Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 93

message: I've been bold and created a new proposed guidline for the RfA prod idea. I've also created  which can be added to the user page of the candidate to propose them for adminship, using this template also automatically adds the user into :Category:Proposed administrators‎. I've also created a mock up in my user space (User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Rfa) of how the cat could be transcluded into the current RfA system. Ryan Postlethwaite 15:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Great idea! This may be just what we need to reform the adminship process. -Mschel 16:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Terrible idea, unless you think that deleting the main page a couple times is the worst a hostile admin can accomplish. —Cryptic 16:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you explain why you think the idea is terrible? -Mschel 16:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because it increases the difficulty of rejecting an unqualified candidate: not only must you show that someone is unsuited to adminship, as at present, but you have to jump through hoops to even find out that he's running.Look.  Proposed deletion does what it was designed to do very well: reduce traffic on AFD.  Traffic is not a problem on RFA; candidacies that aren't ended early invariably get fifty or more !votes.  In contrast, prod's main drawback - that we sometimes have a redlink for a while when it should be blue, because nobody noticed it before the week was up - doesn't substantially harm the encyclopedia, and when it's discovered, it's trivial to undo the damage and bring it to a wider audience.  This can't be done with adminship; not only are there obvious problems with being able to de-admin people at will, but if a truly bad apple slips through, there are extremely damaging things he can do that are similarly extremely difficult to undo, and several not-quite-as-damaging-but-still-nightmarish things that can't be undone by other admins at all.According to the proposal's talk page, the main reason this is being put forward is to reduce the meaningless me-too supports.  While I agree that a large proportion of them don't indicate actual familiarity with the candidates, and I'm inclined to think that most are merely meant to familiarize the voter with other RFA regulars in order to increase the chance that their own future RFA will succeed, the actual meaningful supports are about all that makes the torture of an RFA worth it.  The extra workload and continuous stream of trolls, vandals, spammers, POV pushers, and cluelesses that you won't let write about their girlfriends sure don't. —Cryptic 16:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Proposed adminship]] 

message: There are typically a number of RfA's where the nomination is created and then the nominee accepts some number of hours later and forgets to update the closing time. This isn't a huge problem in the grand scheme of things, but if someone was willing to monitor each listed nomination and adjust the end time to 7 days after the time listed on WP:RFA that would be helpful. Thanks all. - Taxman Talk 13:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've corrected them all now, almost all were wrong, I'll keep my eye out for it in the future. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Maintaining [[WP:RfA]]

message: Well, a whole new problem - 0 edit summary usage based on the last 0 major edits and 0 minor edits. Simply south 18:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good! Now let's keep it like that, and end the idiotic use of edit summary usage as a serious indicator of a candidate's suitablity for adminship by certain users – Gurch 23:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathbot tool again 

message: Some users, after an RfA, like to give people who've participated a message box or some sort of message. However, some of these participants don't like receiving these "spam messages." Should we set up a sort of spam list for the ease of candidates who wish to thank their critiquers? bibliomaniac15 23:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyone who doesn't want to be thanked should be upfront about that in the RFA or on their talk page. Candidates, on the other hand, should absolutely refrain from automated thank-yous so they can see said messages. Communication is a key skill on a wiki. :) -- nae'blis 23:51, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I've never really understood the point of thank yous; why can't we just be thanked for your participation on the RfA itself? Personally, I'd much rather that than see  show up on my talk page. I endorse the idea of a spamlist where all those of us who don't want thank you templates can list ourselves. Picaroon (Talk) 00:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't think sending messages should be done, but I did it to not seem ungrateful. · AndonicO Talk 11:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: The custom of thank-yous evolved spontaneously a long time ago, although there have always been people criticising it. The average level of participation back when I was sysopped made it feasible to write something different to each participant, given the average level of participation now that's not really practical, and sending messages to each person is becoming less useful. --bainer (talk) 11:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So is it better to send them or is it better not to? Captain panda 01:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's traditional, and serves no real purpose. Prodego talk 01:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  spam list? 

