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Bureaucrat rights discussion

I have started a RFC regarding allowing bureaucrats to remove the bureaucrat bit, and regarding the regranting of the bureaucrat bit (to bring it into line with the recently-passed policies for administrators). Please see Wikipedia talk:Bureaucrats#2012 bureaucrats RFC. --Rschen7754 01:47, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposal has been withdrawn. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 17:29, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but two other proposals are open. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 18:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. Thanks for the clarification. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 16:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
No problem :D AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 18:01, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Drama

And once more we have an RfA of the very kind that is sure to scare off any would be contenders for the bit, including those who have a perfectly clear conscience. RfA is not broken - it's the voters - will they never learn? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:00, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

  • I agree that it was ugly. I voted to support Ktr101, by the way. It appears that we will have 28 confirmed new admins this year, compared to 52 in 2011, 75 in 2010, 121 in 2009, 201 in 2008 and 408 in 2007. Rfa is not broken? I suggest editor resentment over the lifetime appointments and difficulty in community de-adminship, along with unjust administrator actions, including blocks and intimidation, are the root causes. In my view entrenched admin resistance to deadminship reform, term limits and any type of tool unbundling is another factor. !Voters are, in my opinion, rightfully outraged, and it shows in every current Rfa. Next step: Jimmy Wales has stated recently that he wants to take over next month and begin appointing admins.(strike through my incorrect information, JDF) he is proposing broad changes to Rfa and his own powers, in a comment in his ArbCom election announcements on his page now linked in the section below. In any case, 408 admins in 2007 to 28 in 2012 is unsustainable. Why this is happening and how we fix it is the number one issue for wikipedia-en in 2013, as I see it. Drama? The drama in all probability has just begun. Jusdafax 06:56, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I fail to see how making it easier to desysop admins is going to create more admins, or encourage more users to stand. If anything, it is likely to have the opposite effect IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 07:19, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not going to comment on the !voters' (admittedly poor) behaviour, but I wouldn't consider this an example of a perfectly good potential admin who was shot down by "evil" !voters. My oppose !vote was based on my honest opinion that knowledge of copyright and owning up to one's mistakes is necessary for any admin, and at the time Ktr had yet to help with his CCI. PumpkinSky helped with his own and I supported him, because he'd learned from his mistakes and owned up to them... yet his RFA went down in hotter flames than the one you point out. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:31, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
(ec) Admins at present, as I see it, have little to fear from the community. Not all, but a certain percentage act in ways that anger editors. If it were easier to deadmin obviously bad admins, it would help encourage Rfa !voters to give candidates a shot without making them jump through a long series of hoops to get the mop. (For a longer discussion see WP:CDA.) The lifetime appointment is another major factor, in my view. Jusdafax 07:36, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
This line of reasoning makes no sense to me. If it becomes easier to gain adminship, that will just mean more bad admins potentially upsetting other editors, more wikidrama, more acrimonious desysop discussions, more disillusionment with the project overall; how will any of this improve affairs? Regarding the "lifetime appointment" - how many people would want to stand for adminship if they knew they would have to stand not for just one RFA, but for one after another? And how could admins be relied upon to act without fear or favour if they had to constantly look over their shoulder for fear of alienating users who might sink them at their next RFA? Apart from which, there is no such thing as a lifetime RFA - people remain admins for as long as they do a reasonable job, any admin who abuses his tools can generally expect to be desysopped pretty quickly by ARBCOM. Gatoclass (talk) 08:13, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I think the point is that if it was easier to get rogue admins desysopped, !voters might be less resistant to support new candidates. Now, if desysopping was easier, new candidates might be a little bit more hesitant to run for adminship. Simply put, there is no perfect solution. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 17:18, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I think what I am trying to get across is that there is deep community resentment at the way some admins are acting. They may not actually be abusing their tools with unjust blocks, but since they are admins they can use their power to influence and intimidate rank-and-file editors. There is very little accountability, and even non-admins can get away with bullying and abuse if they have a few admin friends who cover for them and unblock them when they get in trouble. There are hundreds of active admins who would not pass an Rfa today... and rightly so. Admin buttons give power, and power often corrupts. Even the President of the United States is limited to two four year terms, but we have people here who have been admins longer than that already, and they need never fear any kind of performance review. This makes the average Rfa !voter examine new candidates with a microscope... and in some cases, a proctoscope. The possible new era of Jimmy Wales and/or others promoting new admins without Rfa !votes promises to be very interesting indeed. Jusdafax 08:45, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I have no great confidence that a community de-admin process would not be used to settle scores. I have said I will wait to see what Jimbo proposes, but I expect that the very claim that Jimbo can take reserve powers and transform them into a process (given he is deprived of most same on all projects but this, I very much question whether said powers are viable and transferable) to provoke bitter debate. That being said, my exchange with him on his talk convinces me he intends to do this in a way where the opportunity for the community to decline will be minimized.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:24, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • As for settling scores, I think care would be have to be taken to insure that any grudge deadmins would be discounted as the disgruntled !votes they were. Moving on: Jimmy's "reserve powers" is the item I was referencing and can't find... was it archived? Bitter debate is right. What I read from Jimmy sounds as if the community will have a site-wide voice in the changes. (Note: I got this backward in the first version.) I do remember you saying you looked forward to seeing the proposals. If I am not mistaken, they are going to rock our little world. Jusdafax 10:35, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
If I think it is a positive, I will rise above my distaste at the out-of-process way of doing it, provided that there is no chance of a repetition (In other words, reserve powers to be disposed of, once, and then to be gone). While I hope that Jimbo has come up with something that will cause us to sing hosannas, his perceived need to impose it an out-of-process manner argues against it. If he does it on his talk rather than at Village Pump, to my mind that will be another bad sign. No objection to a link from his talk there, as it is heavily traveled.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:47, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm really not sure where the reserve powers come from. Jimbo is not a King or Queen, and the community's actions in re-allocating authority over time doesn't seem to leave anything of significance. I would say "reserve powers" run with WMF as the site owner, and that all Jimbo has are his userrights and role at WMF. That we have him ritually appoint arbs is less relevant today than it once was, and could be dispensed with if anyone cared. There's nothing on the RFA page to indicate Jimbo still has powers to appoint admins. I also don't like a reasonably mature community (it is, compared to 2002 or 2006) being "told". Better to come to one of the places we've established for proposals, and start the power point like the last guy did, figuratively speaking. That would be showing respect for the very hard work we've done here.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:53, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I am sure you have read Role of Jimmy Wales which notes he is in the unique User group of 'Founder.' As you say, it is unclear exactly what that means. What it may mean insofar as appointing admins is also unclear, as there is currently no mechanism for him to do that and the one power he lacks, it seems, is that of a Wikipedia bureaucrat. (Note: corrections and clarifications to this elsewhere in this and the next thread.) He does, as you say, ritually appoint arbs and has the power to disband ArbCom, in theory. But the real power is in the the Board of Trustees, it seems. Is the current stalemate at Rfa enough reason to see a startling use of extraordinary powers by these forces? Maybe. Jusdafax 11:40, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, I don't want to restart the debate over this, but personally my view is that the need for admins has declined due to automation and as Wikipedia shifts from start-up to long term. The crisis, in my view, is overstated.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:43, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I would disagree there. I have been doing a fair amount of poking around the odd corners of the place of late, hitting the 'Random article' and 'Recent changes' button and often recoiling at what I see. I don't know what the figures are, but various forms of vandalism seem very high, as does marginal content, ongoing bitter content disputes, POV editing and, as I stated earlier, admins who are habituated to power and abuse it in ways designed to skirt community detection. What 500 fresh, idealistic admins would be able to accomplish has yet to be seen, including new eyes auditing current admin conduct. I do suspect, as I say, that rank and file editor dissatisfaction has been growing for five years and that the corresponding Rfa stalemate that provoked this discussion is a direct result of that. And I strongly suspect that the loudest howls of protest should the Jimbo Takeover come to pass if it comes to him appointing new admins, (strike through incorrect comments, JDF) will come from those who feel entitled, rightly or wrongly, to not have their membership in an elite group diluted by a flood of upstarts. Jusdafax 12:07, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
As you say (I'll refrain from answering in the same vein). However, if Jimbo appoints admins, an appointment of PumpkinSky, who was mentioned above as having been badly treated, and has been trashed by certain people across the wiki since then, would be well-received in this part of the woods.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:18, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, speaking solely in technical terms, the founders right give more ability than bureaucrats in terms of userrights management. KTC (talk) 12:22, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
(ec) It would seem to be only poetic justice, from what little I know of the case. Thanks for a refreshingly frank discussion, Wehwalt! KTC, you may well be right. The wording is a bit fuzzy, methinks. And by the way, 'grats on your Rfa. Jusdafax 12:28, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
You edit conflicted me out of my congrats to KTC, which I restate. I suspect that userright, and having other people use it, is what is at the heart of Jimbo's proposal. We'll see. I've enjoyed the discussion too.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:37, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
The RFA is not over yet, the community may still decide I'm not suitable. KTC (talk) 12:46, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
"Edit all user rights (userrights)" is the same as what Stewards have, and what give them the ability to manage all user rights and group. KTC (talk) 12:46, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • No comment whatsoever on what may or may not be done by Jimbo, but i must say that Kudpung's original post makes me feel a little guilty. I read Kevin's RfA, had an opinion, but didn't express it. I usually do that, watching RfAs but declining to take part, largely because of the high levels of emotion and rhetoric which sometimes come down on both candidates and !voters. By withholding mine opinion, which i hope would be gently expressed, defensible but not needing defence, perhaps i am guilty of enabling the rottenness continue in the process. Mayhap i should rethink that position and become a better participant. If sufficient were of like opinion, who knows, maybe no Jimbo action would be necessary. Cheers, LindsayHello 12:29, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Although I keep an eye on this talk page, I've been staying away from commenting here on the theory that it's a time-sink, but, seeing Jusdafax and Wehwalt talking about CDA, well, that's just too much of a lure for me to resist. I think that Jusdafax is correct that some RfA participants would lighten up if they believed that adminship could be reversed more easily. On the other hand, I've been shaking my head at much of the opposition to KTC, so maybe there's no cure for that. I actually think that ArbCom has been getting better and better at dealing with admins, when necessary, and I'll be keeping an open mind to see what Jimbo might come up with. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:25, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I'd like to know if Jimbo is really observing enough of the community to know who is admin material and who is not? Giving one person the authority to promote admins at will is a very dangerous move, especially if this person has not been heavily involved in the RfA process. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 17:25, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Jimbo said he did not propose to do it himself.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:36, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Ok. Is there a link to the discussions about this? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 17:44, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
You can find it in the archives on Jimbo's page, although I doubt you will get more info from that. Essentially, he has a plan and wants to reveal it in a week or two I guess. It is hard to have an opinion on it until we actually see it and ponder it a bit. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:57, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I certainly agree with those above who have said it's dangerous to give one person so much power, and it's an end-run around consensus to give the community little recourse against the decision (if that's actually what's planned). There's no way this is going to reduce drama, and even well qualified people who are appointed this way will suffer from the lack of trust of the resentful community. Instead of further concentrating power in the hands of one person, why not lower the percentage needed to pass (I know this has been discussed ad nauseum in the past), or widen 'crats' leeway to ignore opposes (they supposedly have this but when they actually do it my understanding is that there's fire in the skies). At least the 'crats were chosen by the community as people whose judgement we trust, and they are accountable to and actively involved in it. delldot ∇. 20:38, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Jimbo didn't say he was going to appoint admin, nor force any action. Assuming more than has been said is unnecessary. I would be very surprised if Jimbo went and gave the bit to a bunch of people. I suspect he will have a proposal for change instead. Don't make it more than it is. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:27, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Dennis I have corrected my faulty comments above, which are most likely where delldot's assumptions come from, and quoted Jimbo directly in the next section below for clarity, along with a link to Jimbo's archives for the full context. To repeat: he is not saying he will be appointing admins himself, but there is a larger plan afoot that includes Rfa as a component and will be submitted to the Wikipedia-en community. Jusdafax 23:40, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales on possible changes in the way mops are handed out

This is continued from the thread above, but since the topic has morphed, I will start a new section and carry on.

