Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 78

message: Since only registered users are allowed to vote, should questions from not-logged-in users be removed. —Malber (talk • contribs) 14:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what I'd do, unless it's a legitimately good question (which if it is, some other user can re-ask it anyway). --Wizardman 14:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: When I saw that happen, I wondered the same thing myself. WP:RFA seems to give leeway, saying that anons can comment in the comments and questions sections. – Chacor 14:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Kim's right, of course anon users ask questions and make comments. Do not immediately assume that just because somebody chooses not to create an account, or chooses not to log in, that they do not count and should be ignored.  We do not allow them to vote because of obvious reasons (possibility of sockpuppetry, gaming etc), but we take their contribution on its own strength.  If I saw an RFA candidate refuse to answer, or removed, an IP's question, I wouldn't hesitate to oppose them, as they have failed to understand what Wikipedia is. Proto::► 16:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Proto who agrees with Kim. -- nae'blis 20:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: In what way? No one is proposing to allow them carte blanche, that I can tell.. -- nae'blis 20:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, as has been pointed out to me earlier, questions can be used to press a particular Wikipolitical point. There's one question in a current RfA from a registered user about the controversial issue of admin decisions being discussed and made with off-wiki IRC discussion. The question in User: Pascal.Tesson's RfA from the anon is rather odd. For the record, I'm trying to craft my own questions to be more policy related and less pointy. —Malber (talk • contribs) 21:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: How does that question violate WP:POINT?  Anyway, WP:BAN states that banned users can be automatically reverted if they're evading their ban, so no, this doesn't open up any doors for anyone. (In fact, this doesn't change anything at all. Anons were always allowed to participate productively.) --Rory096 00:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Precisely, and if the question/comment is valid and not disruptive, then it should remain. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Please Rory, assume good faith. Just because I'm asking the question doesn't mean I'm suggesting that anons be immediately prevented from posing questions. I'm just wondering if there is a process to filter out banned users from abusing the process to prove a point. It's not like we're going to do a CheckUser on every anon that poses a question and it may not be as easy to identify banned users participating in an RfA as it would be a banned user editing from an anon IP on their pet article. Also, participating in an RfA is a bit different from editing an article. So even if the policy were to change to exclude anons from participating, it might not violate one of the Meta principles. —Malber (talk • contribs) 02:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am assuming good faith. I'm sure you didn't mean for it to be nonsense. ;) Anyway, you clearly did ask if we should remove questions from unregistered users. While it's true that banned users could use IPs, that's not a reason to ban all anons (many of whom are helpful and productive). Banned users can be automatically reverted under a separate, existing policy. To the contrary, it would definitely be violating at least the spirit of the Foundation issues, and even if it didn't, it violates the spirit of the wiki. We should not be excluding a wide group of people just to get rid of a couple bad ones that can already be reverted automatically anyway. --Rory096 01:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed, so long as the question is appropriate and productive, I see no problems with an anon asking. A registered user might want to log out and ask a question, but the only reason I can see someone doing that is if there was a disruptive question in which case it would be ignored. James086Talk | Contribs 01:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if the anon IP is that of a banned user, if the question is a good, pertinent one, what do we gain by removing it?   Nothing.  Judge each edit on its merits.  Similarly, if it's clear trolling, or incendiary, or whatever, it would be removed regardless of where it came from Proto::► 11:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anons asking questions 

