Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 44

message: Please see Wikipedia:Inactive administrators (2005) and indicate whether you support this proposal on the talk page.  Thank you. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed policy regarding inactive administrators 

message: How do I request to be an admin?                  Astroview120mm 05:25, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You should perhaps read up on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards and I quote "Please be familiar with the administrators' reading list and how-to guide, as well as the guide to requests for adminship before submitting your request." NSLE (T+C+CVU) 05:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not knowing the answer to this question is ample indication that you can't be one (at this time).  General qualifications (beyond knowing the answer to the question you've asked) include perhaps 3 months of activity here, plus a significant number of edits demonstrating understanding of at least most of the local procedures and processes.  Out of curiousity - what makes you think you want to be admin? -- Rick Block (talk) 05:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Admin 

message: #No change - a minimum could cause a perfectly good candidate's request to fail. The current system vets all applications thoroughly enough. If there are any closet skeletons, they are always brought to light and scrutinised. IMO it is impossible to prevent "inappropriate" candidates being promoted and we shouldn't change the system based on two isolated examples. I know some good admins who were promoted despite low turnouts and controversies. Izehar 18:25, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: No change in current procedures

message: #I'm not convinced the system needs fixing or that Slim's proosal will solve anything.Gator (talk) 18:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Allow bureaucrats to judge whether support numbers are sufficient on a per-case basis

message: # 25 votes are a good start, and most canditates could get that easily. Jaranda wat's sup 18:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Require at least 25 support votes

message: # This is my first preference. Someone who has interacted well with the community for several months should be able to muster at least 30 votes in the current climate of high turnout for these nominations. If they can't, I'd say there might be a problem. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Require at least 30 support votes

message: ====No self-noms====
Keep procedure the same, except for no self noms. 
#KillerChihuahua?!? 20:25, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Other

message: Keep procedure the same, except for no self noms. 
#KillerChihuahua?!? 20:25, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: No self-noms

message: # Come on, forbidding self-noms will fix what? Yet another rule, and with no gain. The way to deal with bad admins is (1) visit RfA often, study carefully people's candidacies, oppose if something does not look right (Radiant! is doing a good job at that). (2) Be tolerant to new admins, point gently to their mistakes and guide them if necessary (if some old hands do a bad job, talk to them also). (3) Report abuse at WP:AN/I or/and start RfC/RfArb if necessary. Really, inventing new rules is not the way. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose requiring non self-noms (ie allow self-noms) 

message: #David Remahl 20:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: At least 1 vote

message: *Comment: This proposal/suggestion already exists. Anyone interested should check out Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship. --Deathphoenix 14:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Create an RfA-like process through which the community can de-sysop bad admins.

message: ===A list of non-admins with high admin potential===
This would make it easier to size up admin hopefuls and perhaps make any future voting go quicker and smoother. This would be the place to make sure a potential nominee wants to be an admin, and give admin hopefuls feedback and suggestions before any voting occurs. This would also reduce the number of ridiculous and hopeless nominations. 
*Rule 1: All self-noms must pass through here. 
*Rule 2: A user can only be posted here by a consensus of 5 or more users. 
*Rule 3: Minimum stay of 7 days. 
*Rule 4: A presiding administrator or bureaucrat give a final assesment at the end of the feedback period. If the presidor deems the feedback good enough, the candidate moves on to voting. If the presidor deems the feedback not good enough, then the user is stricken from the list and rule 5 applies:
*Rule 5: The period between feedback sessions no shorter than 3 weeks. 
What do you think?  -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 01:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "There are probably a lot of editors that should be listed there but are not." Yeah, including me. I had 2,700 last I checked. Kate's site is down so I can't be sure. Anyway, I see your point. Wikipedia's gotten so big, it's almost impossible to deal with a group of users on an induvidual basis. It was just a thought. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 21:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Rule 2 might be interpreted as "Rule 2: A user can only remain posted here by a consensus of 5 or more users.". In that case, a 1-self sitting un-attested by more than 5 users, for a 7 day stretch, might  then disappear from the list. --Ancheta Wis 02:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh.  Yeah, that'd make sense. The Literate Engineer 02:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You could interpret it that way. I didn't originally think about it that way but it makes sense how it would contradict itself. So how about: "Self noms must have the support of at least five other users"? -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 02:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is something that our bureaucrats can determine for themselves. --Deathphoenix 14:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Partially Random Yet Intriguing Ideas

