Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 74

message: :The following is a joke request for adminship that was run into the ground. Please do not modify it, just move along.
Wow! I looked at the RFA stats on my talkpage today and they look wonderful! There's at least half a dozen nominees with 100% support! The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Things seem to move in waves on RfA. One minute people are complaining that it's an nigh-impossible gauntlet that candidates are forced to endure; the next minute 10 of 12 candidates have 88%+ support. Maybe the process isn't quite so broken... SuperMachine 17:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pardon me if I hope the trend lasts, at the very least, through November 7th. ;-) EVula 17:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: ALERT! EVula is overeager - everybody vote to oppose! :-) Jokes aside, there are usually several nominations at a time from inexperienced editors that are naturally bound to fail - these skew the counts and give a negative impression when you're monitoring RfA. If you remove such cases from previous stats, they should rise to this same success rate. Rama's arrow 17:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. It almost always comes down to the quality and experience of the candidate. Yes, there are occasionally situations such as strong candidates being rejected because of their biases or weaker candidates being promoted due to IRC popularity. But these are exceptions, not the rule. SuperMachine 17:46, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm also seeing less than 99% use of edit summaries while editing the Obscure 1980s TV Specials page after 7:00 PM on Thursdays when it's not raining outside. I'm afraid I must oppose. - Mike | Happy Thanksgiving 02:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, just who does that jerk think... he... aww, damn. EVula 03:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: INCIVILITY! INCIVILITY here! We've got him! Get on IRC, spam e-mail everybody! Oppose, Oppose! (lols) We're running this joke into the ground. Rama's arrow 03:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Healthy number of successful nominees 

message: I have a question: the RfA is not supposed to be a vote, so it is fair to add that the count alone should not determine the outcome. Bureaucrats need to be vigilant about bad-faith opposes, etc. So shouldn't the "Neutral" people get some sort of weight in the final decision, even if it is very low. For example, Mr. X's nomination has 5-6 neutrals who feel positive, but uncertain. And it comes down to the wire with 74-75% support. Given that consensus is a grey area, shouldn't the bureaucrat feel some freedom in assessing the neutral arguments? Is it a good idea to allow 4 neutral-positives to make 1 support, as every oppose is worth 4 supports?
Basically, my question is if its not a vote and tallies aren't the end-all, then why not involve the neutrals a bit more with some weightage? Rama's arrow 03:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, sometimes people are neutral but not entirely positive. For RfA/Ramsquire2, Siva1979 voted neutral specifically to avoid piling on another negative vote, while Husond and (aeropagitica)'s neutrals were of the "not so much with the support" variety. I think that, in very close situations like the one you listed, any bureaucrat should most certainly consider the merits of all neutral votes, but giving them undue weight would be dangerous. EVula 03:38, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: No I'm not saying that a hard-fast guideline can be made. And definitely, neutral-tending-oppose must also receive weightage. But I'd like to discuss the role and importance of "neutrals" in a non-vote process like RfA. Perhaps "bureaucratic discretion," etc. A safe way is perhaps if a nom has 76% and the bureaucrat is unsure about promotion, wants to discuss at BN. Its fine, but perhaps a good bunch of positive-neutrals should also be accounted for. Rama's arrow 03:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: And I'm definitely not trying to suggest that neutral-positives be counted as unofficial "supports" or neutral-negatives be "opposes," - no. A neutral is out of the count, but I just feel we should be clear about whether or not this can be useful in a non-vote process, a discussion/consensus-based process where the count is not the final decision-maker. Rama's arrow 03:50, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: And not to say that "neutral" weightage will make any difference on most of the nominations. But its one of those things we might like to discuss and be sure about with the future in mind. Rama's arrow 03:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What makes you think Neutrals are not counted in the decision when the outcome is close? That's been current practice, if largely undocumented... -- nae'blis 17:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Being "Neutral" 