  • The brief announcement from Jimmy regarding possible changes to the way Wikipedia-en administrators are created was on his page (now archived) here in the thread titled 'ArbCom Appointments 2012' - and, to my chagrin, I have it a bit muddled in my faulty recreation in the thread above. This topic requires clarity, and as little drama-mongering as is possible, so I have returned to correct the record. To quote Jimmy directly:

"In short, I'm planning in January to submit to the community for a full project-wide vote a new charter further transitioning my powers. Because the changes I hope to make are substantial, I will seek endorsement from the wider community. (There are powers which I theoretically hold, but can't practically use without causing a lot of drama, but it is increasingly clear to me that we need those powers to be usable, which means transitioning them into a community-based model of constitutional change. One good example of this is the ongoing admin-appointment situation... a problem which I think most people agree needs to be solved, but for which our usual processes have proven ineffective for change. Some have asked me to simply use my reserve powers to appoint a bunch of admins - but I've declined on the view that this would cause a useless fight. Much better will be for us to put my traditional powers on a community-based footing so that we, as a community, can get out of "corner solutions" that aren't working for us. More to come in January."

He later adds "...so no, I'll not be appointing admins directly myself... such a process would be a joke. What I can do is use my reserve powers to help put into place a community process for constitutional change in cases where we have tried and failed in getting somewhere in our traditional ways."

Worth noting also is Wehwalt's Q "I will await with interest. I trust the venues for discussion and, if there is consensus, adoption, will be the normal community processes?" and Jimmy's A: "The normal community processes are precisely what the reserve powers are meant to allow us to modify in new ways." (All italics my addition.)

So there you have it. These are carefully chosen words. What exactly "put my traditional powers on a community-based footing" means is not clear to me. As noted above by our newest admin KTC, Jimmy has the power of a Steward to "edit all user rights" - a rather broad term. It could be taken to mean to do anything. 2013, it seems, has the potential to witness wholesale changes in the way Wikipedia-en admins are made. Jusdafax 22:32, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

My interpretation of Jimbo's words is similar to that of Jusdafax. I took it to mean that Jimbo intends to have some subset of the community exercise the Founder userright to appoint and possibly remove admins, and that he plans some means of doing this which will not require community consensus. He did not say this; this is my supposition.
One possibility would be a community committee (say one crat, three admins, and five other members of the community) to give Jimbo advice (in the formal sense, as in a government "advising" a governor-general) on the use of the userright, both to make and remove admins, keeping the reins firmly in his hands, even if he did not vary from that advice. I would see that as a step backwards, since I see the community as having earned greater self-government, but it's a real possibility in my view as it would actually require no formal action by the community (he could even appoint the initial members and say "well, if the community comes up with an election process, I'm good with that too".)--Wehwalt (talk) 10:29, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
He's right. People are wary of appointing admins because the appointment is for life, but there is so much stigma attached to losing the bit that proposals for de-adminship also fail routinely. What is probably needed is some form of probationary adminship with confirmation, some process for placing problem admins on parole for a while, a decent form of support for admins approaching burnout (a perennial problem) and a return to the "this should be no big deal" philosophy. Guy (Help!) 23:13, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Addendum: Also a way of excluding existing grudges from the promotion and demotion process. Which means using Clue, not legalistic processes. Our record on Clue is declining. Gaming the system and legalistic bullshit seem to me to be on a rising tide. Guy (Help!) 23:15, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Well perhaps we can explore completely different ways of appointing admins.
  1. A bulk election at one point in time each year. (somewhat like arbcom)
  2. Appoint a bureaucrat to just grant adminship to suitable people. If we pick an expert on evaluating candidates this could be very efficient.
  3. A committee of bureaucrats to select admins.
  4. Establishing a consensus set of requirements for becoming an admin, with bureaucrats applying it to select users.
  5. Make it easier to take away the bit from troublesome admins.
  6. not allow self nominations, which will stop some of those not now situations.
  7. simplified ballot with fixed reasons for picking from, to support or oppose.
  8. secret ballot, voting is what counts
  9. Jimmy Wales gives the OK to selections made by another method before granting the permission. (a bit like royal assent.
Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:04, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Any one of those options seem preferable to the status quo IMO, though I don't think option two would receive much support from the wider community. Many people believe individual 'crats already have more than enough power already. For the same reason, though I think this option is one of the best, I think it unlikely a RfC on option 3 would succeed. — Oli OR Pyfan! 00:12, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I also don't think option 7, with fixed reasons to support or oppose, would work due to the very simple fact that every candidate is different. Different factors must be considered in each RfA. As such, unless !votes became votes (which would be possibly the largest change in Wikipedia history), option 7 would prevent !voters from expressing (sometimes very important) views on the candidate. Conversely, it would stop the absurd (in my opinion) opposes that make an appearance in RfAs these days (i.e. [1]). One solution, I suppose, would be for general discussion on the candidate to move to the talk page. — Oli OR Pyfan! 01:24, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The primary problem with a lot of these proposed solutions is that all of the current bureaucrats were not vetted in RfBs to carry out the roles, so do we really have any right to do them without reelection? Also, do you think that making bureaucratship a bigger deal is the best way to make adminship not as much of a big deal? If we make RfBs harder then we might not have any bureaucrats to actually run the new "not a big deal" adminship promotions. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 01:30, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that any proposal that extends the role of crats should include a specific point that "we the community intend that existing crats be granted the right to carry out the new role without reelection" unless they intend to deal with that issue in another way. I have no solution to your other points, other then to hope existing crat attrition isn't that bad. Monty845 02:08, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I would suggest limiting it to only crats who have been elected, or alternatively, those who have been elected in the last five years, with a procedure for older crats to ask for an expression of community confidence to gain this power, if they so wish.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:59, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Another option is for the community to pick the selection committee, which could be crats, or could also be other trusted members. This is if there is no consensus for the existing crats to be qualified for the job. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
That would be fine. It is not the recently-elected crats, most of whom enjoy wide community support. It is that there are crats who are still hanging around from the Olde Days, not all of whom are active as crats, but given the chance to jump in and get friends their bits, might just jump in.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Hmmm... Jimbo just appointed the Arbitrators that the community selected. The community selects Administrators using Support / Neutral / Oppose !votes. The community selects Arbitrators using Support / No Vote / Oppose voting. The difference being that Arbitrators are selected via a secure system that doesn't allow comments, threaded discussion and the related bickering. The system just spits out the raw numbers. So the logical conclusion is that Jimbo will suggest . . . that m:voting is evil 64.40.54.76 (talk) 08:24, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
OK so I have added option 8 secret ballot. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:55, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I have a radical idea – why don't we hand out mops for mopping, and elect judges for judging? Is that really beyond the wit of man? Was that not the founding principle of Arbcom? Surely it is high time that we look again at how to take adminship as close to "no big deal" as possible?

