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Homework for RFA regulars

That's right: homework. If people want the process changed, then I suggest less talk and more action. Your mission, should you prove your insanity^W^W^Wchoose to accept it, is the following:

Use the talk page, come up with different ideas. I want to see that page filled with suggestions and your thoughts.

The goal: By the end of this week, I would like to see a rough draft of a modified RFA system. If the community agrees, we will take the new RFA out for a test drive, and then let the community decide on whether or not to keep it.

Good luck. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 17:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

(le' ZIP!) -ZeroTalk 17:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Good idea, will do! — Ilyanep (Talk) 17:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I hate to add a little rain to the parade, but any scheme concoted in one week will be unfit for purpose by virtue of having been concoted in one week flat. We can't very well test-drive it, either: we need either to take it or leave it, otherwise the legitimacy of adminships granted during the car wreck test-drive will be questioned. There is good reason for wanting more talk, not less. Plus there's the fact that RfA is not broken and does not need fixing. -Splashtalk 17:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
What's the problem? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I agree with Splash as well (I didn't notice his response at first).  Grue  18:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Speaking as a bureaucrat, I think it's broken. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 18:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Its not "broken" per se', just needs a serious overhall, like the Mega Man articles that I work on. Which in fact, I'll shall work on right now. -ZeroTalk 18:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure it's got broken elements, as all of the "popularity contests", revenge-voting, and IRC-influenced decisions will attest to. While I agree that a longer time for consideration might be necessary (and I would hope Linuxbeak would extend if people are still working on a proposal), as long as what comes out is not radically changed (Jimbo appoints admins, bureaucrats start rolling dice and promoting by UserID), there should be no legitimacy problems. -- nae'blis (talk) 18:27, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that comments be moved to the discussion page in question. Otherwise, people wanting this process to move forward (independant of whether it will be adopted) will be sidelined by a discussion here. By all means, if you don't think it's broken, feel free to comment over there and quantify why the RFA process "aint broke." Avriette 18:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