message: This would make it easier to size up admin hopefuls and perhaps make any future voting go quicker and smoother. This would be the place to make sure a potential nominee wants to be an admin, and give admin hopefuls feedback and suggestions before any voting occurs. This would also reduce the number of ridiculous and hopeless nominations. 
*Rule 1: All self-noms must pass through here. 
*Rule 2: A user can only be posted here by a consensus of 5 or more users. 
*Rule 3: Minimum stay of 7 days. 
*Rule 4: A presiding administrator or bureaucrat give a final assesment at the end of the feedback period. If the presidor deems the feedback good enough, the candidate moves on to voting. If the presidor deems the feedback not good enough, then the user is stricken from the list and rule 5 applies:
*Rule 5: The period between feedback sessions no shorter than 3 weeks. 
What do you think?  -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 01:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "There are probably a lot of editors that should be listed there but are not." Yeah, including me. I had 2,700 last I checked. Kate's site is down so I can't be sure. Anyway, I see your point. Wikipedia's gotten so big, it's almost impossible to deal with a group of users on an induvidual basis. It was just a thought. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 21:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Rule 2 might be interpreted as "Rule 2: A user can only remain posted here by a consensus of 5 or more users.". In that case, a 1-self sitting un-attested by more than 5 users, for a 7 day stretch, might  then disappear from the list. --Ancheta Wis 02:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh.  Yeah, that'd make sense. The Literate Engineer 02:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You could interpret it that way. I didn't originally think about it that way but it makes sense how it would contradict itself. So how about: "Self noms must have the support of at least five other users"? -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 02:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is something that our bureaucrats can determine for themselves. --Deathphoenix 14:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A list of non-admins with high admin potential

message: # "A consensus of 5 or more users" sounds a bit unrealistic or at least hard to achieve. Normally, as per the current procedure, one user approaches another one, like would you fancy it?!. I can't see how a minimum of 5 would gather in a room to discuss who will be the one fancying it next. Unless it would be the user himself approaching 10 and that would not be a good idea in terms of ethics. -- Szvest 15:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Like It, But...

message: # No. It is against the entire process to create "A-lists" of people for adminship or any other function. This is worse than unnecessary, especially given the current ease of making a self-nom. -- Cecropia 14:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "There are probably a lot of editors that should be listed there but are not." Yeah, including me. I had 2,700 last I checked. Kate's site is down so I can't be sure. Anyway, I see your point. Wikipedia's gotten so big, it's almost impossible to deal with a group of users on an induvidual basis. It was just a thought. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 21:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Have you lost your freaking mind?!

message: Don't 1 & 2 contradict each other?  I mean, a 1-self doesn't equal a 5-in-agreement... or is that to be read as "self-nominations will require 4 sponsors"?  The Literate Engineer 02:03, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Rule 2 might be interpreted as "Rule 2: A user can only remain posted here by a consensus of 5 or more users.". In that case, a 1-self sitting un-attested by more than 5 users, for a 7 day stretch, might  then disappear from the list. --Ancheta Wis 02:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh.  Yeah, that'd make sense. The Literate Engineer 02:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You could interpret it that way. I didn't originally think about it that way but it makes sense how it would contradict itself. So how about: "Self noms must have the support of at least five other users"? -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 02:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is something that our bureaucrats can determine for themselves. --Deathphoenix 14:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Other

message: Well since you selfish fools won't give me an award for my hardwork:P
:I demand an admin!
Why? you ask!?
:Because i can have access, and requickly rverted stupid External Links to weakling sites. I have just reverted some edits by some fool puting some sites on Doom articles not actually containing Doom information.
Also for other articles, because some fools think they are smarter than me/wiki, by putting there link to a random article, so we won't know nor detect it.
:Thanks for admining me, for an Adminship:P
:>x<ino 03:10, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhm..... if you don't even know how to self-nom.... I'm sorry. NSLE (T+C+CVU) 03:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to say anything. Must hold it in... ;) -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 01:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea. :-) Ëvilphoenix Burn! 02:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

text: It's so tempting to create that page...-gadfium 23:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Selfish? 

message: Are self-nominations generally seen as less worthy than being nominated by someone else? --Revolución (talk) 02:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's exactly how the page discribes it. Some people view it unfavorably, some favorably. I don't know if there's a way to tell how many are in each camp, but it seems even, though either way, I think more people jsut don't care and evaluate the candidate anyway. Statistically self noms are less likely to succeed, but that's probably due to failure to self select properly. - Taxman Talk 04:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm much in favor of self-nominating, and give "extra points" to the candidates brave enough to take that road. Adminship is not a country club, and should not need a sponsor. But my impression, sadly, is that rather more voters disagree than agree with me. Bishonen | talk 14:13, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Self noms tend to be really good candidates (i.e. you only nom yourself when you're really sure you can pass) or really bad (i.e. trolls and "newbies" who dont understand the procedure), but not much in between. Martin 14:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at RfAs from 27 June 2005 forward for editors with >2000 edits, 70.6% of self noms were successful. 84.1% of non-self noms were successful. I am 100% against the idea of not allowing self-noms. But, self-noms are less successful on the whole than non-self noms. --Durin 14:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Question

message: In what I think is the most appaling thing I've ever seen at Wikipedia, Several administrators ran across unprecedented levels of campaigning from an America Online user that is trying to force voters to change their support votes on Quadell's RFB: 
                 