In practise a change in course of that nature would be somewhat more complicated than I make it sound – at what point does generally janatorial, generally main-and-template space work end, and generally judgemental, generally Wiki-and-userspace work begin? I accept that's a complex issue. But if the community were in favour of the basic principle, working that out would be a one-time challenge. Once we acknowledge that appeasing those interested in protecting their current positions is a prerequisite to change, I don't think the concept is even that controversial. —WFC— FL wishlist 10:33, 27 December 2012 (UTC) Edited bit in italics —WFC— FL wishlist 10:48, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Nope? We're completely closed-minded about the prospect of janitors being janitors? —WFC— FL wishlist 10:45, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
The idea of leaving it to the 'crats is fundamentally sound, as long as people know that someone is being considered and have the option of identifying any credible objections (essentially recent actions fundamentally incompatible with the five pillars, such as spamming, topic bans and the like). Make it probationary for 6 months and we're done. Guy (Help!) 15:13, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I also agree, in fact I brough this up a while back, twice. It was shot down at the time because some felt that the discussion was as important or more so than the vote itself. There were also some concerns about using it for RFA's. Apparently it takes a little effort to setup each time and it wasn't certain if it could be tailored to RFA due to the way it works. Hopefully that sentiment and potential technical limitation has changed now and we can implement the secret ballot. Kumioko (talk) 18:57, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I guess one of the maladies of this talk page is that, inevitably, every idea will be met by a wet blanket, so here I am, the wet blanket, sorry. I'm one of those people who feels that discussion is more important than the vote. If users oppose a candidate, how can the candidate learn from the opposes, if it's a secret ballot? If the opposes (or, for that matter, the supports) are based on flawed information, how does that get responded to and corrected on a secret ballot? Given how the number of oppose votes increased a lot when secret ballots were implemented in the ArbCom elections, I suspect that secret ballots will make it harder, not easier, to pass RfA, because people will be less reluctant to oppose if they can do it in secret. Perhaps it will help reduce the "me too" supports, and that could be a good thing, but it won't fix the problems that get the most discussion here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:07, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Good points but before we get too far down a rabbit hole with the secret ballet suggestion. I honestly do not think that we can do it with the software we have. The Arbcom one was done because someone manually engineered it on the frontend and then a couple of non partisan users reviewed the information on the back end to weed out double votes and things of that nature. Unless someone has a better alternative I don't think we can do it anyway.
Regarding your comments though, there would still be a discussion, dirty laundry would still get aired, negative and positive comments and arguments will still be presented, the process will still be a gauntlet. So really this isn't fixing the process, its just changing the voting mechanism. Honestly I think the whole process needs to be scrapped. It promotes some good candidates, but all too often its a popularity contest and great candidates get shot down for stupid reasons. Kumioko (talk) 19:16, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
One of the puproses of RFA is not only to appoint or not to appoint an administrator, but also give the candidate feedback, and secret ballot does not serve this. Imagine somebody put themselves up to RFA, got 57% votes - what should they do? Should they put themselves up again in six months? Should they guess what exactly they need to improve? Just to remind, Editor Review, which was the only other feedback venue, is almost dead.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I also like 2, 5 and 7. 5 and 7 could be implemented as part of the RFA current process and we could potentially have a committee relating to option 2 a couple times a year maybe. Maybe the comittee could review 5 or 10 additional names and then if they pass muster they can get the tools. I think an RFA type system could apply to desysop as well. If someone is causing more than their share of problems they could be submitted to sysop, then the community could vote on it like RFA. Of course this process has its problems too, but I think it would be just as good or better than sending them through ARBCOM, the process would be consistent to how they got the tools, the decision would be based on concensus from the community and it would be an interim process between nothing and ARBCOM. Unfortunately this would require a policy change because as far as I know Arbcom is the only one that can desysop but I suspect if a community based decision was made to desysop, they or the crat's coud review and implement or decline as necessary. Kumioko (talk) 19:04, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
What I really don't like is 4: "Establishing a consensus set of requirements for becoming an admin, with bureaucrats applying it to select users." First, I doubt that a consensus could be reached on a set of requirements for becoming an admin. Second, even if such a list could be written, it would not be sufficient. Supplying a set of objective criteria, such as 20 non-admin closures or 2 years of experience or 20,000 edits, cannot fully measure one's ability to be an admin. There are other things, such as problem-solving abilities, people skills and a firm grasp on the way we do things here, things that are measured subjectively and can't be assigned numerical value. In my opinion, those intangibles are far more important than statistics in evaluating an RfA candidate. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 19:22, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Great to see some advancement on this topic. This may cause some old timers (like me) that have been reluctant to go through the admin process and those that use templates like "Noadmin" to reconsider there positions.Moxy (talk) 19:21, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Something that I was going to bring up in a potential reform RfC to try and change the process is have the community evaluate the candidate in their abilities to handle individual components of the administrator bit. If the consensus of the community agrees that the candidate can handle every component of the bit, they are promoted to administrator, if not, they are given the individual components that the community believes they can handle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberpower678 (talk • contribs) 22:38, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
  • None of the options are what I consider reasonable. Denying the users the right to vote publicly on the RFA and RFB after over 2/3 of Wikipedia's lifespan will make the admin and bureaucrat process much worse and frankly barbaric. And this has a much better reputation than some Wikipedia dispute resolution projects. Over a sixth of active or formerly active Wikipedians (estimated based on sheer load of complaints and I am including banned user complaints) have had some sort of beef with ArbCom and we have never changed that to make it more representative of the community at large. Anyway, my proposal is that the processes should be taken back to 2004 levels and not have all that formality involved with it. 15+ questions aren't needed to help people figure out if they are supporting or opposing a candidate and just waste time. As long as you can write 50 or more articles that aren't considered stubs and/or catch 50 or more confirmed sockpuppets, have proper sourcing for all citations that you make, and you don't cause major conflicts with legitimate editors; that should be cause for promotion to administrator. Bureaucrat promotion would also be more lenient in this proposal, probably like the current standards for administrator promotion. This may not be possible but I hope that you all consider this because I think this will really revive Wikipedia to it's former glory and give more people the chance to become administrators. --Thebirdlover (talk) 05:36, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Look at how the standards have changed since 2005. To cite a completely random example Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sherool was passed with only 32 votes in total and 27 supporting. This request only had the three sample questions and the user himself only had over 4,000 edits at the time and was on for 7 months. Compare this to the most recent successful applicant KTC who had 14+ questions to deal with, was on here for 8 years, had over 14,000 edits, was trusted with the rollback, reviewer, and autopatrol right and got 151 total votes of which 130 were supporting. Why didn't KTC or someone else start an RFA to get her promoted 2 or 3 years after she started with a smaller amount of votes needed to confirm her? My guess is that she and everyone else on Wikipedia felt pressured because of the increasingly formal RFA policies, that's why. --Thebirdlover (talk) 05:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
But that is, as you note, your guess, and I don't see much reason to believe it's true. Basalisk was made an admin a month ago, with ~6000 edits, which is what I had when I was made an admin at the peak of adminification. More questions, sure, although it's unclear to me that the questions mean much one way or the other. Failed admin candidates (especially, I think, those whose failure bothers the crowd here) rarely fail because of how they answer questions, but because they have troubling incident(s) in their past. WilyD 10:25, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
This all just proves that the process isn't working and we need to try something new. For every valid reason that can be given for why someone is a good candidate, equal arguments can be made that offset it. RFA is more of a popularity contest these days with the tools going to those that editors like, not those who would necessarily do the best job. I have seen a lot of candidates, including myself, that know how the tools work, know the rules, have high edit counts in multiple areas, have edits across projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikispecies, etc.) that can't pass RFA or don't want to try. Others have no idea how any of these tools work until they get them, some never use them at all and just have them, some don't know anything about how to edit templates (many of which are protected and require an admin to modify them, others still only use one or 2 of the tools and they get the tools because they keep their heads down, pick away at some small niche area, don't ruffle feathers and keep to themselves and they get promoted with no opposes and over 100 supports. Again this has been suggested before but the best way to make admin work is frankly to eliminate the need. WE break the tools out into related groups and people apply for what they need. If there is an increased need for some to be vetted like block/unblock and protect/unprotect then fine, but all the rest should be unbundled into like functions. At this point its pretty clear. The admin model is broken and we need to replace it with something more functional. Kumioko (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Nomination

Have nominated Ocaasi here Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ocaasi. Does it automatically add itself or is there more I need to do? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:24, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

You need to transclude it manually, I've taken care of it. (unless I messed the format up) Monty845 01:30, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
I have updated the end time based on when the nomination was transcluded. KTC (talk) 01:40, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

A modest proposal

Clearly, RfA has its share of voting problems, as has been noted time and time again, including with the topic above. Very few users get promoted anymore, and those that actually would make good admins have the sense not to go anywhere near RfA with what it has become over the past couple years. So, I offer this proposal. Just let me choose users for adminship and decide all that. I've nommed more than enough back in the day and know what to look for. If users want it, I'll look over them and decide if they are suitable. If there are those that would make good admins out there, then all they need to do is ask, and there we have it. It sounds completely crazy, but I can't do any worse than the current system in place. Think about it. No drama, no muss, just people getting the tools who could use them, and us going about our daily lives without hundreds of threads on this page. Whatever would we do with all that free time? Wizardman 05:44, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

If you were intending to be as satirical as Jonathan Swift, then mission accomplished. If this was serious, then I think several editors might have a problem with this. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 10:56, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh, pick me, pick me, pick me! Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:19, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I've got an even better idea. The newest admin get to pick, so I get to pick one, then whomever I pick get to pick one, so on and so forth. KTC (talk) 12:37, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Now, if we were recruting janitors, this would be an uncontroversial idea. Why use 150 interviewers when one will do? However, based on the system as-is, we currently recruit judges who are allowed to do the cleaning. It's the judicial nature of adminship that necessitates the current system. Split the janitorial and judgemental roles, and hey presto, we have our solution. —WFC— FL wishlist 12:54, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

(Completely forgot I posted this). FWIW, Moe nailed it. I'm pretty sure if I actually tried seizing power like that I'd be in for a world of pain :) Wizardman 03:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure you don't want to nominate anyone? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 03:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Maybe, but that would mean making people I actually like go through RfA... Wizardman 03:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, then nominate your enemies! In all seriousness, it is possible to have a relatively mild RfA. I'd say that Bagumba did. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 04:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC) Per the discussion below, do you want to run for cratship? You are going to say no, but nobody can say I didn't ask.
I think it is possible to have a mild RfA when a) the user is generally well-liked, and has had very few large-scale disputes in the past (or, at least, has avoided making enemies in disputes) and/or b) there is no way in hell of the RfA actually passing, which ironically causes more people to support than would normally. Maybe 2009 was just a good year :). — Oli OR Pyfan! 05:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Admins Lost?

So, it's pretty easy to look through the various records to see how many new Admin we've accumulated by looking at the successful RFA candidates, but are there any stats on how many Admin we're losing? (Whether it be due to their rights being taken away, formally saying they're done being an Admin, or Admin that, let's say, haven't posted in a year, or something?) I hear editors here and there talking about RFA or Wikipedia in general "dying" or being on the decline, and it just made me wonder if any info like that was available anywhere. Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 15:03, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Inactive administrators is a listing of all the admins whose privileges were removed in 2012, there is a link at the bottom for 2011. GB fan 15:21, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
You might be interested in this. Hut 8.5 19:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:List of administrators/stat table as well. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 21:35, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
FWIW, Boing has just handed his tools in. If all the good admins are leaving and/or getting themselves blocked we're going to be left with admins who are too quick on the block trigger. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:11, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
What? Are you serious? Crap on a stick!--Amadscientist (talk) 09:14, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Jeez. GiantSnowman 09:17, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I think if the above trend continues, in seven years all administrators will be inactive (and in eight years all gone). There is no reason to think it continues though.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
It appears that User talk:Wizardman is doing something similar to Boing. I have a bad feeling about all of this.......--Amadscientist (talk) 09:30, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
If the drama is too much, then don't hand in your tools, simply unwatch the drama pages for a while. That's what I do. I've been an admin for nearly 12 months and content creation remains as important to me as ever. GiantSnowman 09:56, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
👍 Like--Amadscientist (talk) 11:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Exactly what I've been doing; thought it'd last a few days, but it's morphed into 2 weeks and I have no intention of stopping. Now back to my self-imposed exile... The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
The process needs to be less intrusive - the fact I had to reveal I have MS during the process has been a huge deterrent to others I know with disabilities. What is more relevant the fact I have years of experience never been blocked have a good reputation - no we talk about the fact I have some typos in talk page discussions due to the use of voice to text software. Need to concentrate on who would be an asset as an admin- not nitpic the fine points.Moxy (talk) 16:31, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Bureaucrats

Most of the discussion here surrounds RfA and the decline in participation and understandably so, but what about RfB? There have been 7 RfB since 2010. I don't know if that is a problem yet, but at some point it probably will be. There has to be somebody who is willing to run. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 22:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Well if the admin corps keeps shrinking, there won't be anyone left to promote to bureaucrat. ;)
All joking aside, I don't feel like there is quite the same pressure to increase the bureaucrat ranks; there's always been a small group of us, and it has always been a chore to pass RfB. I don't see anything there changing any time soon. (especially since it feels like the workload for the bureaucrats is decreasing) EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:45, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict):Participation in RfA has in fact increased manyfold over recent years. Passes with 100+ votes are no longer a rarity at all. What has decreased a lot is the number of candidates.
RfB is even more contentious because it would draw nastiness and opposes from users who have an axe to grind, and because it's basically a popularity/unpopularity poll like RfA and has a much higher pass mark, it's hardly surprising that few admins are willing to go for it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the decrease in candidates is what I was referring to. I can imagine why most admins wouldn't want to run, but there should be a good candidate out there somewhere. I'm going to try and find someone. What about you, Kudpung? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 22:56, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I consider myself to be strict but fair, sometimes blunt but prefer to say old-fashioned and formal, but always helpful. Nevertheless, I have to remonstrate with people now and again, and block some, and delete some articles, all of which over time builds up a fairly strong core of opponents. One actually wished I had run in the recent Arbcom election just so they could oppose me. There you go - nope, I'm not sticking my head in a noose, particularly as my own RfA was one of the most spiteful on record. There's also my age against me, it doesn't go down well with the children who try to run the site, the older ones don't think I'm boring enough, and those with Foundation hats probably think I'm a pain in the butt ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:26, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
I gather that you are not interested. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 15:31, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
It certainly seems that way, "There you go - nope, I'm not sticking my head in a noose" — Oli OR Pyfan! 15:58, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung I don't think your RFA was all that spiteful! If you do you must not have read through mine close enough..lol, now that's spiteful! Kumioko (talk) 16:14, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps Kudpung's comment should be edited to say it was "one of the most spiteful successful RFAs on record", as many unsuccessful RFAs have been extremely negative. Having said that, though, I feel I must also say that Kudpung's RFA was generally constructive -- and ended up demonstrating his maturity and good sense. If he were to stand for RFB, it likely would go well. However, having myself survived an RFA that was far more negative than Kudpung's (and overall weirder than most any other RFA I recall), I fully sympathize with anyone who wishes to avoid the RFA or RFB experience. --Orlady (talk) 19:33, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm more than willing to go through the gauntlet, provided I know I have a decent chance of passing. Even been tempted to launch one just to see if the community trusts me or not.—cyberpower OfflineHappy 2013 23:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Get on with it then... The Rambling Man (talk) 23:07, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
I definitely know that RfAs fail if its in the middle of an editor review, though unanswered at this point.—cyberpower OfflineHappy 2013 23:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Really? Do editor reviews still exist?! If you feel able to help, get on and get nominated. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:54, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Surprisingly yes. Although, I think it should be shut down at this point due to the lack of the activity there.—cyberpower OfflineHappy 2013 23:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Time to head to the front of the queue and get your nomination going.... The Rambling Man (talk) 00:00, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to co-nominate. —cyberpower OfflineHappy 2013 00:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

You wouldn't want that, I'm not flavour of the month these days, too much honest talking upsetting the establishment! The Rambling Man (talk) 00:07, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Let's ask the bureaucrats themselves whether they feel short-staffed at the moment. Obviously there are more than enough 'crats around to handle closing RfAs timely and related sysopping/desyopping work. How about on the renames/usurps/botflagging fronts: are things being processed efficiently enough, or could you use some new pairs of hands.

