Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 38

message: Is there any point to dual nominations? There was even a recent nom that had three conominators. Why not just one, and everybody votes? When are too many co-noms too many? Why not 10 co-noms? 20? Always concerned about scalability, --Durin 19:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's slightly silly but harmless.  I hope that editors will try to mostly limit themselves to the standard "I was going to nominate him myself!", or make their positive remarks in the comments section.  I don't foresee it becoming a major problem; there's only so many laudatory things that can be said about any candidate, so potential nominators will eventually run out of new things to say.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What Ten said. I don't think it hurts anything; should a particular case become a problem we can deal with it individually. (It's not as though having multiple nominators affects the process itself; it's just unnecessary. And perhaps a bit embarrassing, for the candidate being gushed over!) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:15, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Come to think of it, are there any good reasons why we need any nominators?  Why not have everyone self-nominate?  I did - it never did me any harm...  It helps those users who don't regularly come into contact with any particular other users to be nominated without suffering the increased social hazard that self-nomination brings.  The only reason I can think of for having nominations is to let users recommend unknown users to the community.  I don't, however, find that a desperately useful thing.  Sam Korn 20:21, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One good reason is modesty - some people feel uncomfortable telling others what great people they are.  Failure to self-promote should not be a reason not to become an admin.  Guettarda 20:32, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dual nominations 

