Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 60

message: Something seems to be wrong with the formatting of this RFA. When I run the RFA Analysis tool on it, it gives the following error:
There was an error parsing the RfA. It has 1 sections, even though 5 are expected.
I can't figure out what's wrong with it & Tangotango doesn't seem to be around. Due to the error it seems to be screwing up the display of the Reporting bot. Can someone help out? --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 05:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reviewing the tool source code, I think the problem lies with the sub sections. The tool expects Support, while the RFA has ; Support. I will be bold and try doing the replacement by hand. -- ReyBrujo 05:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently it worked. Since this is the latest added RFA, I am now worried that the generator is creating ; support sections instead of the expected Support one, breaking the tool. Can anyone with skills (and access if needed) check the autogenerating thing (if it exists, mind you) is generating the correct section headings? -- ReyBrujo 05:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It hasn't been changed. The whole RfA was probably created malformed by hand. --Rory096 07:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, I changed those headers - I've always preferred that style - it's less boated and generally nicer. I didn't realise that it would be a problem, but I'll know in future. Regards, —Celestianpower háblame 10:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  If possible, sometime in the future the parser should actually probably be changed to generate ;Comments, etc. rather than Comments, etc. It is a much cleaner and simpler style, yet has the exact same appearance. -Silence 10:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Easy enough.  Just have to make sure Tangotango's tool can support it before it's done. --Rory096 20:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

text: The semicolon syntax was already partially supported, but not one with spaces. I've updated the regex to handle this - it should work fine in the current version (RfALib 1.09d). Cheers, Tangotango 09:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

text: OK, Mathbot works. --Rory096 04:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/9cds 2]] 

message: I think that RfA is from someone who doesn't fully understand the rules and customs of Wikipedia, possibly a young person.  The opposers seem to have all missed the point in that regard, and are piling on reasons to oppose, criticisms, and accusations of bad faith.  I think this is sever, albeit accidental, newbie biting—which I think might lose us a potentially-valuable editor—and I really think someone should put a stop to it and smooth things over. -- SCZenz 19:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking of this RfA, is it just me, or did Deskana list the RfA BEFORE the user accepted, then people opposed because the user didn't accept?  --Rory096 03:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the user listed it, I removed it, Deskana re-listed it. NSLE 03:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, k.  Anyway, it was closed a while ago. --Rory096 03:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can a bureaucrat please archive Sean Gorter....? 

message: Similarly to above, I'm asking a bureaucrat to archive Jake0geek per WP:SNOW.  Having it out there isn't good for the community's relationship with Jake, and he doesn't seem to be around to withdraw it himself.  moink 21:07, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed the RfA as impossible to succeed. But a good thing is we didn't clobber him with 30 oppose votes with no supports (which has happened before). Kimchi.sg 21:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bureaucrat please archive Jake0geek 

message: This RFA has some formatting problems & this is messing with the RFA Analysis Report's display. Can someone fix it? --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 08:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed it. It was someone using a different font face for their oppose vote. --Lord Deskana I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS 10:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Deskana. --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 10:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem. --Lord Deskana I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS 10:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Doktorbuk]] 

message: *An IP has added their "own" "RfA" to the bottom of Doktorbuk's. (been removed now) Made by one ip, about another ip, and seems to be signed by a user, but that could be fake. Could someone.. uh.. do.. something. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 17:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *From what I understand, it is not possible to promote IP addresses to adminship. Well, it can be done, but you would need to make all IPs sysops, you can't promote just one. Prodego talk 17:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/68.39.174.238]] 

message: There are currently a number of close nominations. Please spend extra time looking into these candidates to discover if they can be trusted with the extra tools and give expanded reasoning as to why you think they should or should not be promoted so that a consensus can be developed. Thank you all for your efforts. - Taxman Talk 18:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grey zone nominations 

message: I am kind of bothered that people are still voting stricly based on edit summary use, even though looking at the original stats, you can see why that may not be fair. I went further so as to analyze the stats in more detail and explain why using major article edit summary use alone may not be such a good idea (and Mathbot's stats checked less pags and therefore turned out to be even LESS fair). The user is a vandalfighter, and the reverts are marked as minor, among most of the other edits. With only a handful of edits not marked as minor, missing only 1-2 will cause a very low % for article edit summary use for major edits. Stats are useful for a lot of things, but this kind of stuff is starting to appear more than I'd like to see.Voice-of-All 03:28, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Winhunter's RfA 

message: Okay.  I can't believe this didn't dawn on me prior to this evening, but better late than never.  How is it that we don't have any standard questions on process or basic ideas surrounding consensus?  Certainly, as an admin who'll be expected to close discussions, delete articles, and block users, those questions would be at least as important as "What articles are you proud of?"  I'm not sure how to word them, but considering that they're such an essential part of the mop, why aren't they addressed? --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Consensus varies on circumstances, forcing a potential admin to set down what he thinks constitutes consensus would violate m:don't vote on everything (as it may make him start vote counting) and discourages individualized judging of consensus. --Rory096 03:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Personally I think the extra questions way too often result in votes of the form, "I don't like or disagree with their answer to X so oppose". Opposes based on purely political issues like that are very bad, almost as bad as, oppose, less than x % of edits in my preferred namespace. Both amount to failing to evaluate the intangibles of a candidate and if they can be trusted to use the tools well. - Taxman Talk 03:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Woudln't one's ability to demonstrate their understanding of consensus and process be a reason to judge trust, though?  It's certainly more worthwhile than what we're doing now, no? --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:22, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But is one question really enought ot demonstrate understanding?  It's best if users review the candidate's edits. --Rory096 03:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: no, but one question is much better than the none we've got right now. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: With nothing, nobody opposes because the answer was too short.  They just look at their contribs to figure it out.  This also invites people only seeing if they understand policy from one question, and not look at their contribs at all. --Rory096 21:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I completely agree, and the "optional" (but you get opposed if you don't answer them) generic additional questions are almost as bad.  If someone wants something answered, they should ask a direct question, not tons of uselessly general stuff given to everyone. --Rory096 03:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm completely against more questions. I understand that users want to get a good grasp of the candidate's experience and knowledge, but sometimes I feel people go too far. Some RfAs, like Alan Liefting's, will have ten or more questions, several laughably labelled "optional" (we all know a long unanswered question doesn't look well). Questions like "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." Expound in 300 words or less, with specific references to Wikipedia politics. (12 points) seem largely irrelevant to the process as they potentially could yield answers unrelated to Wikipedia. Also, I believe it's wrong for people to support a candidate, but then still ask questions since clearly the answers to the questions have nothing to do with the vote. I wish people would only ask questions to elaborate on certain things brought up by the candidate or voters (such as a blocking incident) instead of overloading the candidate with philosophical or especially abstract questions. This is a request for adminship, not an FBI investigation. joturner 12:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know about others, but I don't ask questions to try to interrogate. I ask, such as in Alan's case, when I don't feel his required question answers give enough of an idea to decide on a vote. By asking more questions, it gives users a chance to explain themselves further. The subsequent oppose (such as mine in that RfA) is not because they didn't answer the optional questions, but because I didn't feel they answered the required questions sufficiently - the optional ones were to give him a 2nd chance, as it were. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 12:58, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: If you ask questions about policy, people will expect candidates to give the "right" answer, which basically means reading the relevant policy page and summarising it.  Anyone can do that, it doesn't say anything about your understanding of the policy.  It's like the question for buros about when to promote - it's a completely stupid question because anyone can read the answer from the policy page (and worse than that, it encourages the idea that buros are robots that make decisions based on numbers and aren't allowed to think for themselves). --Tango 12:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I wrote that in a single day some three months ago, and I see it needs quite a bit of fine tuning. But thanks for reading it :-). NoSeptember 23:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expanding the standard question area 