Sooner or later, some new qualified people will run for RfB, but in terms of whether we should make an effort to twist some people's arms, I think it depends on whether there is a substantial need or not. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

We always invite people who want to help out with any crat tasks to run for RFB if they feel qualified. There is no limit to the number of people who we would want as crats and I would never want to discourage anyone from running or provide the basis for opposition by saying a particular task is not in demand. That said, if I had to rank bureaucrat priorities, they are:
1. We need more people on WP:BAG to review bot requests;
2. We need more crats to help on the crat-l list to process RTV requests;
2. We need more crats to review rename and usurp requests.
Hope that helps. MBisanz talk 23:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
i.e. we have one 1, two 2s, and nothing much to do besides the standard renaming which MBisanz does in epic numbers. But always a good thing to get more folks onboard to do the paperwork. Somehow, 'crat position has become something beyond gold, it's really what the name says, bureaucratic, 99.5% of the time it's pushing paper. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) As I had to generate the stats to reply to NYB The main problem is that out of 36 'crats, 16 (44%) have been inactive (defined as less than 5 actions) in 2012, 9 of them (25% of the total) have been inactive (defined as less than 5 actions) in the last 5 years. See User:Snowolf/inactivecratstats. Snowolf How can I help? 00:14, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Well I admit I see a couple names of folks who are still editing. Maybe someone should ask them if they even still want the tools? Seems like there's not much point in having them if there not going to get used. Aside from that I would say that the same should apply as Admin. If they aren't editing, they should have the tools removed and if they come back then they can ask for them back. Some of those folks have been gone for a long time. Kumioko (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)So if things keep going the way they are, we could have a problem soon. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 00:27, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Actually, there now is a policy for inactive 'crats, patterned after the one for inactive admins, that will take effect within a few weeks. But for purposes of this thread I think the key is whether we need more active crats; the inactive ones are neither here nor there. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't completely agree there. I think the information about inactive crats is relevant in determining if there is a need for more crats. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 00:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
(ec}Since its usually the same crat that does certain tasks (each seems to have their area of interest/focus) if we lose one that will leave a gap given the rather lean number we have now. I think it goes without saying we need a few more, unless there is an interest in letting admins do some of the actions like Bot approvals and creating fellow admins! With the increasing pressure and drama on WP these days the hard part is going to be finding someone interested and who might actually stand a chance at getting it. Kumioko (talk) 00:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Hmm, more like it's hard to find somebody interested in the job, that stand a chance at a RfB, that is going to be a good 'crat, is going to remain active and is not overworked already :D Indeed, it is not as easy as it sounds Snowolf How can I help? 00:39, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Why not you, Snowolf? You're a sysop. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 00:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
While I am honored that you'd ask me, I think I've got enough on my plate and I wouldn't make a good 'crat regardless ;-) Snowolf How can I help? 00:50, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think the answer to do we currently need more crats is probably no. If the question is do we need more crats if MBisanz decides to take a break from renames/usurps, I think the answer would be a resounding yes. We shouldn't rely on one person doing the majority of the work. KTC (talk) 00:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't think there's any problem with having more 'crats. I mainly do the RTV requests right now (as far as 'crat actions) as I have some RL issues I'm dealing with, but I don't see a problem with having more to help out where needed. MBisanz gives a good list of where help would be helpful. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
The rarity of RFB's, I think, is caused by exactly that, the rarity of RFB's (if that makes any sense). They're so rare, in fact, that when one is transcluded it quickly becomes such a big deal. That cycle won't be broken until RFB's become routine to the level of RFA's (which will never happen; RFA's are contentious enough and RFB's seem to be on a "higher level"). Admittedly, Wikipedia doesn't need nearly as many bureaucrats as administrators, but I fear that's exactly the problem. There's so few, I think, that the impression of an unattainably high threshold is perceived by any who are merely reading about the process, let alone considering a run. And there's no real solution apart from hoping a few qualified candidates with guts and extraordinarily thick skin decide to stick their necks out and give it a shot. All that said, I think the community-at-large has grown accustomed to being very selective in terms of RFB. Whether or not that's true, the simple perception of such is exactly why RFB's are so rare. But I fear I don't have a solution to suggest (I'm trying not to sound like a whiner). Just a few observations to spur discussion. Tyrol5 [Talk] 23:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
You make some very good points. FWIW, you could run. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Although flattered by the suggestion, I'm afraid I'm not prepared or qualified for a run at this point in time. In addition, I've been bogged down in RL, what with the recent Holidays (hope yours were terrific, by the way) and things picking up in general in the new year. That's why I noted above that I did not want to come across as a whiner, because there's quite literally nothing that I personally can do about the problem. But, again, thanks. Tyrol5 [Talk] 03:00, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I strongly agree with KTC that if MBisanz or one of the other active crats decides to take a break, then we'll certainly need additional ones. I also agree with Tyrol5 about the reasoning for the rarity of RfBs and I also don't have a solution other than a few gutsy, respected administrators taking a leap of faith. Go Phightins! 23:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

And there has to be somebody, right? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:11, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

If you are looking for a few good candidates here is a short list of some. I have no idea if they would be interested:

  1. User:Berean Hunter
  2. User:SarahStierch
  3. User:Dennis Brown
  4. User:The Blade of the Northern Lights
  5. User:Tom Morris
  6. User:Guerillero
  7. User:Anomie
  8. User:Redrose64
  9. User:Moonriddengirl
  10. User:Dank

I'm sure there's more but these are some of the folks I have generally been impressed with and think would do well in the position. Kumioko (talk) 02:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I would agree with several of those, but I can guarantee a couple of them aren't interested...perhaps Sarah or Moonriddengirl? TBOTNL, I believe, is on an administration break and is working on an article that he has an interest in, something we all should be doing on a regular basis. I know Dennis is not interested, at least right now. I don't know much about Berean, Tom Morris, Guerillero, Anomie, or Dank and all I know about Redrose64 is that he's a technical genius. There's the Go Phightins! quick commentary. Go Phightins! 02:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Some good options there. Newyorkbrad and Worm That Turned would be good options if they weren't both arbs. SarahStierch would make a good crat, although she has only been an admin for about six months and that might pose a problem. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:34, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm flattered at the suggestion that I should become a bureaucrat. This would suggest that I'm considered a non-contentious admin. Which is nice since I don't want to be a contentious admin. (Certainly, as a dramaphobic editor, if I want to take on more responsibility, running for bureaucrat looks like a preferable choice to standing for ArbCom or becoming a CheckUser or Oversighter.) I think my answer is "not now". I won't rule out a future RfB, but I've only been an admin for just over a year. From a brief survey of past RfBs, over two years of admin experience seems like the norm. I think getting more experience closing RfCs would be something I'd have to do before seriously contemplating an RfB. So, thanks for the vote of confidence, Kumioko, but not now. I would very much like to see some RfBs from more experienced admins. —Tom Morris (talk) 14:13, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

7 normal days

Some of the opposes recently have been for people running during Christmas, I'm not convinced that this is a problem as RFA is a seven day process. But the opposes clearly are a problem, especially as some of the people involved are around for long enough that they should know that if you disagree with a process you should try to change the process not oppose RFAs of those following the process. One possible solution would be to change RFA from 7 days to 7 normal days and then start listing the non-normal days that don't count when measuring the length of RFAs. Alternatively we could agree that 7 days is fine and that opposes for running during someone's holiday can be disregarded by the crats. ϢereSpielChequers 08:26, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Or perhaps just extend to 14 days instead, with more emphasis on not wandering off-topic. -- Trevj (talk) 08:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
With respect, I think it just opens a whole new can o'worms about definitions of "normal days" etc. etc. that we really should avoid. I don't recall this being an issue in previous years, and feel the relative handful of current opposes are grasping at straws to justify their oppose. I believe the opposers use of this (in my view) shabby reasoning should be, as you say, discounted by the closing 'crat. Any attempts to make fundamental changes to Rfa ahead of the announcement by Jimmy in the coming weeks (see above thread) are likely to be a timesink. Also, the holidays are nearly over. Happy New Year! Jusdafax 08:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
What exactly is a "normal day"? Working day, or public holiday, or weekend, or what? I edit more during the week than at weekends, others will be the opposite. You cannot cater for everybody's work/life patterns, and so you shouldn't attempt to. GiantSnowman 09:35, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
The Christmas opposition is without question being expressed in the wrong way. But the underlying feeling from most of those who have opposed on "holiday" grounds is that less scrutiny should mean less margin for error. It's hard to argue with that. For that reason, I am opposed to the last sentence of WSC's proposal, to the extent that I would at the very least start a discussion on the impartiality of the crat's close in such circumstances.