  • "By the end of this week, I would like to see a rough draft of a modified RFA system." Sigh. Ok, first, tell me what's wrong with the admin pool right now? What proof do you have the system is BROKEN IN THE FIRST PLACE? What targets do you have in mind for evaluating whether a change has the desired effect? It's like a broken record around here. "RfA is broken! <brawk> Polly wanna cracker! <brawk>". Come on...evidence...prove it's broken! Then, show how the "reform" will fix what is broken. --Durin 19:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
    • RFA is producing admins that are not familar with policy and do not effectively carry it out. In some cases they cause damage by misapplying policy. As I said above, I know several admins that do not apply blocking/deletion standards correctly and have not been responsive to comments/questions. It's my feeling that without the beauty pageant aspect of RFAs it would produce better admins and without voting bureaucrats would be freer to select people that have shown themselves to understand policy. There's nothing sacred about how RFA works at the moment. And I'm not going to name names. Rx StrangeLove 20:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Which admins in particular? Let's stop beating around the bush. If you're not willing to name names, we're not going to get anywhere. You're asserting proof that can't be verified. Second, why haven't these admins been subject to an RfC? Third, when were these admins made into admins and what was different about the RfA process when they are adminned (if anything). Fourth, if nothing is different, what can we discern about the RfA process as it is now that might have allowed this set of admins to get through and what could we change about RfA to prevent that from happening in the future? These are the sorts of questions that need to be asked. To just say "It sucks" and "Here's how we're going to do it from now on" (which is essentially what many of these arguments boils down to) is just as likely to cause harm as it is to cause good. --Durin 21:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
          • I'm not going to name names, for several reasons, not the least of which is that it would hang a system-wide problem on the backs of a small group of editors. It's a fairness issue. Anyone can look into the deletion/block logs and admin boards to decide for themselves if there's a problem. As far as RFCs go, it's too big of a stick and carries too much baggage...again, it's a system wide problem that an RFC on one or two editors won't fix. For what it's worth the admins I am referring to have been admins for less than 6 months so were subject to the same general rules as RFC is working with now.
          • As far as saying it sucks and trying to force something on people, I don't know where that comes from. That's why we're talking about it....you're acting like the very act of talking about it is bad. There's no reason on earth not to talk about it and keep an open mind. Flexability is good, and there's a whole page where people are talking about RFA, is it broken? it's not broken? what can and can't be done....no one is forcing anything on anyone. But if you going to make me list names of admins I think shouldn't have passed on RFA, I'm not going to...again, it's up to everyone who has an interest to look and decide for themselves. I'm not asking anyone to take my word on it. Rx StrangeLove 21:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
            • Good point. However, it need not be your personal opinion. Are there any admins that, within a few weeks after being "instated", were the subject of strong controversy? I can think of one, who did a number of controversial deletes (don't recall the name, sorry, but it was all over DRV). He got flamed rather nastily (by what I think was a former "enemy"), but reformed within days. The question would be, could this controversy have been avoided if RFA had been different. Radiant_>|< 00:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Check out the admin's noticeboard. I've seen at least two instances this week of a new admin who was so inexperienced with the processes he was performing that he had to ask on the noticeboard whether he could do something. Not exactly good credentials, if you ask me. One of them used the phrase "I've used up my three reverts", implying a clear misunderstanding of the 3RR. Radiant_>|< 21:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
          • Admins do not spring fully-formed from RFA, nor descend in perfumed clouds on the back of a swan. We all have to learn, and the best way to do that is by doing. But I would much rather admins asked if they were unsure rather than just blundering about. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
            • That is true, and it's no biggie, but we do have a rather extensive "recommended reading list" for admins. My example may not be the best, but I am one of the few people who opposes admin candidates if they lack experience with process, and in my opinion that factor should be weighed in more strongly. Radiant_>|< 00:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
        • While I understand that we don't expect them to be mature at birth, but I often see comments that indicate they should never have been given the mop. Responses to "Did you check the history before you speedy deleted this?" like "Oh, am I meant to?" no longer suprise me.
          I understand the desire for a crisp quantative metric, but good luck. The only thing that springs to mind would be a ratio of restored deletes to speedies comparing admins at various stages of maturity, but that's a sparse sample and no assurances that we're catching bad speedies anyway. How about this as a metric: how many people are saying the system needs improvement, what's the ratio or Bcats to admins to Morlocks in that sample, and how much time (eg. votes) do they spend on RfA? If the people who spend a lot of time on RfA think there is a problem, then there might be a problem.
          brenneman(t)(c) 01:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Did Aaron just call most Wikipedians Morlocks!? Who are the Eloi? Jonathunder 02:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Rx Strangelove said "it would hang a system-wide problem on the backs of a small group of editors." My apologies for my confusion, but it seems you're advocating system wide changes because of a small group of editors. If there truly are just one or two admins who are a problem, then RfA, which has promoted hundreds of admins over the last few months, can hardly be said to be broken. Also, Rx Strangelove said "you're acting like the very act of talking about it is bad." Not quite. I'm saying that suggesting solutions without first having an idea what the problem is is counterproductive and will not produce solutions that solve the problem. Lots of people have suggested various forms of "RfA reform". Nobody has yet fully identified and provided evidence of their being a systemic problem with RfA. If you want to "fix" RfA, fine. Fix it. But, you could just as easily make it worse if you don't know what the problem is. Quoting from the movie Apollo 13, "Let's work the problem people. Let's not make it worse by guessing". Right now, all we're doing is guessing and suggesting solutions based on those guesses. None of us, myself included, have any evidential basis to say "RfA is broken because....". --Durin 01:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm afraid that logic is flawed....your statement isn’t reflexive, that is, there's potentially one problem we're talking about but (again potentially) a larger group of admins contributing to it. I found a couple admins that aren't up to snuff, Slim ran into a couple and presumably others would to if they looked so it’s not based on just a couple admins. My point is that they shouldn’t be singled out when the group they belong to is possibly much larger. And the flip side is that if people look, maybe they don't find anymore. So then we don't worry about that piece but there is an idea of what the problem is, it's RFA promoting admins that are not familiar with policy and use their admin powers with that flawed understanding. How wide spread the scope of the problem is unknown but you're wrong to say that no one has an idea of the problem. Like I said above, the RFA reform page has identified a group of problems, the work to be done now is to see if they are indeed problems and then fix them if they are. Rx StrangeLove 02:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • How about you proved a metric then? Give us something, anything, that we can measure its sucess or failure by other than our collective subjective feeling that it's not perfect. Otherwise, you're throwing up an argument that's irrefutable. And, by the way, even a totally random change might improve it or might do nothing, and would not be permenant. What's the harm in trying, it's not like lives are at stake. - brenneman(t)(c) 01:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Because the last time RfA reform in the form of 30 minimum support votes to pass was suggested, it turned out there were two...just two...problem admins that were the catalyst for the suggested reform. Once again, it appears there are "1 or 2" problem admins that are providing the catalyst to change a system that has handled hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of RfA noms, apparently so successfully that the best we can come up with is four problem admins (assuming no overlap) as catalysts for the last two reforms. Fix RfA because of a problem with less than 1% of the admins that get promoted? A few people also recently felt that the average number of votes per RfA had gone up significantly. I was able to show that it, in fact, had not. We can have all the feelings we'd like. Without any sort of evidence to support it, it's meaningless. I am not against change. I am against random change, especially when the RfA system seems to be doing a pretty darned good job of filtering just as it is right now. --Durin 01:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Gritty and nitty