message: Today I was sorely tempted to pull an Ed Poor and delete RFA, luckily I came to my senses that it would be a bit too bold, would be a violation of WP:POINT and would be too crazy of a unilateral action to take not to mention countless other side issues it would cause.
I contend here and now that although it is not inherently flawed RFA has become flawed, RFA used to be an unbiased and untainted way for users who felt they had what it took to request community input on whether they were trustworthy enough to have adminship privileges.  Over time this has been changed and dare I say corrupted by campaigning for and against canidates as well as being influenced by old grudges from long before the fight began and that adminship is now not determined by whether an editor is trustworthy enough and is not given out very liberally as originally  intended but a canidate's worth has now been degraded to who's faction agrees with them and how much power that faction holds, who likes them and who doesn't, whether they're in the in crowd or whether they are not.  I think anyone would be hard pressed to disagree with me when I say that this is not what the envisioned when RFA was originally implemented.
My suggestions for RFA are simple.  Form a solution, even a temporary one, and use it to replace the current system.  If the created system is only temporary then work as a community to create a more permanent one, one that works and one that is free from individual and group biases.  I would also suggest getting the input from those who who envisioned and worked on the original RFA process and even from Jimbo himself if he is willing to comment on how to create this new system.  I will be the first to admit that I do not have an answer to RFA nor do I have a way to solve it's problems, however I hope that the community as a whole can find a way to make RFA work.  We have the technology, we can make it faster, better, stronger. Jtkiefer T | @ | C  ----- 01:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it just me or are a lot more people getting admined now than they used to? People also seem to have many more votes than before (my RfA had somthing like 20 votes)- why do people bother to vote support when there are already an overwhelming number of supports? A while ago somebody (not that I remember who) was using a criteria that said that all admins had to have an FA to their name. Perhaps a concrete standard like that (that particular one seems a bit strict) could work. It wouldn't solve the factionalization though I personally haven't noticed such cabalish behavior. Are you looking for a complete overhaul or just different standards? Personally, I wonder if we should make vote soliciting against the rules? Broken S 02:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There are more editors now, and Wikipedia is growing faster, so I should hope that more people are getting adminship now than in the past. A more interesting question is how the ratio of successful/unsuccessful attempts has changed over time; but that is actually fairly hard to calculate, since unsuccessful attempts are not grouped by date. Naturally, the number of people voting in each attempt has also increased with Wikipedia's population. In successful nominations it does no harm; in close ones we can hardly forbid people from adding their vote; and plainly failing attempts generally get removed. But anyway, to get back to the main point: I agree that a few recent nominations (and some not-so-recent ones) have suffered from extreme amounts of factionalism... There are some people whose name, appearing on one side of a vote, is practically a guarentee of several other specific names on both sides. My general feeling, though, is that whatever course we take, we should try to stick to the principal that adminship is no big deal. The more admins we have, the less damage individual admins can do; making as many people as possible admins, then depending on them to watch each other strikes me as the closest we can get to the Wiki Way. Optimally, adminship should be automatic for anyone who wants the job and wouldn't abuse the position. --Aquillion 02:38, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: ...Is a solution possible? Those seem more like problems with the community than the process. It is obvious that community input is necessary for adminship selection. The community is sufficiently large that a vote may be the only non-cumbersome way to get input. A vote will naturally lead to social issues. The current RFA process seems to be the least bad of all the bad choices. ~~ N (t/c) 02:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My assertion though is that there shouldn't be bad choices, whether through reform of the process or of the community there should be a way to find a good choie in all of this. Jtkiefer T | @ | C  ----- 02:46, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, but that doesn't mean a good choice exists. I don't believe one does, aside from the fairly minor change of discounting unjustified "me-too" votes (and I'm not even sure that's a good idea). Getting proper community input (a vote or other objective measure, not evidence to sway a bureaucrat's subjective judgement) is not possible without making heated argument likely. The only way to fix that issue (to the extent that it can be fixed) is through changing social atmosphere. ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I'd like to restate a proposal that I made several weeks ago, and similar to that which R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) made earlier on this page - to divide the distribution of admin powers into at least two levels, with a lower threshold of support required to achieve less potent powers (e.g., the rollback button, the power to block only anonymous users, perhaps page protection), and a mentoring system for people in the higher level to assist those in the lower level. BD2412 T 02:55, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  In my experience, blocking anon IPs requires much more care and skill than other blocks.  It would probably be better to leave that to higher levels.  Of course the software would need to be modified to enable the above (except for rollbacks which can apparently be provided to non-sysops in the current version of the software). --Tony SidawayTalk 03:08, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: A bureaucrat decides at the end of the period whether... that's making it too subjective and less transparent. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What's transparent about an editor who just rolls up on RFA and types ~~~~ Support?  Where's the objectivity? --Tony SidawayTalk 03:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nothing, but anyone gets to do it, not just a bureaucrat. Just discounting votes that don't have a reason would fix that problem (although it has its own problems). Leaving the final decision up to the subjective, non-transparent judgement of an empowered class is oligarchy. I don't trust the bureaucrats enough to give them this level of (opaque, subjective) judgement, do you? ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Bureaucrats closing noms based on diff and common sense makes it less transparent. Bureaucrats are there to enforce community decisions on adminships, not to make subjective calls. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Seconded, if the issues of transparency and oligarchy can be properly dealt with. I.e., the bureaucrats should have to provide a detailed rationale no matter what, and there needs to be an appeals process (at least for opponents to appeal promotions). I do think this would require many more bureaucrats, though - what you're describing is actually like a mini-arbitration case. ~~ N (t/c) 04:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. The current system of making admins is fine, except this should be done: All "yes" votes for promotion should require no explanation, a simple "yes" should do. However, if you make every "no" voter be required to post a unique reason, at the tally, those "no's" with crummy reasons would be discarded for having not having met a reasonable objection threshold. In addition, use a "bot" that tags an editors user page with a "You can be an Admin" announcement -with easy to follow link that says "click here" to accept your nomination. The system "bot" can automatically nominate editors who reach certain thresholds. Rex071404  216.153.214.94   05:10, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent, enforce editcountitis by 'bot. That'll be popular. -Splashtalk 14:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: That, too, would be excellent (except for the bot). Bureaucrats should however have to provide reasons for accepting or discarding each vote. And explanations on 'support' votes should not be prohibited, although they shouldn't be required either. ~~ N (t/c) 15:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: *I absolutely shudder to think at the acrimony that will rapidly appear in the RfA process if bureaucrats are required to show their reasons for accepting or discarding each and every vote. If that happens, this process is doomed. No person in their right mind would ever want to become a bureaucrat. --Durin 17:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: As for having a featured article to a nominee's name... I think we should look at it as getting articles to featured status, rather than owing an article. FAC is not a cakewalk, esp to newbies. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, can anyone provide an example of where factionalist voting has altered the result of an RfA? In Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Aaron Brenneman where one might have expected it, I actually saw very little evidence - and result was not affected. Where are folk voting 'oppose - he's not in my gang'? I suspect this is a phantom problem. --Doc (?) 09:36, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Of course it is not a new idea, but it is brought up so often that a separate page, or even some sort of RfC, specifically dealing with RfA reform could be formed. Establishing it doesn't mean that reform is required, it would be there that we could determine if it is. It would be an open area to discuss different options and ideas. We establish pages with proposed policy, etc. all the time. This wouldn't really be any different. And my suggestion would simply move the debate for or against reform to a different page than this one. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  flawed jewel 