Of the ideas floated about, Trevj's is probably the most workable. Anyone uncomfortable with the idea that we make decisions a bit slower at the turn of the year probably doesn't have the necessary patience to be a supreme court judge janitor anyway. —WFC— FL wishlist 10:43, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

But why should Christmas be accord special status? Not every cultures and religions celebrate Christmas. Wikipedia is an international project with participants from all over the world, what about other holidays and celebrations? Maybe we should ban RFA during all of those as well. Let's start with Easter, Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, Passover, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving, Chinese New Year, ... the list goes on. Taken to the extreme, I'm sure I can find a reason why any particular week is a bad time for someone to oppose over. -- KTC (talk) 11:11, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree. Extending the period in all cases may even result in potential opposes being worded as questions to the candidate instead, rather than as straight opposes. Both parties would have more time to consider things. As an further extension, perhaps the first 7 days could be reserved for questions, with voting beginning on day 8 (apologies if this, or similar variations have been previously proposed). -- Trevj (talk) 12:31, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Bottom line is the Christmas opposes should be stricken. Its not a valid reason to oppose. Opposes and supports should be focused on the character and abilities of the applicant not on some arbitrary problem with timing, religion, etc. Kumioko (talk) 15:47, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh man, if only the people that close RfAs actually read thru the opposes and weighed the validity of their arguments instead of just looking at the tally... ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC) (I'm aware that sarcasm doesn't usually translate well, but I like to think that this is bit of it is obvious enough)
While I don't agree with the Christmas opposes, they are not outside the bounds of acceptable reasons for opposing. The logic for the oppose isn't just that they ran during Christmas, but that they deliberately did so to improve their odds of passing, essentially trying to manipulate RFA. Again, I personally don't see anything wrong with that, but if you accept that premise, and its no unreasonable to do so, then its also not unreasonable to oppose on those grounds. Monty845 16:07, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, let's ignore the notion of AGF as some may chose to run over Christmas because they have taken time off and are better able to respond to changes/questions at RfA!38.100.76.228 (talk) 14:49, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Some people decide to run their RfA during a holiday period because they have off from work/school and it may be the time when they feel they have enough time to devote to it. I think it would be a massive assumption of bad faith to assume that someone is running their RfA during a holiday in an attempt to game the system and have less eyes scrutinizing their editing history. Any oppose votes that are solely based on an assumption of bad faith (without evidence) should be disregarded by the closing crat. ‑Scottywong| yak _ 16:14, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. It's right there in Wikipedia:Advice for RfA candidates#Are you ready?, which (though an essay) is linked directly from the top of WP:RFA. My emphasis added.
Timing: Don't imagine for a moment that everyone lives in the USA or the UK. Regular contributors to the English Wikipedia live in every corner and time zone of the world (two well known British admins live in Thailand). Many candidates admit to not getting much sleep while their RfA is running, but it's perfectly acceptable to maintain your normal 24-hour rhythm. Above all, choose a time period when you are fairly confident that you will be able to participate in the site regularly for an entire week. Remember that your RFA is the only thing on Wikipedia that you can control the timing of, so telling others in the midst of it that you are too busy with real life to respond will likely not be received well (unless it's a genuine emergency).
That week-long period between Christmas and New Year's is when many people are under reduced pressure at work or school, and may be an ideal time for them to engage most fully in the RfA process.
From all the whining and accusations of bad faith you would think that these candidates had committed some horrible Wikipedian faux pas by failing to poll all the most crotchety RfA denizens in advance to choose the most convenient time to hold an RfA. Some people are more busy at this time of the year. Some people are less busy. Some people are just differently busy. Get over it. We don't shut down RfA for a Christmas holiday, just like we don't close AN/I, or unplug AfD, or walk away from any other Wikipedia process. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:42, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and for those who are interested, there were
...and so forth. Some succeeded, some failed. There's no indication that any suffered from drastically reduced participation or insufficient scrutiny of the candidates. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:01, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  • As a late Christmas present to me, please don't start making even more rules to deal with non-problems. Crats are all smart enough to ignore "no RFA at Christmas" opposes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:06, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  • If I remember correctly this was raised quite a while ago when there was a problem with an admin who'd been promoted at Xmas with significantly less participation than usual, and a number of people suggested that they'd deliberately placed their RfA at that time. I won't mention the admin, as they weren't sanctioned and they're still active although they haven't used their tools for a few years. Whilst participation may have dropped off in the past when there were always multiple RfAs going at a time and people may not have had the time to investigate the candidates, there are so few these days that I can't see it being an issue. Black Kite (talk) 17:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
A vague memory that there might have been a problem with an unnamed candidate some years ago – whose conduct wasn't serious enough to draw sanction then or since – is some pretty thin gruel.... In any case, can we honestly say that there have been no bad candidates who slipped through the cracks at any other time of the year? The first example that pops into my head was back in 2008 with Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Archtransit: opened on January 3, ended January 10 with unanimous support. By February 19, Archtransit had been desysopped and banned from the project [2] as a reincarnation of a banned user, for operating bad-hand sock accounts, and for misusing his tools. (As far as I can tell, that's also the shortest interval between RfA and ArbCom desysopping in Wikipedia's history.)
Looking at the 29 individuals desysopped by ArbCom since 2004, none had an RfA that ran through Christmas (or at any time during the week between Christmas and New Year's). Of those 29, the earliest-starting post-Christmas RfA was Archtransit's, opening on January 3. The latest-starting pre-Christmas RfA was NSLE's RfA, closed on December 10. So far, candidates from the holiday period seem to have avoided serious trouble. If they've received less scrutiny than other candidates (which is unproven), they also haven't badly broken anything. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh yes, agreed - I was merely pointing out that the issue has been raised before, nothing had come of it, and given the vastly reduced number of RfAs these days, the point was probably moot. Black Kite (talk) 18:50, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


There is an easy non-Creepy solution. Crats should have latitude to extend the time for any RfA if, in their judgement, there is significantly lower participation than has been usual. There's no particular reason this should happen at Christmas, but if (say) an asteroid falls, or the WMF servers play up, and participation drops by 60% from one RFA to the next, crats will know what to do.--Scott Mac 22:51, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds fair. I, of course, see no reason why we should ever need to do this, but that's not to say it's not useful for us to be able to do so in some unforeseen circumstance. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 23:02, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
That's a good idea. It is (ironically) less bureaucratic and rigid than other suggestions. Majoreditor (talk) 23:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
This would address the problem if the problem was lack of participation. But it doesn't address the problem of people opposing because someone has had the temerity to run at a time that doesn't suit them. The crats already have plenty of power at their discretion, they've extended at least one RFA and would I'm sure extend others if there was a real and unexpected need such as a four day outage of the site. ϢereSpielChequers 12:52, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Why arent ips allowed to vote

I am a regular editor on wp and find this unfair I should also be allowed to vote in rfas--183.83.203.41 (talk) 15:03, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, you have only ever made 3 edits to Wikipedia, all to this page. We have no way of knowing what you have edited from other IPs, whether you have an account, and if we allowed you to vote, we would likewise have no way of knowing if you used multiple different IPs to vote more then once. Certainly the system is imperfect, and socking is still a threat, but allowing IP editors to !vote is just not reasonable in the circumstances. We try to accommodate editors who desire not to register an account to the extent practical, we just cannot do it in this case. Monty845 15:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)There is nothing unfair about it. As a regular editor I'm sure you know why IPs cannot just turn up and vote. Registration takes 5 minutes and lasts for ever. Try it. Leaky Caldron 15:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
To expand upon that, this whole "issue" is a case of self-created discrimination, and it's ridiculous. If you want to !vote, create an account. All it requires is a username and a password, and it actually lends you more privacy than editing as an IP address does. SpitfireTally-ho! 12:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Also, whilst you cannot numerically affect the decision, RfAs are about a lot more than numbers. The discussion section is open to IPs (as far as I know), and the talk page certainly is. If you have reason to think a candidate would make a good or poor choice, I'm sure you could explain your rationale there. WormTT(talk) 15:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

IPs are welcome to participate in the discussion. Were you to, for example, give a compelling reason to oppose the RfA, I am sure that other people would also oppose per your reasoning. So there is a large amount of potential should an IP user wish to participate in an RfA. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 20:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

This is merely off the top of my head, but I think I recall reading somewhere that the main issue was that IPs by their nature are not restricted to a single person. While accounts are. Consider also that we grant adminship to a person, not to a username. There's likely more, but that's the basics. - jc37 09:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for removal of adminship process

A Request for Comment on a proposal to create a new user group with an abbreviated set of administrator user-rights, as an option for administrators to request instead of requesting removal of the entire sysop user-right package. I welcome everyone's thoughts on this. - jc37 15:12, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for a new user-right group

A Request for Comment on a proposal to create a new process to allow for removal of adminship through community discussion. I welcome everyone's thoughts on this. - jc37 15:12, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

RfA reform and community de-adminship

I believe when the community recently !voted on Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Community de-adminship proof of concept, they were voicing a concern that any RfA reform should also be accompanied some form of de-adminship. In other words, If it's easier to attain Adminship, it should also be easier for the community to remove bad admins without having to go through ArbCom. There is a percentage of the community that is concerned about Admin for life and admins going bad. So people designing RfA reforms may want to incorporate some form of de-adminship in to their proposals in order to sway that portion of the community towards their side. Just a thought. 64.40.54.39 (talk) 18:01, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for removal of adminship has been proposed very recently and is tied together with Wikipedia:Moderators/Proposal‎. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 18:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
@64.40.54.39: Read the entire thread above at #Rfacom - it may provide a very logical reason why lowering the bar to adminship may not be such a good idea, even if it were made easier to desysop. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

A question

I haven't been keeping up with the plethora of proposals about RfA, but I was just wondering - has there ever been a proposal of some sort of system to blacklist certain oppose rationales? We've all seen !votes like "I can never support someone nominated by this user" or "Oppose for personal reasons, even if they're a good candidate" that will just never be helpful. I mean, if you accept a) that the bar for adminship is too high, b) that we're losing more admins than we're gaining, c) that the greatest problems with RfA are incivility and pettiness in opposition reasons, and, most importantly, d) that the burden of proof is on the opposing user, it would seem to me that the logical conclusion is to have some forum where the community (it would require a massive majority, of course) could say "Any oppose !votes to the effect of such-and-such shall be indented and discounted". This isn't a proposal, per se, but rather a query as to if anything like this has ever been suggested. — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 02:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

It was touched upon at WP:RFA2011 but the nearest we got to anything like it was examining the questions that the voters pose. I think it would be difficult to catalogue & classify the inappropriate votes and comments that are made at RfA without examining a couple of hundred RfAs and making a list for discussion. That's why the strongest suggestions to date were ones of introducing some form of clerking to the system. There were never any suggestions to suppress reasonable oppose votes.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
We need people / Crats to marshall the RFA and strike !votes that are not suitable. GiantSnowman 11:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree, and assume that would include the likes of
  1. Support —WFC— FL wishlist 12:14, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, since RfA is intended to be a discussion, not a vote. I imagine the blacklist would also include the likes of

  1. Oppose Too many administrators currently. Everyone who remembers the massive amount of drama surrounding that oppose raise your hand.