message: Let's try and resolve this once and forall: Can we ban these copy and paste questions that people put on every RfA and introduce a system for getting questions added to the "standard questions"? If something is going to be a standard question, it should be done properly, it should not be decided unilaterally, which is exactly what these copy and paste questions are. --Tango 13:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is every chance that the cut and paste questions might be ambiguous, while the standard questions are not. I see no problem with this format. — Nearly Headless Nick 13:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: If the repeated questions get added to the standard questions, then there will be no reason to repeat them.  If they aren't added, then if people are still interested, people should still be able to ask them. Anything that will limit peoples ability to get the information they'd like to make a decision will be voraciously opposed by me. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Fully support.  There should be a review process to introduce and retire questions. Having someone just decide to copy/paste the same into every RfA circumvents any sort of oversight.  --StuffOfInterest 13:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I couldn't agree more with StuffOfInterest. Some of those optional questions are better than the compulsory ones (I'm not talkingabout the age one, btw). JorcogaYell! 13:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So what would you do with someone who asks every candidate questions on their user talk page instead of on the RfA, and then votes "Oppose, didn't answer my questions" if they don't answer? NoSeptember 13:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As with any other bad reason, the crat will not give their !vote as much weight. --Tango 14:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd hope that's not considered a "bad reason." --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If this proposal has concensus, then it would be a bad reason. --Tango 14:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: People should have the freedom to ask any questions they see fit to the candidates, even if they have been used before. Lets not introduce bureaucracy over this. Having an "official" set of "legitimate" questions that "should" be answered would be even worse. I don't like the form-letter style questions, but they're preferable to the alternatives. — David Remahl 13:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely. More talk, less bureaucraticfuckism (neologism credit: freakofnurture). — Nearly Headless Nick 14:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: This proposal reads worse now than it did in its original form.  A horrid idea.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Second the "horrid idea". If a user is being disruptive, we have methods of dealing with that. This is rules creep, and unwarranted. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:CREEP? — Nearly Headless Nick 14:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, we have ways of dealing with disruptive users. This discussion is trying to determine if asking indiscriminant questions is disruptive or not. --Tango 14:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussion is never disruptive. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. Repeatedly taking something to AfD when it's been closed with "keep" every time and not giving any new reasons is disruptive, but it's just discussion. --Tango 15:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that's abuse of process.  Apples and oranges. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: RfA is a process that can be abused, just as much as AfD can. Asking questions that most people don't want asked (if they wanted them asked, they would become standard questions) could be considered abuse of process. (That's pretty much what this discussion is trying to decide.) --Tango 02:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Could you explain how it's worse? --Tango 14:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's nothing stopping a candidate ignoring a question if they don't want to answer it. Tango, there's also nothing stopping you or anyone else removing questions you feel are unwarranted or unnecessary (and do you mean indiscriminate? :p ) Asking the same question of every candidate isn't disruptive.  It is, however, a bit annoying, particularly as many of the questions are inane.  If it bothers you that much, remove them. Proto::► 14:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think removing other people's questions without a concensus to do so would be generally considered vandalism. (And yes, I mean indiscriminate... I'm not sure where that extra 'n' came from, thanks!) --Tango 14:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Is that targetted at me? I'm well aware of what WP:VAND says. That doesn't change the fact that if I removed a question, I'm pretty sure someone would revert it. --Tango 14:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, targeted at you, without reservations. There is a difference between WP:POINT and WP:VAND, and we always go by community consensus. — Nearly Headless Nick 14:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Call it what you like, but if I remove a question without concensus, I will be reverted. --Tango 15:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there was a particularly poor question, or a dunderheaded one that was a variation of a dunderheaded one that had already been asked (or so on), then you removing it and putting in  'This question was removed by Tango, see talk page'  would be fine - anybody who labelled that as vandalism would be both a churl and a fop. Proto::► 15:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wait... dunderhead, churl, fop... let me write these down - I'll need them for my next melt down :). NoSeptember 15:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Now, that would be an excellent solution: Everyone just ignoring the questions. Maybe it's worth waiting and seeing if the problem does solve itself in such a way. --Tango 02:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting thought. --Deskana (For Great Justice!) 02:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *I suppose we could add the question "are you aware that you may ignore all these questions?" :) >Radiant< 08:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *:If you did, it might just be ignored... --ais523 09:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Leading questions can be removed by users and discussion can continue on this page. — Nearly Headless Nick 09:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: **I suspect that if one would remove a leading question, the person who added it would just put it back and add an accusation of vandalism. >Radiant< 10:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Yes, ofcourse. Leave a note for him to discuss the matter on WT:RFA.  There are WP:POINT guns available.  — Nearly Headless Nick 10:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: See the secret ballot discussion below. In full, bad idea, because then there is no discussion. Even though it is technically possible. -Amarkov blahedits 21:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ban asking everyone the same questions 

message: As RfAs get longer and longer (that is, more people participate), it gets more difficult to add a comment.  I noticed that one of the present RfAs has a subheading - perhaps inadvertently - and thought that these would help.  Obviously this shouldn't get out of hand - I'm suggesting only three (Support, Oppose, Neutral).  They'd make the TOC longer, but editing (much) easier, I think.  Am I missing something?  John Broughton  |  Talk 15:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like a good idea. It has been tried before, but someone reverted that user. I cannot recall the time period. — Nearly Headless Nick 15:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was reverted before due to messing up the bots, but the style used on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ProtectionBot seems to work for both humans and bots; it displays headings when viewing the RfA individually, but not on the main RfA page. --ais523 15:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict) I remember reading Tim Rogers at Next Generation (a gaming site) about how Famitsu (a japanese magazine) conducted his poll: they gave a long list of games, a long, completely unsorted, list. They weren't sorted by release date, system, not even alphabetically. You needed to read every entry (maybe over 500 titles) once to know which ones have been chosen, and then again to locate the one you were voting at. In other words, if we create subsections, people would just click in the subsection and add their opinion. While they won't read every opinion until finding the place for adding theirs, by forcing them to load the full debate you are at least making him scroll down to the section. I would prefer removing the sections like the old proposal, and forcing everyone to discuss and !vote in the same subsection. -- ReyBrujo 15:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see your point. I think the idea, though, is to make it easier to vote for those who have trouble loading large pages. I think. I don't have problems with large pages, but have heard that some people do. Carcharoth 17:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Please observe the current ProtectionBot RfA. Subheadings are hidden on the main page, thus not making the WP:RFA table of contents eleven miles long, and yet allow for reduced edit conflicts on the RFA itself. I preferred the orginal idea/solution wherein individual sections got edit headers without expanding the RFA TOC, but this works okay in this case. I don't think it needs to occur in every single RFA from here forward, but it's an option when things start to become cluttered, and doesn't seem to be breaking Dragon_flight's or TangoTango's bots. -- nae'blis 19:19, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If the 2 bots are still working, then I've no objections at all. --Kind Regards - Heligoland (Talk) (Contribs) 19:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I like this idea, and I agree with Agent: if subheadings become more common, people will become accustomed to them.  They would also be helpful to me since I often get edit conflicted when !voting on RfAs, and editing a separate subheading would make these conflicts less common.  Dar-Ape 01:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: We could remove the TOC totally and have some other form of list. I know this week is rather mad at WP:RFA but 12 RfAs with 4 sections each is 48 sections on a TOC which would be too long. A standard Wikilink in a table or some such thing would do. We don't need to assume an inability to edit Wikipedia with RfAs, candidates really should be capable of that sort of basic editing. --Kind Regards - Heligoland (Talk) (Contribs) 03:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's wrong with the noinclude/includeonly headings like on ProtectionBot right now?  Headings on sub-page only, normal TOC on main page.  A win for everyone right? -- Renesis (talk) 05:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subheadings in RfAs? 