message: What is usually done with request pages like Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/hayoungs? —AldeBaer 15:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Leave it, or if it gets added fix it. Majorly (hot!) 15:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, will do. —AldeBaer 15:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: The general answer is: Until it is transcluded to WP:RFA it is just a subpage for the candidate and nominator to work on. You can offer to help if you want by contacting the user. He is a new user, so it should be pointed out that it would be unwise for him to submit this anytime soon. An admin can delete it if the user wants them to do that. Just do not add it WP:RFA yourself, that should only be done by the candidate or nominator. NoSeptember 15:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Out of curiosity: The page says Scheduled to end 06:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that gets updated manually at transclusion time.  The Rambling Man 16:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see, thanks. —AldeBaer 16:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Frankly, that would probably get closed early per WP:SNOW if it was transcluded. If anybody checks the history, he has used sockpuppets (another account and his ip adress) in that RFA. Funpika 18:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malformed request pages 

message: Please can everyone try and be a bit more constructive when opposing good faith candidates with only a handfull of edits, it saddens me when RfA's like this get hardcore opposed because they've only got a few edits and obviously don't know about the process. I'm all up for hammering candidates with only vandal edits, but this is different. Just offer some constructive advice to them, not comments like Strongly oppose, suggest withdrawal, why should they withdraw? What have they done wrong? They don't know our processes so they don't know these answers. Sorry for the rant, it's just newbie biting. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. To make sure very new editors are not bitten - what if we permanently semi-protected WP:RFA? That way no editor newer than 4 days will be able to list an RfA (after that they'll hopefully realise why its a bad idea). It will also prevent the occasional vandalism the page gets. Can anyone see a downside? WjBscribe 22:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I couldn't agree more. It is really saddening to see such comments, and I would agree strongly with permanent semi-protection. Majorly (hot!) 22:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I also entirely agree and I had thought of bringing this up before actually. If a couple of people have opposed it isn't necessary to all pile-on if it's clear that the RfA isn't going to be successful. It would be much better to just be neutral and say "good start but you probably need a bit more experience" or suchlike. Will (aka Wimt) 23:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The semi-protection might not work well unless a form of cascading protection was created to "semi-salt" (protect subpages from creation by newbies) all subpages of RFA (and if any other page it would ever be needed on of course). Funpika 23:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Why don't we just not bite them when they show up? Christopher Parham (talk) 23:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

text: No, but we're getting too many newbie noms though. Is it really worth everyone's time opposing a candidate who will clearly not pass? Majorly (hot!) 23:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cascading protection wouldn't be neccessary, infact it would be detrimental. Anyone, newbie or not creates their RfA before it is transcluded so it wouldn't stop them making an RfA, and if cascading protection were enabled it would prevent anons commenting in the discussion section in ongoing RfAs (while rare I saw an instance of it the other day). Perhaps semi the main rfa page but nothing else. James086Talk | Email 23:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ideally, people are supposed to provide encouraging advice to a new user who requests an RfA. Of course, this is reality, and people lazily decide to cut down their comment to "Oppose per xx. Withdraw". If people could put a little more thought into their opposes not only in RfAs for newbies, but in general, that would be appreciated and better help the candidate understand the reason for opposition. It would also prevent the need for excessively long RfAs, which stem from people asking questions on every single oppose comment. Nishkid64 (talk) 00:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: And how untoward would that be? Hey, mate, can you nominate me? I know if I wanted to be an admin I wouldn't try and get someone to nominate me (though I'd graciously accept a nom.) David Füchs(talk / frog blast the vent core!) 22:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Gosh, no. This isn't a good idea. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 23:02, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Bad idea, especially since self-nominations have no particular trouble passing any more. --tjstrf talk  23:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: We need bold admins, self noms should not be discouraged. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 23:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Not a good idea.  A self-nom is not an inherently bad thing.  Just as with a nominated candidate, it's all down to the quality of that individuals' contributions to the project.  A self-nom may be an industrious Wiki-gnome or an unlearned new editor still finding their feet.  Conversely, bad-faith nominations of innocent but unprepared editors have also been known to crop up from time to time.  The quality of response from the contributors will serve to either support and/or educate them about their potential at that point in time. We are all encouraged to be bold from the off and starting your own RfA is a very bold move on any editors' part. (aeropagitica) 23:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: A bad move. While an offer to nom is a good thing, looking for someone to nominate is akin to canvassing almsot. JodyB talk 23:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are some Wikipedia editors who might not be recognized and nominated by other members of Wikipedia. Take me, for example. I wasn't too particularly well-known in September 2006, so I decided to go with a self-nomination. The result: I passed my RfA. Although it's become uncommon for people to have successful self-nominations, the fact that it does happen once in a while should be reason enough to allow for self-nominations in the future. Nishkid64 (talk) 00:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Barring self nominations are bad things. I think, like HighInBC, that they show a certain amount of boldness that an admin should have. Indefinite semi-protection to protect from newcomers, maybe, but barring self-noms would be a mad idea. bibliomaniac15 00:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your comment seems to contradict itself. Can you clarify? —210physicq (c) 00:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just about to say the same thing Physicq. Also, barring self-noms is bad. People should be bold. There's plenty of undiscovered "talent". --TeckWiz is now R ParlateContribs@(Let's go Yankees!) 00:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would assume from context that he meant to say "aren't bad things", since that's what everything else in his post indicates. -tjstrf talk  00:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  constructive comments in newbie RfA's 