message: How about we move around the things in RfA to encourage reading of questions and discussion?  I think we should move the comments and questions up above the actual poll. It would look similar to this, but they would still be bold, not subheadings (otherwise the main TOC would be huge) and the comments would be on top, like User:Rory096/BetterRfA (feel free to edit that with more suggestions). I'd also suggest that we make an opportunity for the candidate to make a statement if he wishes, below the nomination, where the long Lorem Ipsum is in my example. As it is, the only way for a candidate to express himself when it's not a self-nom is in the questions, which are completely general, and yet specific, so the candidate can't just say what he wants.  I'd hope that this statement by the candidate may eventually even phase out the automatic questions, and only direct questions would be asked. This would discourage things like "Oppose, answers to questions aren't long enough." and would allow for more candidate-specific discussion. --Rory096 04:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: RFAs are too big to handle, I think we should just surrender and let everything happen. Although people seem to base votes on other peoples votes so perhaps they should get the facts before being thrown into the opinions, although changing stuff does confuse people. In other words: ignore me and do whatever you feel works. MichaelBillington 04:19, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Change might confuse some at first, but they'll eventually get used to it, and hopefully RfA will benefit.  In the very beginning, we might have a  comment to tell people that the RfA was created correctly and that it shouldn't be edited to be closer to the current version. --Rory096 04:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict) If you want to encourage reviewing the questions and discussions before voting, maybe you should collapse the votes with a Nav div. -- ReyBrujo 04:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea, but it doesn't work in skins other than monobook, I believe. --Rory096 04:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, doesn't work in other skins. --Rory096 04:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Move the questions above the comment section AND collapse the comment section, even if it does not work in all skins, that's ok. ++Lar: t/c 05:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not that the collapsing doesn't work in all skins, the show button doesn't appear at all (but it still collapses), so if it was done, people couldn't view RfAs at all on other skins. --Rory096 05:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with most of what Rory has said. I reckon the first question that each candidate receives could be mentioned in a statement. We could have like some area which serves as a guideline and refers to what you should put in your introductory statement. The second and third questions are a bit more direct and should still be asked as questions. Nobleeagle  (Talk) 06:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a very good idea. It would make people have a closer look at the candidate before getting overwhelmed by the votings. Collapsing is also a good suggestion, and even if it doesn't work in all skins, if things appears correctly, there should not be any problem. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 06:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text:  I'm not a fan of collapsing sections for RFA, but Rory's suggestion is good. While we're at it can we have the header changed to link to the RFA rather than the candidates userpage? (I brought this up before and it seemed to get support, might as well put all changes together if it all gets support.) Petros471 08:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Collapsing sections are out of the question for RfA's.  We went through this trying to edit MediaWiki:Edittools.  In other skins than monobook all you see is the title of the section and it is impossible to see the content. —Mets501 (talk) 23:56, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text:  Oh right, I remember that proposal, and I meant to do it.  I'll do that now. --Rory096 20:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text:  I'm for Rory's re-ordering as well. It puts more focus on the discussion rather than "voting" aspect of requests for adminship. joturner 12:19, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: It is either moving the discussion above the votation, or removing the "Discuss here" link. When you click it, you are taken to the RFA in "edit" mode, thus people find it easier to add their vote than read comments in raw wikitext (in fact, instead of "Discuss here" it should be "Vote here", exactly for that). Note that currently only two clicks (one on the TOC and another in the "Discuss here") are needed to cast a vote, and you can do that skipping discussions. If you remove the link, people would have to go to the RFA in "view" mode. That way they will have two opportunities to review (one at the RFA page, another at the candidate RFA) before they are able to edit the page to add their own vote. -- ReyBrujo 18:17, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Durin.  ReyBrujo: As of right now, the discuss here (which used to be vote here, before a bit of vandalism by me) is basically the only way to go to the RfA's page (AFAIK, since I hit the edit button then click on project page; is there another way?).  Once the header is changed to link to the RfA, it would be a lot easier to get there, so I guess it could be removed. Or maybe it should be moved down to where the poll is, next to where the tally is now, so people read the discussion before hitting discuss here (though they could always hit the section edit or edit this page buttons). --Rory096 21:48, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with this.  It seems only sensible. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving around stuff in RfA 

message: Apparently a new phenomenon is emerging: updating the candidate's edit count during the RFA, like here: . I think this is a bad idea for several reasons: it gives the impression that the exact edit count matters, and it causes a lot of editing of an RFA, which is not just pointless but also a bit irritating to the people who have it on their watchlist. I just reverted one of those incidents, then I realised that I made the situation only worse (another pointless edit ;)) - but am I completely missing the point of having completely up to date edit counts here? It doesn't really help that the links that are provided with some of them look like this: 
* *See Where's (Talk ▪ Contributions ▪ &page= Logs ▪  Block Logs) contributions as of 21:38, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Update is now read as Source for a better interpretation. G.He 20:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating the edit count 

message: I don't understand. There are a significant number of votes that oppose one's RFA on the basis of a self-nom. Why should a user, who could do the community a lot of good as a sysop as soon as possible, have to wait for another user to discover them?--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 17:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hunger for power is sometimes considered a bad thing. Other than that, a big part of Adminship (such as the power to block users) requires interaction with other users. If the Admin hasn't interacted with other users enough to be nominated by someone else, that's potentially a weakness. AnonEMouse (squeak) 17:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I dunno. It's not like it's hard to get a nomination. You can go on IRC and mention you'd like one, and I'm sure someone will nominate you unless you have a lot of blocks or under 1,000 edits or something. How is that so much better than a self-nom? It's actually worse IMO... it's like you want to be an admin so bad you'll fish around for a nomination just so you don't get oppose votes for a self-nom. I'd rather someone just be honest and nominate themself. Anyone who accepts a nomination obviously wants to be an admin anyway... so I don't see the power-hungry thing. --W.marsh 17:25, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Basically, there is nothing wrong in self-nominating oneself. The user's intentions could be positive to Wikipedia in nature. For example, these users show a considerable amount of initiative to help Wikipedia. of course, this is NOT always the case as there are sel-nominations who nominate themselves for no serious purpose whatsoever. --Siva1979Talk to me 17:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Some people, including myself, actually prefer self-noms. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 17:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Getting FA help?  User:Linuxbeak helped me out with a few pointers when I asked him, it might be worth dropping a line.  Also, try the IRC channel, plenty of helpful people there. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (edit conflict)I would not worry about XFA votes. Someone who has never written a featured article, yet votes in many FAs giving solid justifications for his votes, should get (hopefully) a support vote even from them. The same goes for someone who spends his time tidying up articles, if not developing them, or someone who has expanded an article following the guidelines from a stub into a GA one. Spend a week checking the FA nominations, and you will be able to pick up four or five names of extremely intelligent people who know about the matter. -- ReyBrujo 18:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Drop me a line when you bring something to peer-review or FAC (or any other time for that matter) and I'll give it a thorough look.  — Laura Scudder ☎ 18:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to clarify: active involvement in the FA process is a criterion that some users adopt in deciding on whether to support or oppose a candidate, but it is not a prerequisite for Adminship.  Other users have said that they, [obviously] on the opposite direction of those who place importance on involvement with Featured Articles, do not believe that being involved with at least one FA's rise to that status is essential for a solid candidate.  If anyone wants to get involved with FAC, all the better.  Absolutely go for it, we can always use more Featured Articles.  But it is not a steppingstone for Adminship, and a candidate should not expect promotion especifically because s/he has been involved with FAC.  Redux 19:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you. I'll try to go thru with all of the advice given here.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 20:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's the big deal about self-noms? 

message: Please provide your feedback on a proposed modification of the RfA process posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Wikipedia jurors. Folajimi 03:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed modification to RfA process.