message: I know that criteria for RfAs have been discussed many times and in details indeed sometimes. However, i've been thinking lately about a new criterion. I've been noticing that most of the nominees have never ever discussed issues at WP:ANI. I just find it odd and weird that a would-be admin had never been seen at ANI. I believe participation at the noticeboard is essential for a would-be admin in order to have a better idea about how stuff works. OTH, It would be easier for voters to have an idea about the nominee reactions and suggestions to solving problems prior to their nominations. Please discuss. -- Szvest - Wiki me up ® 17:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Strangely enough, I just opposed someone due to not enough participation at the admin's noticeboards (along with other obvious problems such as having less than 200 edits). I can imagine some Q1-answers which wouldn't require it, but most would. Of course, we don't want the noticeboards cluttered with people merely trying to get their AN-edit-count up... --ais523 17:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Please don't. People don't need to have contributed to WP:ANI to be aware of its existence, and we can't ask admin candidates to know every page they're "allowed" to work with later. For example, we give admins the protect button, so do you think we should require edits to WP:RFPP? Kusma (討論) 17:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would expect edits to RFPP or at least entries in CAT:PER if an admin said 'I want adminship so I can protect pages'. If there aren't any, it means that person didn't really need to be able to protect things after all. (The exception would be if they wanted protection purely to clear out RFPP backlogs or to salt deleted pages; the first would require knowledge of policy but not an RFPP report, and the second doesn't use RFPP at all.) --ais523 18:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never been a part of the formal protection process.  I don't know if I have a single edit to RFPP.  What I do know is that I already understood everything about protection long before I became an admin, and that I was already involved in it.  How?  By using lines of communication much faster than RFPP — yes, that means IRC.  I never really did any anti-vandalism stuff on-wiki; I found IRC early enough, and that was definitely the best and fastest way to handle the problems.  --Cyde Weys 18:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The thing is that ANI discussions include many protection/unprotection issues (mainly conflicts between admins) as well as other admin processes. Adminship is not limited to singular tasks anyway. But at least ANI can give a better grasp of wikipedia daily issues to would-be admins. We do need more and more admins but we need quality admins who know how to deal w/ other admins at least. -- Szvest - Wiki me up ® 18:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, but whether somebody has made edits to WP:ANI neither proves nor disproves their ability to work with other admins. Kusma (討論) 18:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I thought that had gone out of fashion last year. A current popular and not very relevant criterion is "no experience with images". Kusma (討論) 18:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, it's still going on now.  Just look at BigDT's RFA.  It seems to be the same people doing it, too.  --Cyde Weys 18:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Um... 12 promotions over a year? Don't we get at least 20ish? -Amarkov blahedits 23:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 75% success rate, but the people who actually ran were probably a bit more self-selective than the 120 edit self-noms we get here. However, the absolute standards for stewardship application are lower than those we regularly enforce at RfA. It's probably easier to become a steward than a bureacrat, that's for certain. --tjstrf talk 00:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't being elected as a steward require the ability to communicate in at least two languages? That may be natural to most of the world rich enough for basic education, but it eliminates most Americans and Britons (except the Welsh). --Sam Blanning(talk) 03:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Yay for the Welsh.  Diolch yn fawr Samuel ;) Proto::► 18:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not that I can find on the meta:Steward policies page. It would of course be helpful. --tjstrf talk 23:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Don't get me wrong, I have no idea what that means. I just like Wales. --05:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New proposal / new criterion

message: The Big Problem with the adminship process is that people are allowed – even encouraged – to come up with their own ridiculous criteria that they think an admin must fulfill, and then they vote oppose on everyone who doesn't fulfill them. That way the role of adminship is given only to those people who fit all of those ridiculous criteria – a selection process that comes no-where close to selecting the people actually needed for the role. — Timwi 18:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cyde, please restrain yourself! The abomination is a piece of Wikipedia history. Future generations will look on it in awe. :-) Carcharoth 23:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That page and I just didn't get along.  I originally tried to transclude my criteria to it, but got reverted because someone accused me of "not being serious" (because all of those criteria were really helpful, amirite?).  Then I later added "Every candidate is a unique person, so I perform a unique analysis on each one", which is frankly the only thing on that entire page that makes sense.  I guess I'm glad it's all been shut down by now, but I think it deserves a worse fate.  --Cyde Weys 19:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I didn't realize you were joking until requirement 8. Shows just how ludicrous some of the criteria for voting are/have been. --tjstrf talk 18:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Joking?  Who said anything about joking?  CSCWEM is still pissed about not passing his first RFA because he failed his SCUBA certification test.  --Cyde Weys 18:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For another moment of absurdity, the easiest requirement to pass there is 17. The only unique criteria for becoming a steward that anyone with a chance of passing RfA here wouldn't necessarily have is that they give proof they are 18. (meta:Steward policies#Steward elections) --tjstrf talk 19:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: After reading half the RfA archives, I've seen arguments like this over and over. The real problem is, RfA is a naturally subjective process (and rightfully needs to remain so) and people will be people and !vote for whatever they want to, whether you introduce hard requirements or not, whether you disallow certain types of objections or not, whether you try to change the process to circumvent human nature or not. The best we can do, I think, is to ask the bureaucrats to maintain a strict interpretation of the criteria listed in WP:GRFA do determine if the community has rightfully decided whether the person would make a good admin or not. This is partly why I will be running for bureaucrat, because I believe I can bridge the gap somewhat between people who object to the current process and others. Of course, if you think another process would be better, go ahead and propose it, and try it out; I'm always willing to listen. :-) Grandmasterka 20:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: People have tried to fix this. For an example of how impossible it is to actually come up with what the criteria should be, look Wikipedia:Qualified adminship voting. It seems reasonable, until you see my absurd mockup scenario on the talk page. The problem with any system to make sure only rational objections are put out is that it necessarily implies that some people (i.e. the policy creators) are more intelligent than others (i.e. the people who comment on RfAs). -Amarkov blahedits 23:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Don't forget another type of voting prejudice: when "article writers" won't vote for "non-article writers".  Even though the "non-article writers" are actually involved in a lot more of the tasks that need admin rights anyway.  --Cyde Weys 23:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't; being a non-article writer, it's not something I can just ignore. Of course, people are opposed for only being article writers too, but that's much more defensible; admin tasks simply do not involve article writing. -Amarkov blahedits 00:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Big Problem™ 