message: Many of the doomed newbie RfAs are self-nominations; is there any support for disallowing self-nom altogether?   It seems that any editor who could pass an RfA nominating themselves would have no trouble finding another editor happy to nominate them. ➪HiDrNick! 22:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And how untoward would that be? Hey, mate, can you nominate me? I know if I wanted to be an admin I wouldn't try and get someone to nominate me (though I'd graciously accept a nom.) David Füchs(talk / frog blast the vent core!) 22:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Gosh, no. This isn't a good idea. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 23:02, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Bad idea, especially since self-nominations have no particular trouble passing any more. --tjstrf talk  23:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: We need bold admins, self noms should not be discouraged. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 23:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Not a good idea.  A self-nom is not an inherently bad thing.  Just as with a nominated candidate, it's all down to the quality of that individuals' contributions to the project.  A self-nom may be an industrious Wiki-gnome or an unlearned new editor still finding their feet.  Conversely, bad-faith nominations of innocent but unprepared editors have also been known to crop up from time to time.  The quality of response from the contributors will serve to either support and/or educate them about their potential at that point in time. We are all encouraged to be bold from the off and starting your own RfA is a very bold move on any editors' part. (aeropagitica) 23:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: A bad move. While an offer to nom is a good thing, looking for someone to nominate is akin to canvassing almsot. JodyB talk 23:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are some Wikipedia editors who might not be recognized and nominated by other members of Wikipedia. Take me, for example. I wasn't too particularly well-known in September 2006, so I decided to go with a self-nomination. The result: I passed my RfA. Although it's become uncommon for people to have successful self-nominations, the fact that it does happen once in a while should be reason enough to allow for self-nominations in the future. Nishkid64 (talk) 00:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Barring self nominations are bad things. I think, like HighInBC, that they show a certain amount of boldness that an admin should have. Indefinite semi-protection to protect from newcomers, maybe, but barring self-noms would be a mad idea. bibliomaniac15 00:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your comment seems to contradict itself. Can you clarify? —210physicq (c) 00:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just about to say the same thing Physicq. Also, barring self-noms is bad. People should be bold. There's plenty of undiscovered "talent". --TeckWiz is now R ParlateContribs@(Let's go Yankees!) 00:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would assume from context that he meant to say "aren't bad things", since that's what everything else in his post indicates. -tjstrf talk  00:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bar self-noms?