I'd be really interested in a link to the analysis that shows that we're not getting more participation on RfA. I also notice that you're not providing a counterexample to tell us how good things are. Again, if we don't have a metric, any metric, then random change really isn't a problem. It's managed to turn us from slime molds into wikipedians, although it's taken a long time. I again propose that we start with the metric of number of speedies restored. It's crap, but it's something. And since you appear to want examples, let's start by comparing the numbers for a member of the CVU recently promoted to say, Splash. - brenneman(t)(c) 08:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Here's a graph showing average # of votes per RfA over time: Image:VotesPerRfA.png. From the linear trendline, it appears we've had a roughly 10% increase in RfA participation through the 7 month period of the data. It is a change, but it's not a large change. My counterexample is that the changes that are being suggested are being suggested because of the wrongdoings of 2 admins per suggested change. It's been suggested that the problem has arisen in the last six months. In the last six months, we've created 291 admins. 4 new problem admins (assuming no overlap) of 291 is 1.4% of the total new admins. So, we're suggesting changing RfA when it appears that RfA gets it right better than 98% of the time? Number of speedies restored might be useful. But, I don't know how to go about collecting that data. Suggestions on how to collect this data? --Durin 16:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    That graph isn't providing me with enough information to make a sound conclusion. Can you either present it in box-and-whisker form so that we can also see the medians and distributions as well as the mean, or provide the base data that you've used? Looking at what's on the RFA page now:
S    O   N   S O N
38   15  5   58
69   18  12  99
21   3   1   25
28   1   1   30
48   4   2   54
26   3   6   35
41   2   1   44
92   0   0   92
50   1   1   52
31   19  1   51        
Mean   Median  SD   
54     51.5    24.4
  • And noting that these are in order from newest to oldest so the bottom half aren't going to change much but the top half may, I'd think that the distribution isn't that good.
    Also, your drill down to 98% is based on way to small a sample, and a biased one if I understand you correctly. People are pretty loathe to come right out and say "Foo should never have been made an admin because of this and this and this," for good reason.
    brenneman(t)(c) 01:59, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I worry about anyone who tries to standardize their deviations, or admit to skew. :) Anyways, I think the chart shows the point that I made some weeks ago, that RfA votes have increased only a little bit. That was my point. As per sample set, I realize people are reluctant to name individuals. To me, that's part of the problem. These problem admins should be taken to task and they're not. The point is, people are clamoring for change yet have not been able to identify what is wrong. The last two changes suggested have been pinned on the backs of, at most, 4 admins. That's not a glaringly clear basis on which to change RfA. I think the point's been made. --Durin 15:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I think you need to take the analysis back at least to the start of 2005. It also might be interesting to look at the number of RfAs running at any one time. More concurrent RfAs may equal less attention to the merits of any particular RfA equals "rubber stamp." -- Cecropia 17:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Perhaps. As for going back to the beginning of 2005, the data exists but I haven't collected it. That's a lot of work. I've been intending to get to it some day. --Durin 21:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Admin accountability poll

Please take a look at this straw poll (emphatically not a policy proposal) to gauge community opinion on several admin-related matters. Radiant_>|< 18:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Please notice

Everybody, please notice this discussion. Thank you. Redux 15:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Question about "voting"

