the French Wikipedia). This format is far more well-designed for a discussion and also makes it much clearer how the debate is developing. Keeping a count of the votes and !votes is a bit tougher, but in the end it is the final one which counts and that can be established quite easily anyway. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:30, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Sjakkalle

message: Create an actual set of criteria to eliminate ridiculous votes. This would work similar to the criteria used for GAs and FAs. This could be based on: Experience, Quality of Work, Civility/Behavior, and Administrative Duties. Arranged in order from most important (top) to least important (bottom):
*Civility/Behavior - Has the user engaged in edit/revert wars? Have they been blocked in the past? Have they made personal atatcks, added unsourced POV to articles, made any serious policy violations? If the answer to all of these questions is No, or at least Nothing serious in the past 2-3 months, then this should not be an issue.
*Administrative Duties invloves work in XfDs, Speedy/Proposed deletions, RfC, AIV, and other "administrative functions" though not necessarily all of these. 
*Quality of Work would not focus on any one namespace. Some users are great with templates, others articles, some images, and others policies/guidelines/essays. This would also take into consideration edit summary usage.
*Experience would be based on both edit count and time based experience. This would be set lower than many current arbitrary standards (any actual number ranges TBD by consensus).
Similar to Sjakkalle's proposal above mine, this would also abolish the current setup of separate sections for Support/Oppose/Neutral (though not the votes themselves) by lumping all comments into one section. This proposal would also eliminate the "vote counter" as certain criteria are considered more important than others. Finally, instead of the three current questions, the nominee would answer questions more related to the criteria. This would eliminate any outlandish "oppose" reasons that have little to do with the sysop tools. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 18:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree This system would deal a lot more with that actual sysop tools and elimate the really dumb opposes. Diez2 17:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Agree I am about to go on vacation and am supposed to be on wikibreak, but I just could not keep away. There is too much focus on mainspace edits and article writing. Also agree with Diez2.  Tcrow777  talk  21:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Mr.Z-man

message: I personally do not like the way that admins selection is conducted. I agree with several past proposals that guidelines and benchmarks are arbitrary and users who vote many times vote for a RfA candidate whom they know almost nothing about. Here is my proposal for refroming the RfA system:
*RfA debates would no longer take place among the Wikipedia community. Persons who meet the elgibility requirements could be nominated by three unique wikipedia users (not sockpuppets, verifiable with substantial quality edits on each), however, discussion of said candidate and a peliminary decision to promote the candidate to an Admin would occur in an Adminship Review Commission, made up of a set number of beuaracrats, admins, and possibly a few experienced Wikipedia Editors. 
*Self nominations would be prohibited, and grounds for disqualification. I'm not sure how others feel about self nominations, but my oppinion is that an editior who is a good fit for the admin position and has the trust and support of the community (nessacary for an admin) will be nominated BY THE COMMUNITY and not by his or herself. 
*If the ARC determines the user to be a good candidate for an Admin, the ARC would present the candidate to the Wikipedia community along with the discussions that the ARC held, for general comment only (not a vote or discussion, just to be sure that there is nothing glaring that the ARC missed). Assuming nothing negative came from this process, the user could then be promoted to an Admin at that time.
*Written consistant eligibility guidelines would be put in place for admin candidates. These might include:
**One year of regular quality edits to Wikipedia articles.
**Service to Wikipedia demonstrated through substantial participation in one or more other projects pertaining to the encyclopedia, such as Articles for Deletion, CheckUser clerk, etc....
**Solid record of respecting Wikipedia's policies, such as WP:POV
**Potential to be a helper on WP, demonstrated through being civil, assuming good faith, correcting mistakes, positvley encouraging new users, etc...
Just some thoughts Rackabello 05:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree I want to have the ability to poll in RfAs and self-nominate myself, the way things are right now, if someone nominates themself, then the community gets to decide if the user becomes an admin. This proposal will take away important community freedoms.  Tcrow777  talk  00:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Rackabello

message: My dear ghosts, ladies and gentlemen! Lend me your ears. I must be a bit uncouth and churlish so that my words my find a place in your kitchen cabinets! RfAs have been a major pain in the ass for a while now, and all we have done is aggregated more problems rather than finding solutions (that includes me!). From the look of it, we are nowhere near getting a revolutionary new concept of deciding the worthiness of a candidate to become a system administrator. So we must salvage what we have and build upon it.
:*Passing an RfA is not difficult. Or is it? If you have been a good boy for six months, kept your head down, and have not made a lot of noise. It'll be a cinch. You'll pass and no no one will notice.
:*If you have been a bit boorish with others and have hurt their egos so bad, rest assured that that will come to haunt you on your RfAs. It pays to be sensitive and civil, especially when you're not an administrator. (It worked for me *shrug*)
:*If you have been too active for your own good, amassed a slew of edits and fast, lot of them mechanically, with automated tools, you're in for a lot of reprovals and sideswaps. So young fellows, mind you write a few good articles and shut those fat mouths up. Frankly speaking, no one likes a bureaucratic fuck, and there is a singular and good reason for that. Experience. Nowhere else, but by article writing, you get experience of dealing with trolls, vandals and difficult users. It takes utmost skill to get past them all and have them all sign an armistice and work towards consensus.
:*Affirmative action. Get involved in some disputes, no jump right into them. Try and mediate and don't let the shit hit the fan. If it does, well, you did your best! Remember though, condescension is your enemy and not your friend. Treat everyone fairly and they will repay your favour.
Well, that's the easy way of passing RfAs. There are some who do not follow these unwritten laws and get involved in high-scoring matches and revellers fire up altercations on talk pages, spitting and swiping at the unlucky devil who happened to promote or dismiss the candidates. Here's what I think, and I have said it before – , .  –
*We have ample number bureaucrats to for proper functioning of the process at WP:RFA. The nominations generally do not go long past their expiry dates. 
*The problem with promotions and the brokenness of the RfAs are highlighted when bureaucrats take controversial decisions by promoting a candidate, when there was clearly no consensus for promotion. The problem lies with the community itself, and we cannot help it. What lies with us, however, is Oddment! Nitwit! Blubber! and Tweak!.
*The current state of affairs and terms dictate that candidates with 70% - 75% supports are promoted or dismissed at bureaucrat discretion. In the stead of that, we could always have bureaucrats discussions on a special page, as was done in case of Danny's recent RfA.
*The duration of the RfA, in case of a close call, is extended to one more day, and a notification to all the bureaucrats is left on the bureaucrat's noticeboard to direct their attention to the existence of such pages.
*The bureaucrats then would put forward their opinions to ensure transperancy. A simple majority gets it's will to pass. And let's face it, our bureaucrats are much more than a "humungous pile of rat droppings", aren't they? They are bureaucrats for a reason, and we can definitely show more trust in a collective group of them rather than a single person; which is bound to differ, even if slightly. That would ensure transperancy and as a sense of satisfaction in the community. That makes sense, doesn't it?
*Obviously, we can expect the bureaucrats to relax the conventions a bit in the favour of former administrators who resigned adminship, or lost adminships during controversial circumstances. The only thing we can do to prevent this thing into turning into a full-fledged popularity contest and a slugfest where we hit-back with a vengeance. Other users who are generally affected while RfA nominations are those who have made too many edits using automated tools in the past. That magnifies their faults, even if they would have looked trivial, if their edit-count had been lesser.
*Oh yes, and obviously, the Supreme Mugwumps of Wizengamot are going to keep their overlarge nosies out of this! >:) — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ideally, a discussion amongst bureaucrats should occur in the RfAs that undergo special circumstances, such as Danny's. RfAs are controversial from time to time, and if more bureaucrats had the chance to discuss the RfA at hand, then there wouldn't be such a community backlash against one bureaucrat who decided to promote using his/her discretion. I haven't been looking over the actions in Danny's RfA, but I'm hoping that a future trend of discussion amongst all bureaucrats on some Wikipedia page (Bureaucrat's noticeboard) would occur (if it already hasn't; mind me, I've been out of my usual heavy RfA watching recently, so I'm not fully up to date on things). Nishkid64 21:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sir Nicholas's opinion on Headless RfAs!

