User:Useight/RFA Subjects/Stress

RfA-induced stress? (Archive 54)

I was just adding figures into Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies and thought of this... What's the % of editors who leave Wikipedia after a failed RfA? It might be interesting as a rough measure of the level of stress that RfA generates on the candidate. Maybe we can even add a warning to discourage frivoulous RfA (self-)noms: "Warning! A failed RfA can be dangerous to your health." :-) Kimchi.sg | talk 12:13, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that will measure RfA induced stress at all. It may measure strong dissappointment and/or other things. For example, many of the rejected RfA candidates seem to have the adminship-is-something-I-deserve problem, which would make them more likely to leave. JoshuaZ 12:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's totally the wrong approach. Like I said in my RfA opening statement, being made Admin is not a big deal, and neither is not being made admin. More people need to start thinking like that, IMO. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:28, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Curious this thread should have been started now, because it just happened: Emt147 withdrew his RfA, which was nowhere near consensus, and announced that he was leaving the project. I believe that, mostly, he was...hurt, or offended, by the opposion he got criticizing his handling of vandals (or anons, in general). Redux 16:43, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I think he left more over the disagreement over policy rather than his RfA - it just happened to be his RfA that brought the disagreement to light. He'd have probably left had the discussion taken place elsewhere, as well. --Tango 18:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, oh-one-that-should-not-be-named. Unfortunately, the second part of that is forgotten by many, including not just the candidates, but their supporters, and the community functionaries too. If not being an admin is not a big deal, opposing someone's candidacy shouldn't be either. Bucketsofg 16:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

As per my example above, sometimes it isn't exactly not getting Adminship in itself, but rather people get hurt, or offended by the negative review that they get. It shouldn't happen, but it does. Good users have been lost to this. Redux 16:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually I have to disagree with Bucketsofg on this one, opposing a candidacy is a big deal since adminship is no big deal and thus you should have a fairly good reason to oppose. Take CSCWEM's nom for example, people opposed due to the fact that his name was a quote from the simpsons and that was their sole oppose reason, or Lord Voldemort's RFA since his name comes from the Harry Potter books... those are absolutely ridiculous reasons to oppose yet since people are getting away with opposing for the silliest reasons nowadays instead of real reasons like for example some very good and real criticisms on both my previous RFA attempts due to my lack of time here and my editing history which along with suggestions are extremely helpful for a candidate. I know that policy cruft should at all possible be avoided but seriously, if adminship is no big deal why do we put up with adminship becoming a big deal because someone is afraid of being eaten by clowns or is a dark wizard. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 19:01, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

That's a fair point, my winged friend. Of course, one should no more oppose an admin candidate over issues like that than (say) revert an edit because the letter 'p' was not used in it. And, sadly, the more trivial the reason, the more stress for candidates, their supporters, and (indeed) the rest of us. (Both the cases you mention got my dander up a little.) That being said, we are in the position that we should oppose candidates that we have concerns about; that opposition should be stated as politely as possible, but the opposition in itself should not have any stigma associated with it. Bucketsofg 19:47, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree someone shouldn't be scared to oppose based on how the candidate might react, but obviously staying as polite as possible and giving good reasons is vital. A way that I try and help not to add unnecessary stress is by not voting at all (or occasionally neutral) if there is a candidate I oppose, but it is clear that the RfA won't succeed. For example I don't think I've ever voted on one of those '200 edit' pile-on RfA's (I'm not saying no-one should, just not very many people- 0/5/x is still a clear fail, no need to make it 0/15/x). Even in cases when the RfA is much less clear cut, I am unlikely to oppose 'per someone'- even if I agree with that someone there is little point saying so if the RfA is heading towards no consensus as it adds little to the discussion. PS. forgive my use of the word 'vote'- I understand the debate about it, it's just a convinient 'handle' word. Petros471 20:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

This entire discussion is off-topic of what Kimchi.sg is considering doing. Don't confuse proscription and description. Kimchi isn't asseting anything about what should be but rather discussing how to determine what is. We should discuss that. JoshuaZ 20:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I would applaud anyone who would be willing to write a script to get a list of unsuccessful RFA's (of people who haven't since had a successful one) and cross reference that with the list of missing wikipians page and possibly the wikibreak template as well as any other relevant tags and then check for accuracy and post it, that way we could get a real figure on the stats, if someone is willing to write the script and get the data let me know on my talk page and I'll be more than wiloling to do the accuracy and cross checking on a list of people who appear in both non successful RFA's (who haven't since had a successful one) and one or more of the relevant missing persons categories. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 21:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity I just took a quick look at the unpromoted candidates since New Years in A-J, and out of 62 there were only eight who appeared to have stopped editing since their RfA (and one of those cited an ArbCom case rather than RfA). So I'd put the dropout rate at 11%, but with that sample size it could actually be as high as twice that. Conclusion: Further study required. — Laura Scudder ☎ 23:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

That rate's gonna get higher though while at the same time I predict that the successful admin rate will get lower due to the fact that it's impossible nowadays to spend five minutes on Wikipedia without getting embroiled in one big heated dispute or another and if you don't then you get opposed and if you do you get opposed, it's a loose loose situation. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 23:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