 
This is obviously entirely inappropriate, but since I'm not voting in either direction, I just wanted bureaucrats and other admins to know about this. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 06:02, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I left a brief note on User talk:Cecropia. --HappyCamper 06:07, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Clearly the user should be warned and blocked as necessary, but I can't imagine that any amount of campaigning from an anon - especially of the lame sort which this one is doing - would really cause a veteran user to change his vote. — Dan | talk 06:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's quite true. I think we can all rest with ease knowing that the process is robust against this sort of thing. --HappyCamper 06:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: How many people are actually listening to this idiot? I hope none. This person is very low to do something like this. I ran across a few of those posts yesterday, but forgot to say anything. This person seems to be causing little damage but nontheless, he should be warned or blocked as suggested above. This is just a mean-spirited attempt to try and make a person they don't like lose. I've come across my share of jerks like this. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 21:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trying to derail an RFB 

message: An RfA on Ed Poor, who was desysoped by arbitrators just a week ago, has been going on for three days. Despite the comments from a number of users that the RfA shouldn't allow voting unless it is linked to from the main RfA, voting is occuring. Myself and another user now feel that this RfA should be stopped. Any comments from more experienced RfA hands?--Alabamaboy 21:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, put a note at the top indicating it's an inactive RFA, and if people persist in voting then protect it until people come to their senses. Raul654 21:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have made a note to that effect on the page.  Sam Korn 22:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ed Poor RfA 

message: Besides making a thousand or so edits, what other kinds of projects should an aspiring admin work on? Thanks in advance. J.R. Hercules 05:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you read the Guide to RFA? This covers a fair answer to your question. Also, take a look at past RFAs for more clues. jnothman talk 05:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of things one should do to become admin-worthy? 

message: Although I am not an admin myself, I do believe there should be a minimum number of edits to become an admin because there are people who just become admin for the heck of it, have their closest friends back them up, and then don't even do their job. This is trashing up the encyclopedia, and needs to be stopped.
The amount of edits I am reasoning is 1000.  1000 edits would be a significant number of months on the encyclopedia and provide experience to how it works and what is acceptable and what is not.  To stop potential power abusers, I believe there should also be a "no criminal record" rule.  That means those who have vandalised shall never be made an admin for any reason.  If that rule doesn't work, there could be an alternative of, say, 6 months of acceptable behaviour.
A minimum number of edits would also be required to participate in admin nominations to stop users from creating sockpuppets to cast votes for themselves.  That would also solve the problem of people creating new accounts and voting yes or no on every single election for the purpose of participating.
As a matter of fact, I have been a user for 3 months and I still do not believe I am experienced enough for an admin. It is just sick to let very new and/or rude people cheat their way into jobs that have power over the veterans of the encyclopedia, and either abuse their power or get bored of it and quit.  So everyone, vote yes for a minimum number of edits for adminship.
PS. Post comments as needed 
Link9er 14:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But I strongly support a "no criminal record" rule.  Those that have vandalized and/or were pov-warring and edit-warring should really have 6 months of acceptable behaviour. --Kefalonia 16:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

text: A fine and excellent idea. It could be similar or akin to semi-protect, in a sense. Allows users that have fullfilled preregcosites and gained community trust over time to slowly gain different administrative abilities until they become a full-fleged one themselves. It would depict how and why they utilize their admin abilities, without any speculation on our part. Perhaps a chat with Lord Jimbo is in order about this. -MegamanZero|Talk 19:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  See Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges. Talrias (t | e | c) 20:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minimum number of edits 