I know there is talk about drastically changing RfA (whether needed or not remains to be seen), but what about a simple slight modification? What about instead of labeling the sections Support, Oppose, and Neutral, what if we changed the standard template to read, Comments for promotion, Comments against promotion, and Neutral comments (or something like that... could be "Comments for" and "Comments against", just something other than what we use now). I think this would facilitate and generate a better discussion, and cut down on people's cries about strict vote counting. Thoughts? --LV (Dark Mark) 18:27, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I like it. Then again, I like *anything* that is different than the current system. Discuss and debate, discuss and debate. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 20:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't even read the headers, I just go on autopilot at that point — Ilyanep (Talk) 21:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I like it too....I've always thought that it should be run a little more like an RFC. Views, pro and con...endorsing said views and let a bureaucrat make a judgment. I know that's a little beyond the scope of what you had in mind but it's down the same road I think. Something like this would let the arguments decide and not sheer numbers. There'd still be less people endorsing one "view" and more another but at least it'd be comment based and not support based. For (exaggerated) example there might be 20 people endorsing the view that the nominee is a good guy and 5 people endorsing a view that says the nominee has been blocked 4 times for WP:3RR violations, the minority view would probably be the one that swayed the bureaucrat's judgement. There's some things that would need to be worked out but I'd like to see a live trial. Anyway...another $0.02 Rx StrangeLove 21:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I dislike it. We shouldn't sacrifice clarity for politcorrectness. And one guy writing 500 word "comment against" shouldn't cancel out 20 good-faith contributors saying that that nominee is a good guy. No need to turn a formal procedure into writing contest.  Grue  21:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Why would one person cancel out twenty? Don't you think the BCrats could see that there was only one person against promotion? It's not based on the number of words written, it would just make things less like a "vote" and more like a discussion. --LV (Dark Mark) 21:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
"politcorrectness"? I am not sure what I think about any of these RfA reform ideas, but I am absolutely sure that people should not be using political correctness as a bogeyman against the idea of making things less of a vote and more of a discussion. Jkelly 21:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, terrorists are evil, so let's call them "freedom fighters".  Grue  21:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Was this to me or JKelly? I'm confused. --LV (Dark Mark) 21:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Where the political correctness thing came into play, I have no idea. I'm lost. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 21:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that we're discussing the fact that if we stop voting, the terrorists win. But that's just a guess. Jkelly 22:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Prisoners Of War have human rights, so let's call them "unlawful combatants". =) JIP | Talk 09:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

One person writing a clear and persuasive 500 word essay should cancel out 20 people who are all just blindly going <aol> me too! </aol>. That's exactly how it should be. :-) Kim Bruning 22:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

That was my point in the exaggerated example I gave above. Rx StrangeLove 22:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I take that you never participiated in VfD discussions. The one who has the most to say is most often wrong.  Grue  07:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
It's the relevance of a comment/argument that matters and not how many people line up behind something. And in any case you're the one that brought the 500 word essay up, it's got nothing to do with the point I was making and it never will. I'll ignore the irrelevant VFD remark...oh wait, it's AFD now isn't it ;) Rx StrangeLove 08:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Going forth, I just want everyone to remember civility. I'm not going to link it, because I trust everyone commenting here has read that guideline. 8^) Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 16:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
My apologies if I came off snippy :( Rx StrangeLove 03:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Reminder

If you're discussing a vote in the support or oppose section directly under the vote, remember to put # before any colons (:) you use so as not to break the numbering. Thanks,--Alhutch 18:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The lowering of RFA standards

Ok this is probably one of the biggest issues on Wikipedia that people may not realize. There has been RFA's as of late that have hade great support but for users that have been here for 1-2 months and that have a great number of edits but in nothing but vandalism reverts. I propose, per voting if nessecary, that there be a guideline to when a RFA can be put up. Something like:

  1. The nominee must have been here for, at the minimum, 3 months to have a nomination.
  2. The nominee must not have a recent "record". Meaning, they can't have any blocks recorded in thier block log in recent memory.
  3. The nominee must have, at the minimum, 2,000 edits to to have a nomination.
  4. Thier contribution's can not all (meaning about 90%) be reverts of vandalism which can be checked using Interiot's Contribution tree edit counter.
  5. They must have a clear knowledge of Wikipedia policy before they can nominate themselves/be nominated.