Snowman, have you taken a look at WP:RfA/C? That's the sort of thing being discussed over there. — Oli OR Pyfan! 13:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Yep, those are the kind of things, as well as 'Christmas' opposes and the like that do not raise valid concerns. Pyfan, I have not seen that page, will take a proper look when I can. GiantSnowman 16:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Further - supports should also be struck if applicable i.e. 'cool username!' or whatever. GiantSnowman 16:28, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
  • There have been some memorably incivil votes in RFAs, I can remember one that compared the candidate's contributions to shit. Others sought to change policy by harassing RFA candidates that supported a particular policy and might enforce it. There is an argument that crats will ignore such votes, but that assumes the candidate stays the course and doesn't withdraw. However I'm uncomfortable with striking inappropriate support votes, generally any support can be seen as someone agreeing with the nomination but by convention Support in an RFA doesn't have to include the words "per nom". I could however see a benefit in striking inappropriate support rationales providing the rest of the !vote was left. ϢereSpielChequers 01:38, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
  • From RFAs I've read through (mostly as a result of late-night lurking along the lines of "Hmm, I wonder what so-and-so was like before xe became an admin"), I think it's safe to say that truly inappropriate supports are far less common than inappropriate opposes. The reason I bring up the idea of a blacklist is that something like "Does every admin these days need to be an atheist/Christian/teenager/retiree/American/Brit" will (barring obvious sarcasm, of course) never be constructive - will never be able to have any influence on the closing 'crat's decision; whereas I'm hard-pressed to think of a support that could never be constructive. I mean, if a very well-respected member of the community drops by an RFA and just says "Support" or "Support - Looks good", that can definitely help gauge consensus.
Anyways, having taken a glance at some of the many ideas being floated, I see that a lot of them would either make such a concept superfluous (e.g. anything !vote-free), or integrate them implicitly (e.g. clerks would presumably develop standards for the type of comments they strike or remove). But, anyways, it's not so much that I think supports should never be discounted, but that there's no single supporting comment (other than a veiled personal attack or something) that could ever merit inclusion on a blacklist. Anyways, just another stall in the marketplace of suggestions here. — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 22:06, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

RfC; The can stops here

Okay, no more kicking the can down the road. I've been on board with the approach we've all taken to "fix RfA" discussions ... we've talked about it intelligently, recognized that there's no current consensus for any one change, and tried to do the best job we can in individual RfAs ... and that's a good approach to a tough problem. But Wales's comments noted above (see the first section, Jimmy Wales on possible changes in the way mops are handed out) make it clear that there's going to be a dramatic change, soon. I believe that if there's going to be a dramatic change, the community should choose it, and I propose we do that. Let's start an RfC here. I'll post a note at WP:AN asking for closers; I'll be one of the closers unless anyone objects. I have no preference or vested interest in the outcome; I wouldn't be offering if I did. I simply don't want the storyline to be "RfA community fails; Wales steps in and makes everything right". - Dank (push to talk) 15:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree that its better we choose. Unfortunately I no longer share your faith in the community's ability to do that. I wish I was wrong but we have shown time and time again that although we can acknowledge there is a problem, our democratic process is not going to allow that to happen. I for one wish that the community could and would make a decision but I am also glad the Jimbo and the foundation are showing an interest given that we are incapable of doing it ourselves. Kumioko (talk) 16:31, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Understood, but Jimbo's statement may offer us a way forward. I think there's a chance the community will agree to let the closers pick whichever solution seems to have the most support, without requiring consensus, since it's been fairly well established that it's not possible to get consensus on this issue. The community may well decide that a suboptimal solution with more support than the other options is preferable to letting Jimbo pick a solution ... particularly if the closers agree to revisit in 3 months if the new solution isn't working, throw that solution out, and reopen the RfC where we left off. - Dank (push to talk) 17:17, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
It might be good to have a backup plan in case Jimbo's idea doesn't work out however I have generally thought that Jimbo's ideas were pretty well thought out so we'll see. I really think we need to see what Jimbo's proposal is before we get too worried. The main downside I see is this. If the decision is to grant some founder right and that person or group decides to promote someone such as myself (I probably wouldn't accept BTW), then the decision may not be well received by the community. We are also assuming that the individual would accept. Some such as myself may look at it as promoting under a cloud since the community has told me twice that I wasn't trusted. Some members of the community may not be very accepting.Kumioko (talk) 17:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Minimum service level for administrator candidates and RfA !voters. I should think that one year of service and a 4,000 edit minimum would suffice for both. Yeoman Editor or Grognard Extraordinaire is the minimum mark. Binksternet (talk) 16:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
    Let God save Wikipedia from such reforms. 4000 edits for an admin candidate is not a particularly strong threshold, but implementation of Binksternet’s threshold for voters will encourage formation of hundreds of irresponsive button-pushing "Yeoman Editors" which will soon take Wikipedia from us, the people who think. If to introduce any form of electoral inequality, then make a system of certification, not to count the number of edits of whatever quality. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:11, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
    Candidates are unlikely to pass with less than one year of tenure and 4,000 edits, so I'd see no great harm in this part of the proposal; There have been plenty of similar proposals in the past and I think we might get consensus to stop self noms that have less than 1500 edits and 6 months tenure. But why would we want to be so restrictive about !voters? 4,000 edits is a much higher threshold than we operate for Arbcom elections and this proposal would deny the !vote to large parts of the community. I could go as high as 100 edits and one month's tenure if only to exclude a few socks and SPAs, and to make it clear to other editors that of course they are part of the community and welcome to participate in RFAs. ϢereSpielChequers 21:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
    A minimum requirement for !voters is not helpful and neither are the suggested requirements for candidacy. The standards are already too high, why encourage it? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 21:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I have offered my services to close as I am also monitoring two other active RfCs and have closed two policy based RfCs regarding crats and admins.—cyberpower OfflineHappy 2013 17:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Let me get this straight: The proposal in this RfC is to have an RfC? There doesn't seem to be anything proposed in this RfC, other than to have an RfC. No solutions to the "RfA problem" are offered (and the "RfA problem" isn't even defined), except that we need to beat Jimbo to the punch for some strange reason. If you're just trying to start a discussion to generate ideas for reform, perhaps you should check out the gigabytes of discussion on that topic throughout the wiki: on this talk page and its substantial archives, on Jimbo's talk page, on WP:RFA2011 / WP:RFA2012 and their extensive talk pages and subpages, and countless other places. If none of those discussions have succeeded, why do we believe that this discussion (with absolutely no direction whatsoever) will? Also, I could be wrong, but asking for a closer on the same day you create an RfC seems a bit premature. You know that real RfC's (i.e. RfC's that have actual proposals with substance) typically run for 30+ days, right? ‑Scottywong| prattle _ 19:25, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
    • He's asking for closers ahead of time to already be in place, so that when the RFC is started, there are already acceptable and appointed closers who will assess the results, rather than merely having an RFC for a month and then waiting around for someone uninvolved to care and close it. Having the closers ahead of time doesn't often happen, but it isn't unheard of. ArbCom occasionally creates a resolution in response to a tough case that there be a mediated RFC where the people closing the RFC and mediating it are known ahead of time, and the community is also free to operate such a "moderated RFC" as they wish. It does happen (there was one recently on the "The/the" Beatles problem a few months ago). --Jayron32 19:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. As I said over at WP:AN, if we can get 3-5 closers who are acceptable to everyone, that will make it easier to get people to accept a close for a position that doesn't have overwhelming support ... and as we know, no one position is going to get overwhelming support. Scotty, I think the answer to your questions is in what you said ... "If none of those discussions have succeeded, why do we believe that this discussion (with absolutely no direction whatsoever) will?" That's just the point ... this RfC might succeed where others have failed, not just because Jimbo might otherwise take away our ability to choose, maybe forever, if it doesn't succeed, but because we're going to talk a little bit before we get started; that worked well in the recent Pending Changes RfCs. If there's serious disagreement, I wouldn't say no to a week-long RfC to argue about opening text for the main RfC ... but I'm hoping we don't need to do that, I'm hoping it's reasonable clear to all of us that there's already a consensus that the current process is widely regarded as unpleasant, and that something should be done about that, and nothing said in this RfC overrules that consensus. Closers of the current RfC also have to take into account, in some sense, any position that there has been strong consensus on in all previous RfAs, to the best of our knowledge and ability ... including the position that selection of new admins should not be arbitrary and should not bypass community standards and norms. That's why you need closers with some history with the process. - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose based on my understanding of where this is going. As I understand the proposal as it currently stands, we would have an RFC, the closers would determine which proposal has the most support, and then that proposal would replace the current RFA system, regardless of whether or not the particular proposal received a consensus in favor of implementation. This is a radical departure from past practice and needs to be considered in great detail before we even consider going forward with it. Depending on the number of proposals considered, this could even lead to a new RFA system that lacked even majority support. Particularly as this is such a controversial subject amongst such a large portion of the community, trying out such a radical change in process for the first time here is a terrible idea. Further, choosing who will close ahead of time is giving the closers much more power then a closer normally gets; it is essentially an election. Selecting closers before the community even agrees to the radical change in process the closers will be using is also problematic. Monty845 05:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
If you want to have a vote, lets have an RFC to authorize a straight vote. Set a minimum threshold for a proposal to pass, use support/oppose voting as we do with WP:ACE, and if one or more proposals passes the threshold we go with the highest support percentage. No need for super closers. Monty845 05:56, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
  • The problem with RfA has been clearly identified. The system itself is not broken, but it's the behaviour of the voters that has brought about its demise. It's the voters' attitudes that need to be changed, and not the system itself. This has been stated time and time time again, but for some odd reasons, the voters who are part of the problem - some of them are regular participants at RfA (and who possibly watch this talk page) - fail to understand that they are part of it. I see no reason why we can't just hold some central RfCs on some of the suggestions that have been made - some of them are drafted and ready to go, the problem is that no one single user wants to put his/her name to the posting that opens it. I won't either because although I have drafted some of them, I'm sick and tired at all the nastiness slung in my direction from those who would rather see Wikipedia without any admins at all than a process where they would have to behave themselves. We now have nothing to lose by holding RfCs over some of those proposals, and possibly something to gain. Where the Foundation has said it's not in their remit to interfere with local Wiki ways of selecting their admins, why should Wales? His suggestions are most welcome if he makes any or shows some keen support of any of the community's ideas, but as far as I'm concerned, he has no place in making the community's decisions for them or delegating his founder rights to a new bunch of super users.
The can has hit the curbstone, here, with us: the community. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Kudpung in part – RfA itself is not broken, and the current problems are a systemic community failure. But at the RfA end, it's a reluctance to enforce existing policies more than anything else, for example by allowing trolls to troll for fear that we might otherwise inhibit their freedom of speech, or undermine the democratic process of RfA (please don't !vote at me, modern RfAs are straight-down-the-line votes whether they should be or not). The "systemic failure" I refer to is the failure to reform adminship itself, which is not fit for purpose. We need cleaners to do the cleaning, and judges to do the judging. These roles are mutually exclusive in society, and for very different reasons (practicality and different skillsets, rather than elitism and vastly different earning capacity) Wikipedia would be a much more collegiate and productive place if the roles were separated here. Kudpung above, whilst making a different but somewhat related observation about the community, is also right to point out that it would be a huge thing for Wales to take unilateral action. I therefore propose that we have have an open-forum RfC, discussing the possible methods reform, and at the end of it one very simple poll, settled by simple majority. The question would be something along the lines of:

Do we stick with the status quo, or do we drastically alter the structure of adminship?

If there is consensus for the former, then it's settled. We keep going as we are now, continuing with token efforts to try to make RfA nicer without in any way lessening scrutiny. If there is consensus for the latter, we let Jimbo set out a vision. That will worry many and even disgust a few, including some of the Wikipedians I've worked with the most. But if not him, then who? On the one hand we could have someone ingrained in the very hierarchy whose future we are determining. On the other, we could have someone who is not and has never been part of that structure, and who therefore has never received the community's backing in any form. What if we have a mixture of people from different wiki-backgrounds, and they disagree on the way forward? It's unworkable. The community is literally incapable of dealing with something like this. Jimbo is unfortunately the only man for the job. Whatever you think of him, he's shrewd enough to know that while he can lead, and while what he says carries considerable weight (even when he's wrong), he cannot drag a majority kicking and screaming. Whatever we end up with will be something that a large majority of us can live with. —WFC— FL wishlist 18:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Jimbo's assertion is that he is not considering action because he wants to, but because the community seems incapable of acting itself. If this RfC (somehow!?!) succeeds, fantastic. If it fails, Jimbo taking action will look just a little bit less bad. My personal opinion is that the RfC would be an irrelevance, because the real problem is not RfA, but adminship itself. Alas, I've ranted at length about that above.