message: ... but why is "Why do you want to be an administrator?" not a default question? I understand that some people are perhaps a little hesitant to load up the RfA with a billion and a half questions, as RfAs are supposed to be moderately approachable, but this is a fairly rudimentary question. EVula 03:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the nomination statement and the Q1 answer requires that this question be addressed. Many people don't support if they feel the nominee doesn't really need the tools or have any real desire to serve as an admin. Rama's arrow 03:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: And I kinda agree that this question should be answered in this way. A nominee's passion should be evident through and through. Rama's arrow 04:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Also, you invite cliches when you ask such a question. "I love Wikipedia" is a genuine feeling that most people here have, but a pain to keep reading in each nom. Rama's arrow 04:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While it's one of my favourite questions, I wouldn't make it a standard question.  Usually, it's clear that the reward of having adminship is being able to serve Wikipedia better.  But sometimes, some candidates give me the feeling that they see adminship as some sort of prize, a competition, a proof that they are better than the average editor.  That can cause me to ask about people's motivations.  Regards, Ben Aveling 09:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, all of the above are fairly reasonable answers. I happened to answer Q1 and Q4 fairly differently for each other, so I didn't see the latter as necessarily being answered by the former. And I wholeheartedly agree that doe-eyed "I wuv Wikipedia!" answers would get very old, very fast. EVula 17:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A potentially silly question... 

message: I've noticed that someone has came up with this idea and boldly implemented it, I thought this sounds refreshing in the sense that it is an extension of admin coaching. Then again the page found itself on the half-bakery.
Perhaps it may be plausible as an official institution/department, while others want nothing of it, the rest want to get rid of it. Or perhaps we can merge some of the concept/ideas to existing processes we already have to help out aspiring editors in getting familiar with process? (Say, expand ER?) - Mailer Diablo 18:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Admin school]] 

message: Several current RfA's have links to the edit counter tool posted, sometimes with the note that it's operating a bit slowly.  Meanwhile, the edit count is available rapidly, just by hopping over to the talk page for that RfA, but often there's no cross-reference to that.  Not to encourage excessive importance to the edit count or the edit counter, but it probably would be more helpful for the first person who wants to to run the counter, post the results to talk, and then post a link or cross-reference to the talk at the top of the RfA rather than post another link to the edit counter itself. Newyorkbrad 01:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Or even better (not sure if it is possible), link directly to the talk page, where the link to the tool is found. Whoever arrives there first, clicks on the link, gets the data, and pastes it there. People would not forget about removing the tool link and replacing it with a link to the talk page that way. -- ReyBrujo 02:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree. The (non-database) edit counters actually use a lot of resources on the server side, and it's not healthy for people to be clicking the links all the time. -- Tangotango 08:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Mathbot edits the page of each candiate anyway, I could have it as well as a note that the  edit count is available on talk (assuming that people are actually commited to adding the edit counts on talk). Would that be a good idea? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, please; I was going to suggest that but forgot about it. --ais523 09:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I made mathbot mention that the edit count is available on the talk page, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Opabinia regalis for an example. I agree with the above comments that finding the edit count each time using Special:Contributions is kind of a waste of resources. (My bot also checks the Special:Contributions for the edit summary, but only the most recent 500 or 1000 edits.) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's good.  Now just one picky thing...do you think you could change the formatting to use spaces instead of tabs so that the column of numbers lines up?  It looks a little shabby the way it is now. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 05:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The bot does not create the edit count table on the talk page, it just adds a comment in the RfA nomination saying that people can take a look on the talk page for the edit count. This assumes some people actually bother to put the edit count on talk -- and they usually do. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  (Indenting is about to wrap my window width. :)  Oh, I thought having Mathbot add the edit counts to the talk page was part of the discussion here.  Why make it a manual process if it can be automated? —Doug Bell talk•contrib 16:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