message: WP:CANVAS should be abolished in relation to RfAs. The users who are best-qualified to judge a candidate's suitability for adminship are those who have already encountered and/or worked with that user. Therefore, although sales pitch shouldn't be encouraged, candidates should be allowed to advertise their RfA to other users. Linking to an RfA in your signature and on your userpage should also be allowed, for the same reason; if you spot the RfA while in the midst of discussion with someone, you're more qualified to judge their suitability for adminship than if you see them for the first time at RfA. Walton Vivat Regina! 18:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by [[User:Walton_monarchist89|Walton]]

message: I do not know how we will abolish the ideal of a vote, or how we will ever manage to survive the incessant deluge of RFA reform suggestions, but I do know that we must have one thing: the setting of actual standards to evaluate a nominee for adminship and cratship. Just as we have policies for reliable sources, deletion, and all that other good stuff, we must eliminate the arbitrariness that is going on. I believe it's really preventing people who would otherwise be good sysops or crats from attaining such a position, especially RFB. I acknowledge that this page is for RFA only, but if we do reform this and it is successful, it is inevitable that requests for bureacratship will have an overhaul. I seriously believe that if Taxman or Raul tried to run today, they would have been opposed many times over. As for me, I very much like the RFA standards that Z-man proposed:
*Civility/Behavior - Has the user engaged in edit/revert wars? Have they been blocked in the past? Have they made personal atatcks, added unsourced POV to articles, made any serious policy violations? If the answer to all of these questions is No, or at least Nothing serious in the past 2-3 months, then this should not be an issue.
*Administrative Duties invloves work in XfDs, Speedy/Proposed deletions, RfC, AIV, and other "administrative functions" though not necessarily all of these. 
*Quality of Work would not focus on any one namespace. Some users are great with templates, others articles, some inages, and others policies/guidelines/essays. This would also take into consideration edit summary usage.
*Experience would be based on both edit count and time based experience. This would be set lower than many current arbitrary standards (any actual number ranges TBD by consensus).
I apologize for making my statement tedious and dragging, but I felt my sanity was at stake. :P bibliomaniac15 01:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by [[User:Bibliomaniac15|bibliomaniac15]]

message: Adminship is no big deal? But de-adminship IS. As a consequence, some people are afraid to support, being afraid of possible abuse. I propose developing a simple and clear policy on removing sysop rights. Easy come, easy go. What it should be? Discussion like on AfD, votish discussion like on current RfA, vote like the Board Elections? I don't know, but the CAT:CSD backlog suggests that something must be done. MaxSem 18:46, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal by [[User:MaxSem|MaxSem]] 

message: Currently, the proposal by Sjakalle is being tried at Moralis' RfA. Although I am not very pleased with that experiment (to put it mildly), I think the idea behind it is good, but lacks a proper elaboration. So instead of just complaining, I thought I would contribute a new proposal (sorry Durin).
As most of the contributors have said already, RfA is not a vote, but in practice it is dealt with as if it were a vote. And according to the Admin survey, RfA has become a popularity contest, with canvassing as an unwanted side effect. Time for a radical change. I propose the following changes:
Abolish the support and neutral sections, and disallow any support or neutral statements. The RfA should focus on objections as to why the candidate should not become an admin. These objections will have to be documented, and can be discussed by the candidate and other contributors. Candidates will not benefit anymore from canvassing, so that would put an automatic stop to that practice.
If the closing bureaucrat decides that all objections have been answered to his or hers satisfaction, the candidate is sysopped; optionally the bureaucrat can give a statement as to why he or she feels this should be the outcome.
Finally, I think the current questions to the candidate are not very relevant to the process and could be deleted. Errabee 12:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by [[User:Errabee|Errabee]]: abolish support and neutral; focus on objections

message: Regarding a recent request for adminship I've just looked at - This appears to be a good example of a user which would have made a good admin being rejected purely on their beliefs rather than their potential ability to administrate. I propose that arguments for or against a candidate should need to be based on valid grounds written down within existing Wikipedia policy and/or guidelines. Any votes not based on such policy should not be counted. --Rebroad 17:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by [[User:Rebroad|Rebroad]]: Solid (policy/guideline based) reasons need to accompany votes

message: Opening - Like I suggested on the adminship survey, RfA should have a set of criteria that the editor must meet before they can get promoted. This idea is similar to the proposals by Mr Z man & Bibliomaniac above (Darn, you beat me to it...) ;). These criteria would undoubtedly be decided by Jimbo & the Wikipedia elites (But would probably have to go through the community to see if there's a consensus on which requirements would be needed - the final decision however, would be made by Jimbo etc...) & would have points that needed to be met before you could be given sysop powers. These could include - 
*Must have been at project for X number of months.
*Must have X number of edits overall.
*Must have at least X number of edits to the mainspace.
*Must have at least X number of edits to the Wikipedia namespace.
*Mustn't have had a block in the last X number of months.
*Etc Etc Etc.
Nominations - So that would be the first change. Next would be the method of nominating & being promoted. To be promoted, you would need X number of Buerocrats to endorse your nomination - that way there wouldn't be as much pressure on a single crat to make the right decision. In addition to the endorsement of the crats, there would be a "citation" section on the nomination, where normal users could "cite" the nominated user of any uncivil behaviour or breach of site rules (This would act like the oppose section now & would advise the crats on how the user has acted in the past). This would be in place because just meeting the rrequirements of the list would be too easy to pass & thus the imput from other users would be needed to affect the end descision. After reading the "oppose citations", the crats would then endorse the nomination & if you get enough, one would make you a sysop. (Similarly, crats could also oppose the nomiantion & if X nubmer oppose, then the nomination would be removed - No explaination would be needed, just a solid endorsement or opposition....)
Reasons why this may work - This way of voting would cancel out a number of problems people have with RfA at the moment - the pile on support votes, editors getting promoted who don't meet many requirements, popularity contests & questionable crat judgements to name a few. Techincally, supporting a nomiantion would be taken out - the only support which would be needed would be that of the crats. More notice would be taken of oppose votes, as they would be the ones advising the crats how this user has acted other than meeting the requirements to the list. This would also save much time, as cratswould only need to see if the user met all the requirements & if any users had cited them for bad behaviour. Also, there would undoubtedly be a cut down in the amount of users who have failed RfA's leaving the project in despair, since they would know if they met the requirements before they even nominated themselves (IE, there'd basically be no "You're not good enough, that's why we're failing you", but rather a "I need to improve in these areas before I can get nominated for adminship"). I see this as a very simple system which Jimbo could have a direct hand in creating & would solve many of the problems we all have. We all hate calling things a vote, so why not put up this "procedure" & make things simpler for everyone? Cheers, Spawn Man 02:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Spawn Man

message: I think many of the concerns on Requests for Adminship may be slightly exaggerated. The current simple voting method is not horrendous as noted by some editors. The final decision is in the hand of bureaucrats. Anyways, here are my proposal:
*Vote stacking - To prevent vote stacking, I think we can solve it by not having a vote at all in the initial stage (not even the kind of votes in this experimental RFA. Maybe we can ask all RFA candidates to submit in a formal essay that addresses the RFA questions (I think it's essential for administrators on English Wikipedia to master the language to a certain extent). And then, editors can comment on the candidates with the reference to the essay while reviewing the candidate's statistics. A vote on the nominee's qualifications will be held in the last day of the nomination. 
*Speaking of statistics, I recall seeing some scripts that can cover every aspect of the editor's activity on Wikipedia. If we can have those types of statistics available in a single page, then the editors might be able to express their views easier. 
That's it for now. Excuse me if I have been redundant, as I did not read much of other proposals. AQu01rius (User • Talk) 01:40, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by [[User:AQu01rius|AQu01rius]]