message: I agree that it's horrible right now.  I was adminned just over six months ago, but if RFA had been as it is now I would have refused the offer.  I could edit Wikipedia perfectly well without going through this bare-knuckle battle.
So, the beauty contest concept is becoming less useful.  Here's an outline of a possible alternative:
# Give admin powers only to people who demonstrate useful skills.  An RC patroller who consistently gets high praise from his fellows, an AfD closer who does a good job, someone who cleans up copyright infringements, or one who lists them, someone who maintains one of the dispute resolution pages, or tracks down orphanned page protects and listed them on Wikipedia:Protect page, welcomes new editors, or maintains Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress.  Someone who does a good job on these tasks for a couple of months is probably admin material.
# Discount anyone who keeps getting involved in sterile edit wars.  We've got enough edit-warring admins already.
The idea is to have published criteria.  Someone would be nominated in the usual way.  He can write a brief (250 words at most) candidacy address.
Anyone who likes (including the candidate) can then add single lines in a prescribed format of the form:
* (list of diffs) "Brief and neutral description of useful task performed by candidate"
* (list of diffs) "Brief and neutral description of sterile edit war involving candidate"
A bureaucrat decides at the end of the period whether to grant an admin bit to the candidate.  He should use his common sense, and may wish to take into account the editing experience of the candidate as well as the evidence presented.
I bet it'll frighten away the RFA groupies and the edit counters, while permitting useful information to be quietly gathered and a good decision to be made. --Tony SidawayTalk 02:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A bureaucrat decides at the end of the period whether... that's making it too subjective and less transparent. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What's transparent about an editor who just rolls up on RFA and types ~~~~ Support?  Where's the objectivity? --Tony SidawayTalk 03:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nothing, but anyone gets to do it, not just a bureaucrat. Just discounting votes that don't have a reason would fix that problem (although it has its own problems). Leaving the final decision up to the subjective, non-transparent judgement of an empowered class is oligarchy. I don't trust the bureaucrats enough to give them this level of (opaque, subjective) judgement, do you? ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Bureaucrats closing noms based on diff and common sense makes it less transparent. Bureaucrats are there to enforce community decisions on adminships, not to make subjective calls. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative

message: In the past 12 months Wikipedia has more than doubled in size: from 380,000 articles in November 2004 to 804,000 now, for an increase of 112%. Growth in total traffic has more than tripled during this year. The number of active admins, on the other hand, grew by only 74%, from 313 to 545 in this period. This means that the workload on each admin is much higher than it was a year ago, and it keeps getting worse. The reason we have more admins now is that we need more admins now. What we should now find is a method to recruit admins faster, without giving up quality. My solution includes two parts, drawing on some good ideas presented above by BD2412 and Tony Sidaway:
# Adopt the new Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges, and assign the "rollback" privilege liberally (automatically?) to any registered user with a clean record (never blocked) who has been here for two weeks and amassed 150 edits. Having an army of well-equipped RC patrollers would take a good chunk of the workload off admins, allowing them to deal with trickier or more delicate tasks such as copyvios, AfDs, CSDs and such.
# Modify the RfA process as follows: nominations would still appear here, but opinions, rather than votes, would be added by anyone who has something to say about the candidate. At the end of the seven day period, two bureaucrats would review the opinions as well as any evidence they choose to collect, and based on that and their own best judgment, issue a unanimous decision. If the nomination fails, the two "adjudicators" will issue a short justification for their ruling. Since the two adjudicators are assigned and announced at the time of nomination, they can—at their discretion—make a decision before the seven days are up, if they feel additional opinions are unlikely to change the outcome.
Using this system, "piling on votes" would be futile. Only people bringing something new to the table would have an impact on the outcome. Any "faction" or clique would be quickly recognized and discounted as such by our seasoned b'crats. Petty grudges, when such exist, would have to be supported by real evidence. And lastly, we would get the benefit of the judgment of two humans making a choice, rather than a blind algorithm counting votes. I expect most nominations to gather no more than a handful of opinions. Some would turn into a heated discussions, of course, but maybe rightly so. Repeat nominations of failed candidates would only accept new material; the pervious nom would be used as a baseline. Not all bureaucrats will be willing to take this job, but all we need is a few dedicated ones, and we're in business.
This may not be a perfect system, but I think it is a step in the right direction, and addresses many of the concerns voiced on this page. Do I hear a 'second'?  Owen× ☎ 04:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded, if the issues of transparency and oligarchy can be properly dealt with. I.e., the bureaucrats should have to provide a detailed rationale no matter what, and there needs to be an appeals process (at least for opponents to appeal promotions). I do think this would require many more bureaucrats, though - what you're describing is actually like a mini-arbitration case. ~~ N (t/c) 04:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. The current system of making admins is fine, except this should be done: All "yes" votes for promotion should require no explanation, a simple "yes" should do. However, if you make every "no" voter be required to post a unique reason, at the tally, those "no's" with crummy reasons would be discarded for having not having met a reasonable objection threshold. In addition, use a "bot" that tags an editors user page with a "You can be an Admin" announcement -with easy to follow link that says "click here" to accept your nomination. The system "bot" can automatically nominate editors who reach certain thresholds. Rex071404  216.153.214.94   05:10, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent, enforce editcountitis by 'bot. That'll be popular. -Splashtalk 14:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: That, too, would be excellent (except for the bot). Bureaucrats should however have to provide reasons for accepting or discarding each vote. And explanations on 'support' votes should not be prohibited, although they shouldn't be required either. ~~ N (t/c) 15:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: *I absolutely shudder to think at the acrimony that will rapidly appear in the RfA process if bureaucrats are required to show their reasons for accepting or discarding each and every vote. If that happens, this process is doomed. No person in their right mind would ever want to become a bureaucrat. --Durin 17:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative 2: Adminship by "mini-RfC" 