text: When I mentioned the load, I meant the load on the toolserver (hemlock), which is a single server handling a lot of requests for a lot of different uses. While I'm not sure whether the edit counters cause a significant performance impact, they are known to leave behind zombie processes (when users start a request and don't hang around long enough for them to finish), and use more memory than most web-based scripts (3 - 4 MB for each page of 5,000 contributions downloaded). As many people have mentioned, I'm sure the main Wikimedia servers can handle the extra strain being put on them, but the load on the toolserver is, I think, an issue that needs to be considered. - Tangotango 07:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought the edit counters didn't use the toolserver anymore... --Tango 17:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They do... at least the ones with URLs starting http://tools.wikimedia.de/ (hemlock's address). None of the edit counters used on the English Wikipedia use the toolserver (zedler) database anymore, though. - Tangotango 17:50, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links to edit counter - suggestion 

message: I was wondering, if someone ran for Bureaucratship, what would, on the most basic level, be expected? Some of the standards appear to contradict each other, resulting in unavoidable opposes (and only a few will sink an RfB). Here are the criteria I'd suspect most people share:
*User is at least moderately active
*User has experience as both an editor and as one who determines consensus by looking at discussions, see User:Voice_of_All/Consensus.
*User has months of experience as an admin
*User has good form, open-minded, and respectful. Some room for mistakes or disagreement should be tolerated.
There some criteria that are not as widely shared:
*User demonstrates the need for more crats
*User has never made major mistakes
And there some other criteria that seem to be sticking points however:
*User will always follow the polls (exepting sock puppets/vandalism and attack votes) for <70% and >=75% no matter what. Crats that don't do this are ignoring the community.
*User will not always follow the polls (excepting sock puppets) for <70% and >=75%; the "wider consensus" is considered and "nitpicking/no expanation" votes don't count. Crats that don't do this are ignoring the community.
*User will not always follow the polls (excepting sock puppets) for <70% and >=75%; clearly bad candidates should not be promoted, this is about "whats good for the wiki" not "consensus on RfA".
Unless these are reconciled, the role of bureaucrats will remain clouded and RfBs invariably stressful and confusing.Voice-of-All 08:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *On the contrary, WP:CHU has been in serious need of more bureaucrat participation; there's been a backlog of up to a week, when I've been away. Warofdreams talk 21:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Quite true, but Redux has offered to help out again there and Essjay has returned today from a long hiatus, and worked on 5 of the 17 currently listed requests. --Durin 21:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *Personally I don't see the answer to backlogs on WP:CHU being to create more overhead and take more time of highly trusted users. There are so much more important things to work on that help the project. Almost anything we do is more valuable to the project than changing usernames. Meaing, you're a good editor Warofdreams, and I'd rather have you do that. And clearly there's no major concern over CHU as I made a proposal to fix the backlog problem and I got almost no response if I recall. Simply reduce the acceptable reasons to request/grant CHU to those needed to comply with the username policy or for privacy reasons. - Taxman Talk 04:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *And that still completely fails to answer what the consensus on the role and requirements of a bureaucrat are, which seems to have become extremely unclear ever since the Carnildo RfA.Voice-of-All 16:27, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

