Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 53

message: I'd like if I might to plead the case that the additional questions, if and when they are used, need to be tidied up a little. I do this pleading here, as I don't think they are templated or 'owned' anywhere I can find. Question in italics, comments in plain type:
#You find out that an editor, who's well-known and liked in the community, has been using sockpuppets abusively. What would you do?
#:This one seems ok to me. -Splashtalk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, not just you. When joke questions begin to be added, the user(s) who added the question(s) looks bad. I don't care what your answer is to "If there's a thunderstorm and your Internet connection dies in the middle of deleting an article, what would you do?". Titoxd(?!? - help us) 02:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely.  What's with all those extra questions?  I'm all for asking questions that may be pertinent to any particular RfA, but we need to keep it real.  Lately, a group of 11 "standardized" questions is being added to new RfAs.  That's a little too much, I believe.  It has been suggested before that the standard questions need to be revised, since the answers are not meaningful anymore, etc., etc.  So maybe that's what needs to be done.  And then we can keep it reasonable, at least.  Yes, I know the extra questions are "100% optional", but really, who's going to take the fifth in their own RfA, of all places??  Redux 02:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: i think there are people that won't support unless you answer their optional questions, too. I agree that we could revise the standard questions, as having to answer 11 questions seems a little much to me.--Alhutch 03:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, being the poster of those 11 questions (which are basically other peoples questions that I liked) (which upon review of this page is now 9) - I do think they help the candidate a bit, without the extra "insight" some people might vote oppose. I know they are essentially mandatory once I post them, though if a user requests on my talk page, I'll remove them (to remove the user removing questions stigma) -- Tawker 03:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes for an interesting definition of "optional", eh? While I dislike the idea of a standard slate of questions (seems like instruction creep), it may be necessary to keep RfA candidates sane. Ummm, more sane. -- MarcoTolo 03:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've used question 6 in the past before, and will change the wording per the above comments. Actually quite a few of these questions originally came from me. I think they are useful under the right circumstances (like when they were originally used in Tawker's highly unique RfA (with his permission). Also, if someone is a good admin candidate then their answer will generally show it. I do try however to personalize my questions to each candidate (and in some cases have felt no need to ask additional questions, although generally that means I'm going to oppose). JoshuaZ 03:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your point is one I was reaching for but hadn't quite hit: the majority of the questions are very good, but the key is tailoring the question set to the candidate. Much of the value is in picking questions to clarify issues that may have come up while you (the impresonal "you", not JoshuaZ) were reviewing a candidates edits, user interactions, conflict resolution skills, etc. By tossing a mass of identical questions at someone, you reduce the value while making folks expend the same (or more) effort in answering them. -- MarcoTolo 03:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I would like to know whether this is true in practice. Do people really change their potential oppose to support after reading the answers to the optional questions ? Tintin (talk) 03:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, I know I have. One example: I was going to oppose Jedi6 and expressed my concern in my first question to him. He have a very satisfying answer and I voted support as a result. Given that people sometimes vote "neutral pending answer to ___'s questions" or "neutral pending answer to question _ by _" and similar things, I would suspect that there are other examples also. JoshuaZ 03:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an example of a rarer case.  It's more common, however, for people to oppose due to inapt answers to questions.  I suppose everyone would remember a RfA where the candidate got a lot of opposition after answering, in an optional question, that (s)he had never heard of the test1-5 and bv templates.  That would have never shown in the answers to the present standard questions, since they are far more general, allowing the candidate to talk about topics (s)he selects.  If this were to be incorporated into the standard questions, there'd be no need for extra questions designed to test a candidate's basic knowledge of Administrative functions.   Redux 04:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Questions to test policy minutia are not good. However, if a candidate gets one, then they presumably have the time to look up what the relevant thing is, check the policies and guidelines, and then answer based on that. Also they are functions of what a candidate intends to do as an admin. For example, if the candidate intended to use it principally for vandal fighting but didn't know what test1-5 were that would be a legitimate concern. JoshuaZ 04:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe we are in agreement.  Even if it's not ideal, we should introduce more specific questions, designed to check the candidate's basic knowledge of Administrative functions.  True, it's always possible to look up the information before answering, but I suppose we would be able to tell when the user was writing about something (s)he knows and when (s)he was copying the information and just changing the words.  With one or two well-written questions, the candidate's familiarity with the job should become apparent.  Noting, of course, that all of this would become pointless if we were to come up with some 20 new standard questions, since this wouldn't be reasonable.  Perhaps five or six, and we'd need a compromise so that users will not add blocks of questions to RfAs at a time, or else the whole point would be moot.  Redux 17:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: But there are other Administrative functions in which the user may be more interested.  VfD, for instance — if you are not an Adminstrator, you don't get to close *fDs and carry out the decision, which may be what the candidate is interested in doing.  I haven't given any thought to any specific possible wording for any new questions, but I suppose they would cover more than one area of Administrative functions.  We already check the contribs, anyway.  Even if the candidate says that (s)he knows everything that there is to know about (e.g.) fighting vandalism, most users will still check the contribs to see if the candidate has been reverting vandalism, warning vandals with the templates, etc.  The questions should serve the purpose of complementing the data we get out of checking a user's list of contribs (or vice-versa).  Redux 18:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dissecting the questions 