message: There's a call to make changes to RfA. Very well. Step 1: Identify what the shortcomings are. You have to do this before you can craft a solution; else you have no way of determining if your solution addresses the shortcomings. Without this, you're just as likely to make things worse as you are to make them better. What I've seen people say the shortcomings are of late (and my responses). 
*Incivility. This is an individual issue, and not a problem with RfA. RfA was plenty civil in the past. The process hasn't changed to cause it to become incivil. What has changed is our willingness to accept incivility in the process. That's not a fault of the RfA process. That's a fault of the contributors. Put blame where it belongs. 
*Campaigning for and against candidates: What I have seen over the last four months has been a number of candidates being roundly criticized for campaigning, and similar response to people campaigning against them. I simply don't see that this has been a problem. Cite examples if you want to make the case. Currently, I don't see it.
*Factionalism: Again, I don't see it. I see quite a number of RfAs that have not become contentious in any respect. If cliques truly existed, it is again a fault of specific users and not a fault of RfA. If nominees who are not in the 'in' crowd are not getting in (this wasn't spoken, but implied) then how is it that User:Edcolins passed with barely a peep of opposition (only Boothy443 opposing). He's a patent lawyer, and hardly among the 'in' crowd. There might be certain groups of people heavily influenced by IRC. I can't speak to that as I personally refuse to be party to IRC. 
*Individual and group bias: Individual bias? How do you expect we can remove that and still have humans involved in the process? If we did it purely by machine, we still couldn't remove group bias. Any mechanism by which we attempt to develop consensus is going to inherently have bias. We can not be automatons that simply look at base facts and vote strictly based on binary qualities. No matter what system you design, there will be bias of one form or another. 
*Piling on of support votes: Since more people are on Wikipedia, more people are involved in RfA. Unavoidable. Unless you want to exclude people from the RfA process you can count on this being part of RfA. I readily grant it is not easily scalable, but I doubt there's any easier solution unless you layer in all sorts of instruction creep (perhaps things like...only allowed to vote thrice weekly or some other arbitrary restrictions on suffrage). 
Opaque judgement of a bureaucrat is part of the current process. It is generally used in the 75% realm of RfAs. If the process were transparent, and a bureaucrat was obligated to show which votes were discounted, or what consensus they felt was stronger and why...I doubt there would be any people applying to be bureaucrats and the bureaucrats we have now would run screaming for the hills. The process would rapidly degenerate into accusatory pit brawls, with bureaucrats being in the center of it. 
The measures of Wikipedia growth used to show why admins aren't being promoted fast enough suffer from being indirect measures of how much work admins need to do. There's a presumption that the amount of work has increased in direct propotion to the growth. This could be very, very wrong in either direction. At least one person did a very (very) small study on the incidence of vandalism. We need a more comprehensive study before we can say with any firmity that we are not promoting admins rapidly enough. 
As for having a featured article to a nominee's name; can anybody...anybody...provide a reference to an article that was crafted by one single individual that made it to FA status? Such articles aren't the work of a single individual. An article getting to FA status isn't the credit of one single person. 
If people are curious, I can provide statistics on any number of different takes on the RfA process as it has progressed since June 23rd of this year when I began keeping detailed statistics. As memory serves, I don't think the ratio of success/unsuccess has changed. What has recently been a surprising aberration is the number of early withdrawls; a rate in excess of 30% when the prior rate had been ~10%. A number of editors have been working on WP:GRFA, a recently developed guide to the RfA process. One of the hoped for outcomes is a reduction in the number of premature nominations. This may have a desirable effect on the number of early withdrawals. 
Thanks for reading. --Durin 05:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As for having a featured article to a nominee's name... I think we should look at it as getting articles to featured status, rather than owing an article. FAC is not a cakewalk, esp to newbies. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, can anyone provide an example of where factionalist voting has altered the result of an RfA? In Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Aaron Brenneman where one might have expected it, I actually saw very little evidence - and result was not affected. Where are folk voting 'oppose - he's not in my gang'? I suspect this is a phantom problem. --Doc (?) 09:36, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Of course it is not a new idea, but it is brought up so often that a separate page, or even some sort of RfC, specifically dealing with RfA reform could be formed. Establishing it doesn't mean that reform is required, it would be there that we could determine if it is. It would be an open area to discuss different options and ideas. We establish pages with proposed policy, etc. all the time. This wouldn't really be any different. And my suggestion would simply move the debate for or against reform to a different page than this one. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Before we can make changes, we have to clearly identify the problems