message: There seems to be a general consensus to use this, though there are questions as to its general implementation and what questions to use. Before putting this idea up for a formal poll, I'd like to make a few points:
#The specific questions we use are definitely up for discussion
#One possible idea is to have a "pool" of questions and rotate them regularly (though this requires regular maintenance of , so this is probably a bad idea).
#I think it would be best to have a header pointing out that these questions are asking for your opinion and that there are no correct answers. Hopefully this would encourage RFA candidates to think and form their own opinions rather than cutting-and-pasting the answers from current policy pages or from past RFAs.
#I think cut-and-pastes from RFAs would be fairly easy to spot.
I also have one question: How and where would we form these questions? In this talk page? On WP:AN? --Deathphoenix 15:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoa! Hold your horses! "seems to be a general consensus to use this" is outright ridiculous—how do you expect to establish "general consensus" within less than 24hours around here? When only four people have expressed support for this idea? Just for the record: I am opposed to any further inquisitory questions for admin candidates. Granting adminship is no big deal, and is a sign that the community trusts the candidate not to goof and fool around with the extra tools in bad ways. Usually, the community trusts a person when he or she has shown before that he or she is a reasonable editor, has an idea of what an encyclopedia is that matches Wikipedia and interacts reasonably well with others. All admins so far have been learning on the job—inevitable when you don't have the tools available before. Candidates are offering a service to the community; they are not applying for a job. Be glad for anyone who offers to help housekeeping, check their contributions to get a feeling what kind of persons they are, and then vote yes or no or abstain, and be doubly grateful for any admin who, once elected, actually finds the time to do some housekeeping. But do not expect or require elected admins to actually be active, and let's get rid of that mindset of requiring them to be near-perfect before being handed the mop and bucket. Remember, we're all volunteers here. Lupo 15:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please WP:AGF. If you read what I wrote, I wasn't pushing this forward, and I wasn't going to unilaterally apply these questions. All I was doing was presenting a few extra points and questions and I was also saying that all I wanted to do was to perform a poll. Please don't take what I said as being reckless. Thank you. --Deathphoenix 18:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't worry, I do (assume good faith, that is). Sorry if I came across a bit strongly. I just stumbled upon that "consensus" remark combined with the short time. Lupo 07:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's okay. I could have worded my post a little differently. --Deathphoenix 13:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: And one more thing. I am fully aware that we're all volunteers here. I keep that fact firmly in my mind when I am on Wikipedia. --Deathphoenix 18:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Now I'll get around to addressing your concerns. This proposal is actually an attempt to give RFA voters more information on a candidate while not applying any strict minimums with account age or edit count. I see this proposal as being milder than others than have come about. There is nothing forcing RFA voters to strictly look at the answers to these questions before voting. There is nothing in this policy that forces admin candidates to answer these questions (though, like the original three questions, I'd imagine answering these questions would be highly recommended). I'm not expecting admin candidates to be perfect. There are no such things as "correct answers" to these questions. There are plenty of people who answered the original question 2 without much in the way of good contributions (myself included) that got handed the adminship anyway. I didn't say the admin candidate would have to answer all five: I was only giving examples of the types of questions I had in mind. People seemed open to the idea of asking additional questions in general, and in my point above, I stated that the actual questions are still up for discussion. I'm merely proposing the asking of questions to gauge how much the admin candidate knows of Wikipedia policies and procedures. I'm proposing simple questions that have no correct answers that only ask for opinions. If there's anything here that you find exceedingly draconian, I'd like to hear your feedback so I can modify this proposal further. --Deathphoenix 18:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, these detailed questions you proposed certainly would make the questions section look even more like a job quiz. But anyway, it's no big deal, and we can experiment. Why not just be bold? IIRC, Cecropia introduced the first version of these standardized questions pretty much out of the blue without any extensive discussions beforehand. (I might be mistaken, though—it's been so long ago.) In fact, I have just been bold. Lupo 07:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an idea. It's not like I'm breaking RFA policies or anything, since all I'll be doing is putting additional questions for the candidate to answer. Maybe to make the experiment a little easier on the candidates, I can put up a note that these questions are strictly optional. I'll take a look at the questions and maybe make them a little easier to answer. --Deathphoenix 13:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Extra points and question

message: I've made a draft of these questions here, and will appreciate any feedback you can give me. Starting tomorrow (UTC time?), I'll be putting these questions on new RFAs as an experiment. Thanks, --Deathphoenix 18:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Draft questions ready

message: I have a thought in regards to the recent conversations about adminship, suitability of admins, and the ease (or lack thereof) of de-adminship.  Aircraft pilots must pass what's known as a biannual flight review.  Every two years, no matter how much or how little they fly, a pilot must go for a quick test flight with an instructor who verifies that they still know enough to fly safely and haven't picked up bad habits that'll get them killed.  Perhaps Wikipedia should consider adopting a similar methodology for gauging adminship on a continuing basis, but without adding to the RfA backlog.  
Proposal:A machine generated list of admins who have been 'unchecked' for 6 months or some other arbitrary length would be be maintained, and a group of volunteers would do a quick review of the past X edits.  I imagine the process being something that doesn't take more than 5 minutes or so per person, and also includes a quick scan of their user_talk to look for anything worrisome.  If they see anything of concern, there would be a more indepth study, possibly with an RFC involved, but I expect that would be a very rare event.
For this to work, nobody could be excluded.  No matter how long someone has been with the project, everyone would have the quick review done on them.  
Expected results: If there are admins who have become jaded and no longer exercise their powers with the attention to process, good will, and accuracy that is expected, then they will be given an opportunity to work things out with their peers.
With the flight reviews, every pilot (from the senior 747 captain to the occasional Cessna renter) has added incentive to stay current on policy (FAA regulations), keep their skills fresh, and gets an opportunity to receive feedback on their skills.  With a little attention and not a lot of work, this could do a lot to smooth feathers and help keep the quality of Wikipedia up.  Thoughts?  Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I recall, this sort of thing was proposed before (as an annual review) and rejected because this process would result in many admins losing access. The very nature of some admin activities means that admins can rub some editors the wrong way (because of blocks for 3RR and incivility, among others). I agree that the process for de-adminning is too difficult, but this makes de-adminning too easy. --Deathphoenix 20:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My apologies, I meant to add that the reviewers would be admins themselves who could differentiate users who were 'rubbed the wrong way' with admins who failed to excercise their skills properly and in accordance with policy. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