message: What is the current policy on accounts created solely for RFA?  
*
*
Dragons flight 20:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Block as probable sockpuppets? --Deskana (For Great Justice!) 20:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Mark as SPA's, I think.  Yuser31415 21:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's why I ask.  Sometimes such votes are simply marked, sometimes they are crossed out, sometimes outright removed, and whether or not the account is blocked (and for how long) is another wrinkle.  For the record, I am not going do anything about these myself since they "voted" on the ProtectionBot RFA.  Dragons flight 21:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then I will. :-) --Deskana (For Great Justice!) 21:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just explained to them that their "votes" won't be counted. I think it's important to AGF here, they could presumably have stumbled on RfA and contributed there first, and their involvement doesn't seem disruptive. --Deskana (request backup) 13:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accounts created just for RFA 

message: *(Resp to Cyde) Actually, despite the poorly-reasoned parts of the opposition, the protectionbot would still have passed RFA, in that it had about 82% support. So I'd say the FUBARness is a vocal minority and we can in fact obtain admin rights for bots here. >Radiant< 09:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm happy that it was going to pass, apparently, even without the need to make it open source. ++Lar: t/c 13:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: You're ignoring the supports you would get with the same reasoning. ;) James086Talk | Contribs 03:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Quite. If you're not going to use it for that, I'm certainly not going to support. We don't need a flower delivery bot from you, Cyde. :) That's not your core competency. (I'm Lar and I approved this silliness) ++Lar: t/c 14:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: But it did pass

message: Would it be possible to have the vote tallies of each RfA in the RfA's section header, rather than next to 'Voice your opinion' link where they are now? I.e. the section headers would look like ===TSO1D (00/00/00)===. This would provide a nice summary of the way current RfAs are going in the table of contents at the top of the main RfA page. --Sam Blanning(talk) 23:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That might not be a bad idea, also it would remind the voters to count the tally afterwards. Arjun 23:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a good idea. Cbrown1023 00:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Putting it in the section header would mean it would change every time an opinion was added, which would make it harder to use the page history to jump to sections. Seems overly complex; of course, I still think the tally is superfluous (and with section headers becoming more likely the larger an RFA gets, it means a dummy edit to boot).  -- nae'blis 02:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote tallies 

message: While we're on about standards and optional questions, I must question users who publicly announce that "An optional question is not answered for 24 hours." is opposable. Whatever happened to the "optional" in "optional questions"? It's things like this that make "optional questions" mandatory. – Chacor 07:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (copied from my talk page) I'm considering deleting the page altogether if it doesn't work. But it seems you're quick to jump in to criticism, which I find a bit overwhelming. I know there are a lot of problems with it, but I will either work on it to fix anything, or just request that it gets deleted. Insanephantom (my Editor Review) 08:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I've noticed people opposing for not answering optional questions. Remember that my criteria is based on my observations on what people look for in RfAs. But I will delete that criteria anyway, and possibly the whole page if there's much more wrong with it (or simply stop quoting that criteria when I vote in RfAs). Insanephantom (my Editor Review) 08:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *I know you mean well by it but it really isn't the best way of going about it. You've based your criteria on people who make their votes on quantifiable things (mainly editcount), because it's kind of tricky to base anything on people who don't make their votes on quantifiable things (mainly trust). >Radiant< 09:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Opposing because someone did not answer an "optional" question is perfectly reasonable. The issues the questions address are issues the voter would like to see resolved or information the voter would like to know about the candidate before deciding in favor. If they are not answered, it can be viewed as the voter not getting enough information about a candidate, or having concerns about a candidates views on WP:IAR or something. Not answering a question after 24 hours is probably not a good vote, but the current RFA system only runs for seven days and the candidate who doesn't answer after 24 hours might still be editing, or even editing the RFA itself, in which case why do they not just answer the question? —Centrx→talk • 15:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  While we're on about this... 

message: This may be radical, but I think it would help RFA if we could indicate to people that arbitrary criteria are not such a good idea, and a plausible way of doing that would be to delete or blank those many User:Foo/admin criteria pages. The main barrier to that is some people at MFD who consider userspace to be sacrosanct. >Radiant< 09:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well in a perfect world people would only vote on users they knew or had spent a couple hours reading the contribs of. But they don't. By deleting the /admin criteria pages, you won't actually stop people from using them, just make it so that we can't see what they plan on voting based on. --tjstrf talk 09:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In a perfect world we wouldn't need admins, or WP:AGF because everyone could be trusted and everything would be good faith. I think the fact that the pages exist encourages others to make their own criteria. I was thinking of making an admin criteria subpage but I decided that it would be too vague, I decide based on lots of things and quantifiable statistics don't often come into play. I suggest we encourage the users with admin criteria to delete the pages, listing the negative points of having them. It would probably cause less disruption and get it over with quicker (with  tags). James086Talk | Contribs 09:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have such a page, don't plan to have such a page, and don't think having such a page is a good idea.  (Really, is this something that an editor needs to write down?)  It might be better if these were checklists - things to look for, as reminders, without specifics (e.g., "consistent use of edit summaries?"; "has worked with images?"), if one assumes these criteria might fail to be mentioned by others, in the RfA, even if really a problem.  Having said that, I oppose the proposal - it seems too much of a "you're not supposed to think this way, and we're going to try to force you not to" approach. John Broughton  |  Talk 13:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't tell you how much I would love to forbid arbitrary criteria. But any specific banning of criteria would imply "We know better than you do, so we are going to tell you how you will think". Same with deleting the absurd criteria pages which do things by point systems; the message is "You don't think well enough to come up with criteria". -Amarkov blahedits 19:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Arbitrary criteria