message: I don't think there is much wrong with RFAs as they are currently run.  If the idea of trying to reform RFAs is to try to get more admins, we should try to get more people to run for adminship.  
To do this, I think a search committee could be formed.  The committee would be made up of admins, and they would try to look for good candidates.  To help look at who would be interested in going through an RFA, a user could add a template to his talk page, essentially saying he wants to be an admin someday .  The members of the search committee would look through the users who added that template, and nominate them if they feel the candidate is qualified.
Another way to find more candidates could be to have a bot suggest an RFA if a user has been on wikipedia for a certain period of time (6 months) and has made a certain amont of edits (2400).  
There are also some minors changes I would make to RFAs.  
First, the community needs to realize that RFAs are in actuality votes; few RFAs fall into the Crat's discretionary range.  This would help potential candidates because the process would be easier for them to understand.
Second, I think that 67% support should be the minimum for guaranteed passing.  2/3 (67%) is considered to be a super-majority (by US congress, for instance), so I don't see why 75% is needed.  The new discretion range would be from 63% support to 66% support.  The cloing Crat would also have to explain his decision if the vote fell into the discretionary range.  
Third, I would disallow voters from questioning the position of any other voter, except in instances where specific policies may have been broken (Conflict of Interest, Canvassing, ect).  This would especially apply to oppose votes, where it seems that in many RFAs support voters try to pester an opposer into dropping opposition. 
That's the solution I envision to this "problem".  If you have any questions or comments either discuss them at my talk page, or at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Reform#.23Proposal_by_New_England_.28formerly_Black_Harry.29
Thank You
Black Harry (Highlights|Contribs) 16:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal by [[User:New England|New England]] (formerly Black Harry)

message: Requests for adminship should be much simpler and easier. By that I mean that those requesting for adminship shouldn't be judged so harshly as if they are being given some great permission. They are simply being given a little more access to wikipedia than other editors and that's it. Administrators should be chosen with much less scrutiny and should have their administrator abilities taken away with much less trouble. As Jimbo Wales has said on the issue "I just wanted to say that becoming a sysop is *not a big deal*."[] Wikidudeman (talk) 01:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal by [[User:Wikidudeman|Wikidudeman]] 

message: I feel the above statement should be the sole groundwork of the future incarnation of rfas. With the current method of rfas, it is often possible for concerns raised by others to be literally drowned out by a large amount of supporters. 
I propose only concerns (oppositions) be posted. Each seperate concern would initially be created as its own subsection. In those subsections, others would express their thoughts about the concern raised and help determine if the raised concern is both relevant and substantial enough to warrant the candidate not being promoted to admin status. The same contributor would be able to create more than one concern subsection.
When it is time for the rfa to close, the closing bureaucrat would be required to go through the sections and rule each complaint section as one of the following:
*Substantial and relevant
*No consensus reached
*Unsubstantial
*Irrelevant
based on the discussion in each subsection. If a complaint section is not refuted by any responses (and is not clear vandalism/attack) then the default ruling would be 'Substantial and relevant', according to the Silence=consensus ideology.
If even one of the concerns is maked as 'Substantial and relevant' or 'No consensus reached' then the rfa would fail, else it would pass. If there are no concerns raised by the time the rfa is over, the default is promotion to admin status.
Below are two hypothetical complaints and possible discussions that would take place:
==This user is too aggressive==
I'm concerned that if user FooBar is promoted to an admin they would continue their aggressive behavior as displayed here  and . --Some arbitrary user
:Those incidents both occurred over 2 years ago, plus the user aplogized here . --Some arbitrary user 2 
::There is no reason to assume this type of behavior would occur again since user FooBar has never had any other incidents such as those and they were well over 2 years ago when the user was still new here. --Some arbitrary user 3 
Concern unsubstantial --Closing Bureaucrat
==This user is alligned with the XYZ political party==
My concern is that user FooBar has openly admiting to being alligned with the XYZ political party. I think that means they will set a bad image of wikipedia if promoted to admin status --Some arbitrary user 4
:FooBar's allignment with political party XYZ and their viewpoints on frobnitz and flimflam won't interfere with this users ability to serve as an admin. We don't discriminate against political alignment here at WP. --Some arbitrary user 5 
Concern irrelevant --Closing Bureaucrat
If this type of proposal has already been made, my mistake. I've skimmed through most of the proposals but might have missed one that is proposing the same idea. --Android Mouse 06:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal by [[User:Android Mouse|Android Mouse]] 

message: The only reform that is really needed right now, is a de-adminship procedure. The best procedure should be copied from other wikipedias. Some have these in place. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 21:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal by Matt57

message: *White Cat's proposal was recently rejected and also appears to be a perennial proposal here at WP.  I don't really like it because it increases the difficulty of finding an admin with the correct power to effect the changes that I judge to be required.  Leaving a message with the wrong admin could leave problems live for a longer period of time than at present. (aeropagitica) 09:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I would like privileges in dealing with images. As a commons administrator I often need access to deleted images (to see if the one on commons and en.wiki is the same). I'd have read only access (the ability to see deleted images/text without the ability to actually delete them). This proposal is intended to be more of a User++ rather than Admin--. -- Cat chi? 14:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

text: This would work well with a lot of the rfa's that get with the candidates only contribs being to fighting vandalism. --Chris g  10:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal #1 by White Cat]]

message: *Commenting on Picaroon's proposal, I think there are great merits in encouraging RfC-type contributions on admin candidates. However, the problem with this approach is that it can quite easily develop straight back into the situation we have now. Suppose the first editor view is "I like this candidate's editing and think they merit promotion", and the second view is "This candidate is unsuitable because" etc., then other editors will tend to cast support or oppose votes just like now simply by choosing which view to endorse. Sam Blacketer 11:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *A bit subjective, but not that bad... Abeg92contribs 16:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Picaroon]]

message: So you're suggesting we leave it as is?  Hardly a reform, is it...and I'm against this, I think the RfA could do with improvement (as outlined in my responses to other proposals). ~  G1ggy!  blah, blah, blah 11:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It´s just that some wikipedians believe, since wikipedia is not a democracy and since we, wikipedians, are supposed to discuss, all according to the guidelines, that RfA should be discussed rather than voted. But, as commented on other proposals, discussion would, eventually, end up in voting; since a user would say that such user would be greate as an administrator and another would not, narrowing everything to saying support and oppose but without the actual words. And, as stated in my proposal, when we vote, we are actually discussing; so no change is needed, we are discussing, even though it is in an indirect behind-the-scenes way; but that doesn´t really matter, I believe. Also, please see  Proposal by Durin; stop offering proposals, this proposal is sort of similiar to this one. Anyways, I have seen some interesting proposal here, such as the one that proposes that users should be evaluated by their contributions, and many more... I´ll have to check this out... Maby it could auctually be improved, but to me it works perfectly like it is right now; so, unless it can be made even better, of whom I´m not very sure, I believe that everything should stay as it is; but I´ll check the other proposals, just in case.... Sincerely, ♠Tom@sBat 22:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by TomasBat]]

message: * I would support this proposal, since it addresses something that I thought seemed very wrong. If one person finds thorough evidence on why someone should not be admin, and posts a long dissertation under the oppose heading, invariably, many users will follow with the extremely banal phrase per above or whomever said it first. If this proposal doesn't go through, I would at least push for some sort of censor (I know, I know) on this phrase during RfAs. ALTON .ıl 06:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * That's why I propose abandoning WP:CANVASS, so as to encourage people to spread the word. The ability to notify as many users as possible is an essential part of my proposal. The more opinions, the better. And to help keep the RfA page simple for the closing b'crat, no discussion threads there. One user, one statement (which s/he can alter until closure). —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 17:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In the present state of WP, this would be an effective way of increasing the participation of everyone who was dissatisfied with  the person's edits. And thus there would be even fewer successful requests.00:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree, but the success ratio could be lowered from the current 70-80% to, e.g. 60%. At any rate closer to the support ratio of successful actual votes. —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 11:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Kncyu38]]