message: Please see relevant discussion at . --May the Force be with you!  Shreshth91($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) 14:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to mark administrators like featured articles 

message: I'm a bit curious, what do others think about treating images in signatures as a reason to oppose admin candidates? JoshuaZ 13:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a fine reason to vote oppose.  To Durin, I would say ignorantia legis neminem excusat.  Ignorance of the law is no excuse.  People who don't know the project well enough to figure out what kind of signatures are preferred also don't know the project well enough to interpret consensus, delete pages, and implement bans.  -lethe talk [ +] 15:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pictures in a signature? hmmm... oSe20pxtembe20px talk  18:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nosept, sig pictures drain the image server uncessarily and make pages much slower to load for people with slower connections. By the way Lethe, the sig rule is only a guideline, and a minor guideline at that, so ignorantia legis neminem excusat shouldn't apply. Although, as long as we are doing the latin, imagi in signaturi delendi sunt (someone correct that if there are any mistakes, I'm sure there is at least one thing terribly wrong with it but not sure what). JoshuaZ 18:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As to whether or not the proverb applies, if you think that violation (willful or otherwise) of minor guidelines, shouldn't allow you to vote oppose on candidates, you're welcome to that opinion, but I happen not to agree.  For people who don't agree with you, who think that violation of the guideline is bad, then there is still the ignorance defense which Durin brought, which I was objecting to.  I think violation of the rule is bad (in disagreement with you), and that ignorance is no defense (in disagreement with Durin). -lethe talk [ +] 19:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I knew that, but I'm always looking for new ideas for signatures :-). Πø§ėþťεmβër talk 18:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the plural of imago is imagines.  Also I think it's feminine, and prepositions take the ablative, so I think maybe imagines in signaturis delendae sunt, but don't quote me on it. -lethe talk [ +] 19:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wow, that had more mistakes than I thought (I suppose assuming everything is second declension is unhealthy). Your version looks correct. JoshuaZ 19:13, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Getting lessons in Latin at WT:RFA. Who'da thunk it? pops a budweiser open and kicks back.. --Durin 19:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:SIG]] 