message: People say RfA should be a discussion, but the voting bit obscures this. The discussion doesn't obscure the voting, but some people vote and don't check back to read later discussion bits. Somewhere above there was a suggestion for a two-day discussion phase before a voting phase. I'd like to revive this suggestion to have discussion and voting separated. Discussion would continue during the voting, but should that discussion move to the voting section, or stay at the discussion section? Another consideration would be the need to find a way for the closing bureaucrats to discern which votes are 'votes without discussion', which generally count for less than votes with reasons attached (and more reasoning than 'per nom'). Carcharoth 12:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: PS. The talk page is currently used to post things like edit count and analysis, but could be used for discussion. In some lengthy cases, dicussions do split off onto the talk page. Carcharoth 12:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a really good idea.  A request could also be stoppable after the discussion. if the nom has less than 1,000 edits,  people could explain they wouldn't get past the voting stage.  The discussion could also include the questions that people ask now, so that way they wouldn't interfere with the voting stage.  I support this idea.--Ac1983fan 12:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe this has been discussed before. Basically, everything anyone suggests has probably been discussed before. --Deskana (request backup) 12:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: [edit conflict x3] I think this is a good idea. I can't seem to find the reason it was rejected before (looking through the archives I can't find the discussion of it). The discussion period would encourage people to make a more educated decision instead of just piling on support/oppose per User:foo. James086Talk | Contribs 12:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:DFA. – Chacor 13:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Support per discussion. :-) Carcharoth 13:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  More discussion is a good idea. Forcing people to not vote for two days strikes me as very artificial however. I am all for trying it, but I think we'll end up with the same outcome as now, but instead of the opinions being clearly separated into sections they would all be clumped together.     I doubt it would be an improvement. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aaron Brenneman tried to implement a 'discuss first' section in his second RFA and ended up being roundly ignored by the general population (see the "Commentary and evidence" section"), and lambasted by some others for refactoring (Kim Bruning, of course, supported because of it :). WP:DFA was an incremental improvement idea slain by a heavy-handed implementation, as near as I can tell. Do you have another idea for how to increase true discussion, Oleg? -- nae'blis 15:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  Responding to Oleg: You could have the discussion section itself subdivided into support, oppose, neutral areas of discussion, though more constructive, and non-voting, would be something like: "good points", "bad points", "ways to improve", "really bad points", "technical objections", and "other" (for stuff that people think of themselves). That way, at the end of the time period, it is easier for people to assess what has happened, and for the candidate to improve. Think of it like a review process. Even if the candidate is successful, there will be room for improvement. Carcharoth 15:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Another point is that nominations could be withdrawn in the discussion phase if the candidate felt persuaded to by the comments. A more tricky question is whether the candidate might be allowed to fix a malformed nomination, or iron out various objections before voting started. That would seem to be one of the points of a discussion phase, but I know some people like to vote on the basis of the 'raw' candidate, rather than a candidate 'polished' by a discussion. Carcharoth 15:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is becoming unnecessarily complicated. The current system is still a discussion, let us not forget that. And people are allowed to change their votes, and routinely they do. And if they don't change their votes, sometimes it is out of sheer stubborness, not because they failed to follow up with the RfA page. Also, practically speaking, I doubt that delaying voting for two days would change the final outcome. All in all, the current system is very simple and works very well I think. Experimenting should be encouraged of course, but a massive switch to a new system while strictly enforcing no-voting for two days is probably not good I would think. (Oh, and I have no idea how to increase discussion. I think that happens naturally when necessary. Think for example of the discussion (and massive number of votes) in the nomination of ProtectBot). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Several of the ProtectionBot votes were ill-informed. But I'm guessing at least some of those wouldn't have read any discussion anyway, or wouldn't have responded to correction of their misunderstandings. Then it would have been up to the bureaucrat whether to ignore the vote or not. Maybe it should be made clearer that your vote probably will be discounted if you don't respond to corrections of misunderstandings. There is currently an RfA where some people are showing that they don't fully understand the Block vs Ban distinction (an understandable mistake, but embarassing if you make the mistake of being unclear about it when opposing in an RfA). Carcharoth 17:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Having bureaucrats ignoring votes on the ground that certain votes are "ill-informed" is another idea which sounds nice in theory but is bound to cause great problems in practice. How do you define "ill-informed" oppose votes? Were some of the support votes "better-informed"? Are "me too" votes "better informed"? This is a can of worms which better be stay closed, if you ask me. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: THE BOTS WILL DESTROY US ALL is a great example of an ill-informed vote: It's completely out of touch with the situation at hand and based on sci-fi paranoia. --tjstrf talk 17:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Having people ask the candidates questions and having the candidate respond would probably not have the problem of low participation, though, because questions and issues are already asked and discussed in RFA. There could still be a problem of people ignoring the discussion beforehand and only raising objections once the voting period starts. —Centrx→talk • 15:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe call it an inquistion questioning session, then? A community interview? Plus group discussion, and then, tagged on the end, the consensual vote. Carcharoth 16:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Durin, you're beginning to sound like an obstructionist. People have brought up numerous things that they posit are wrong with RFA over time, but every time you maintain that they have not been discussed/pointed out/consensed on. But when people try to discuss them widely, they are ignored/shut down by a vocal group that want to maintain RFA as is. How do you propose we resolve this logjam that keeps coming up every few months? Hint: I don't think "accept that nothing is wrong with RFA" is going to be acceptable. Your point-by-point suppositions on Wikipedia_talk:Discussions for adminship might be a good place to start collecting data... -- nae'blis 20:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *You're right. I am obstructionist. I have every intention of being obstructionist to poorly thought out ideas that do not approach modifying RfA through some form of methodical approach, for example a SWOT analysis. That's my proposal for solving it. I've said it dozens of times, and I'll keep saying it until I'm blue in the face. Plenty of people want to "reform" RfA, yet few have made any real attempt to ascertain what's wrong with it. I've already done multiple point by point assertions and responses before. --Durin 14:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes it is. I can only imagine the hysterical wave of protest from certain parties if someone got sysopped with only 69.97% support. It's a vote with a little discression, but a vote nonetheless. Proto::► 09:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah. With an AfD, nobody cares if the closing admin discounts the fact that WP:IDONTLIKEIT delete votes outweigh keeps 33 to 1. But in an RfA, a bureaucrat has no discretion to discount votes in large numbers. If all the opposes are WP:YOUARE(insert ethnic category), WP:YOUONLYHAVE2999EDITS, or WP:IDONTLIKEEVERYONEOFYOUROPINIONS, the closing bureaucrat would still be expected to close it as failing. -Amarkov blahedits 19:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interestingly, BigDT's RfA just closed yesterday with a nominal percentage of 79.x, which might show that the 'crat exercised some discretion after all. I haven't seen a hue and cry...yet. -- nae'blis 20:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was closed as sucessful, and "discretion range" is between 70 and 80%, so I'm not sure why that would be a problem. -Amarkov blahedits 22:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  75-80%, unless you want someone to yell at you... Titoxd(?!?) 04:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Errr, right. For some reason I thought we'd crept up to 80-85% being the discretionary window. Oh well, there goes my shot at 'crathood... ;) -- nae'blis 17:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Too true, and that's unfortunate in my view, but at least RfA involves reasoning which people have the ability to read and consider along with links to evidence. I do take into account the quality of the reasoning and the strength of the comment, such as strong support or weak oppose, among other things in close cases. Well reasoned arguments are much more valuable for building consensus than blank votes. - Taxman Talk 07:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discuss then vote 