I think we should make a set of rules like that to make Adminship not so obtainable. I especially think the one about vandalism reverting edits only is important because anyone can revert vandalism. It's having a working knowledge about what the WP policies are is what's important. I know adminship is "no big thing" but passing it out like candy isn't acceptible either. — Moe ε 01:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

That's anti-wiki and m:instruction creep, in my opinion. Also, "This should be no big deal." (By the way, adminship standards have been on the rise.) —BorgHunter ubx (talk) 02:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Why raise standards at this point??? Are there bad users being promoted??? --LV (Dark Mark) 02:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
First off, I'm not anti-wiki. That's why I'm trying to help out. I hardly think it's instruction creep either. It's not to many things to keep up with considering how many RFA's are up at a time. It wouldn't be to long to figure out if someone is eligible for an RFA or not. I know it "should be no big deal" but giving it out to every person doesn't help. Also, I don't think that anyone "bad" was promoted but just way to early. It's better for users to wait until they are clear of the Wikipedia policies before they are handed the mop and bucket. — Moe ε 02:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Not 'bad' users, but users who, I have concluded, were pretty clueless about some pretty important aspects of adminning. Presumably a tenure longer than 6-8 weeks would have helped with that. I've decided to harden my personal standards to making 3 months a pretty 'bright line'. -Splashtalk 02:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
That's my idea. Just hardening some of the standards. It's just users with 1-2 months experiance have been nominated for RFA with little to no oppostion. Not saying that there wasn't any oppostion but there was more support than oppose. I don't think there's any harm for users to wait 2-3 more months to have admin tools. — Moe ε 02:34, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Agree with 3 or even four months for personal standard. Strongly opposed to making this an official rule. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Although I have never supported someone who has not been here 3 months or above, I feel that this is a personal opinion, and thus should not be an official policy fo Wikipedia. Olorin28 03:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Four months is my "bright line", however interwiki years count as well, although I do expect at least a two months at English.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 03:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd definetly like to see 'recent memory' (of controversial edits/blocks/actions/etc.) cleary defined. If a user has done something considered inappopriate 3 months ago but has been a perfect Wikipedian since, is this ground for a criticism? What about 1 months, or 1 year? A clear rule would ban any possibility of double standards.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I didn't clearly define recent memory but when I said recent memory I meant like a week. Like, if a user was just blocked a week/a week and a half ago for 3RR that wouldn't exactly help in an RFA they would be starting. So we might suggest waiting for a bit for things to cool down around the topic or conflict they were around and then put up their RFA. — Moe ε 03:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems that if even a small number of users really feel that this is necessary, it wouldn't be necessary in the first place because people who didn't meet these standards wouldn't be passing their nominations. This particular proposal doesn't make a strong case for making adminship less obtainable, in any case; personally, I've seen little or no correlation between being promoted fairly early and taking poor administrative actions. Christopher Parham (talk) 08:29, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Agreed. A number of charges have been laid at the feet of RfA with little or no substantiating evidence that RfA is the source of a problem. I'm not saying there isn't a problem; just saying nobody has provided evidence that there is. --Durin 15:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
    • This is true. However, I get the impression that, while many people decry the "brokenness" of RfA, and seem to be trying to fix it on that (mistaken, imo) basis, there does remain the possibility that what RfA does can be done in a better way than at present, without the present way actaully being broken. -Splashtalk 15:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)`
    • Certainly. Even if it is working well at the moment, there is no reason why we shouldn't be trying to improve the process. Raven4x4x 10:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I would agree personal standards should include all of the above except the edit count. I'd much rather see an editor that has been here for 3mo plus and made 500 large, important edits, including discussions and demonstrating understanding of policy than someone that has made 2000 category additions and reverts. I'm on the fence about making the rest a harder guideline, but what keeps me from it is that the RfA process isn't terribly broken. Such a small % of problem admins shows the process is pretty good. What needs to be done is make it easier to remove adminship from those that abuse it, as per the admin accountability poll. - Taxman Talk 14:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Good vandal fighter not necessarily = good administrator