message: Wikipedia:IRC channels/wikipedia-en-admins
Questions? There's a talk page link there.
I'd quite like all admins, including freshly adminned admins, there. But it's not compulsory. And if ANYONE starts trying to use IRC access as a criterion for adminship ... please ignore them as being foolish as hard as possible - David Gerard 19:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, David. I am following the instructions but I get this: memoserv: seanw has reached the maximum memo limit, and cannot receive more. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Who's seanw? I'll see if I can get someone to help you on IRC (if you haven't already). Nishkid64 (talk) 19:52, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Sean Whitton, formerly known as Xyrael - I'll poke him to flush his MemoServ queue. Миша13 19:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Sean Whitton. Damn, he'll need thumping. - David Gerard 19:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Didn't know he changed his Wikipedia name. Honestly, we need Wikipedia:List of people who recently changed their name, or they did it a long time ago and I just don't know about it. Nishkid64 (talk) 19:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We have such a page: Special:Log/renameuser :P Majorly (hot!) 20:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See also User:NoSeptember/admin username changes. WjBscribe 02:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: NoSeptember thinks of everything, doesn't he? It's truly amazing. Nishkid64 (talk) 02:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That list is a work of god. I just found out about the new aliases of a bunch of admins. (Heligo is now Nick?!?!?) Nishkid64 (talk) 02:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  :-) he sure does. The new usurpation requests at WP:CHU/U meant quite a few renames :-) which was why he decided to have the page. I've mostly kept it updated myself while helping the crats out with the rename pages... WjBscribe 02:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Prepping yourself? What do you mean? As for #wikipedia-en-admins, I feel that is a very productive way of contacting admins to discuss admin actions. You can get help from other people, and it's much faster than posting at AN/I or AN and waiting for a response. Nishkid64 (talk) 02:18, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Outside of privacy concerns, admin actions should be discussed on-wiki. RxS 02:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True, but I find IRC very helpful when you want a few admins to quickly look over a few deletions of yours or a block of a particular user. Nishkid64 (talk) 03:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text: David Gerard warned against people using IRC "as a criterion for adminship," and I was just palying off of what he said. hbdragon88 04:15, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Not so much about preparation for becoming an admin, more about smoothing the learning curve once one becomes an admin. Having an array of experienced admins at one's fingertips is very useful when learning the ropes. --bainer (talk) 06:16, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, whether or not I become an admin, I pro'lly do want to pay attention to IRC... do any of you know of a good IRC client for Mac OS X (10.3 if possible)? David Fuchs(talk / frog blast the vent core!) 11:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yep! Sounds like you need Colloquy - that's the one I'm using anyway. Here it is - Alison ☺ 11:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Admin IRC - how to get on 

message: Could anyone please tell me how to revoke my RfA? I am taking my comments and will re-apply when I have further experience/more edits. For now, I want my RfA canceled. I don't see an option to do this, do I just delete my entry from the list? Thanks, FirefoxRocks 22:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, you can untransclude it; also, write that you withdraw your nomination on top of your RfA (near where you accepted it earlier). Heimstern Läufer 22:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revoking/Withdrawing RfA 

message: thumb|rightI count fifteen highly green RFA noms :) >Radiant< 09:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: <bad political joke>Actually the Liberals are up in the polls after the budget today.</bad politcal joke> It's good to see that lots of admins are being promoted. Also the image backlogs are way down. James086Talk | Email 14:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, the fact that the image backlogs are down just means we already have enough admins. ;) Kafziel Talk 14:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I support withholding any promotions until the image backlog gets large again. Nishkid64 (talk) 14:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *Yeah, and :Category:Candidates for speedy deletion still has >400 in the backlog . Do not mistake temporary drops in a given backlog as indicative of the overall situation being less backlogs. Likewise, do not take temporary spikes in passing adminship as indicative of an upward trend in promotions. Both conclusions would be inaccurate. --Durin 17:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: RFA is really not so harsh as people think. Spready the word!>Radiant< 15:11, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: It's Green Week again