text: (ec) All editors are under review all the time, already.  I don't see that making a formal review process would really accomplish much.  At any rate, if such a review were to have any teeth, it would still require some way of revoking adminship from those who abuse it, right?  If we had a way of revoking sysop rights, I think the application of it would take care of itself, without need for a scheduled review.  Friday (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Friday, great point, but one thing this would improve on is that currently, someone needs to complain before an admin is reviewed, and usually the person who complains ends up coming across as a crank.  If the process is impersonal and by the numbers and everyone is reviewed on a scheduled basis, then you don't have to rely on a perfect storm of A: A user who was done 'wrong' who is also B: Eloquent. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A modest proposal

message: The two current/recent bureaucrat votes show a problem with voting for this position. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the community expects a higher degree of consensus for bureaucrat than admin. Put numerically this has been about 90% or better. The circus surrounding voting is bothersome. Not just looking at these nominations but for the future, remember that bureaucrat judgment is a "lowest common denominator" situation; i.e., the most liberal bureaucrat can promote even if the others don't think promotion is merited.
It would seem that a number of editors are voting Support in a popularity contest. It would seem others are voting Oppose for petty reasons or for personal spite.
Therefore: I propose we consider that only admins (of which there are now more than 600 as opposed to about 300 a year ago) be allowed to vote for bureaucrat. This makes sense for two reasons: (1) by definition admins are our more experienced users and have already gained a community expression of trust; and (2) admins do not have a vested interested in some person becoming a bureaucrat, since their adminship status cannot be affected by a bureaucrat in the future. Another aspect of (2) is that admins are less likely to engage in petty tactics, "beauty contest" or spite voting.
I have divided the voting into admins and non-admins, so we can see the relative sentiment in these groups. Please feel free to elaborate your positions, but if they are extensive, put it under Comments. Thanks, Cecropia 05:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bureaucrat Voting 

message: #Support - Bureaucrats have one key purpose, which relates to the promotion of new admins. The skills necessary for this purpose are best evaluated by those who have had sufficient participation and interest to garner adminship. Non-admins can still participate in the discussion, and can raise legitimat points of concern. bd2412 T 05:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Yes

message: # Oppose I don't think the problem is so grave as to require such extraordinary measures (I did look at the votes in there). Besides, whoever decides to promote the bureaucrat should be smart enough to sift through frivolious oppose votes. Also, I don't want to give other people more ammunition in claiming that the admins are above ordinary users. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: No

message: *Please note that I am not trying in any way to demean non-admins or suggest admins are a higher life form. I am saying that bureaucrat is a position which merits a bit closer scrutiny because bad choice can have almost impossible-to-reverse consequences. -- Cecropia 05:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: I'm seeing a few "Oppose - too many userboxes" votes, yet I haven't seen any reasoning given anywhere as to why having userboxes is a bad thing. If anything, I'd say they are a good thing, in that they tell people a little bit about the administrator they're dealing with (which may be very useful when you're asking them to have a look at an edit-war on a controversial subject, for instance). Can anyone explain why they are bad, or is userboxitis the new editcountitis? Grutness...wha? 08:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably a spin-off of Kelly Martin's RFC. NSLE (T+C+CVU) 10:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I guess my question is, are b-crats given enough latitude to discard such votes, and if so, are they actually counting them? :P Unless there's something particularly bad about userboxes I missed, I can't imagine such a vote being reasonable. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: But I fully intend to oppose anyone who uses inappropriate userboxes, such as those containing personal attacks or fair use images.  I don't think that is a spurious reason.  Sam Korn 11:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. "POV presented in userboxes is troubling" would be a perfectly good reason for opposing, IMO. --Deathphoenix 12:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, yes, there's no problem with that as a reason. But that's a completely different thing from "too many userboxes", which is what is being used as a reaon for opposing. That's like the difference between opposing someone for a personal attack on a talk page (understandable) and opposing someone for simply leaving lots of messages on talk pages (very strange). Grutness...wha? 13:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, but even then, with the possibility of a userbox changing from the time the user added it ntil the time of the RFA, it's not really fair to assume the person being nominated has noticed that one of their userboxes contains a disputed image (unless the person added the image themselves, or reverted over someone who'd removed the image). —Locke Cole • t • c 23:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Hence I agreed with Sam Korn's comments. :-) --Deathphoenix 17:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I joked about it on wikien-l, and here we are... Alphax τεχ 13:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Userboxes?