text: There is certainly an issue regarding the definition of consensus, but it's not really a problem with RfB, it's a problem with RfA. Plenty of people have proposed plenty of possible solutions to this, and the general consensus has always been that, while not perfect, RfA does work. --Tango 18:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And RfBs have failed over the details of how consensus will work. It hangs on a thread. I just want to know what the requirements are and what the roll of bcrats are. I don't know why this is seen as another "we need to reform RfA thread".Voice-of-All 21:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *Not so much that, but it strikes me a bit as trying to nail down what is a valid oppose vote for RfB. Just as in RfA, people have their own ideas of what is a valid basis for oppose or support. There's never been consensus to prevent votes based on some predetermined criteria on what counts and does not count. The consensus issue is deliberately open-ended, and is so for a reason. --Durin 21:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that if people disagree on the basic bread and butter foundation of their role, especially given the 90% threshold, RfB will become highly unstable. Many of the last ones barely passed, and with the issues after Carnildo's promotion, a tight situation has already gotten much worse.Voice-of-All 21:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's perfectly true, but you can't fix that in RfB, you have to fix it in RfA, as that's what the disagreement is about. If you think you can fix RfA in some way that is better than all the other rejected suggestions, then by all means try, but I wouldn't hold your breath. RfA is very controversial at times, which means the job of being a 'crat can be very controversial, which means selecting 'crats will be inherently controversial. Getting an overwhelming consensus on a controversial issue is pretty much impossible (almost by definition), so RfB will always be very hard to succeed at, as you have to please everybody, even when they contradict each other. So far, a few people have managed that (I don't really know how), but such people will always be a minority. --Tango 14:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Based on the numbers from Wikipedia:Recently created bureaucrats there have only been 7 successful RfBs in the last 2 years with the following percent support 99, 97, 90, 93, 98, 92, and 98. That's a pretty small sample size to say many barely passed, and given 90% is not a set in stone bar to pass, I'm not sure you could say any barely passed. And I can recall only one that was unsuccessful and could be considered close in that time. But as Rx StrangeLove mentioned, the Giano arbitration case pretty much removed any uncertainty in the area of RfA. They want more or less numerical promotion within a fairly narrow band even if there are extenuating circumstances. Pragmatically I can see why, because if you follow the numbers nobody can really complain. - Taxman Talk 04:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

text: It's not a good idea for adminship; it's even less of a good idea for bureaucrats. —Centrx→talk • 05:01, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, there's seems to be renewed energy being put into admin coaching, don't think that's a good idea and by extension bureaucratship coaching probably isn't a good idea either. But on the larger question of their roles, I think the first 3 principles in Giano's arbitration  narrows down bureaucrats roles (in RFA's anyway) which should ease some of the concerns people have in that area. Rx StrangeLove 05:27, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfB standards 

message: Seeing that the combined size of the nominations and questions in Tariqabjotu's RfA is more than 20KB (I saved it to a text file and Explorer said it was 24KB!), I have split the nominations and questions into their own pages. Please revert if the bots break. Kavadi carrier 13:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tariqabjotu's RfA - questions and nominations split 

message: Given the high number of succesful nominees the last few weeks, several of which passed with near-unanimous support, I'd say that the rumors of harshness, negativity and impossibility of RFA should now be a thing of the past. Yay for us! (Radiant) 15:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Either that, or all the candidates that would have been opposed have been scared off... From what I've seen, the editcountitis seems to have improved (as evidenced by the complete lack of editcount related opposes on my RfA, despite me having less than 2000 edits, which was where the stats said people stopped opposing because of it), which is a very good thing (esp. for me!) --Tango 18:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's good that people don't need to be paranoid about their edit count to become an admin. Sure quite a lot of edits are needed but 5000 is no longer neccessary which is nice to see. James086 Talk | Contribs 00:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Let's wait for the video. I've seen a fair number of people recently withdrawing early, perhaps in the face of being in the small subset of people without 97%+ support. Once we see the total statistics I'll be happy we've overcome some of the pendulum-swinging. -- nae'blis 15:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The withdrawals tend to be from non-serious (joke) nominations, candidates who aren't remotely qualified (50 edits, 2 weeks of editing) and those who are marginally qualified but have significant opposition. Withdrawals seem to be happening very quickly, usually within the first 12-24 hours of an RfA. Those candidates that are well-qualified are passing their RfAs with astounding support percentages. I'm also looking forward to seeing some comprehensive statistics, but when 8 of 9 current candidates have 97%+ support, it's fairly safe to say that things are going well. SuperMachine 17:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