I think it's time to make a point about this. Many recent nominations (my own in part as well) have been because the nominee is a "tireless vandal whacker" or some other. Remember, people, good vandal whackers are not necessarily good admins. If all they keep to is vandal fighting there is no way to trust that the nominees understand Wikipedia policy enough. Please, people, only put forward nominees because they have shown commitment to actually showing an effort to understand policy; we're getting more rogue admins and I wonder how much part this has had to play. NSLE (T C) 12:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that NSLE has a point—reverting vandalism alone does not a good admin make. To be fair, dealing with vandals and trolls is a good chunk of what a lot of admins do. Vandal whacking is much easier with rollback and blocking tools, and a familiarity with vandal tactics is definitely useful to a prospective admin.
I would argue that new admins need not be familiar with all the policy minutiae of Wikipedia. More important is that they be prepared to ask other admins for assistance if they are unsure of what to do in a particular situation, and ot explain their actions calmly and politely if asked. If our new admin wants to avoid the policy discussions and limit himself to rolling back vandalism and blocking vandals, I see no problem with that.
I'd be careful about begging the question where the issue of 'rogue' admins comes up. Is our judgement at RFA becoming worse, or are there just more admins in total? Further, is the problem one of new admins, or old admins who can do no wrong? The names I see attached to controversy on WP:AN/I are seldom wet-behind-the-ears newly-raised raw-recruited admins; usually they have months or (often) years of experience, many thousands of edits, and insufferable smugness. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree, TenOfAllTrades, but I believe the point NSLE is trying to elaborate (or rather bring to the table) is that administratrs are being selected for all the wrong reasons. A admin should be aware of most policies and guidelines, should be a fairly competent mediator, knows when to keep their cool, and has the well-being of wikipedia in mind. Reverting vandalism is of course a valid part of my last point, but NSLE is correct in assuming that has little to do with the selection of an administrator. After all, rollback is not mandatory regarding the removal of it. -ZeroTalk 14:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Not really sure. I would argue that the admin tools aren't strictly necessary, not with popup-assisted reversions now available. I would agree with you that a good vandal fighter doesn't necessarily mean a good admin, and we've been getting a lot of vandal fighters who do little else. I'd feel more comfortable voting in someone who's done a little more non-vandal-fighting activities around Wikipedia. However, I agree with TenOfAllTrades: these vandal-fighting new admins aren't necessarily the problem: these folks tend to stick with what they're most comfortable with, and that's reverting vandalism. Some (if not most) also spread their wings to blocking vandals, but so far, the only real mistakes I've seen these guys do is maybe blocking vandals a little too early (ie, before sending a test3 or test4), but I have to say that jumping the gun a little on blocking vandals isn't as serious a crime as, say, wheel warring or blocking Jimbo from editing. Unless there is more evidence that pure vandal fighting admins are causing a lot of the new wheel-warring problems, I'd have no problem with the several recent nominations of specialised vandal-fighters (though I won't necessarily support these candidates because of my own personal standards). --Deathphoenix 14:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Nobody is familiar with all Wikipedia policy. Have a look at this please. If all they keep to is vandal fighting, then what's the worry? If they decide to venture outside of vandal fighting, then we presume they exercise good judgement; and that's part of what RfA is supposed to do - see if the candidate exhibits good judgement. Besides, as has recently been shown by ArbCom and Jimbo, policy is meaningless. What matters is common sense and tradition. The problem isn't people knowing policy or not. The problem is rogue admins willfully ignoring process and policy, and being supported by ArbCom in doing so. --Durin 14:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
From Deathphoenix's statement above: as serious a crime as, say, wheel warring or blocking Jimbo from editing.
Since when has blocking Jimbo become a crime? Jimbo himself is very clear that in matters that do not involve his personal capacity of WP chief, he is same as any other user. He can unblock himself like any admin can; but my guess is that he wouldn't.
So, while wheelwarring may be a crime, blocking Jimbo or any other user is not a crime. I am assuming that a user gets blocked when he is in the wrong. If the blocking is not done per policy, blocking a noob or an anon is as serious a crime as blocking Jimbo. Please let us not perpetuate a hierarchy of users - this is what makes people believe that we form a cabal. --Gurubrahma 15:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I would argue that there is a cabal, if unintentional and not organized as such. There are people who can literally get away with anything, and have nothing come of it. We as humans tend to stratify. The more we know someone, the more likely it is that we will trust them (or distrust them) and give them the benefit of the doubt. Same applies here at Wikipedia. Users with whom we are familiar get our respect and trust. Meanwhile, the new user is often judged quickly, chastised, blocked, etc. However, the reality that this is normal human behavior does not make it acceptable here. What we are trying to do is unique, and requires us to move away from these norms and insist that we treat others with the same respect we treat ourselves until such time as that trust is broken. Current practice at Wikipedia is not strongly enforcing the notion of equality for all. In fact, rather the opposite in some cases. --Durin 16:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Re: blocking Jimbo, can't I make a joke without it being taken seriously and being jumped on? ;-) How about I change it to deleting the Main page? --Deathphoenix 16:08, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I might not go so far as to call blocking Jimbo "a crime", but I also can't think of any reason that blocking him would be warranted (except perhaps if there was credible evidence that his account had been hijacked). As the founder of Wikipedia, there's an overwhelming assumption that all of Jimbo's actions are made in the best of faith. Even when I've disagreed with his actions, I've never doubted that he was attempting to improve Wikipedia. I'd probably have to question an admin's judgement if they decided that blocking Jimbo was the best way to handle a situation. Carbonite | Talk 16:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
In a nutshell, I completely agree with NSLE. Now that folks are using popups-assisted software to revert vandalism, the rollback button isn't needed for folks who like to spend their time fighting vandals. (Of course being able to enforce a test4 warning is nice too.) I need to see how someone has handled themselves in a conflict with other editors -- usually, over content -- before I'm comfortable saying yes. Generally, of course there may be exceptions. But generally. How someone handles themselves in conflicts and a basic knowledge of Wikipedia's policies and workings are the most important factors for me. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 16:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't know if it was warranted or not, but Jimbo was blocked for a token 1 second by Celestianpower recently; it had to do with Category:Living people. --Gurubrahma 16:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Popups-assisted reverts are considerably slower and server-intensive compared to the one-click function enabled for admins; I still maintain that reversion is a tool, not a power, though, so my objection is technical, not substantive. -- nae'blis (talk) 20:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to have to disagree with you, NSLE. I have recently had a change of heart on this subject. I used to want participation across many different kinds of project namespaces and talks. Now, I'm completely content with heavy participation in just one project namespace and its talk page (for policy discussion). If all a person deals with is vandals and AFD, I don't see where the problem is. Why does a person have to be involved in everything on Wikipedia? What's the deal with these high standards when most normal people haven't got enough time to explore every crevasse of this website. Let's relax on the standards, folks, and make a judgment call on each individual. One month, four months, two years...it shouldn't make a difference as long as the person has exhibited a massive amount of understanding and devotion to a certain Wikipedia project. Think about it...if a person has made 5,000 edits, half of which are not minor, in one month, are you really going to say, "I just don't have enough information to see if he'll abuse his powers." He's done 5,000 edits in 1 month! No vandal is that devoted. Let's all take a deep breath and get over ourselves, ok? JHMM13 (T | C) 04:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you here. There are plenty of users that make tons of edits that would be entirely unsuitable for adminship. It appears you are either not looking hard enough or haven't been around long enough to see that. Some of our most problematic admins make a ton of edits. Admin candidates should have broad experience accross the project because the admin tools are broad in what they can do. No one should get the ability to block another user without demonstrating they have some maturity, understanding of policy, and ability to work through a conflict. So basically I'm agreeing with NSLE, but I'll never agree to a hard edit count limit as the above section proposes. - Taxman Talk 14:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think you understand what I'm saying, which is essentially that it's possible for a person to be here for a month and understand enough to be a pretty good admin. Since when has adminship been an exclusive club? If a user makes a whole bunch of good edits, and shows good conflict resolution abilities, I think we can assume good faith and allow the user to have admin abilities as long as they promise not to overstep the limitations of their skill set (which is what EVERY admin does when he gets the job because no single user knows everything about everything on Wikipedia...if I ever became an admin, I wouldn't go anywhere near images because I'm just no good at it). I don't see why anyone here gets to say how long you have to be here in order to be an admin. And though you say I have an inability to "see that," and I assume you are implying that I suffer from editcountitis, I don't know how else you can determine a user's future without looking at his past. However, suffering from minimumtimeitis is BY FAR worse because it assumes that youth alone is a determining factor in the abilities of a user. A user who does 5,000 good edits in one month with lots of participation across a few different areas of Wikipedia will get less support votes than a user who has done 2,500 good edits in six months. Please explain to me how the second guy has more experience, because it completely baffles me. JHMM13 (T | C) 15:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
If I can take a stab at it, the latter may be seen as having more experience because edits =/= page views. Someone who has been here for one month and done 5000 non-bot edits gives the appearance of having had their nose almost entirely in the edit screen; someone who has done less total edits in a longer period of time has had more time to, potentially, read policy/guideline pages, research sources offsite, etc. It's unquantifiable, but that'd be my guess. -- nae'blis (talk) 20:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see a user that makes 5000 edits in one month. -ZeroTalk 20:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
User:RexNL tool. :-) --LV (Dark Mark) 20:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Is that a dare, Megaman? An experienced user who focussed solely on categories, RC, and AFD, could easily rack up that many in a month if they had too much free time. After all, that's only about 136 edits a day, and there have to be at least that many AFDs and actionable recent changes in a day... --maru (talk) Contribs 21:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Getting slow, are we, Maru??? ;-) I already provided a user who is pushing 9500 edits this month alone. And he still has a week to increase his number. --LV (Dark Mark) 21:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey- I never said I was going to take the dare. --maru (talk) contribs 18:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to bring this back up