message: *Theresa Knott's proposal, if I understand it correctly, is to have an RfA "at home", only inviting family and friends and then see how they evaluate the candidates suitability—in a balanced, unbiased manner. I believe the exact opposite is true: There are too many family&friends votes already, and almost no one cares to take a look at a candidate's contrib history or even take into consideration arguments derivied from an unbiased third persepective examination of the user's past. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 11:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I don't want only family and friends voting. I want "enemies" voting too. Anyone who has interacted with the candidate. But yes I am proposing not to have third parties. My main argument is that people who have not interacted with the candidate should not have a say in whether they are trustworthy or not because they simply don't know. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 11:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I disagree. Often, an univolved party can judge the overall behaviour of a candidate better than anyone closely involved with the user on a limited range of pages or for a limited time. Also, "enemies" are far less likely to still be around to throw in their take on the candidate's trustability. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 12:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I think the concept of "voting" is part of the problem. We have created a culture of "democracy" at RfA. A lot of the votes are all about a battleground. People will judge you for your political views rather than your ability to use admin tools properly. -- Cat chi? 14:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Yes, that is a failing of RfA, but if the decision is ultimately taken by a vote then any replacement procedure is likely to fall back into the same way of operating. I like your idea of RFAr-type discussion but if it ends in a vote anyway, all this may do is produce a longer process than now. Sam Blacketer 15:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I am merely brainstorming. Votes not based on evidence/workshop can be safely ignored IMHO. -- Cat chi? 15:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *There's one obvious reason for supposing that RFAR is the wrong model. A request for arbitration has multiple possible outcomes. A request for adminship, whatever the process may be, has only two possible outcomes. There are other reasons to reject an RFAR model, including the glacial speed, the lack of simplicity and transparency, the possibility that it may discourage requests, and the certainty that it's a rather difficult process to manage well. Angus McLellan  (Talk) 16:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

text: *Yep, on thinking about it, you are probably right. It would be nice if we could do it but I cannot think of a reasonable solution to stop people deliberately looking for RFAs and listing them in thier own userpace. Shame. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 19:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Theresa Knott]]

message: * I agree that an expanded list of standard questions to assess key competencies and better ensure that editors have basic skills and knowledge of policy would be a good thing. Making the requirements more explicit would help us get clearer, fairer, and more consistent standards and avoid requirements inflation. --Shirahadasha 03:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Sam Blacketer]]

message: *I'm not really liking it. I don't see the use of having "Evidence" in an RFA when we're trying to promote them because of their strengths, not banning them because of their potential disruption. And yes, contribs are more important than questions, but it's like an interview. Companies don't just look at your resumé and base hiring you off of that, they take the time to see you personally and watch your views. We're not trying to create an AdminCom, we're here to discuss the ability of the nominee to perform in adminship. bibliomaniac15 01:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal #2 by White Cat]]

message: *Interesting idea; so basically you'd want AfD to be like CfD. Granted the AfD backlog isn't that bad. I think the risks on that would outweigh the benefits, as most AfDs that are backlogged are tough situations that would require an admin to handle the final blow. Could you elaborate on how this would help RfA?--Wizardman 00:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But outcome of most AfD's is delete. Non-admins can't help in such situations. MaxSem 18:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 yeah, that's true (and I hadn't considered that :) - but I would advocate giving normal users the ability to delete articles, either by adding their name to a list (as per the AWB method) to become trusted deleters or by combined action (2 users with, say, over 1000 edits, both hitting a 'delete' button), sbandrews (t) 19:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Sbandrews]]

message: I tend to agree with the idea of having b'crats evaluate and agree on success/failure of RfAs that have not reached consensus with the community. Personally, I believe that there are more problems regarding RfA than closure of the undecided cases. But your proposal and mine could well be merged, in my opinion. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 13:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, agree this is sensible. Looking at the 'pass marks' of admins who have run into difficulties and had the buttons removed, they don't generally have low pass marks. Would suggest that after implementation, we could review after a few months to gauge whether admins passed in the range of 65-75% have more problems. Addhoc 10:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I generally think this is a good solution. It retains the voting side of RfA to make strong and weak candidates look clear, but opens up more discussion for questionable nominations. I have one question, what would you suggest for RfB? Would you raise the discussion ground to something like 70%-90%, or keep it the same as RfA? Camaron1 | Chris 17:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that 60-80 is fine.  And I really like this idea. ~  G1ggy!  Reply 00:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Me? I'd say that is for other people to decide. If it were for me, I'd keep the same corridor of ratios but let only admins vote in RfBs. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 21:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have mixed feelings on if the RfB boundaries should be raised or kept the same. Though, changing RfB to a all users (within reason) discussion to an admin only discussion would be a big change, and I doubt it would get consensus easily. Camaron1 | Chris 15:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just my opinion. I believe admins may be better suited to estimate the fitness of a candidate for bureaucratship. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 17:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by ChazBeckett]]

message: What do you propose regarding RfA reform? —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 19:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Durin; stop offering proposals]]

message: *I agree with the fact that it's skewing up the results, but everyone in this page nominate someone? We're doing a potential overhaul, not a revival meeting. bibliomaniac15 01:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Radiant]]

message: I have thought of this as well. Seems quite a fair suggestion as AfD guidelines do actually specifically say not to separate comments, to stop it looking like a vote. Camaron1 | Chris 18:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Sjakkalle]]

message: *I like how you set concrete standards, but I don't see how this will abolish support/oppose/neutral votes. bibliomaniac15 01:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree generally, but disagree with eliminating current sections.  This is basically a good idea that we can run with. Bearian 23:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Mr.Z-man]]

message: *Both the fact I was promoted on a self-nomination and the fact "I thought he was already an admin" is a frequent phrase at RFA, I think relying on the community alone to put forth suitable candidates is not a good idea. - Mgm|(talk) 12:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Rackabello]]

message: *I agree. It's pointless to forbid editors to ask people who know them to weigh in. However, this should mean all people, including the ones you don't like. - Mgm|(talk) 12:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Same for me. All people. But also, the candidate will obviously inform about their RfA to users which they know will most likely support, either to only those, to them first, or making more of a statement to them; and if they do follow asking all the users they encountered to vote (even the ones they think will oppose, as said above) they will most likely avoid at all coast users they dislike/users with whom they conflicted/users which will most likely oppose and it really wouldn´t be very fair. So keeping up with the "rule" proposed by MacGyverMagic would be hard. Plus, I´ve got a doubt: Would it be ok for some other editor apart from the candidate and nom, say a user who opposed, to also tell people to participate, aiming on users who will most likely oppose; in case the candidate were to canvass? Now, if its only a template in the userpage and the sig, then I don´t see much of a problem with this proposal; I believe this was Walton´s original idea. ♠TomasBat 21:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to concur with TomasBat. --Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor (tαlk) 00:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Walton]]

message: * This is by far and away the most sensible of all the proposals. The burden should be on participants in the process to prove that candidates are not suitable to become administrators, if that is in fact the case. (Unsuitability, in this context, not being based on not having n thousand edits in this namespace, lack of participation in XfD discussions, "no need for tools" or other erroneous criteria.) It is important that the candidates are also given space to respond to points raised. After a week, the bureaucrats should close the RfA with a statement explaining what they have decided based on the comments that have been presented. If the candidate, or one or several of the participants, feels that the bureaucrats' decision was incorrect, there should be somewhere that this could be raised and discussed (somewhat along the lines of DRV). — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the face of it this is quite an attractive proposition, but I think it would adversely affect the atmosphere of requests for adminship.  It would make the candidate's experience so negative that I think we'd suffer a dearth of candidates. --Tony Sidaway 13:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that is indeed the risk of this proposal. However, I think the number of objections will be far less than the number of opposers on current requests, because each opposer has to give a different objection. You can therefore have only one objection of too little experience etc. Perhaps this proposal would require more attention from admins and bureaucrats in the beginning to merge and prune objections that have already been stated, until people are used to this format. Nevertheless, it remains a risk. Errabee 14:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh, and before I forget: there is an obligation on the part of the opposer to document his objection(s). That is of course a major factor in reducing the number of "silly" objections. Errabee 14:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On a similar note, would there also be some sort of guideline for what can be considered a reasonable objection? This would be to avoid objections like "Not enough CfD experience" or "Not enough image uploads." Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 19:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it were necessary, I suppose something like that could be construed. However, I would first try to do this without such formal guide lines. Errabee 20:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Errabee: abolish support and neutral; focus on objections]]