text: We musn't count chickens before the eggs hatch. Fresh complaints could arise if there are a spate of noms where otherwise-good editors are rejected. Owing to the sense of "victory" or "rejection" involved, I don't think that trend is likely to change. Rama's arrow 16:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: As a recent RfA survivor, I have to say that the experience was a lot more pleasant than I was expecting. I kept checking it obsessively in part because I was sure someone was going to come right along and rip me a new asshole, which never happened. Not that I'm disappointed, mind you... EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:46, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Talking about preserving a healthy atmosphere and success rate, I'd just like a few comments (not trying to open a discussion) on why nomination floors are a bad idea. I can understand admins being appointed with only 1,000 or so edits back in 2003, but is it such a bad idea to ask people with less than 1,500 edits to wait a bit longer? Given the growth of the project and its administration, its not like we lose that much by asking a few editors to wait for a bit. Again, not trying to flog a dead horse, but its just a doubt in my mind I'd like to vent. Surely the atmosphere and success rate would be better if we had fewer of those 0-10 rejections. Rama's arrow 18:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I bet you're really thinking but is it such a bad idea to ask people with less than 15,000 edits to wait a bit longer? :-P —Doug Bell talk•contrib 18:19, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Not really... some half-wit was willing to oppose me because I didn't have 20,000 edits... :)) Rama's arrow 20:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *I know you're not trying to rouse that horse after it's been beaten so bad it'd make a roman coliseum look like a picnic. But, whatever it is you *are* trying to do, isn't going to work :) --Durin 21:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not *trying to do* anything. I'd just like to check base on exactly why this idea was never accepted. Rama's arrow 22:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll offer my RfA as an example. I currently have 100% support, yet I have only around 1600 edits. Clearly, the community doesn't automatically reject people with low edit counts. The only reason I can see for not letting someone be nominated is if they don't stand a chance of succeeding, which isn't the case. Most noms that don't stand a chance get withdrawn pretty quickly anyway, so there's no need for more instruction creep. If we had grossly unqualified noms refusing to withdraw, there might be a reason to stop them, but even then, I think the solution would be early closing by crats (I think that already happens, in theory, but never seems to be required these days), not arbitrary cutoffs. --Tango 23:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: PS: After checking the recent history, I see one early closure, but that was after less than 24 hours, so the nom didn't really have a chance to withdraw, there's a good chance he would have done if Essjay hadn't been so quick off the mark. --Tango 23:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: What you say is true - you're a good nominee and there would be a degree of "instruction creep." I guess most people think about this becoz of the number of doomed noms RfAs get. Rama's arrow 00:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Edit count is easy to boost. I made about 500 edits today reverting a lot of vandalism. Edit counts don't indicate quality. My contributions today don't require very much experience, but I now have more than 2000 edits. That's the flaw with edit count. However, I wouldn't want a user with less that 1500 edits. I do think that an admin needs a lot of edits, to show they are commited and would use the tools, not just have them incase they need them. James086 Talk | Contribs 14:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFA is t3h evil! 

message: We've had so many good candidates lately! And all the candidates up right now are exemplary. We've got it so good right now. :) riana_dzasta 14:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's hope it stays this way. A constant supply of good candidates being promoted is not only good (by getting more admins) but it gives others confidence who would pass but are "afraid" of the stringent oppose votes (leading to exponentially more and more admins:)). James086 Talk | Contribs 14:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I just have to say this...

message: I recently voted in an RFA, and I updated the vote tally accordingly by incrementing the appropriate number by one. Unfortunately, when I went back to check, I found that the tally I had altered had been incorrect to start with. I thought I'd check a few other RfAs first, before correcting it, and found that quite a few of them were wrong, mainly some lone neutral votes that hadn't been put into the tally. If I see this again, is it worth updating the tallies? Carcharoth 01:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's a big deal if the tallies aren't updated with every single vote. There's nothing stopping you from updating them whenever you feel like, though. --Sam Blanning(talk) 01:07, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Tallies are just a quick way for lazy people to see how the candidate is doing, so you would do them a favour by updating and correcting them ;-) Be careful with bad formatted opinions, as they may be breaking the enumeration. -- ReyBrujo 02:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

text: The tally thing itself is kind of outdated anyway, I think most or at least many people use one of the various bot-updated RfA summaries nowadays to get a quick ballpark estimate of how candidates are doing. Tallies are still somewhat useful but I wouldn't worry too much about them. --W.marsh 03:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