message: Are there many non-bureaucrats who close RfAs? Of course only a bureaucrat can close a successful RfA, but are there many non-bureaucrats who close nominations as failed, if:
* They expire without gaining consensus to support,
* The candidate declines or withdraws the nomination, or
* There seems to be a strong consensus to oppose?
I'd be interested in hearing from other Wikipedia users. I personally only close RfAs if the candidate declines or withdraws them, as it is the only non-controversial case. Please also indicate whether you're an admin or not (I am one). — JIP | Talk 08:00, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am adamantly against non-bureacrats deciding that there was no consensus. That's what the bureacrats were elected specifically to do. →Raul654 09:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ditto. Marskell 09:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree. It's almost as bad as the Arbcom saying "well, we can't be bothered making a decision, what does the community think?" If people who were elected to do a task don't do it, what's the point of electing them? Alphax τεχ 09:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Extreme (...) agree. Bureaucrats close RfAs. Period. -Splashtalk 14:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree with Raul. Managing the RfA process is (at present) the only responsibility a bureaucrat has. They are responsible for deciding the fate of RfAs. They were given that responsibility by a strongly supportive community. Let them do their jobs. If bureaucrats were overburdened, and RfAs were extending days and days past their conclusion dates, then I could see some rationale to users closing RfAs that had obviously failed. But, this isn't the case. --Durin 14:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

text: An attempt is being made to address this problem in the Guide to requests for adminship now being developed, with a line in the Miniguide making it clear that the candidate can withdraw at any stage, and a last paragraph on General advice for nominators suggesting that a nominator contact the candidate if things go sour. Do you think this would help?. . ...dave souza 23:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-bureaucrats closing RfAs? 

message: This idea is simple.  Allow voters on RfA the option of voting Provisional support or something similar.  People who are able to pass the post with normal support votes would not be affected by this proposal at all; but if someone does not get enough full-out support votes to pass muster, and has enough provisional votes to make up the difference, then they are elected as a provisional admin. This would be exactly like a normal admin, but they would have to be re-elected after a set period of time (say, three months).  Naturally, they could become a full admin on that second vote if they got enough normal full-support votes, after which no more voting would be necessary; they could continue on as a provisional admin if they still needed provisional votes to squeak through; or they could lose their provisional adminship.  Candidates would have the option to pre-decline provisional adminship in their nomination acceptance if they find the idea distasteful, requiring full support/oppose votes from all voters, or to decline it after the vote if they decide on seeing the totals that it's not what they want. This proposal would allow for a measure of later review for some candidates without the chaos or bad blood of widespread reelections; indeed, by allowing for more nuanced votes, it would hopefully take much of the edge out of RfA. --Aquillion 05:22, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To me, this is instruction creep.  Make a way to de-admin people who abuse the privileges as easily as admins are made, and such a thing becomes very unneccessary.  Friday (talk) 05:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A streamlined de-adminship proposal, though, represents a far more serious form of instruction creep; no matter how carefully you word your criteria for de-adminship or how cleverly you set up the process, it would still be open to abuse and would become a set of rules and procedures that every single admin would have to know by heart if they wanted to avoid the risk of spurious de-adminship.  Indeed, no matter how they ended up being handled, offical de-adminship proceedings would amount to a new structure on the scale of RfC, RfAr, or RfA itself, with all the attendant rules and regulations.  Provisional adminship, on the other hand, would serve as a purely optional alternative available to voters and candidates, allowing for a way to defuse some of the nastier adminship proceedings without substantially adding to the rules under which most people operate. --Aquillion 05:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternate proposal:  Allow votes for provisional adminship 

message: I would like my RfA withdrawn, if this can be done. Thanks! — Wackymacs 08:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok I've taken care of it. Jtkiefer T | @ | C  ----- 08:17, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Withdraw