message: I oppose this proposal. Wikipedia policies and guidelines can't cover the factors involved in an RfA. There is no Wikipedia policy that can answer the questions: Does this candidate have good judgment? Is she likely to abuse the tools? Misuse them, perhaps? Is she overly temperamental? RfA is primarily about trust; it's pointless to try to argue whether trust or the lack thereof is "valid". Trust is trust. It exists or it doesn't. -- Black Falcon 04:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal by Rebroad: Solid (policy/guideline based) reasons need to accompany votes]] 

message: I'm not really liking applying a certain must-have months for attendance. For example, Nishkid worked on the project for 3 months before being sysopped, and he's a fine admin. The second thing I don't like is your mention of "Wikipedia elites." Adminship only entails a few tools, but they're working towards the same goals. What is it that majorly separates us from users like Taxman or Angela? We all work towards a common goal, and we all have the same rights as Wikipedians. bibliomaniac15 03:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Reponse to above 2 comments - In regard to the "set number of edits" & "must-have months for attendance"; I only suggested a few things that it may have, for example, it may have completely different things than what I have suggested (My proposal is by no means the set in stone final draft). In regard to your "Wikipedia Elites" concerns; I meant that the final guidelines would be decided on by the likes of Jimbo etc - that does not rule out the chance of a site consensus on the subject, only that the final decision would be made by the higher ups (As I think most things are currently?). By no means would I ever think of suggesting a new guideline where the community didn't have a say - however, Wikipedia isn't a democracy after all, & we've all seen how well the community has worked things so far. If they had, we wouldn't be having this conversation now. IMHO, this sort of large issue isn't ever going to be resolved by handing it over to the community - for anything to ever be decided on in this matter, the "Wikipedia Elite" would have to intervien in any case. "What is it that majorly separates us from users like Taxman or Angela. We all work towards a common goal..." - If you think that, why are you concerned to hand it over to them if they have the same goals as us? I'm going to put in my proposal about the gaining community consensus first on the requirements, but I hope I've answered your questions. Thanks, :) Spawn Man 04:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal by Spawn Man]] 

message: The idea of an essay sounds good, but we need to give people time to come and give their opinion. Maybe a length of 3 or so days. bibliomaniac15 01:47, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal by AQu01rius]] 

message: 1. This is opposed by WP:ANOT.  No amount of edits will earn you adminship.
2. This is the current process, is it not? 
3. This I like...but it seems similar to the current process. 
4. I'm fully in favour of this.  But it would be hard to agree on.
Only element 4 has my approval/support here. ~  G1ggy!  blah, blah, blah 11:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by Shirahadasha]]

message: *I'm against this, on the basis that it's very, VERY easy to make 200 edits.  You can do it in a few days with something like Live Spellcheck.  If there was something like this imposed, I'd go for something with a higher edit count.  Then again, you should also remember that no amount of edits will earn someone the right to be an admin. ~  G1ggy!  blah, blah, blah 11:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I agree that I'd go with more edits (maybe 2000 ?), and perhaps an amount of elapsed time, too, to prevent people from editing like crazy just to become an Admin. StuRat 14:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *The proposal does include an amount of elapsed time as a requirement. A.Z. 05:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *In short quality of edits is paramount. David D. (Talk) 20:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Agreed. I could have used less words. :) Acalamari 23:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Well, that sums up my argument =D ~  G1ggy!  Reply 23:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm really skeptical of only 200 edits. As Giggy said, 200 edits is really nothing. We need to make sure that our administrators have sufficient experience, and we have to acknowledge that some users are slower than others to learn. I know I didn't find out about edit summaries and reverting until about 300 or so edits. bibliomaniac15 23:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *The idea behind this proposal is: Wikipedia is a wiki, so everyone has the same powers. Everyone has all the tools to make it better, unless there is a reason to take the powers away from someone, because there is no other way to effectively prevent harm. There are good reasons, for example, why not everyone can have the powers to permanently delete content. We don't know any other way to prevent all the content from being lost, since there are vandals who would be willing to delete Wikipedia altogether if they could. But there are no reasons why adminship shouldn't be given to all, since there are ways to take the tools away later, and there are effective ways to prevent and revert abusive behavior and its consequences. The idea is: everyone of us is an administrator, unless stated otherwise. The 200 edits (or 2000, for that matter) required to get the tools are merely a threshold to make it harder for vandals to create many sockpuppets and make all of them administrators. The proposal includes that administrators stop being able to unblock and unban themselves, and here lies its merit. If adminsitrators are unable to unblock and unban themselves, users that abuse the admin tools (whether they have 200 or 90000 edits) can easily be blocked by the community, and won't do any harm any longer. If a user becomes an administrator, and then uses the tools to vandalize Wikipedia, this user will be blocked or maybe banned. They will have to create another account and then make 200 or 2000 edits, only to vandalize Wikipedia a little more and get blocked yet again. If the user wants to abuse the tools again, they will have to go through the same quite tireing process. Of course, those are only the basics, and the proposal can be improved! The threshold can be different, for instance. Does anyone have ideas? A.Z. 05:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *Good point. StuRat 08:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *That's what this proposal would do, if it were implemented: we'd have much more administrators to quickly block the abusive users. If administrators were unable to unblock and unban themselves, everything would work really well. A.Z. 03:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm beginning to see where you are coming from. I think you are suggesting a negative feedback loop will select the admins that can be trusted and so it is irrelevant what kind of edits a user has made prior to getting the tools. The significant hurdle to such a debate is how quickly can a bad admin be shut down. David D. (Talk) 22:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I think that quite quickly. As soon as someone sees the vandalism. A.Z. 05:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I like the variation on this proposal to initially make it quite easy to become an Admin, but to take away Admin status just as easily, for anyone who abuses it.  Thus, we would end up with a large quantity of good Admins, just what we want. StuRat 08:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *To take away the admin status could be best in some cases, since the user would still be able to contribute as an editor. A.Z. 16:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[#Proposal by A.Z.]]

message: *I don't really care about whether the administrators actually use the tools or not. Nor should anyone. They can spend months without ever issuing a block, and I won't say that they are being a bad administrator because of that. Plus, in your system, all the subjectivity of the RfAs would continue existing, without objective criteria to become an administrator. Apparently, there would still be a requirement for consensus of the entire community for each single user that wishes to have the tools, which is really harmful, as it favors those who want power and those who say things that people like to hear, just like politicians. I don't see anything changing with your proposal. Sorry! A.Z. 03:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal by Wikihermit]] 