text: One could hire a bot to fix the tally after lazy voters (and for the benefit of lazy observers), but it is really not worth it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that would work. For example, in one rfa (it might've been Husond's,) someone withdrew their !vote and put it in the neutral section (declaring abstention), I added it in the neutral slot, and then the candidate reverted me and explained. A bot, however, might end up revert warring in this case! Furthermore, misformatted !votes, as ReyBrujo noted, will throw the bot off. Picaroon9288 03:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I always make tally updates when I notice that one of them is off, for the specific purpose of others not having to worry about doing it. Since tallies are such a minor part of rfa, !voters need not be bothered to update them, and it isn't a bother whatsoever for me to update them. However, I've never seen a tally off by more than three or four !votes, so updating them is really never very urgent. Picaroon9288 03:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't overestimate the role of "tallies." Its true that removing them will help, but given the proliferation of RfA monitor boxes, its bound to be limited. People might just keep checking at WP:BN, where they'll get the percentages too. Rama's arrow 14:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

text: The tally summary on BN is updated periodically but is often several hours out of date, so that list is good to keep track of what RfA's are pending but shouldn't be relied on without checking the actual RfA. I think the bureaucrats use that list primarily to watch out for inadvertent duplicate !votes (the bot checks for them). Newyorkbrad 19:56, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *Yes, but nevertheless it appears to be more accurate than the manual tally :) (Radiant) 21:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It shouldn't run more than an hour behind, unless something's changed dramatically; Tangobot is supposed to update it each hour. The main point of the tally on BN is to remind us when there are RFA's that need closed; the bot includes a large "1 OVERDUE" in it's edit summary to help us know our services are needed. The duplicate vote section is very helpful, but I find the former is the reason I use it most. Essjay (Talk) 03:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

text: This has been discussed in Archive 67, has it? I've only got to Archive 46 so far... :-) Seriously, thanks for pointing out the previous discussion. Carcharoth 17:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating the vote tally 

message: I don't recall the last time I saw only four nominations on the page.  Is that unusual, or have I just not been paying attention? —Doug Bell talk•contrib 20:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that is unusually low, but note that the recent high number of nominations was also unusual. —Centrx→talk • 20:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be that upon seeing your nomination everyone realizes that now all adminship tasks will be efficiently taken care of and no more admins will be needed. —Centrx→talk • 20:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It depends.  A month ago, we went from having about 18 to 4 in a matter of a day or two. Michael 21:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look at 's contributions you can get a good idea.  The last time I could see it being this low was October 25 when it was at 4 for several hours in a row.  If you go back to September around the 26th, 27th, 28th we had between 1 and 4 at any given time.  Metros232 21:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Mayhaps American college students are reluctant to start a nomination now since they'll be going home this week (for Thanksgiving) and won't be online so much. And other Wikipedians are expecting guests or travel this week. Or it could just be one of those random fluctuations. --W.marsh 21:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whaaat?  Not being online while at home for Thanksgiving?  W.marsh, how ELSE am I going to avoid awkward time with relatives?  :)  Metros232 21:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Nobody remembers that, a couple of months ago, we had only two? -- ReyBrujo 21:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if no new RfAs are nominated in the next 19 hours, we could be back down to two again. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 22:32, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quick! Find someone to nominate! :-) Seriously, there probably are seasonal and specific fluctuations in RfA levels. For example, I predict that the forthcoming ArbCom elections during December will stress people out, so possibly that will impact RfA nominations and voting, but hopefully not to the extent of affecting actual results. Though I could be totally wrong on this. Was RfA noticeably affected during the last ArbCom elections, or the recent WMF Board election? Carcharoth 23:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually December 2005 is the all-time high in terms of admins promoted in a month, with 68 (it must have been high, it's the month they let me in). So maybe people'd blown off all their argumentativeness at the Arbcom elections. See [] --W.marsh 01:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeesh, if we get down to just two, I'll register a sockpuppet and put it up for consideration just for shits and giggles. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical question 