message: While considering the statistics regarding changes in edit count standards, I remembered another chart that I have at this location. I decided to update the table there, and replace the chart as both were out of date. I was frankly surprised to find that all categories of RfA candidates have dropped in success rate. I'd previously been under the faulty conclusion that we'd seen an upswing in the number of unqualified candidates (read in this context: low edit counts), which explained why the overall success rate has gone down significantly. 
It can be observed from the table at the above linked location that all categories dropped in a range of 3-6% with the execption of 2001-3000 edits, which fell 9%. This got me wondering what the data looks like if we isolated only the data from this year. This showed something rather different. The drop in % for the categories for this year so far vs. all RfAs from June 27, 2005 to December 31, 2005:
All      	20%
0-1000   	8%
1001-2000	20%
2001-3000	40%
3001-4000	11%
4001-5000	9%
>5000    	14%
What really lept out at me was the 2001-3000 range dropping 40% in success rate. In general, for some reason, there are more failed RfAs across all ranges than last year. Why, I don't know. There's lots of potential reasons, and little data to show which reasons might relevant. I'm going to partially reverse myself here; this data does suggest that standards are going up. I think more analysis would help to highlight what's happening. --Durin 15:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It could equally well suggest that, with the growing Wikipedia population, more unsuitable candidates come forward and are rejected, without standards having dramatically shifted. All these edit-building tools like AWB and Godmode-lite and things make it easy to rack-up edits and still fall well short of pretty basic admin standards, without those basics having fundamentally shifted. -Splashtalk 15:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bingo. Any analysis that lumps all candidates together (including the obviously unsuitable ones) is flawed. We should focus on the pass/fail line, not the overall pass rate.  I would be interested in seeing an analysis of RfAs that had between 50% and 90% support votes (so that we exclude the obvious failures and the obvious great candidates). On a separate point Splash brings up, is there a way to measure non-revert edit counts? NoSeptember talk 16:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have any data on the amount of votes Durin? Perhaps the fact that there are more voters around (more aspiring admins? At least that seems to be the case in my perception) has influenced it as well. The Minister of War (Peace) 16:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO this means that edit count standards have risen above 2000-3000. Candidates with such edit counts now pass much harder than before. Conscious 17:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apart from that simply not being borne out by the data, there are any number of reasons why a candidate with 2000-3000 edits might not have developed themselves sufficiently for people to support their RfA. There is nothing wrong with that. -Splashtalk 17:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  To echo splash, there are many explanations other than the acceptable edit count having gone up. For example, we have recently had more POV-warriors trying to become admins. Many such candidates have many edits but will be voted down. Also, we have had more admins who have been desysopped by the Arb Com who have since run again. AFAICT Those cases lead almost uniformily to failure but will push the average edit count up. There are other possible explanations as well. JoshuaZ 17:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree that there may be other explanations. Conscious 18:30, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This only goes to show that the distribution of edits is more important than the raw number of edits.  But I guess we already knew that.  Or did we?  Redux 20:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

text: *PAGAN SINNER! IT'S THE RAW NUMBER OF EDITS YOU FOOL! Anyone beneath 10,000 edits just isn't worthy! wait...that includes me...hmm... --Durin 22:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Good job, Durin. Just a reminder, though, whenever we look at these statistics: correlation is not causation, and there may be many other lurking variables that influence these data. (In fact, the decreases may not even be statistically significant; the appropriate test must be performed to determined that.) All caveats aside, though, these numbers are quite interesting. Thanks again! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely.  What Flcelloguy said...right...totally.  We cannot assume causation from correlation...wait, no... [check dictionary and thesaurus]... I mean, yes!  Oh, I'll just go count edits ;).  Redux 04:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting trend  

message: Please do not strike out a sock puppet's vote or comments (WRT: RasputinAXP's RFA). Instead 1) delist it from the numbering system by using #: and 2) add a small signed note below saying that the above user is a sockpuppet. The closing bureaucrat might want to evaluate the validity of the claim. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree 100%. Removing and/or striking votes is a bureaucrat task, and should remain such. Essjay Talk • Contact 21:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note to bureaucrats: The above user has been a bureaucrat for less than a month (^_~). NoSeptember talk 15:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strike outs 