message: The RfAs should not judge the character nor the personality of the candidates. Candidates should not need to be "trusted" by a supermajority of users to have access to the tools.
The implementation of a criterion to give the tools to an user should serve the sole purpose of making it harder to become an administrator than to be desysopped.
The criterion should be something hard to do, just that. By no means should it be something that judges whether the candidate would be a good administrator or not. By no means something that judges whether the person is trustable or trusted. 
The tools should not be given only to those that are trusted, nor to those that are popular, nor to those that are intelligent, nor to those that are beautiful, nor to those that want really bad to be an administrator, nor to those that "need" the tools. The tools should be given to all of those who fulfill the criterion: to all of those who made the effort to fulfill the criterion.
The effort needed is something that a person takes time to do. It can be a number of edits, it can be a number of characters typed, it can be an amount of time with the account, it can be a number of sentences that make logical sense and that are pertinent to the pages where they were written.
The proposal is fair so far, but it cannot be implemented unless desysopping becomes easier. Therefore, every administrator should have the ability to desysop other administrators, but not the ability to promote other users to administrator status: this ability will remain with only the bureacrats.
The proposal would work: all users that made the effort would become administrators and it would be easy to get rid of administrator vandals, since there would be a great number of administrators to quickly desysop them. It would not be rewarding to be an administrator vandal, because the effort to create another account and fulfill the requirements again once they are desysopped will be much bigger than the reward of being able to vandalize Wikipedia for one or two minutes.
One example of how things will (or would) work: Vandals who wish to become administrators will have to make the effort, but the effort will be worth nothing if they use the tools to vandalize Wikipedia, or to harm the project, because they will very soon be desysopped by one of the many administrators that there will be. Their actions will be reverted by other administrators (all admin actions are reversible).
Another example: If a vandal desysops administrators without giving a reason to do so, the vandal will be desysopped soon by another administrator, and no other administrator vandal will be able to promote the vandal to administrator status again, because administrators will not have the ability to do that. The bureaucrats will re-sysop the desysopped administrators, and the vandal will remain desysopped. A.Z. 05:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *It did occur to me. It would be possible, but it wouldn't happen. I did try to approach this on the big text above. It works like this: if a vandal decided to de-sysop Jimbo and all other administrators, the vandal would be de-sysopped by one of the other tens of thousands of administrators so quickly that they could only de-sysop two or three administrators. OK, maybe four. Once de-sysopped, the vandal would do no harm anymore, and the few administrators de-sysopped would be re-sysopped by the bureaucrats. If the same vandal decided to make a sockpuppet to do it again, the vandal would have to make the effort all over again, which would take a few months, only to de-sysop Jimbo for a few minutes, and then be de-sysopped again. Since almost no-one will spend months doing something only to get to de-sysop Jimbo for a few minutes, the project would not be destroyed by vandal administrators. Plus, even if, somehow, a vandal were capable of de-sysopping more than ten and even a hundred and a thousand and ten thousand administrators, the bureaucrats would be able to de-sysop the vandal and re-sysop the other administrators. A.Z. 22:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal 2 by A.Z.]] 

message: Maybe there should be a commitee which RfA's are brought to. Anyone can nominate someone, including themselves. It's made up of about 30 or so admins, and nonadmins can comment about the Nominee, and the commitee votes on it, and it is successful if it comprises a 70% support vote. Then a 'crat officially closes it as successful. The committee is not made up of the same sysops each time; each RfA has a committee of sysops randomly selected. J-stan Talk 02:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not at all what I was going for in my proposal.  My idea was to simplify the process and make more users aware of it.  You proposed voting committee would turn Wikipedia into the Catholic Church.  Black Harry (Highlights|Contribs) 02:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not catholic, don't really know what you mean. I was suggesting a major overhaul. Maybe It's too advanced. I'll give it a try Any way. J-stan Talk 02:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

text: thanks, I just linked to the template I mentioned, and I've seen the search committee before but don't know the link to it.  New England 18:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal by New England (formerly Black Harry)]] 

message: I like your idea in principal - but I would like to know how you intend to achieve these changes to adminship. How do you intend to make adminship simpler and how would you like it to be made easier for admins to lose their tools in the event of abuse? 
Camaron1 | Chris 18:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I made a proposal above that is supposed to help achieving those goals. A.Z. 23:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The entire community needs to change it's perception of what an "Admin" is. An "admin" is not some person of authority or privileged but simply someone who has "higher editing capabilities" than the rest of the people. Simply another editor who has more capabilities, just as a registered editor has more capabilities than a non-registered editor. All admins should be required to submit for "recall" where if someone thinks they aren't doing a good job as an admin they can ask for another vote and if they fail that vote then they have their admin privileges revoked until they change their ways and get elected again. Being an admin should not be a big deal, As Jimbo Wales clearly stated. Wikidudeman (talk) 10:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal by Wikidudeman]] 

message: Note that this is very similar to the Proposal by Carcharoth (above). I liked it and it nearly had a trail run which never went ahead. Camaron1 | Chris 19:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They are a bit similar. My proposal eliminates for the most part the possibility of troll voters. I don't know. It might work. J-stan Talk 20:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I like to think of it more as jury duty. J-stan Talk 19:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal by J-stan]] 

message: This has in fact been proposed before, so I guess you have at least one supporter :-). See this section. A.Z. 23:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing this out. Should I remove my proposal then to cut down on the increasing size of this page? --Android Mouse 23:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you should add your arguments to the thread discussing the first proposal, so the size remains the same, but everything is more organized. A.Z. 15:56, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[#Proposal by Android Mouse]] 

message: I just found this page. It's nearly four months old and there's no obvious consensus emerging. Or is there? The format of the page doesn't really help work toward consensus. Could someone with a big noggin find a way to move this on? Alternatively, I move to close. --Dweller 22:24, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, a few proposals found here have actually become proposals that people !vote on. So far, we have no change. J-stan Talk 01:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  No consensus isn't a reason for closing it. This is a great place for people to discuss new ideas and discuss what is wrong with the RfAs. Plus, consensus could eventually emerge within the following months and years. I personally am not in a hurry. If we close this discussion, people will just keep discussing the matter on tha RfA talk page, and all the different proposals will not be organized, and they will get archived quickly. A.Z. 04:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

text: When you think about it, there really isn't any wheat. It is divided up between proposals, and each proposal has a discussion section. I suggest that if you make multiple proposals, you should create them as a subsection to your previous proposal. I would be willing to organize the proposals like this, if everyone's okay with it. J-stan Talk 02:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't wish to have two of my proposals as a subsection of my first proposal. I wouldn't mind if you placed them all next to one another, though, but I feel it's better to bring the first and second proposal down, instead of bringing the third proposal up. A.Z. 03:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion of where this discussion is 

message: :Support:
:Neutral:
Once consensus has been established on these proposals, we can move on to the more specific ones below. Thank you! Panoptical 23:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Status quo: There is nothing wrong with the way RfA is set up, and nothing should change.

message: The reality is this page is dead. In the last three weeks, just eight different people have contributed to it. Contrast with WT:RFA in the same time period; 102 unique contributors (not including anon IPs). There's no consensus, no ongoing discussion, no progress towards something conclusive. With such a lack of participation here, to conclude this page has support for reform of RfA would be a serious mistake. This page has had its day in the sun. It's been advertised on WT:RFA for weeks now, and the attention to it has fallen dramatically. There's no point continuing here. I'm marking this page as historical. If someone wants to generate a new page using this page as a supporting reference, that's fine. But, using this page as a means to the end of RfA reform is improper. --Durin 14:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed; I don't think this page is working the way it's supposed to. It may still be useful as source of possible ideas, though. --ais523 16:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I think this page has served its primary purpose - to come up with ideas to reform RFA and see what initial responses are to them. Given activity levels I do not think consensus is going to be reached here on a final path RFA should take in the future. I agree with marking this as historical - at least for now. Camaron1 | Chris 20:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, so the page is dead, so there are few people participating, so to conclude that this page has support for reform of RfA would be a serious mistake. But why marking it as historical and stopping us eight people from continuing our entirely non-harmful discussion here? A.Z. 03:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you want to continue to make proposals do not hesitate to remove the tag and continue as normal. Camaron1 | Chris 10:11, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, thank you. I would like to continue discussing proposals, though, not making more of them. I don't have anything to say about a proposal now, but if I remove the tag someone may start adding posts again. A.Z. 03:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

text: * One editor tried to turn this into the next step. I strongly disagree with that move and the way it was conducted. In fact, at the top of this page, it says "Please avoid initiating any kind of poll on this page. There have been plenty of those in the past." This page is just meant for discussion, and that's what we're doing. I'm not trying to gain any consensus as of now. I just want the discussion to remain open. It may be that people read it and get entirely new ideas from reading it and eventually, one day, in the future, this inspires a reform. A.Z. 04:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: This is dead; tag as historical