message: Currently, RfA question 3 reads, "Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?" I would suggest to amend this to "Have you made mistakes in the past that could have reflected on the way other users acted toward you? How did you learn from the experience?", which covers both the current question 3 and asks another important point; it's important to have admins who can make mistakes and learn from them. On the other hand, my suggestion can simply be a 5th question instead of replacing the 3rd. Cheers, Yuser31415 21:14, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds fine, but it is really two questions. --Majorly 21:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  So, perhaps we should add it as well? How does everyone think? (Obviously I'm not going to add it unless I get quite a lot of support for the idea.) Yuser31415 20:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

text: That's not really a yes/no question... I would humbly suggest that anyone who would answer "no" is not really qualified to stand for adminship.  Accordingly, it might be better to change it to "What mistakes have you made..."  I like the idea, though.  -- Visviva 15:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to change a question 

message: Just for everyone's info, I've updated this page to make it look more like the RfA template. I also think it should be moved to Template:RfB. Comments would be appreciated. --Majorly 21:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not object to the move and agree completely with your update. :) Cbrown1023 00:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved it, it's hardly used anyway so it's not a big deal. --Majorly 12:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks alright.  As you said, not a big deal.  Redux 16:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Candidate questions]] 

message: I've made a proposed addition to it. Any thoughts? -- Selmo (talk) 01:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guide to requests for adminship 

message: I think we should get rid of question #2 for the reason I stated on my RFA, which was: 
"I've written a few articles and worked on a few, however, I don't see why this is a question for adminship, as adminship has nothing to do with writing or adding to articles. A lot of my edits are vandalism reverts. Adminship helps manage Wikipedia, not write it.." Thoughts? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TeckWiz (talk • contribs).
:I actually think that question two is a good question. As in it you can actually state your whole mission on wikipedia. Such as while I have worked on "so-and-so" I tend to be more of a vandal fighter. Also there are a lot of !voters who look for strong material contribs, as it shows just how hard that side of wikipedia can be. So I personally don't mind it. Arjun 03:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While in principle I would agree with you, TeckWiz, I think the question mainly exists for the purpose of deterring users who are insanely focussed on adminship; they also have to contribute to our encyclopedia. By the way, happy Wikipedia Day! Yuser31415 03:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: That is true, and thanks for reminding me that it is wikipedia day. I totally forgot! Arjun 03:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, Wikipedia is, before anything, an encyclopedia. Check the five pillars. I guess some administrators would leave Wikipedia if, suddenly, the world becomes ideal and every user, even anonymous, are made administrators. With 0.03% of editors and the rest administrators, this place would disappear. But with 0.03% administrators and the rest editors, the place is running well enough ;-) -- ReyBrujo 04:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes remember, "what was the reason you joined wikipedia in the first place". 9/10 users would say to help contribute to articles to make them better. Arjun 04:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I've always viewed question #2 as the most important -- Samir धर्म 05:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Notice that it says or contributions. I don't think it's meant to specify mainspace, or it would say so. I do agree with you that article contributions aren't important to adminship. -Amarkov blahedits 05:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed - I never have interpreted it to mean only mainspace contributions, and I've always thought it's the most important standard question, because it gives us a chance to hear a summary of how the user has helped Wikipedia so far. -- Renesis (talk) 07:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with ReyBrujo and Samir that contributions to the article namespace is the most important aspect. Admins that only stick to their maintainin will eventually develop a case of adminitis. Wikipedia is foremost an encylopedia and I believe it is crucial for every admin and for that matter every Wikipedian understand this. I am an editor first and an admin second. GizzaChat © 11:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Ditto, and that is the only question where the quality of the candiadate can actually be tested. It is easy (and often necessary) to lie for Q.1 and Q.3 can always be answered picking specific cases where the candidate was right. Tintin (talk) 11:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "It is easy (and often necessary) to lie for Q.1" Assuming this is true (which I would agree it is) why aren't we discussing how to change question one so that it is not necessary to lie in order to pass? That seems a rather vital change to make. --tjstrf talk 12:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How is it necessary to lie in an RfA? If someone lies in an RfA, I'm going to strong oppose them just for that. If you can't pass by telling the truth, too bad, you can't pass an RfA. The solution to that is to either change so you can pass, or just not get adminship, which really should not be a huge problem. The solution to the fact that people feel you are not suited for adminship is not to lie so they think you are. -Amarkov blahedits 15:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't think it is necessary to lie in the answers to the questions. It may look better to answer slightly different questions, though: Q1 "Why do you want to become an administrator", Q2 "What have you done for Wikipedia so far?" and Q3 "How do you interact with others who disagree with you?". Many people who take Q1 literally get opposed for naively answering that they want to work on the wikify backlog. Kusma (討論) 15:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can't prove someone has lied until he has became an administrator and some time passed, can you? -- ReyBrujo 16:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And even then, you need to consider whether the candidate has really lied. I said in my RfA that I would never block an established user indefinitely without ArbCom, but changed my mind later. Should I be desysopped for breaking that promise? (Note: I didn't intend to break this promise, I just changed my mind about this, based on more experience). So I think asking people to make campaign promises in their RfA is not very useful. Kusma (討論) 16:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Reviewing my own RFA, I notice the only thing I said I would do but haven't is participating at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. I had done some work at :Category:Images with unknown source and :Category:Images and media for deletion, but not as much as I would have wanted. Everything else I had said, I did. And even I pointed that I would not be a "full time" administrator, I enjoy doing wikignome stuff, and haven't stopped since (lately, adding images to Commons). In other words, if I were to hold a new RFA today, I would say pretty much what I said two months ago. -- ReyBrujo 16:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion, the question is necessary to determine the quality of the contributions of the editor. Personally, I am quite interested in the answers to this question. ← ANAS Talk? 19:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question #2 