message: Well, I just randomly selected (literally -- with a short perl script) one of the admin candidates.  He did meet my time criterion, so I expressed a neutral vote and added a question asking for more information.  I think I'll keep doing this until I find one I vote oppose on.  Just "testing the waters," here.  Hopefully I don't ruffle any feathers, and even more hopefully I cause people to start thinking more about RFA.
Couple of comments:
I view the discussion of raising our admin standards (each of us, independently — this is a wiki, after all) as orthogonal to discussions of deadminship.  Jayjg commented on the mailing list that it's far cheaper to filter out problems earlier than to correct them, later.  This experience is definitely borne out in my field of programming, where catching software defects is always an order of magnitude more costly in the next phase of the project.  As Benjamin Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."  Rather than an explicit deadmin process, I'd personally just like to see the Arbcom process streamlined and encourage them to execute the option more frequently and swiftly where desired.  I think selecting no-nonsense Arbcom candidates helps this.  But having an opinion on a deadminship process is, as I said, orthogonal to having an opinion on raising our standards.  You can believe in either, both, or neither.
Big support for those considering asking the candidates more questions.  I'll continue to revise and refine mine.
Had another comment which I've now forgotten. :) Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 15:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  subheading to make this section shorter -- please be bold and give it a descriptive name 

message: My proposal is rather simple and straightforward, yet could result in an overall improvement of the RfA process. 
Basically, for an RfA to begin, the candidate would need to have recommendations from 3 admins. The recommendations would briefly describe why the candidate would make a good admin. With over 700 active admins, finding three to write a recommendation would prove to be trivial. This proposal would virtually eliminate the problem of woefully unqualified candidates nominating themselves and would also lead to borderline candidates getting additional feedback. Thoughts? Carbonite | Talk 18:11, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a funny proposal coming from a self-nom who didn't have a recommendation from a single administrator. I'll support it if you and any other admins pushing for this instruction-creep voluntarily start over and put yourself through the same process. --لæmäļ al diη  19:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This sounds good to me as at least an interim solution.  It is not clear to me exactly what the long-term consequences of this approach might be, but my first thoughts are that this is a good proposal.  I'd incorporate the suggestion that the "why" needs to be shown with diffs.  Jkelly 18:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Even though three might be excessive, this looks like a very practical solution. The best thing is that the admin who puts forward the name has a reputation to lose by suggesting someone whose qualitites (s)he is not sure about and this itself will filter out a few. Tintin Talk 18:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: *Second thoughts. Is this an original suggestion ? It seems to me that someone would have suggested this sometime and it should have been shot down for some reason. Tintin Talk 18:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: *:Offhand, I can't remember this exact proposal being made before. I thought it over for a while before adding it here and I haven't been able to think of any major drawbacks. It does make it harder for a candidate to begin an RfA, but I see that as a sign that the candidate is truly interested in the position. Carbonite | Talk 18:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: But with the current RfA process we won't know if three admins endorse a candidate until after the RfA has begun. One important difference is that my proposal is for three admins to provide recommendations, not just a support "vote". I consider a recommendation to be about a paragraph in length, providing links and diffs when appropriate. As for admins possibly returning favors, it's always a possibility, but people can still oppose the RfA if the candidate is unsuitable or the recommendations don't give any real reasons to support. This proposal is essentially about improving the RfA process, not trying to perfect it (I don't think that's possible). Carbonite | Talk 18:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Carbonite, can you do a practical test. Check the RfAs of a few admins who you consider 'bad', and see who nominated them. The results were not very encouraging when I tried it. Tintin Talk 18:57, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually did this a few days ago and without going into specifics, my experience was that the nominators in these RfAs were rarely admins themselves and some were users I've barely heard of. Overall, I think it's pretty hard to use anecdotal evidence to evaluate the merits since we're all going to have different views of whom the "bad" admins are. This proposal would raise the bar to three admins and encourage the recommendation to be as specific as possible. There wouldn't be additional work for bureaucrats and we'd also have the added advantage of eliminating the RfAs that easily fail, but end up hurting the feelings of the candidate (sometimes leading them to leave Wikipedia). Carbonite | Talk 19:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:41, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Or perhaps even simpler, the person has to get 3 admins to mentor a nomination.   Until 3 admins step forward, the nomination does not take effect.  Anyone could still vote, but it wouldn't count without the 3 admin mentors.  It should also be stated that along with being a mentor the 3 admins are putting their own reputation on the line for the candidate.  Most self-noms would probably end up serching out admin mentors before posting at RfA, and that would probalby be a very good thing. -- Samuel Wantman 08:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Hmmm... no. There is a big difference between voting support and proposing a candidate. If you look at the people who vote in RfA, a large percent of those who vote for support are 'acquaintances' - they may have met the candidate a few times, or they may have just found that he appears to be a decent guy etc. On the other hand, the proposers are invariably people who know the candidate intimately, who have probably worked with him/her for a considerable period of time. Tintin Talk 08:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily, on my rfa, the proposer was Durin, with whom I hardly interacted before the rfa. I felt that I measured up to his standards and asked him to consider nominate me; he did so after due diligence. However, the moot point is, "how many people would go to the length of formally stating their standards for nominating and then, performing due diligence on all the aspirants." --Gurubrahma 08:59, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Seconded, I didn't know my nominator at all, I certainly hadn't worked closely with him and there was very little discussion before the nomination. I don't really like the idea of people having to recruit admins for nominations. Maybe a page editors could add themselves to express interest in becoming an admin. Don't we have one of those? A category or something. Rx StrangeLove 19:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I actively recruit people whom I think will make good admins. I have high standards for whom I nominate (which are not the same as who I would vote support for). Several users now (with Gurubrahma being the first) have asked me to conduct reviews of them with respect to my standards for the possibility of a nomination. I don't see any problem with recruiting admins, or with having people ask to be nominated. --Durin 16:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another proposal: Recommendations 