message: Yup. We have so amny staying up that DGG's RfA is actually not showing up in the Table of Contents, and isn't being deprecated. Apparently the limit on the page is 17, whenever someone's adding another it's pushing that one down. Look for yourself while Lake's RfA is still up (when that's removed DGG's will be back to normal, oddly enough.--Wizardman 18:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you need to tell a dev that the template limits are too small and the rest of the transclusions don't work. Or better yet, come up with a new way of formatting this page since the current size is ridiculous for people with slower connections. Currently, the html source for wp:rfa contains things like "" and the pre-expand include size is 2047997 (when the maximum is 2048000). - Bobet 18:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: It's unlikely that sysadmins will be persuaded to increase the limit, which is in place for performance reasons.  Running the page through Special:ExpandTemplates gives the size of the page after all substitutions as 420 K, well under the limit.  (If the actual text went over 2 MB, you'd need to break up the page anyway so as not to kill viewers' browsers.)  There's something there adding a lot of unnecessary bytes, maybe a conditional (all branches of the conditional are evaluated and count toward the limit, see ).  It should be possible to cut out a lot of the size without having to actually remove anything useful. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *Then the culprit is very, very likely the userlinks now appearing on RfAs, ala "Links for <candidate>". I'll remove them now. --Durin 00:36, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *Ok, done. Everything is transcluding now. --Durin 00:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could not the "Links for <candidate>" still not be included in the relevant talk pages ? David Ruben  Talk  01:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *Sure. --Durin 12:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *:The culprit was indeed . I've made a cut-down  which shouldn't cause the same problem (it's much shorter and slightly less pretty). --ais523 11:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *::(To be clear: the new pre-expand include of Template:RfA is 4414 bytes, as opposed to 106341 bytes for .) --ais523 11:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *::You can keep the prettiness if you just force it to be substed.  There's no limit on the pre-save transform pre-expand size, to my knowledge. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *:::The original was full of parser-functions and wouldn't subst properly. Besides, I don't care much for prettyness. --ais523 14:02, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pages not transcluding; time to reformat?

message: I've added a question here but for some reason its bolded at least half the question and i'm not sure why. Even checking editing it looks okay. Could someone sort this out? Only the "Optional question from Simply south", "7." , "not" and "A" are meant to be in bold, not the rest. Simply south 14:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Moreschi  Talk 15:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  After Midnight's RFA small optional queston problem 