message: I'm a bit surprised that a simple majority among self-selecting voters is enough for adminship.  I realize that a bureaucrat can exercise discretion in the event that the vote results were questionable in some way, but since this is a subjective call we should assume that a simple majority is all that is usually necessary for adminship.
I would like to see a higher number of Support than Oppose votes required for a successful nomination, maybe a two-thirds majority? --Saforrest 17:16, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm? The threshold is generally around 80% support, 70-75% at the very lowest. --W.marsh 17:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Who informed you it was a simple majority? Johnleemk | Talk 17:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed.  The 70-75% [oopps. corrected and noted underneath. Redux 17:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excuse me.  What 70-75%??  Sorry about that.  The window for bureaucrat discretion in 75-80%.  A 74% support means fail.  My mind must be going...  Redux 17:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, from Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship: "it is unusual for those below 75% to succeed, but all cases are weighed on their merits". Of course the whole thing is rather murky in my opinion. --W.marsh 17:52, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The GRFA is not policy, and a Bureaucrat can only act in accordance with the clear community consensus, which right now is rather specific that below 75% is just too low to promote.  Of course, that's about the actual consensus.  It is completely possible that a RfA gets so complicated that there may be an apparent consensus that is below 75%, but once all the problems get pealed off, we realize that the legitimate community consensus to promote is actually sufficient.  Naturally, that level of disturbance is a lot rarer, and normally a "complicated" RfA will have consensus just under the necessary 80%.  A Bureacrat is allowed a degree of discretion exactly so that this can be compensated.  The observation in the GRFA is in the sense of "it's not just about counting votes; the whole thing needs to be analyzed before any decision can be made."  Redux 18:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even though the standard threshold is >80% = immediate pass; 75-80% = possibly controversial and up to discretionl <75% = immediate fail there are plenty of exceptions both ways and it should be remembered that RFA isn't run off absolute numbers, it's run off consensus, although I think the lowest below the 75% mark that passed was 72 or 73 percent and that was extremely controversial. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 18:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, but my point was that under the current set of standards 74% and under technically doesn't "mean fail" - that's not codified into policy anywhere. People have been promoted with under 74% support, so it's not a hard limit. --W.marsh 19:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  (edit conflict: answer to Pegasus):That's what I was saying, in other words.  Although there aren't that many cases of promotion with consensus under 75%.  And yes, the last time it happened it was in the aftermath of someone  [mistakenly] editing the instructions for Bureaucrats, and involving a recently-promoted (then) Bcrat.  It was problematic exactly because that time around the consensus was indeed below even 75% (there were no huge controversies in the RfA throwing off consensus).  But someone had changed the instructions to read that a consensus as low as 70% was enough for promotion on Bureaucrat discretion (which does not mean that the Bureaucrat gets to pick and choose unilateraly who gets to be promoted if consensus is within that window; the Bureaucrat has to conduct an analysis of the situation in order to determine the actual, legitimate community feeling about the candidate).Marsh, if the closing Bureaucrat cannot identify any odd circumstances that may be throwing consensus in the RfA, (s)he can't promote at 74%.  The nature of Bureaucracy is action on community consensus, and as I said before, the clear community feeling these days is: 80% or greater means pass; 75%-80% means discretion, so that eventual problems can be compensated; under 75% means fail, unless a very unusual problem has appeared that has disturbed the RfA deeply and is creating an apparent consensus that is far below what the community actually feels about the candidate.  But it would have to be something truly, amazingly exceptional.  Redux 19:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I disagree with is the fact that even though consensus here is not hard coded and due to it's ever changing nature probably never will be it is becoming more and more of a faux hard rule.  For example, many people here are saying that -75% should be failed barring hugely acceptional circumstances which I agree with for the most part, but the fact that bureacurats are too are being somewhat held to this rule with them being berated and even being asked to resign (as happened twice in recent history) if they dare go against what the mob thinks is just unacceptable. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 20:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Threshold for adminship