message: Could someone please explain to me how on earth someone got to be an admin with these votes (112/71/11)? 84.64.75.86 17:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nepotism.... Juppiter 16:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I'll bite, who are you referring to? --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your inner voices are right this time; those are the Carnildo 3 numbers. -- nae'blis 18:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I figured either that or Sean Black, I couldn't remember which.  Moving on... --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are NOT votes - ok, big bold text is over, but seriously, they're not -- Tawker 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, was this just before my time or was I not paying attention? Either way, I smell gossip... can we have a link? --Robdurbar 23:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, a link would be lovely. Even if the case is closed, it'd still be nice. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I might add that the closing bureacrat discussed the resolution of the situation with several others, and that he himself became a bureacrat with a near-unanimous consensus, 94/3/1. There is no reason to question his credentials. --tjstrf talk 23:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hate rehashing old issues like this, but if someone makes sysop with those 'numbers', why didn't Ambuj Saxena? Just asking, mind, not complaining. riana_dzasta 04:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If it happened once and cause a large dispute, what makes you think it should happen a second time? (Radiant) 10:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Was that in response to me, Radiant? If so, I'm not trying to cause a dispute, at all - got better things to do with my time here :) riana_dzasta 15:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Probably because Ambuj does not have powerful friends? Just a thought. — Nearly Headless Nick {L} 10:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *Anyone want my view? Giano 22:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *This sounds like a rhetorical question. Carcharoth 00:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What the hell???? 

message: I know WP:100 and WP:200 are a bit silly, but they got me wondering whether anyone has done an anaylsis of how the raw numbers participating at RfA has varied over time. If lots of people are participating, then large numbers of votes are possible, and less so if smaller number are participating. Also, overall, the numbers participating probably increases as the number of editors grows. But I was hoping someone might have actual stats, or be able to generate them. This could lead to an RfA passing 80/0/0 being notable for passing during a period when most RfAs were only getting around 50 people participating. And some 100/0/0 RfAs happening at a time when lots of people participated. Of course, some popular or extremely exemplary candidates might have the effect of getting people to participate and support who wouldn't normally do so (by this I mean a natural effect, and obviously not vote-stacking). Also, what is the average number of people participating in RfAs over time? Carcharoth 11:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. That voting records page is really good. It also led me (via the category) to :Category:Wikipedia_statistics. Lots of stuff to read through there! Carcharoth 23:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbers participating at RfA over time 

message: Was at Template:Signpost-subscription when I clicked on what links here I found this mistake.
Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Peregrinefisher
Found it funny when I saw this RfA sub-page, anyway I didn't want to tagged a wikipedia subpage for speedy del without knowing if I should or not as its not an article/picture etc but an somewhat copy of a user page, with the request for RfA boxed in with the user boxes.  ▪◦▪≡Ѕirex98≡ 11:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was a malformed RfA - they are templating their userpage from somewhere, and that template had been stuck in the opening part of the RfA - have fixed it for now, but I will now find out if the template is in the right spot or not. It is a very old RfA that appears to have never been added to the front page - I'm not sure what the user wants to do about this, but I will contact them to find out. ViridaeTalk 11:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Found the problem - it was subsituting his userpage because he used a colon:  instead of a straight up line: . ViridaeTalk 12:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ah, I was wondering why the Signpost was going to the RfA with a userpage, Hope I didn't embarrass the applicant, just one small typo, Thank you Viridae :) ▪◦▪≡Ѕirex98≡ 12:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The RfA was written nearly 2 months ago and never got posted to WP:RFA. I have contacted them to ask wether they would like to proceed. ViridaeTalk 12:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *If they do not, please move it to their userpage or add a CSD tag. (Radiant) 12:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks. That would have been the next question I asked at WP:AN. ViridaeTalk 12:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text: The date and time will be altered to the correct week long running time, so they may not. ViridaeTalk 13:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scratching my head at this... 