message: Rather than saying "three admin recommendations before we start", wouldn't it be far simpler to say that a person can stand for rfa, but would only become an admin if at least three of those voting support were admins, and the ratio of admins voting support/oppose was above the standard criterion for adminship? This would make the rfa process "bicameral" like some parliamentary systems - 75% support from editors overall, and 75% from admins. I realise it reeks a little of elitism for the admins, but so does requiring three admin recommendations before even starting an rfa. Grutness...wha? 23:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or perhaps even simpler, the person has to get 3 admins to mentor a nomination.   Until 3 admins step forward, the nomination does not take effect.  Anyone could still vote, but it wouldn't count without the 3 admin mentors.  It should also be stated that along with being a mentor the 3 admins are putting their own reputation on the line for the candidate.  Most self-noms would probably end up serching out admin mentors before posting at RfA, and that would probalby be a very good thing. -- Samuel Wantman 08:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Hmmm... no. There is a big difference between voting support and proposing a candidate. If you look at the people who vote in RfA, a large percent of those who vote for support are 'acquaintances' - they may have met the candidate a few times, or they may have just found that he appears to be a decent guy etc. On the other hand, the proposers are invariably people who know the candidate intimately, who have probably worked with him/her for a considerable period of time. Tintin Talk 08:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily, on my rfa, the proposer was Durin, with whom I hardly interacted before the rfa. I felt that I measured up to his standards and asked him to consider nominate me; he did so after due diligence. However, the moot point is, "how many people would go to the length of formally stating their standards for nominating and then, performing due diligence on all the aspirants." --Gurubrahma 08:59, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Seconded, I didn't know my nominator at all, I certainly hadn't worked closely with him and there was very little discussion before the nomination. I don't really like the idea of people having to recruit admins for nominations. Maybe a page editors could add themselves to express interest in becoming an admin. Don't we have one of those? A category or something. Rx StrangeLove 19:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I actively recruit people whom I think will make good admins. I have high standards for whom I nominate (which are not the same as who I would vote support for). Several users now (with Gurubrahma being the first) have asked me to conduct reviews of them with respect to my standards for the possibility of a nomination. I don't see any problem with recruiting admins, or with having people ask to be nominated. --Durin 16:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: a simplification of "another proposal"