message: Partly continuing the above discussion about discussing then voting, what is the procedure when something major is raised near the end of an RfA that might lead many people to change their votes (if they had had the time or opportunity to return and read the whole discussion)? Is it just a case of "the candidate got lucky and the issue was not uncovered until it was too late", or does the closing bureaucrat have the option to "continue discussion in the light of new evidence"? How often is this discretion exercised? This sort of thing applies more often to AfDs, where new evidence can sometimes (though not as often as it should) lead to the closing admin to call for a relisting of the AfD in the light of the new evidence. But what is the procedure at RfA? I'm guessing that one way around this would be to close the RfA to new voting, but to allow a period of x days for the participants to read the whole discussion and decide whether or not to change their vote, and only then to close the RfA. But that is probably too much for what is in all likelihood a non-existant problem? Carcharoth 16:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Bureaucrats can reset the closing date if they feel it's necessary. -Amarkov blahedits 16:13, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've not been watching RfDs for a long period of time, so I'll leave it to others to say whether the problem is pretty much non-existent (my sense is that such is the case).  Rather, I note that because a successful candidate needs somewhere around a 4-1 ratio of "support" to "oppose" opinions, it doesn't take a lot of changed opinions and additional opposing opinions near the end to sink an RFA.  For example, an 80-10-10 tally (easy success) can become a 75-25-5 tally (failure) with just five "support" opinions shifting to "oppose", five "neutral" shifting to "oppose", and 5 new "oppose" opinions.  John Broughton  |  ♫ 16:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I am confident that our bureaucrats will fail an RfA that numerically qualifies as "pass" if late evidence shows that the user is Willy on Wheels. Kusma (討論) 16:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Brilliant. Thanks! I thought that might be the case. Just wanted to check. Carcharoth 18:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: 'crats often delay closure where consensus is potentially unclear at closing time (happened in Joturner2 and probably mine). I think they'd let consensus change rather than closing a numerical pass as fail, but the 'crats are the best to ask.--Kchase T 21:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Late evidence and comments 

message: At the moment, there are 14 RfAs!  Is that the most there has been, or has there been more open RfAs at one time? Cbrown1023 03:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, I recall 15 - maybe 16 - once. Picaroon 04:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And a few weeks ago there were 2. :) GizzaChat © 08:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Back in 2005 it was more common to have over 20 at a time, especially in October and December. See this version as an example, but certainly not the record. NoSeptember 13:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *The record for most promotions in one week appears to be 22 for the week of Dec. 8-14, 2005. There is a pattern that the second week of the month has more promotions than the other weeks (perhaps because a lot of nominations are made at the start of the month). Look at the hidden text at User:NoSeptember/admincount if you want to see the pattern. NoSeptember 13:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  14 RfAs! 