message: Moved from Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship to prevent disruption there. —AldeBaer 13:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: HA!  what a great idea.  then after the comments, one just quietly gives user the admin tools.  --Rocksanddirt 17:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah well, only if there aren't too many supporters. —AldeBaer 17:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: hmmm, yes or maybe the quality of the support (i.e, lots of user is great writer, don't distract with admin tools vs. user is pov pushing nut job no additional encouragement please)...--Rocksanddirt 17:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I do remember that there was an admin who decided to list themself at Rfa for promotion from admin to normal user. They requested that people support this promotion. Most people didn't really understand the request, since any admin can give up the position at any time simply by making a request at meta, but a majority supported the request on the grounds that this was what the admin wanted. I think this might have been in 2005, and I've looked around but can't find the page or remember the name.-gadfium 21:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see, but I meant an inverted RfA for a user without admin rights. It's not a just-for-fun idea though. Having such an RfA every once a while may help people to stop and consider what RfA is about. Normal "opposing" is really nothing else than supporting the unformulated counter-proposal that the candidate stay a normal editor, while a normal "support" is opposed to that. —AldeBaer 22:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice idea, but you'll instantly get 50 people with no sense of humor jumping on you yelling that you're making a WP:POINT violation. I wish it weren't so. — Hex (❝?!❞) 22:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you did it on April Fool's Day, you'd have a bit more leeway in telling people to relax. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not intending to do such a thing myself. That's why I posted the idea here instead. —AldeBaer 23:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Somebody should poke Kim Bruning at this point. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 23:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that it's a good idea...somebody should try it. Neranei (talk) 23:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm talking about sysopping, not de-sysopping. —AldeBaer 08:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Have to say that was the funniest RfA I've seen in a long time, even though it was meant to be taken seriously... --DarkFalls talk 09:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: RFE you mean (Request for Editorship) ;) -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 09:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Thank you Splash. silsor is not listed at Wikipedia:Former administrators (he was resysopped in May 2006), which is why I couldn't find the page.-gadfium 09:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Interesting RfA, it's not what my idea was about though. From the comments here I gather that the idea of formatting a real RfA for a non-admin user as a request to stay a normal user is regarded as a joke, at best? —AldeBaer 13:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think many people here are treating your proposal as a joke. I think many people probably haven't quite understood that the result of failing your proposed system would be to be made an admin, as Rocksanddirt said near the top. I realise that you are suggesting this to make people reconsider the Rfa process. I suggest you start a new section and try to explain your idea in a little more detail, since this section has become confused, in part because of the discussion of silsor's Rfa.-gadfium 19:31, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's an interesting idea but I'm not sure how this would be any different than taking an ordinary RfA and switching the support and oppose sections. Plus, how do we start these things? It seems pretty rude to nominate someone for non-adminship. "After careful consideration, I've decided to nominate user JoeX for non-adminship because I believe he's clueless"! Pascal.Tesson 19:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right! I suppose it would be mostly self-noms. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 21:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That, or the nom and the candidate could decide on it together. —AldeBaer 23:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: But wouldn't it be great to let all the hot air out of the RfA process every once a while? Clearly, it should be the candidate's decision to do this, but I can vividly imagine to have such an RfA result in either "congratulations on stying a normal editor" or an "unfortunately, there was no consensus not to promote you, so you're now an admin. Sorry, don't feel discouraged by this" etc. —AldeBaer 00:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It is an interesting thought.  If the consensus on the request was along the lines of "no, we think you'd be an asset to the project to have additional tools to make a better product."  --Rocksanddirt 00:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's interesting, but it's very superfluous when you think about it. Adminship is definitely not a prize; it is quite stressful. One of the reasons why we have an RFA is to raise the heat. If somebody is to be prepared to become an admin, they should use their experience to overcome a sort of trial, which we have in the form of an RFA. To have an inverse RFA really wouldn't help in any awareness of this. bibliomaniac15 Tea anyone? 00:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that any candidate who can be taken seriously knows this, but do the people commenting at RfAs who give the candidates unnecessary and unuseful additional heat or mindless support? —AldeBaer 00:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's my pet peeve to see an RFA where people oppose with rather offensive sarcasm. bibliomaniac15 Tea anyone? 00:31, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I usually oppose with very offensive sarcasm, mostly because I don't like the candidates. Being able to do it while mischievously writing "support" would just be the icing on the cake for me. —AldeBaer 00:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So you are using sarcasm here to criticize sarcasm? Captain panda 02:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm indirectly stating my agreement with bibliomaniac. —AldeBaer 09:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: To be honest, the idea sounds exactly the same as editor review... Although I am not opposed to the idea, it might be seen by some as some useless process... --DarkFalls talk 09:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not proposing a new process. This would be quite an ordinary RfA, just inversely formulated. —AldeBaer 10:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The thing is, being an admin isn't just staying as a normal editor, you're being entrusted with tools. I think we've all seen editors with thousands of edits that we don't want anywhere near the mop, even though they're helping Wikipedia. As mentioned above, a normal editor doesn't have to worry about dealing with conflicts or understanding policy, just how to right gud and follow our core policies. --lucid 09:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, Lucid, being an admin is staying as a normal editor.  Admins aren't a special class of people.  We're editors who have been granted a few extra tools because we've usually done enough to show we are neither evil nor really dumb.  It's just a few buttons.  There are plenty of editors without sysop buttons who barely edit articles; this is no different amongst those who do have the extra buttons.  I don't edit articles as an admin, I edit them as an editor, in the same way I always have. Normal editors can, and do, get just as involved in conflicts and understanding of policy - the only difference is the can't themselves click the "block", "delete" or "protect" buttons (which is pretty much all these supermagical admin tools allow one to do). Neil ム 09:39, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not say that admins are a special class, that admins have special powers, or that editors don't get involved in disputes, do not twist my words. You are right, you edit articles as an admin. You don't block people as an editor, though, do you? Admins are editors still, yes, but editors are not always qualified to be admins. Again, I'm sure we can all think of editors with thousands of edits that we don't want anywhere near the mop, because even though they might make fine editors, they'd have no idea how to actually use the tools responsibly, or if they did, they wouldn't anyway. I am not saying that adminship is some special thing that should be awarded to the best editors, it's nothing like that, I'm saying that people that intend to act as admins do not just need to be trustworthy editors, they need to be able to be trusted as admins too. If someone can be trusted as an admin is what's important, and pure editing experience does not necessarily mean that- -lucid 10:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe my formulation was suboptimal: What I meant with "staying a normal" editor could, in the context of my idea, be formulated as "being spared the extra stress of being an admin". Of course admins stay normal editors. However, I didn't expect to be told that I may have overstated that point, rather maybe that my idea couldn't do much to counter the overblown perception of adminship. —AldeBaer 10:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this might be a little complex AldeBaer... The whole point of the exercise is to familiarize editors on what RfA is all about, right? Not votes, just discussions? Maybe the answer is not to alter the old one, but make a new RfA process... --DarkFalls talk 11:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with DF. After several years of running RFA with the purpose of attaining adminship, I'm not sure it would be best to invert the process. I think review is needed, but not a complete switch. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 11:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Ideas to change the RfA process have been floating around for quite some time now, and I did participate there as well. There  also have been tests where RfAs were formatted like discussions, and I thought doing something similar, and less drastic at that, may lead to further ideas on how to sensibly reform the process. —AldeBaer 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Hmmm. What particular aspect of the proposal makes you say that? The confusion it would cause, or because it apparently doesn't seem to be worth the re-arrangement? -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 12:10, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would change nothing, and potentially cause a lot of confusion. I don't see anything worth implimenting. --Deskana (apples) 12:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Deskana, it's just a little idea, and maybe not the most brilliant one, but —believe it or not— I did post it here in an honest attempt at improving things. Do you really assume I posted it here with the intention to play games, and without the intention to improve anything, like you said? —AldeBaer 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I don't think you're just trying to play games. But I do think that this proposal would just be a game were we to impliment it. --Deskana (apples) 12:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I was a bit confused by your choice of words. —AldeBaer 12:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The principal outcome of this is to remove scrutiny of whether an individual should be an admin or not. Thus we would start producing unqualified admins. We would furthermore be turning the worst editors into admins; a nonsensical proposition. And this for the sake of experimentally demonstrating a vague point about adminship having an "overblown perception". A slightly amusing thought experiment, perhaps; a suggestion to be taken seriously? No. Splash - tk 12:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how that would be the case. You'd simply "support" in the "oppose" section basically. It'd still be the same thing, basically. —AldeBaer 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's the same thing, then it would achieve nothing that is not already achieved. If it does claim to achieve something, then it's not basically the same thing. If it's not basically the same thing, then it is little more than a slightly amusing thought experiment, best conducted in user space rather than here. Splash - tk 12:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (edit conflict, I was just about to extend my comment with this:) But I agree, it is indeed more of a thought experiment, and maybe food for thought, which is precisely why I posted it here for discussion. // It wouldn't change the process, but maybe it would help to make people think and stop for a second. —AldeBaer 12:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Reform. Splash - tk 12:39, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Reform#Proposal_by_Kncyu38. The idea to have RfAs formatted as discussions was brought up and decided to implement here, not on the /Reform subpage. Also, This is dead; tag as historical. —AldeBaer 12:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  snowball RfA 