With the closing of CS,CWEM's RFA, closing bureaucrat Cecropia noted "no consensus" (77% support over oppose). BorgHunter and myself referenced Luigi30's third RFA, which passed (72% support over oppose). Cecropia then said that Luigi30's promotion "was a clear error by a new Bcrat". I'm sorry for bringing this back up, but what EXACTLY was this error, and why has Luigi30 then retained his powers? Because it would be bad faith to revoke them? NSLE (T C) 03:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Has Luigi30 done something to show he deserves his powers to be removed? If not, does it really matter now? --LV (Dark Mark) 03:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Even if he hasn't, I'd like to know exactly what error was made. NSLE (T C) 03:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, it seems the error was a mistake in determining our meaning of "consensus." Obviously, this sort of thing doesn't happen all the time, so it follows that we take it on a case-by-case basis. Since nothing seems to have come out of this case, the only time we should ever really worry about it is if the mistake is made in the future. JHMM13 (T | C) 04:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Answer: The error was brought about in two steps, as these thigs often do. One Bcrat was "fixing up" the instructions to promote on the Bcrat page. In so doing, he erroneously stated the usual area of discretion was 70% to 80%. The low number should have been 75%. This was the first mistake. The second was when another, new, bureaucrat probably depended on this to promote Luigi at 72% . You can see the harm of an innocent error in that Luigi is now being quoted as a precedent. I see no reason to reverse it at this point since (AFAIK) there was no objection made at the time and the damage done by a fight to try to reverse the decision would probably be more harmful than letting stand, absent an indeication that Luigi was abusing admin powers. -- Cecropia 04:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing it up. NSLE (T C) 04:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
There were a significant amount of neutral votes as well, and, if included with the other votes, brings the total tally to 173. While the support:oppose ratio was 77%, the support:total ratio was only 68%. I'm not sure if that had any bearing in Cecropia's decision, though. --tomf688{talk} 04:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I think there was still a consensus to promote in this case due to the 77% support and the only reason anyone could give to oppose was agecountitis. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 23:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Can't sleep, clown will eat me