message: I am just curious to know if it is still possible for me to be able to RFA one day in the future even though when I was new I started out as a vandal and was blocked for a month. Since then I have strived to turn a new leaf (I am actually a vandal fighter now).  Is it possible or common for users with poor history's to successfully RFA.  Culverin?  Talk  04:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Um... yes, theoretically. In practice, you'll have to go for at least a year with a near-perfect record, and no blocks, before you'll have a chance. -Amarkov blahedits 04:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict):It's up to each individual looking over the situation to decide if he or she is willing to overlook past misconduct, but in most cases a long period of positive contribution will cause past mistakes to fade. If you were to run now, though, I personally would oppose-the misconduct is too recent. Give it more time, and keep up doing good work. Seraphimblade 04:18, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: If we were to get practical and down-to-earth, fortunately yes, you can. Wikipedia welcomes reformed vandals, and the community always wishes to have a reformed vandal become a responsible admin. However, such a person would be held to a much higher standard than most others, and hence you must pretty much go for a year or more with a clean slate, along with other expectations an RfA voter might expect from an otherwise (pardon the poor word choice) unmarred candidate. Keep up your current good work, and you can make the cut. Cheers, 210physicq (c) 04:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you vandalise with your current username? I used to be a vandal as an anon a long time ago... and didn't impact my RfA at all of course! GizzaChat © 08:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems you've not been here that long and therefore the vandalism is pretty recent. I'm concerned that although you're up front here about your vandalism, your talk page is a whitewash, as you've archived the old material but removed the index to the archives, making people think that previous posts (including all those referring to the vandalism) don't exist. This gives the appearance of being sneaky. I'd restore the archive links, do some more "good boy time" here, get an editor review and then get a nom for RfA, which may still fail because in life, some people don't think leopards can change their spots. Alternatively, ditch this user name and create a new one. Just make sure you don't use both or doing anything that even remotely looks like a repeat of your sock puppetry, as Checkuser is pretty powerful and will catch you out. Yes, your edit count and history will be back to zip, but it'll be a clean zip... and you've not been here that long anyway. --Dweller 09:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I think you're not the only one, when people first join, they might vandalize but become a good editor/vandal fighter later. I somewhat regret not starting a new account after what I did to the Sandbox when I first started (and I got blocked, although this was highly questionable because I was never given a warning, and I assumed doing that to the sandbox would be OK, whereas doing that to a normal article would not be OK.), but now, I am extremely dedicated to vandal fighting. Keep up the good work you've been doing for 6-12 months, and hopefully you should stand some reasonable chance. Insanephantom (my Editor Review) 11:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Aaron Brenneman (second nomination) for an example of a vandal-turned-admin. – Chacor 12:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dude. Aaron was never a vandal. He only decided to have some fun with his ol' pal Tony and the pitiful joke backfired. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL Don't block, don't block   — Nearly Headless Nick 12:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Rant-back: Example of admin-turned-vandal – Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Chacor. Argh! Don't kill me.  — Nearly Headless Nick 12:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  :P – Chacor 13:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of vandalism 

message: I'm curious, why does every RfA contain a link to mathbot's tool rather than just typing out the information? It seems unnecessary for potentially every person who considers voting in the RfA to use the tool when two lines can fully report its output. Is there any reason not just to type out the edit summary usage stats? WJBscribe (WJB talk) 08:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You could try asking Mathbot's owner, Oleg Alexandrov. --ais523 08:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Originally the information was embedded in. Then some people were saying that people read too much into that information and oppose or are unhappy even with a 75% edit summary usage. In order to minimize the impact of the edit summary usage (without ignoring it altogether) the compromise was that people eager for the edit summary usage should find it by themselves. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mathbot's tool

message: I was spinning some data around, as most of you know I do from time to time and came up with some numbers that some might find interesting. Over the last year, this talk page has seen (including anon IPs) 689 unique contributors. 50% of the traffic on the page came from 50 most frequent contributors. Just some numbers. I thought the 689 number was rather higher than I expected, though 183 of those had 1 edit total and 380 had less than 5. Bureaucrats accounted for 5% of the traffic. --Durin 18:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How do you spin these numbers? A little black box somewhere? I could probably extract the same sort of results, but do you have a quick way of doing this sort of thing? Any nifty tools? Carcharoth 01:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *Since Wikipedia is not a crystal ball I decided to obtain something better. Mine comes with a special co-processor just for spinning numbers, including a spin cycle :) --Durin 02:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sounds too low. I get 930 users, with 59 anons. I get my results from Aka, who by the way says that you're the one who talks here the most. Titoxd(?!?) 05:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *My report is constrained to the last 365 days. --Durin 14:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Activity on this talk page 

message: I don't know if this has been brought up previously, nor what the result, if any, was. However, sometimes WP:RFA can become large and cumbersome, such that it would be more practical if there were just plain wikilinks to each individual RfA (ie. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Yuser31415 instead of . Feedback? Yuser31415 22:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That depends. Sometimes there's as few as two, sometimes as many as twenty. I think the contents box should suffice. You can see any users you like to vote on and just click their name. --Majorly 22:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is just a thought, but what if we put the votes section into <noinclude>'s?  It would make the length of the page much more consistent, and still useful -- you'd still be able to see the current status and the user's answers to questions. -- Renesis (talk) 22:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have implemented a test version of my suggestion in my sandbox; feel free to comment or edit it. Yuser31415 23:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of putting votes in a noinclude more than just linking like Yuser31415 did. I have no real problem with the way it is now though. --Matthew 00:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd also be happy with that idea (even if just the headers were included). Yuser31415 01:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no way to mock it up, so let's get some more input and then we can just try it out. -- Renesis (talk) 01:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggest changing [[WP:RFA]] to links instead of transclusions 

message: The numbers seem to flucuate a lot. Recently as low as two (or even one) and now up to fifteen. What is the record for the most number of open RfAs at one time? Carcharoth 11:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This was discussed above (on this very page).--Kchase T 11:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops. Thanks. I'll read 5 talk archive pages as a penance. Carcharoth 13:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Hail RfA, full of grace. Jimbo is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst editors, and blessed is the fruit of thy editing, Jimbo." Hmm. Just doesn't seem to quite roll off the tongue, does it. --Durin 14:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And potentially blasphemous as well :D. On a more serious note, the question was aised above "how many people have you nominated recently," that is one of the reasons I took the plunge and nominated someone. I think it is fair to say that the conversation above contributed mightily to the current plethora. -- Avi 14:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fifteen current RfAs - what is the record?