message: From time to time, I see people making generalizations about the changes in RfA. A recent one was that the average number of votes has gone up significantly, so getting 30 votes should be easy. My stats show the average number of votes has remained virtually unchanged over the last 400 RfA. 
Similarly, I see a claim here that we are regularly promoting people with less than 3 months experience. The reality does not bear this out. Out of 285 successful RfAs since June 27th, just 10 of them have had less than 90 days since their first edit (or 3.5%), and only one had less than 2,000 edits:
Editor           Days        Edits (at time of nom)
Phroziac          89         1083
JoanneB           89         6747
Redwolf24         87         2414
Jtkiefer          86         2601
Journalist        84         3230
Jkelly            82         3704
Flcelloguy        79         2886
NSLE              73         2071
Bmicomp           72         4904
Izehar            54         4547
Of these, only Redwolf24 had an RfC filed against him, but that was three months after becoming an admin. At least, no RfCs against these people where the RfC was titled rfc/<username>. 
Our users/admin ratio is the third highest among major wikipedias m:Administrators_of_various_Wikipedias. Only Japanese and Spanish wikipiedias have a worse ratio. This would seem to suggest that we need *more* admins, and not less. 
Of note; if the bar had been 12 months for the last 285 successful admins, 162 would not have qualified. I wouldn't call you a jerk for such a voting standard, but you will receive a lot of flack for it from a number of people. I made attempts at getting people to stop attacking people on RfA, and was roundly attacked for it (I guess that's no surprise). So, the atmosphere of personal assault continues at RfA. 
I also echo some of the comments made by Friday; quite a bit of the most egregious behavior has been exhibited by long time members of this community, apparently feeling they can act with impunity. The said thing is, they're right. To a person, they've gone unsanctioned. 
The problem here isn't that the pool of admins is any worse than it was in the past. The problem here is that there are more bad admins because there are more admins in general. Furthermore, that there is no accountability loop, and no feedback mechanisms on admin behavior. And worse, (see section below on Wikipedia riots) ArbCom has essentially invalidated all policies except WP:IAR recently. 
RfA does a good job of weeding out seriously bad candidates. I don't think there's anything wrong with the process in so far as how it approves candidates. --Durin 20:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, as I said above somewhere RFA hardly ever makes a huge mistake, I'm not sure we need any of these fixes people are proposing, at least at this point. I do think that we could use a mechanism to nudge admins that are consistantly making bad choices when deleting or blocking etc....some sort of temporary revocation of admin tools possibly. You mentioned a feedback mechanism above and I agree that we need one. Over all though I think RFA itself does a decent job and really doesn't need a fix currently. Rx StrangeLove 21:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was promoted with less than 90 days of experience? Hmm... Well, I sure haven't had a RfC against me... (knocks on wood). :-) Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: <Colonel Klink>Ve vill get to you ven ve are ready. You must be patient. Painful interrogation takes time to set up!</Colonel Klink> --Durin 23:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Really? I agree with Colonel Klink. You need to have been here long enough to give us time to see what you are like; what kind of editor you are. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 07:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Actual stats on # of admins <3 months

message: Since his RfA is already going to fail, and between my list of recommendations and the others, enough has been said, why do we need more "oppose per above" votes? I ask that when you see this happen, either be the one to make a long to-do list or if it is already there, then just don't vote. He knows the reasons, he doesn't need a 2/30 oppose vote.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 20:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but how would we make sure all voters know that. I know that I use section editing when I vote. Doing that, such a message could easily be missed. And you'd also have to deal with people who do that before failure is nearly certain, perhaps by misunderstanding or because that user has a grudge against the nominee. Guidelines should be set. And that still doesn't fix the notification problem beformentioned. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 07:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there are probably two ways of sorting this out: either come to a policy decision to close obvious losses early, or for one of us to leave a message on the respective user's talk page suggesting poilitely that they might wish to withdraw before it gets too bad.  Saying that RfA isn't supposed to be a popularity contest and users should understand before the accept a nomination that this could happen. -- Francs2000  18:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't always necessary to go through an elaborate procedure. Usually this is a matter of bureaucrat discretion. Alerted to the situation by the above, I removed the nomination, as 2-19 was clearly failing and leaving it just piling on. I would discourage other users from making such a decision without a direct request from the nominee since it is a good way to begin needless RfA wars. -- Cecropia 18:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you can remove it. But my issue is less formal: don't "pile-on", let it conclude into failure as is. If 5 people say "not enough edits" and 14 oppose for simalar reasons, why say "oppose. per above" or "oppose. not enough edits"? What does that add? It just makes the candicacy look incredibly pathetic for no gain.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 19:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Alas, 'tis human nature I fear. How many expressions do we have for it? "Don't kick a man when he's down," "Don't whip a dead horse," But some people get a charge out of it anyway. Or perhaps everyone feels they must "get their licks in." Not many at Wikipedia, it sometimes seems, have much patience for religious philosophy, but it might be well, every now and then to consider whether "we do unto others as we would have them do unto us." -- Cecropia 20:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I gave one of the last helpful votes, making a good list of things to do and telling him to apply later, I did that to try to stop a pile-on. It didn't work...Voice of AllT|@|ESP 22:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poor [[user:Luckyluke]] 

message: I've noticed the recent addition to the set of compulsory questions: "4. What do you think of these questions?" If I may ask, what's the point of the question? enochlau (talk) 11:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions