Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 70

message: This is a bit more complicated, but perhaps more fair way to approach RFA:
* The tally at the top would be removed.
* Each RFA would have one support section, and an oppose section for each objection.
* Each oppose section would be considered seperately with the single support section, with the current discretionary process, as if each oppose section combined with the single support section constitutes a single RFA "discussion"
* If none of the objections are strong enough, when considered individually against the supports, the RFA succeeds.
The net effect of this is that objections most of us would consider trivial will have little impact, as they won't gather enough consensus to override the supports, but strong objections should prevail.
Any thoughts on this one? - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 05:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I like this proposal. — Werdna talk criticism 06:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I worry that doing this could skew the process in favor of the unthinking and careless by giving even trivial objections undue prominence.  For instance someone could object that someone had performed fewer than 100 edits in project space (which is really a pretty fatuous objection) but under this scheme the objection would get its own section. --Tony Sidaway 06:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  But would such a trivial objection as this get enough "votes" to override the supports when considered with the total weight of the supports? If only say, 4 people share a particular objection, against say 60 supports, that objection is effectively nullified. If on the other hand 30  people were to oppose versus 60 support, it would be a different story. I still think this helps turn aside the more trivial objections, even though it would give them more visibility. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 06:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, I think that if enough weight is given to a trivial objection it may acquire a spurious legitimacy over time.  I don't see the advantage of doing it this way, in any case.  We're not supposed to be into voting, so why would we want to go out of our way to make RFA into a vote? --Tony Sidaway 08:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the gist of what Steph's going into here is that each objection has a little miniature straw poll associated with it — and if an important enough objection stands up to a straw poll, then it can preclude them from adminship. I also think that opposing an objection should distinguish between Oppose as invalid concern and Oppose as irrelevant to adminship. — Werdna talk criticism 08:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Tony, I agree that it shouldn't be a vote, but like most "discussions", they attain the de-facto status of being a vote. I don't like it, but if that's what its going to be, lets at least fix the process so that frivolous concerns aren't given any weight. This would do that I think, because the supports would apply to the entire RFA - you would need a single objection to endorsed by enough users that they offset the supports, going by current standards by at least 20%, possibly by as much as 40%. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 08:59, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Ideological concerns about whether voting is evil or not should not be the issue here. It is quite possible that a "pure voting"-style RfA would do a good job at weeding out unsuitable candidates, while not turning into a rehashing of old arguments or a general policy discussion like current RfAs do. Most of the unpleasantness of current RfAs comes from the discussions, I think. It is quite possible that we lose good candidates who are not interested in this ordeal. Kusma (討論) 09:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree discussions can be unnecessarily hostile, but I think most people use the discussion to help form their view. Also, a pure vote could be gamed too easily. Stephen B Streater 09:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many other language Wikipedias have pure votes, and their suffrage requirements seem to prevent gaming of the system. Kusma (討論) 10:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: This is actually a lot more like consensus in some ways (at least the way I teach it), in that once an objection is made, it becomes up to the group to decide whether or not that particular objection is enough to block the proposal from moving forward. It doesn't "belong" to that one user anymore. (In the current system, we're very susceptible to "object per above", where the opinions above include valid, invalid, and insane reasons for opposing). That said, I'm not sure this is a good idea in toto, but it does make me want to revisit the "Discuss for a few days, then !vote for a few days" idea that got discarded when Discussions for adminship sank this spring. -- nae'blis 15:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The tendency with these proposals seems to be leading towards a process we already have; each successive proposal looks more and more like Requests for Comment. Perhaps we have the adminship method we need already? --ais523 07:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we do. RFC is a better model, and a model that we could strengthen for dealing with other issues as well. It may even be a valid model for sorting out this mess, as I recall policy can be RFC'd - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 06:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another way to present RFA as a vote. 

message: Do my eyes deceive me or are there only two concurrent RfAs? Are we running low on good candidates? -- tariqabjotu 22:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, yeah. I think people are just busy. Yanksox 22:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe I'll give it a whirl, but I'm not sure it would pass... - Mike 22:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *I'd wait a bit. People will find fault with 1700 edits in 10 months. Not saying I would, but a number of people would. --Durin 22:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an average of 5 or 6 edits a day.. and that's considered "bad"? - jc37 22:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *I don't disagree with you, but based on recent history I can guarantee there'd be oppose votes based on that. --Durin 22:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I can see that. That's why I'm hesitant. I have very much imcreased my activity level lately though. I didn't really plan on going for the mop before I got over the 2,000 plateau. There shouldn't be, but there are a lot of editcountitis votes on RfAs. - Mike 22:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *And it's ok for people to make up what standards they want. For us to blanket them would be wrong, and sets a bar that will always rise. --Durin 22:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps now is the time for existing admins to put themself up for confirmation... do I see any volunteers? :) --ALoan (Talk) 22:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *The problem with reconfirmation is scalability. It's always been a problem, and will remain a problem. From my chair, one of the chief problems we have at RfA is the difficulty in analyzing a candidate unknown to you. This is exacerbated by what is usually (this week is a rare exception) a long list of 10-20 candidates up at any given time. We now have in excess of 1,000 admins. We know from the stats above that at least 450 of them are actively using their abilities. If we forced reconfirmation of all admins, we'd add another 9 RfAs per week to the list. I'm not in favor of admins being above community desire, but expressing that desire by forcing yearly confirmations is a process fraught with problems with scalability. --Durin 22:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just thinking of starting a thread exactly titled "Two?". After a year-and-a-half I've literally never seen this. It would be interesting to correlate admin growth with absolute and/or percentage article growth on the Wiki itself (Durin, you do enough, but I'm thinking of you ;). Not to draw too broad a conclusion from one look at RfA, but a plateau here might indicate a larger plateau. Marskell 23:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *What in particular are you looking for? Ratio of articles to admins? That ratio has slowly increased over the last couple of years. Slowly. --Durin 23:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *You're probably looking for one of the first four graphs here. -- tariqabjotu 03:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: It's definitely not typical. Michael 03:43, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: OK then. Present a specific problem that needs reformation, give a solution, and we'll consider it. Don't just make blanket statements like that. --tjstrf 05:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Triona's section above. That, and the fact that it is very harsh on candidates. As for solutions, there are a variety sitting around on this page. — Werdna talk criticism 06:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *See also this essay on the matter. >Radiant< 07:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: . >Radiant< 10:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sofixit?  Well, I am entirely happy to unilaterally impose my "solution" on the community if that it what you really want, but I rather suspect that others might like to have some input into the process. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I mean is, there are at least five proposals along these lines in Wikispace. If you think this is important, you can generate a head of steam from there using the best parts of all five. In my experience whenever there are multiple proposals for something, most of them are way too complex. Witness Wikipedia:AfD_reform as complex, and WP:PROD as a simple end result. >Radiant< 11:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's just go with the Dutch solution, that's simple and solves everything. As summarized by Radiant!: "Adminship is subject to yearly reconfirmation via this same procedure, but only if there are significant objections to the admin, which generally means about 4 or 5 dissenters." This means that there won't be a huge load of work in confirming admins everyone likes. And since the window of requesting demotion only opens once every year most storms in a teacup won't lead to a demotion !vote. Haukur 11:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: that's perfect. I voice my full support for this "Dutch solution". With 1,000 admins and a "reconfirmation window" of one week, there'll be about 20 admins "open to recall" at any given moment. Only a minority of these will provoke "4-5 dissenters", so that we will have maybe 3-4 open "reconfirmation requests" open. This additional yard of red tape is well worth the added stability and control, resulting in increased trust awarded the admin population, in my opinion. dab (ᛏ) 12:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, I would support any admin being required to be reconfirmed at any time if, say, 5 other admins called for it, but this idea is much better than doing nothing.  Will there be any sufferage requirements for the dissenters?  Only admins?  100/500/1000 edits, 1 month/3 months?-- ALoan (Talk) 13:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: yes, the "yearly window" seems a bit arbitrary. Better set a minimal time between requests. It would be reasonable to force re-submission if 5 admins request it, but we have to be very clear that this adds another power to the admin population, setting it apart from the user base: only admins will be able to ostracize another admin (which then will have to be re-confirmed by the entire community). But to avoid needless bad faith ostracisms (anyone can conjure up five troll accounts), I would support a "any admin has to re-submit to RFA if five other admins call for it (don't do this to the same admin more than once every three months)" policy (especially since it will still be the community having the final say). dab (ᛏ) 14:55, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The important thing at this point is not to get overly bogged down in details or edge cases. A lot of us agree with the basic idea and I don't care that much whether it gets implemented with ketchup or with mustard. The Wikipedia:Adminship in other languages page shows several ways this is done in other languages. Some look like they might not scale well to :en: but the Dutch one looks fine to me. If we could get Radiant! on board here he could tell us more about the way this works over there. He's also someone who can make policy happen after the community has stood and scratched its collective head for a year. Haukur 15:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I've created a proposal at Wikipedia:Ostracism. I know we have a lot of these flying around at the moment. That's part of the process, it will boil down to something more simple. Please comment and improve. dab (ᛏ) 15:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Question: if you incorporate any process of "re-election or recall," doesn't it legimitize political behaviour and attitudes? Sure, there will be a sense of accountability but it still diverts attention and energy from building an encyclopedia. Are there holes here through which politics can build up? Rama's arrow 15:05, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Other Questions: if a large number of editors don't bother to analyze an RfA candidate, can we say that a process of re-call will provoke sufficient scrutiny? If a majority of 1,000 admins won't be hauled up in this process, will there be a real sense of accountability? Will admins feel comfortable in making tough decisions? Rama's arrow 15:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: To be clear, I'm not opposing this idea, rather trying to check for possible holes. Rama's arrow 15:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I felt that a mistake made in the Carnildo affair was to start an RfA at all. ArbCom should not have asked for community opinion on a case it was handling itself - it should always complete doing its job. Consider Sean Black's recent RfA - he handed in the tools and then asked for them back after some time. Only 70% of the folks wanted to give his tools back. He was given the tools back, clearly breaking the RfA guideline. If it was only a short period of time, why couldn't the bureaucrats or ArbCom just hand the tools back themselves, albeit after a brief discussion at WP:BN or ArbCom? Perhaps there is a candid danger in asking the "masses" to hold individual admins accountable, no matter how selective or infrequently you do it. Rama's arrow 15:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I consider administrators to be those editors who protect the flanks of article/media editors, acting like minesweepers keep the path safe for the army to advance. Would it really help to introduce complex processes that take admins in a different direction from where the army is supposed to go? Rama's arrow 15:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two? 

message: Carl is eating his own dog food and runs his own second RfA using his proposed format (to my surprise). Could we please let this fly as a pilot? I understand this might be a bit shocking first, but why not? --Ligulem 16:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like the answer has been given. Duh. . --Ligulem 16:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would recommend concensus be gathered for such pilot before starting it or else we would end up evaluating the format instead of the candidate in the RfA. --WinHunter (talk) 16:35, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added it back, with the normal format. --Alex (Talk) 16:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would note that the discussion section has been included in the most recent 10-15 RfAs and has been almost entirely ignored, showing that the practical consensus is for the use of the support/oppose/neutral sections. Gwernol 16:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. Let's go with the old format. Thanks to Alex for fixing it :). --Ligulem 16:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I wanted to see how it was recieved by the comunity, but it wan't recieved as good as I was hoping for :( I though it wasn't any wrong doing that, becasue there isn't any policy how the process of nominating and administrator as I have seen. →AzaToth 16:43, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: After all it was a nice try. And I applaud your courage! But let's run it now as it is. --Ligulem 16:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hang on. Can you just delete an RFA like that? I thought that once you withdrew you had to wait for a bureaucrat to archive it properly. I'm probably wrong, though. Moreschi 17:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? Nobody deleted the nom. It's here. Carl has withdrawn it, which is in due compliance with current RfA standards. A nominee is free to withdraw at any time during the RfA. At that point, the RfA ends and is delisted. All within current process. And we don't need crats to archive withdrawn RfA's. They are not archived anyway, just listed on the recently failed/succeeded noms pages. --Ligulem 17:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

text: That I really don't know anything about, as this is neither a failed or a succeeded nomination, but an aborted nomination, I feel that it's ok, just to delist it. →AzaToth 17:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine. Apologies for the misunderstanding - I thought he'd blanked it altogether. Moreschi 17:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AzaToth's RfA 

message: I would like to nominate myself for a sysop, but I am having difficulty formatting the nomination because I have a prior unsuccessful nomination.  The screen keeps going to the old nomination and I am not sure if I am supposed to delete that and replace it.  What do I need to do to set up a new nomination? Ramsquire 16:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you are supposed to add a 2 after your name in the new nomination. Michael 16:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.Ramsquire 16:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: All you need to do is open up a new page with the postscript "2" or "(2nd nomination) or whatever, and fill in the  there. It's a little less automated, but it'll work about the same as the instructions at the top of WP:RFA (remember to link to your old RFA, and make sure the "Voice your opinion" link goes to the right page). Good luck! -- nae'blis 16:49, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Question