    In a nutshell, do this if you must Dank, and if anyone can pull this off it's you. But don't get your hopes up on achieving a consensus outcome. This seems to be a million times more complicated than PC. —WFC— FL wishlist 18:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

My take

Were this problem to be left to me to solve, I would do so in the following manner. I would take the 10 most recent admins to pass RFA and give them a google doc or a private wiki and tell them to redraft the RFA process as they see fit, without input from the broader community. I'd give them maybe a month or two to redraft everything. The format, the questions, the percentages, the presumptions, etc. When they were done, their result would become policy unless a consensus of the community determined it should not be policy. The appeal to this is that the warring factions who can traditionally oppose change by preventing a consensus from forming, but who also lack support to create a consensus for their own changes, would be far less likely to be able to form a consensus to prevent the implementation of changes they don't like. However, I don't expect my take to be adopted. MBisanz talk 22:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not a terrible idea but let's face it, getting consensus on a major change related to RfA is a practical impossibility. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 22:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
MBisanz's proposal would not require consensus for the changes decided upon, though; it would only require consensus to carry out his proposal. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Right, that was what I was hoping might make it more likely to succeed. The standard warring faction would have to argue that they don't trust the 10 people most recently entrusted by the community for their decisionmaking ability to make a reasonable decision instead of the usual argument that they disagree with a particular change in policy that would negatively hurt their faction's position. MBisanz talk 12:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
It's an interesting idea Matt, particularly as it would be done by editors who are already admins. Even more interesting is that the core team who worked on the enormous WP:RFA2011 project were also already admins with nothing personal to gain from any changes they could have brought about - something some non admins failed to understand while they were throwing innuendos and personal attacks at us for our efforts. Maybe if they had been cool and offered some constructive collaboration, the team might have at least have stayed in the project long enough to get some of the ideas put to RfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:59, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
You are still making endless digs at "non admins" Kudpung. Maybe if you had been cool and allowed constructive collaboration things would have worked out the way you say you wanted. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
There is no real point in continuing this discussion. Nothing good will come of it. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Here's an idea: If somebody is behaving disruptively and trying to be a hindrance to the RfA process, block them. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:02, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
What criteria should administrators use when deciding if somebody is "trying to be a hindrance to the RfA process"? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:09, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I think the answer to that is to review a few hundred RfAs and draw one's own conclusions. If enough editors did this exercise and compared notes, they may come up with some common denominators. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It is a neat idea, with one pretty obvious drawback. Admins, even the 10 most recent, have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo as far as Admin is for life is concerned. They are unlikely to contemplate the idea of Admins being required to serve a probationary period or existing Admins resubmitting to whatever the revised process is on a periodic basis. 2 or 3 out of the ten might support this - 7 or 8 almost certainly would not. So the issue that for many makes RFA a "big deal" - Admin is for life - would remain and so consequently would the high bar placed upon candidates at RFA. Ten editors in good standing would be preferable, at least 6 drawn from the ranks of Senior Editors+ with GA/FA. To provide initial community involvement a scratchpad of 1-2 line editor idea submissions - no discussion, just ideas. Leaky Caldron 13:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

An alternative would be the 5 most recent to pass RFA, 3 nominators drawn using a random number function from Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log/December 2012 and 2 at random from here. The key is to pick people who could not self-select in favor of the job. I would also suggest against a period of initial community involvement as those with vested interests could use such a forum to signal their intentions and distort the perspectives of those selected. The key is to not let the community discuss what changes they would like so that those with vested interests to defend would not have a platform. It's also worth noting that while admins would have an implied bias to preserve their position, non-admins would have an implied bias to create a process which would make it easier for them to become admins, so it might be necessary that those selected would agree they could not become admins for a period of a year or so. MBisanz talk 13:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
A practical problem with selecting any recent Admins is that if thing does get any traction, upcoming RFAs are going to be highjacked by RFA reform questions. Leaky Caldron 15:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
The key would be that it is the five most recent admins as of the time of my proposal. That would prevent gaming or the application of faction criteria to future candidates. MBisanz talk 00:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
The suggestion of an RfC hasn't picked up any steam, so whatever we do, it won't be in time to stop whatever Wales is doing, this month (he says).That might mean we're wasting our time working on this. OTOH, if he's open to giving us a rough idea of how much change he's looking for and what the goals are, and then we give him 5 proposals that have a chance of meeting his goals, that would make the discussion process easier by narrowing our options, and it would mean we could propose things that we know won't get consensus at first (although we better have an argument on how we expect it would eventually achieve consensus), because Jimmy will be imposing something without consensus. So ... first step, do we ask Wales what's coming? - Dank (push to talk) 14:14, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
P.S. Matt (MBisanz), if it turns out we're offering Wales 5 options, I have no problem with that being one of the 5, it might appeal to him. Everyone else who's commented so far ... I'm sympathetic, and I've got an idea that might meet your concerns, and might have more of a chance of gaining eventual consensus, though it would never get consensus out of the gate. But let's see if we're wasting our time, first. - Dank (push to talk) 14:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I asked on Jimbo's talk page, I'll reproduce it here (discussions there can get a little noisy). Side note: I wouldn't be closing. "Congratulations, you did a fine job on last night's Colbert Report, Jimmy. I understand from User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_122#ArbCom_Appointments_2012 that you want to start a discussion this month to address a number of problems, including "the ongoing admin-appointment situation... a problem which I think most people agree needs to be solved, but for which our usual processes have proven ineffective for change". From this and past statements, I get the sense that you're not looking for more of the same at RfA with a 10% higher promotion rate, you're looking for something more ... substantial. What I'd like to do is to have a quick RfC at RfA to set up ground rules for a new discussion that takes your constraints into account, that is: if an RfC can produce, say, 5 options for you to choose from, would you be willing to do that? How much time do we have? And, can you give us any sense of what "magnitude" of change you'd be willing to consider acceptable?" - Dank (push to talk) 15:00, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

My thought (which won't happen)

I think that a big problem is the popularity contest (and the un-popularity contest as well). Let's remove the straw poll sense of it. (No support/oppose/neutral sections.)

And just have people post why the candidate might make a good admin, or why they have concerns about the candidate as an admin.

Then the bureaucrats assess the information in the discussion, assessing both the consensus of the discussion, and the broader community consensus concerning admins per previous consensus, policy, and such.

Should they probably not get the tools at this time? Then the button isn't pushed. Is there no significant reason to not give the tools ("they looked at me funny, and like the colour blue, which I hate" obviously would have little weight) - then the button is pushed.

The discussion is closed, and life goes on.

Of course, the want to pile on with "me too" votes will always outweigh such a concept as following WP:CON, so this has no chance, unfortunately... - jc37 16:46, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the problem is that we have no consensus on what qualities an admin must have. If there were clear criteria an admin candidate needed to meet to pass RFA, then sure, we could have a consensus based discussion on whether those criteria are met, but I don't think we could agree on those criteria. Consider the following comments at a consensus RFA:
  1. Candidate lacks experience at GA/FA and has only made major contributions to a about a dozen articles.
  2. Candidate has done an excellent job reporting vandals at AIV
  3. Candidate is too active at AN/I
  4. Candidate's NPP and CSD tagging is high quality
  5. Candidate hasn't been active with any projects
  6. Candidate has a clean block log, generally stays out of conflict, and handles disputes well.
  7. Candidate's contributions at AfD seem normal
Assuming for the sake of argument that all the claims are correct, how would you close such an RFA? There are 4 positives points, and 3 negative comments, without some point of comparison, how could you even call that close to passing? Yet at an RFA today, such a candidate would have a good shot at passing assuming no other major issues came up. Monty845 23:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
You're assume a static state, not a process, which is what it is/should be. The idea is that you try to come (close) to a single conclusion, by negotiating and/or reasoning with others.
"You say the candidate has done an excellent job reporting vandals. How is that relevant to being an administrator though?"
"Which projects should the candidate look at, and how can it help them be a better admin?"
A lot of people say "but you can never get a group of people to agree on ANYTHING!" ... well that's true, not unless they learn how to, and then work at it as a desirable goal. :-)
Originally WP:RFA was not a vote at all. How it got to this current state is a fascinating process.
--Kim Bruning (talk) 00:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

At this point we deserve what we get

The problem I have with this entire discussion is this: We all know that RFA is a problem, there are many good ideas (and some bad ones) about what needs to be done to fix it. None can get consensus becuase there are always a few editors who come out and start yelling that the sky is falling and the whole idea is closed as failing consensus. I agree with the point of this discussion and why Dank created it, because we as a community have dismally failed at fixing the problem and now, we have left it up to Jimbo and the foundation to fix, as they see fit. I applaud Jimbo and the foundation for finally showing some leadership and stepping in to fix the situation we cannot. Personally though I think we should all be ashamed that it came to that and that we couldn't act like adults and pick a fix, right or wrong and try it, leaving it to Jimbo and the foundation. Now here we are again, Dank is trying to show that we have the ability to fix this problem and most of the editors here are nothing but boo's and hisses leaving opposes and diatribes about why they don't like it. I applaud Dank for the effort and think its great he is trying to fix this before we have a decision thrust upon us. Unfortunately I no longer share his faith or his enthusiasm in the system and at this point, my opinion is, we deserve what we are given if we cannot pull it together and come up with a solution. I personally like the idea of unbundling the tools and just letting users apply for what they want and need. I like the idea of scrapping the whole admin concept and stop the hat/badge collecting. I like several of the other ideas that have come out over the years too though. The point is we need to try something, anything and if it doesn't work we can try something else and continue to adjust fire until we are on target and we have a positive solution to the problem; not all this negativity towards those who are at least trying to come up with a solution. Kumioko (talk) 17:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks kindly Kumioko, but people have actually been pretty nice about it. I was pretty pessimistic when I started, but I'm getting more optimistic, I'll try to put an essay together to explain. If I had one wish for past RfA discussions (my wish for future RfA discussions is not to have them :), it would have been to break them into sections, and let everyone discuss and vote however they want ... in their own section. The problem is that each position has its adherents ... and the adherents get angry when people talk about anything else as if it might be a solution, so everyone is trying to talk over everyone, with predictable results. If Jimbo doesn't quash it, I'd like to suggest we have an RfC where we work simultaneously on 5 proposals ... with the ground rule that everyone has to pick just 2 of the 5 sections to discuss and vote in. That way, everyone can discuss and promote something they can get behind ... and if they really don't like one of the proposals, they can go oppose that one, but they can't oppose all of them. - Dank (push to talk) 19:18, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I would say that part of the answer lays with Admins. It has been said that RFA is far too hostile and unfair on the candidate due to the aggressive challenging and counter-challenging by supporters and opposers. An obvious solution to this problem is to introduce RfA moderators. The problem, as with most things, is getting the balance right. No one should be on the end of aggressive, big swinging dick, authoritarian, block threatening, old-fashioned, rule by fear Admins. That simply inflames the situation. Please & thank you can work wonders and a calm, neutral, phlegmatic approach can often take the sting out of difficult situations. So let the community select the moderators. Leaky Caldron 20:03, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree with that and I also think there should be a limit to the number of questions that be levied on a candidate. For one I think its unfair for one to get bombarded by 25 questions while another gets only three. Also because, IMO, many are redundant and if you haven't found the answers in the first say ten, then chances are the first ten weren't very good questions. Maybe we also need to reconsider the initial group of questions to match some of the common ones frequently asked. Perhaps scenario based? Regardless I do not have faith that we will solve this problem and we will be left with the solution presented to us by Jimbo and company. I hope I am wrong but years of debating this topic has left me with the feeling that we lack the ability to fix this process on our own. Kumioko (talk) 20:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
' aggressive, big swinging dick, authoritarian, block threatening, old-fashioned, rule by fear Admins' - I don't actually see much evidence to support any claim that such admins exist in significant numbers. If there are, then they should be named, diffs provided, and made accountable in the appropriate place(s). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung I could name half a dozen offhand and then I would be blocked for outing or some other thing. They are out there, in numbers, they run the wiki in packs sometimes. Just as promoting admins at RFA is turning tragic, the ability to remove the toolset is reaching epic proportions. Unless they leave, die or give them up voluntarily (and sometimes not even then) its nearly as hard to take the toolset away from a rogue admin than to fire an American GS employee. For those that know what I am talking about you know that's hard, for those that don't, just know, its damn hard to do. The easiest way to get rid of a GS employee is to promote them so their someone else's problem. In addition to making it easier to get promoted, the second half of the challenge is to make it easier to take away the tools. Kumioko (talk) 01:45, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I can't entirely disagree, in fact I could easily come up with six or seven names, and some of them are subtle enough to stay just outside being sanctioned while I am extremely relieved that a couple I know of have finally been relived of office. I have a very graphic imagination, and re-reading these recent threads I see something like the pages of pulp comic book flashing across my eyes with images of admins in fedoras, trench-coats, and truncheons roaming the streets of Wikipedia like a gang of vigilantes (like the Black Sherrifs in the Munich subway) looking for users to to block, newbies to bludgeon, and pages to burn. But having met you, I'm sure that's not really how you see the majority of admins ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:44, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Lol, no certainly not the majority of admins. Some perhaps. I think most genuinely believe they are doing the right thing, they just misunderstand what the right thing to do is. Some more frequently than others. I can think of several that seem to only see things in black and white with no grey let alone red, green, yellow, etc. that are often found in decisions regarding admin actions. So their decisions frequently are dramatic and draconian when often times a simple message will do. Some think its their personal job to be the edit police constantly following the same 4 or 5 users and checking every edit until the find something to block them for. IMO if you have to dig, its not worth the time. If its that big of a problem it will come out. Of course it could be argued, but even the copyvio's and socks are found out eventually though be it sometimes longer than we would prefer. Kumioko (talk) 11:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