message: I found it hypocritical strange that some people oppose based on low edit summary usage, though plenty of admins almost never use an edit summary. --TeckWiz is now R ParlateContribs@ (Let's go Yankees!) 00:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Hypocritical" is probably too strong a word, unless the people opposing candidates for low edit summary usage are themselves not using edit summaries. Personally, I just wish that more editors, and particularly more admins and admin candidates, were aware of the option on Preferences that prompts for an edit summary automatically. I would have omitted edit summaries inadvertently lots of time, but because of that feature, have been able to manage a run of 100% edit summary usage. :) Newyorkbrad 00:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. Word changed. --TeckWiz is now R ParlateContribs@ (Let's go Yankees!) 00:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: It is not hypocritical to have higher hopes for the future admins than the present ones, even if that was the case. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 00:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: That falsely assumes that people who oppose based on that want all current admins to be admins, which is not necessarily the case. -Amarkov moo! 01:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: According to "Wannabe Kate", I have full edit summary usage, and in case I forget to put a summary in, I've enabled the reminder in my preferences. :) Acalamari 01:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Don't use edit summaries" is somewhat misleading. If you browse Special:Contributions/Deskana, you see a lot of edits with no edit summaries in. Use the Mathbot tool, however, and I have 97% for major and 100% for minor. That's because that only checks article space. I'd never write an edit summary if posting to a talk page or discussion page. I use them on Wikipedia pages like WP:RFCU where it's fairly important, and in article namespace, but writing "comment" or "reply" or something on a talk page is totally useless. There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing it, but there's nothing wrong with not doing it either. Which is presumably why Mathbot only checks article namespace- the only place where edit summaries are crucial. --Deskana (AFK 47) 01:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL! I remember a period when I was checking my edit summary usage every week, and wondering why none of the percentages were changing. Then I spotted the "article namespace" clause, and realised I needed to start working on articles more! (as opposed to wittering in projectspace.) After I realised that (and turned on the prompt), the values went to 100% very quickly. Carcharoth 02:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: The only reason I use edit summaries everywhere (outside article space as well), is in a vain (hopeless, not the other meaning of vain!) attempt to bring order to my contributions list. It is surprising, with careful use of edit summaries, how easy it is to sort through all your contributions by searching, sorting and other manipulations  (in some external editor like a spreadsheet or database program). Using clear edit summaries, and remembering to make them explicable to yourself reading them a few weeks (or years!) later, it is remarkably easy to review your own contributions and see what you have been up to. Well, that is the theory. In  practice, finding the time to do such analysis is, shall we say, difficult!  (The closest I have got so far at such an analysis is User:Carcharoth/Contributions.) But with proper edit summaries (combined with page titles) it is theoretically possible. Kind of like a personalized and more intensive version of the edit counters/analysis. Carcharoth 02:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Low edit summary usage should not really be a valid reason to oppose someone's RfA, provided they turn the "prod me when I forget an edit summary" option on in Preferences. Once you've done that, you go to 100 percent on Mathbot very quickly. Moreschi  Talk 10:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Edit summaries can be helpful even on Talk pages. For instance, the 'r to Deskana' in my edit summary for this edit is more useful than just the section name, because it gives information to people watching the discussion (and they can look at the edit if they're interested in what I'm saying to Deskana). More commonly, I'd use the gist of my  edit as the summary, or even the entire comment if it's only a line or so long (leaving in the colons and tildes to provide a clue that it's the entire comment). --ais523 10:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Useful? Yes. Essential? No. --Deskana (AFK 47) 11:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to make my views clear, I agree with this comment. (I don't think I've ever opposed an RfA solely on edit summary grounds, and it would take a pretty extreme case of not using edit summaries for edits where a summary is important to get me to do this.) --ais523 11:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: A point people sometimes miss about edit summaries is that experience in using them shows whether the potential admin can write clear, concise, helpful and informative block and deletion log summaries. First the use of edit summaries should be checked, and then the quality should be checked. If the user doesn't realise they can link within edit summaries (eg. they should realise they can link to deletion debates from the deletion log, and Arbcom cases in block logs, etc.), that should be politely pointed out, and if the edit summaries are less than helpful, or even uncivil (using swear words for example), that would be something to raise. Libellous block log and deletion log summaries are really bad (cos they are difficult or impossible to get rid of), and uninformative or misleading ones are nearly as bad. That is the real reason, IMO, for a potential admin to show experience with using edit summaries. Carcharoth 11:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  While it might be a dealbreaker for some, I agree that it's somewhat silly to oppose solely on those grounds. I do, however, see the point. It's ten times easier to search through an article's history to find certain edits when there's edit summaries, and explaining your actions and making the process as clear as possible is always helpful when exerting any kind of authority. I imagine someone who was blocked with no edit summary would be a lot more upset than a block which explained the reason, for example. Cheers, Lanky ○ Yell ○ 14:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Carcharoth is absolutely correct. An admin definitely needs to use deletion/block summaries, and users can judge this by looking at the candidate's edit summary usage. It probably shouldn't be the only reason for opposition, though. If it was coupled with some other logical reason to oppose, then I would see no problem with that. Nishkid64 (talk) 02:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If I may have a say, I believe opposing solely on the basis of lack of edit summaries is bad. But a temporary oppose until the user agrees to change the preferences to remind the user about an edit summary, may be a good idea. And the reason I count only the last 150 edits, is so that people can reform quickly, should they so desire. Yours, Mathbot 03:51, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aw. It would have been a lot more fun to hear your thoughts on Cydebot's RfA. Dekimasuよ! 07:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, I was too busy studying for the Turing test. Mathbot 15:06, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit Summary Usage