message: Doesn't it just baffle you that people don't provide edit summaries when they post their RfAs?  I mean, come on, one of the big things we look for in RfAs are edit summary use, and they don't even put one there...  It really makes things easier... Cbrown1023 00:50, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know it baffles me. Though overall edit summary usage is really low. Most anons don't use edit summaries (though that's understandable) but a lot of users don't use edit summaries either. I always use an edit summary (I have the thing that tells me if I forget ticked) because it makes vandalism reverts so much easier, especially on pages which get vandalised a lot so a rollback still has vandalism from the prior editor. James086 Talk | Contribs 01:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, the world is full of irony... --210physicq (c) 01:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: [Edit conflict] With a name like yours I presume you mean molten irony! Oh dear, bad joke. James086 Talk | Contribs 01:27, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bad, as in insulting, or bad, as in it took me 15 seconds to get the joke? ;P --210physicq (c) 01:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bad as in a low quality joke that isn't really funny if you think about it. :) James086 Talk | Contribs 01:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

text: This reminds me, I have to get around to modifying the edit summary javascript code so I can't possibly not use an edit summary. That should bring it to 100% if I don't get annoyed and deactivate it. -Amarkov blahedits 01:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can set an option to require summary in your preferences. As for the original question, yes, sometimes I kind of want to say "Look, you just transcluded your nomination without even saying so, are you doing that quietly so that nobody notices?" Summaries are really understimated, and some think autosummaries like popups, AWB or similar are good. They are just slightly better than no summary at all. Use summaries to educate, not only to say what happened. -- ReyBrujo 01:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

text: That doesn't work like I want, I can just press the button again. I want to not be able to send the edit without a summary. -Amarkov blahedits 01:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the reasoning behind it is that if you turn that feature on, it will remind you to make one if you forget, not to force you to make one. In reply to ReyBrujo, I'm pretty guilty of using autosummaries, I just let the anti-vandal script do it for me quite often. James086 Talk | Contribs 01:50, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Um... I know... That's why I need to modify the javascript tool to force me to make one... -Amarkov blahedits 01:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why do people make edit summaries such a big deal? Just type out a few words of what you did and it's all fine and dandy. I don't see why some people have such low edit summary usage. Nishkid64 18:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because people never care to explain in a user talk page or the article talk page why some edit made by a new editor was reverted when it is not vandalism. I guess it takes too much time, so at least use an edit summary. Unless, of course, you are lazy and prefer using "rv" everywhere, even if it is a good faithed mistake. -- ReyBrujo 20:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I disagree. Edit summaries are part of the "paperwork" of making an edit. If editors don't use the tools they already have properly then we can't expect them to act differently with additional tools. Failure to use edit summaries certainly isn't a reason to block someone, but it is a reason to doubt their commitment to following a process and to informing the community of their actions. -Will Beback · † · 19:15, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree as well.  Funny that you feel that way; I'm the complete opposite.  I can't stand when an experienced user doesn't use edit summaries.  It just makes it harder to figure out what the user did, or why he/she did it.  I could never support a candidate who didn't have extremely good edit summary usage. —Mets501 (talk) 19:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Trust is pretty subjective, but I'll simply assume here that experienced editors are generally trusted.  Generally, experienced editors use edit summaries.  When looking at a candidate, (not that I vote at RfA much anymore,) I look for edit summaries because that tells me, along with many other little things, that they are an experienced editor and that they deserve my trust.--digital_me(Talk•Contribs) 19:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I would say that I agree with you, to the extent that edit summaries are less useful in the various _talk namespaces.  They're pretty useful in the non talk namespaces.--digital_me 19:57, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh yes, I didn't make my stance clear enough, I agree with you totally, Digitalme. --Deskana talk 19:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree totally with that.  I used to be lazy about them too... Mathbot must hate me, when I first checked my edit summary usage, I had like 14,000 edits and only 14 were marked as minor.  Mathbot had to go like 9 times into my contributions to figure out my percentage.  I am slowly, but steadily getting my minor one up... Cbrown1023 00:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I love reformed sinners though... Mathbot 02:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit Summaries