message: Following gadfium's suggestion, I'm reposting my proposal in this subsection. My idea is simply to occasionally format RfAs —on a voluntary basis only— as requests to stay a normal editor. Not as a request for desysopping for already-admins, but as a usual RfA for non-admins formulated and formatted as going in the other direction, because becoming an admin is not "going somewhere", but merely becoming an admin. I'm not trying to pull a prank or make a joke in any way with this - I genuinely believe it may make a little difference to the better at RfA in general, as it may make people stop and consider that any RfA really can also be regarded as going into the other direction as well. I wouldn't know since I'm not an admin, but from what I hear, it's not all fun and powergames to be an admin, but also a somewhat stressful thing at times. So admins may agree that adminship is not a "prize to win", but rather only one of two possible outcomes of an RfA. Staying a normal editor after an RfA is not "failing", becoming an admin is not "winning".So here is the basic premise: To have an inverted RfA, where failing would result in promotion while succeeding would result in staying a normal user. —AldeBaer 23:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is an interesting thought.  If the consensus on the request was along the lines of "no, we think you'd be an asset to the project to have additional tools to make a better product."  --Rocksanddirt 00:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's interesting, but it's very superfluous when you think about it. Adminship is definitely not a prize; it is quite stressful. One of the reasons why we have an RFA is to raise the heat. If somebody is to be prepared to become an admin, they should use their experience to overcome a sort of trial, which we have in the form of an RFA. To have an inverse RFA really wouldn't help in any awareness of this. bibliomaniac15 Tea anyone? 00:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that any candidate who can be taken seriously knows this, but do the people commenting at RfAs who give the candidates unnecessary and unuseful additional heat or mindless support? —AldeBaer 00:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's my pet peeve to see an RFA where people oppose with rather offensive sarcasm. bibliomaniac15 Tea anyone? 00:31, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I usually oppose with very offensive sarcasm, mostly because I don't like the candidates. Being able to do it while mischievously writing "support" would just be the icing on the cake for me. —AldeBaer 00:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So you are using sarcasm here to criticize sarcasm? Captain panda 02:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm indirectly stating my agreement with bibliomaniac. —AldeBaer 09:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: To be honest, the idea sounds exactly the same as editor review... Although I am not opposed to the idea, it might be seen by some as some useless process... --DarkFalls talk 09:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not proposing a new process. This would be quite an ordinary RfA, just inversely formulated. —AldeBaer 10:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The thing is, being an admin isn't just staying as a normal editor, you're being entrusted with tools. I think we've all seen editors with thousands of edits that we don't want anywhere near the mop, even though they're helping Wikipedia. As mentioned above, a normal editor doesn't have to worry about dealing with conflicts or understanding policy, just how to right gud and follow our core policies. --lucid 09:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, Lucid, being an admin is staying as a normal editor.  Admins aren't a special class of people.  We're editors who have been granted a few extra tools because we've usually done enough to show we are neither evil nor really dumb.  It's just a few buttons.  There are plenty of editors without sysop buttons who barely edit articles; this is no different amongst those who do have the extra buttons.  I don't edit articles as an admin, I edit them as an editor, in the same way I always have. Normal editors can, and do, get just as involved in conflicts and understanding of policy - the only difference is the can't themselves click the "block", "delete" or "protect" buttons (which is pretty much all these supermagical admin tools allow one to do). Neil ム 09:39, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not say that admins are a special class, that admins have special powers, or that editors don't get involved in disputes, do not twist my words. You are right, you edit articles as an admin. You don't block people as an editor, though, do you? Admins are editors still, yes, but editors are not always qualified to be admins. Again, I'm sure we can all think of editors with thousands of edits that we don't want anywhere near the mop, because even though they might make fine editors, they'd have no idea how to actually use the tools responsibly, or if they did, they wouldn't anyway. I am not saying that adminship is some special thing that should be awarded to the best editors, it's nothing like that, I'm saying that people that intend to act as admins do not just need to be trustworthy editors, they need to be able to be trusted as admins too. If someone can be trusted as an admin is what's important, and pure editing experience does not necessarily mean that- -lucid 10:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe my formulation was suboptimal: What I meant with "staying a normal" editor could, in the context of my idea, be formulated as "being spared the extra stress of being an admin". Of course admins stay normal editors. However, I didn't expect to be told that I may have overstated that point, rather maybe that my idea couldn't do much to counter the overblown perception of adminship. —AldeBaer 10:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this might be a little complex AldeBaer... The whole point of the exercise is to familiarize editors on what RfA is all about, right? Not votes, just discussions? Maybe the answer is not to alter the old one, but make a new RfA process... --DarkFalls talk 11:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with DF. After several years of running RFA with the purpose of attaining adminship, I'm not sure it would be best to invert the process. I think review is needed, but not a complete switch. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 11:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Ideas to change the RfA process have been floating around for quite some time now, and I did participate there as well. There  also have been tests where RfAs were formatted like discussions, and I thought doing something similar, and less drastic at that, may lead to further ideas on how to sensibly reform the process. —AldeBaer 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Hmmm. What particular aspect of the proposal makes you say that? The confusion it would cause, or because it apparently doesn't seem to be worth the re-arrangement? -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 12:10, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would change nothing, and potentially cause a lot of confusion. I don't see anything worth implimenting. --Deskana (apples) 12:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Deskana, it's just a little idea, and maybe not the most brilliant one, but —believe it or not— I did post it here in an honest attempt at improving things. Do you really assume I posted it here with the intention to play games, and without the intention to improve anything, like you said? —AldeBaer 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I don't think you're just trying to play games. But I do think that this proposal would just be a game were we to impliment it. --Deskana (apples) 12:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I was a bit confused by your choice of words. —AldeBaer 12:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The principal outcome of this is to remove scrutiny of whether an individual should be an admin or not. Thus we would start producing unqualified admins. We would furthermore be turning the worst editors into admins; a nonsensical proposition. And this for the sake of experimentally demonstrating a vague point about adminship having an "overblown perception". A slightly amusing thought experiment, perhaps; a suggestion to be taken seriously? No. Splash - tk 12:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how that would be the case. You'd simply "support" in the "oppose" section basically. It'd still be the same thing, basically. —AldeBaer 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's the same thing, then it would achieve nothing that is not already achieved. If it does claim to achieve something, then it's not basically the same thing. If it's not basically the same thing, then it is little more than a slightly amusing thought experiment, best conducted in user space rather than here. Splash - tk 12:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (edit conflict, I was just about to extend my comment with this:) But I agree, it is indeed more of a thought experiment, and maybe food for thought, which is precisely why I posted it here for discussion. // It wouldn't change the process, but maybe it would help to make people think and stop for a second. —AldeBaer 12:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Reform. Splash - tk 12:39, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Reform#Proposal_by_Kncyu38. The idea to have RfAs formatted as discussions was brought up and decided to implement here, not on the /Reform subpage. Also, This is dead; tag as historical. —AldeBaer 12:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  not a joke subsection for clarity