I want to renominate User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me for adminship, because it looks like he's a really excellent user. But his first RfA closed only a week ago. How much longer should I wait? JIP | Talk 11:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

CSCWEM has asked to postpone any renom until April. See [1]. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, let's honor that...it is simply too soon.--MONGO 11:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Wait one month. --a.n.o.n.y.m t 15:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
He's really a great user, just that people oppose due to the short time he spent here. Let's respect his decision and don't go against it. --Terence Ong (恭喜发财) 15:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
If you wait too long, the clown may already have eaten him. But you could always nominate the clown. -- Cecropia 15:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I know we tolerate evil aliens, homocidal canines, criminal clergy and even sysops that eat babies, but I really must draw the line at man-eating clowns. No sir, no man-eating clowns will get my vote. Dragons flight 16:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
We can't let the clowns go hungry! --a.n.o.n.y.m t 16:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Oppose until username is chosen that doesn't elicit terrifying childhood recollections. Marskell 16:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Would you like a balloon? We have them, all colors, and they float. -- Cecropia 16:30, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
When you're down here, you'll float too... TigerShark 19:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
We do have a user account for It, but there are no edits.-gadfium 20:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Oppose All usernames taken from 5-year-old Hot Topic T-shirts (I keed, I keed) --W.marsh 16:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I honestly think the name is hilarious. My personal favorite, however, is Can't Think of a Good Name. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 14:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, it seems nobody finds the name offensive then. Good. -- Ec5618 16:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I just wanted to say that this thread is starting to look fairly symmetrical. --LV (Dark Mark) 17:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Ya, like YOUR username is normal, Voldy... (just doing my bit for symmetry) Lar: t/c 17:44, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
How about stopping this thread when we reach the left border? - Liberatore(T) 18:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
We are getting closer. --a.n.o.n.y.m t 18:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I ain't gonna be the one who ends it... but the next person might. This is one of the oddest things I think I've seen on WP. Sooo weird. Why are we doing this? --LV (Dark Mark) 19:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Cause... It's the thread that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends. Some people started typing it, not knowing what it was... Dragons flight 19:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
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