In order for the drop-out rate to be at all useful we need to have some idea what the average drop out rate of Wikipedians is in general. For all we know, 11% could be lower than what we would get from the RfA candidates (not likely, but we really have no data suggesting otherwise). JoshuaZ 00:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I certainly wasn't trying to draw any conclusions from that quick survey, just presenting it for speculation. Aside from the lack of control group problems, the errors bars, like I said, would be really large on that figure. — Laura Scudder ☎ 00:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Any idea how we can calculate the average drop out rate for all users(of course, we would probably want to only look at drop out rate of users who did at least K edits each week for M months for some reasonable K and M, say M=2 and k=100)? JoshuaZ 00:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's a paradox: anyone who would leave the project over a failed RfA lacks the qualities necessary to be an admin. Some of our best admins, on the other hand, failed an RfA or two along the way and made important adjustments to their contributions based on the comments made in their failed efforts. BD2412 T 00:33, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should nominate all the dicks so that they'll be turned down. 11% will quit. Repeat enough times and wikipedia could be dickless! :-D --Bucketsofg 00:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

But the non-dicks get rejected too. The criteria for promotion that voters apply are getting more stringent, to the point where some of the guidelines should really be updated. I don't want to see great editors rejected, and then become dejected, and that's what's happening. - Richardcavell 00:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I was trying (not too successfully) to be funny. I hope someday to be an admin myself, but I have to tell you, some of the reasons given for opposition are pretty daunting! Bucketsofg 01:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the claim that "anyone who would leave the project over a failed RfA lacks the qualities necessary to be an admin." Saying "I'm really upset over this, moreso than is useful. I'll leave for an indefinite period of time and come back if I feel I can reasonably contribute" is a mature, albeit imperfect response. Furthermore, note that there are many editors who might not meet criteria for adminship who will still make good editors. Thus, the loss of some of these editors is unfortunate. JoshuaZ 03:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I was considering those who leave permanently (or claim they are going to do so) based on such a turn of events. I don't begrudge a week or two of Wikibreaking following an RfA loss (particularly one involving heavy criticism), but admins must have a particularly thick skin and both a high tolerance for unfounded criticism and an ability to recognize and adjust based on well-founded criticism. BD2412 T 06:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that a lot of the stress and resulting disappointment that comes from a failed RFA comes from treating administrator status as a goal rather than something that happens along the way. If becoming an admin is a substantial reason why an editor is here then a failed RFA can cause stress, disappointment and possibly motivate them to leave. That admin status is a goal onto itself for some folks is clear from things like admin coaching and the editor review page. I think that's the wrong way around.

In a perfect wiki-world, editors are here because they want to help write a free encyclopedia. So they spend time here doing that and the admin thing happens naturally and unforced, as a side product from spending time here contributing to Wikipedia. The problem comes when it's a goal and editors are in a hurry to gain admin status. This doesn't apply to all nominees by any means but I thinks it's becoming more common. I do think that some RFA's that draw a lot of criticism and negative commentary are the result of an editor in a hurry. It can avoided by just working on the encyclopedia, getting satisfaction from that and one day being pleasantly surprised when someone nominates you. Rx StrangeLove 06:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Lord Voldemort; failing an RFA doesn't mean everyone hates you; it just means there is room for improvement. Leaving the project temporarily should be O.K., but abandoning it because of hurt feelings is just a tad too over the top. _-M ^o P-_ 06:14, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with MOP, with the caveat that some people make very hostile opposes in a failed RFA, some of which may not even be considered "good" grounds for opposing. If being an admin is supposed to be no big deal, then the RFA process needs to start acting like it. I'm amazed that with HRE's first admin request, with the sheer hostility and spurious opposes, that he didn't see "F this" and leave. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 06:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I wrote a few subpages in part because of the stress surrounding doing an RfA. (Leaving and Your RfA) NoSeptember ^talk 12:11, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, editors who are involed in a failed RfA should be encouraged to do more quality edits. Users who leave Wikipedia on a permanent basis after a failed RfA are just not fit to be an admin in the first place. One must use failure as a motivation tool to improve his/her edits on Wikipedia. I feel that users who had failed one or two RfAs and are successful in future attempts are people who are able to motivate themselves in providing more quality contributions to Wikipedia. If I am not wrong, past failures of RfAs who eventually succeed make better admins. Does anyone have official statistics for this? --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 20:06, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Saying that someone who leaves after a failed RFA is not fit to be an admin is rather tautological, since in order to be an admin they would have had to stick around long enough to pass an RFA. However, the fact that they leave doesn't prove that they never could have been an admin. For all I know, some of the people who quit could have made good admins in the future, but after gaining a better understanding of what adminship entails decided it wasn't worth investing the time and effort to do so. Even some valued admins ultimately quit the project (e.g. Radiant!, Lucky 6.9, RickK), and I wouldn't want to claim that this indicated they were bad admins while they were here. As to your speculation that multiple RFA failures makes one a better admin, one could just as easily speculate that multiple failures tends to indicate a very marginal candidate and that such people tend to make for worse admins. However, without some agreed upon metric for measuring whether an admin is good or bad, it would appear to be an impossible question to answer. Dragons flight 18:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

You would also need to cheack the number who left after being sucessful. Applying for adminship appears to be one of the symptoms of certian types of burnout.Geni 15:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)