RfC

Striking the part that doesn't have consensus Okay, if there are no objections, I'll start an RfC in this section later today. It will run for one week, and have two main goals:

  • Everyone is invited to post any RfA-related topic for discussion and vote. But please, use good judgment and only ask for a vote on things that have a chance of gaining consensus within a week. Bear in mind that it's been hard to get consensus for any single plan at RfA, for years. But don't let that stop you ... if you think the time is right, go for it.
  • This RfC will be set the ground rules for a three-week RfC following right after this one that will
  • [Let's] develop five different recommendations for RfA. At this point, it looks like they will be: "the same, maybe with some tweaks or lightweight clerking" (See WP:RFA2011), heavy clerking, some kind of elections, Rfacom (see above), "fix the real problem (community de-adminship, admin culture, whatever) before you fiddle with RfA", and "something else". If we can't figure out what the "something else" is during this weeklong RfC, then we'll let the voters figure it out as they go during the 3-week RfC. In the past, people have typically preferred just one of these approaches, so they've been positive about their approach and negative about all the others ... unfortunately, that's meant that every approach has generated a lot of negativity, and we've never figured out how to get past all that resistance and put together some well-developed plans that could gain consensus, so we largely gave up trying. To deal with that problem, we'll be voting in this RfC for a new ground rule for the 3-week RfC: each voter has to pick just two of the five sections to discuss and vote in ... and you can vote for or against and say whatever you want in the two sections you pick. - Dank (push to talk) 14:04, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't think limiting individuals to discussing 2/5 of the proposals is reasonable. If I have strong objections to two proposals, I can't even comment on the others? I understand we may need to move away from the standard consensus formula, but I still don't think that is the right way to do it. Monty845 14:45, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Seconding Monty's comment. I understand the fear of no consensus, but this would tend to generate false consensus, which might well be worse. Perhaps a ranking system, where people state first to fifth preferences? Espresso Addict (talk) 00:07, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I propose as an alternative method of decision the following: We agree to a 5 week process, the first 2 weeks would be to layout and refine specific proposals. Proposals should be discussed and improved during the 2 weeks, each editor will be permitted to endorse one proposal. Proposals with 5 or more endorsements move on to the 2nd phase, which would be a 3 week vote using Support/Oppose voting. The proposal with the highest level of support, as calculated by support/(support + oppose) is implemented, subject to a minimum 60% support. If more then one proposal passes the 60% threshold, to the extent that the other proposals do not conflict with the top voted proposal or each other, they will also be implemented. Monty845 14:54, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
    • That's not bad ... I have a few reservations but it could work. The thing to watch for is whether the pushback on each possible way forward keeps overwhelming the discussion to the point where the proposals don't even get developed properly. - Dank (push to talk) 14:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
      • Wonder where the 60% comes from? It is below the unwritten range that is considered "consensus", but more than a simple majority. Unfortunately I predict major drama will come from this(or any other threshold other than the elusive "consensus"). Perhaps an idea to put the acceptance threshold up to a strawpoll during the first two weeks (But what would be the threshold for that? Oh the humanity!). Yoenit (talk) 15:42, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
        • The 60% is I admit somewhat arbitrary. Certainly it should be at least 50%, but I think discussion on the exact threshold would be open for discussion. I went with 60% as a starting point compromise between simple majority support, and a percent stand in for consensus. Monty845 15:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Is it too early to create subsections for the four general directions (not much change, heavy clerking, Rfacom, "fix the real problem first") while we work on a structure, and wait for Wales to clarify his position? I know people want to get started on working up each of the proposals. - Dank (push to talk) 16:03, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
    • Any chance that this RfC can take place on its own page, or a subpage of this page? This is a very busy talk page, and I fear that staging a huge RfC on it will be a disservice to both your RfC and this talk page. ‑Scottywong| confess _ 16:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
      • No preference, really. If we do a week-long RfC just to set some ground rules for the real RfC, it wouldn't hurt to do that here. If we're going to start on the "real thing", I agree with you. - Dank (push to talk) 16:42, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

That is precisely why WP:RFA2011 was created. Not, as some may imagine, to provide Kudpung and cohort with a private workspace. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

  • This is mainly a reply to Kumioko's comment at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 123#RfA (not again!). Kumioko is pointing to the proliferation of proposals here as evidence we'll fail once again ... but I just want to be clear about the goals here. There will be a vote at some point, and some proposals will get more votes than others ... but along the way, "stakeholders" or subcommunities will form, and that's just as important for what comes next. For instance, if either Jimbo or the community picks Rfacom as the first thing to try, that doesn't mean that suddenly everything else is irrelevant ... the people who feel strongly about clerking would still have a clerking job to set up, the supporters of the current system would still have a very important job of making sure that what works in the current system isn't abandoned, and of course the "fix the real problem" people would still have exactly the same real problems to fix. Bottom line: I hope the subgroups that form will work to find whatever might pass for consensus in their own group, and then make the case to the rest of us, and keep at it regardless of the outcome of any one RfC. There's really very little that's been said here that can't be fit in some way into a solution. - Dank (push to talk) 19:04, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the update Dank and I want to clarify my intent isn't to be a naysayer or to doom this discussion. I think its great that so many editors are again showing interest in the topic. I also think that in order to fix the RFA problem multiple things are needed and they don't all necessarily have to happen at once. Many are mutually exclusive. For example setting up an RFAcom is a good idea but I fear that the initial success of it would be quickly overcome as another Arbcom. I also think that many of the other ideas are good too, disallowing stupid Oppose votes but again whats a stupid one? I think its stupid to oppose self noms, others disagree. I think its stupid to oppose on the grounds that someone was blocked once 3 years ago but I have seen that one too. I also think its stupid to ask one candidate 28 questions but another slides through with the minimum.

I think in order for RFA to not suck in the future we need to lay some more ground rules for the process as well as an RFAcom. We also need to give RFAcom some teeth and set some rules for them.

  1. Should they be able to ban someone from RFA?
  2. Can they revert a comment or question? Can they cut off the questions at some point?
  3. Can they just end an RFA if they feel the candidate doesn't meet the criteria?
  4. Would they be required to be admins themselves?
  5. Can they be on RFAcom and Arbcom or some other com at the same time?
  6. Does a reguler editors vote still matter if we have an RFAcom?
  7. Does their vote overrule the community?

These are all things to consider as we develop this new process. That is unfortunately why I think that it will fall to Jimbo. As we get farther into the process editors will start picking the proposals apart with what if scenarios. We have been down this road to many times for me to think that it will succeed. I do wish you the best of luck though and I am going to leave this discussion alone. Kumioko (talk) 19:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Kumioko, I'd like to put off responding to that until the different groups are working on each proposal separately. I agree with Kudpung that we already know quite a lot about the problems, and what we know is nicely written up, too. But I also agree with Hammer's main point, which I understand to mean: it's counterproductive to focus on solutions, focus on the problems. I think that's exactly right ... it's the main way we've gone astray in the past, everyone proposes solutions, but solutions don't allow consensus to form among like-minded people. To "come clean", I don't actually believe in only one solution ... Rfacom ... or even in just one view of the problem; there is huge support ... shared by all of us, probably, to one degree or another, for different views of the problem. The "status-quo" position isn't just what we're stuck with because we can't get it together to do anything else, there are good reasons for the status quo. The clerking proposals represent the view that the problem is that RfA can't work without additional rules. The "fix the real problem" position says the main problems are external to RfA, and that no amount of twiddling with RfA will fix the problems. I have some sympathy with all those views, and I hope we'll never let any of those views drop out of sight, no matter who happens to be "winning" at the moment. We need to hold on to what's working, we need to make rules, and we need to fix problems external to RfA.
  • The reason I proposed Rfacom is that, IMO, there's always been a view that the problem is that RfA doesn't work well because it's hard to do it right, that is, we don't attract the right candidates in the first place, or we don't treat them right, because we let anyone walk in off the street and make up the rules in RfA as they go along. And a lot of people have said things recently that imply that they share that view to some extent. It may look like voters are doing a fine job, as long as they get to say whatever they want about whatever topic they want ... but when it gets harder than that, when we're forced to consider whether such-and-such a statement is fair, or if it's being applied in the same way to all candidates, or whether we might be acting out of some bias or vested interest of our own, or whether we're saying too much or too little ... that's not a trivial problem any more, and not everyone can do it well, particularly if they have little experience at RfA. I respect all the tough work that Arbcom does, of course, but think a moment about what RfA voters are asked to do ... is it really so much easier to figure out who should be promoted than to figure out who should be banned? What would happen if Arbcom proceedings were a community vote, with Arbcom stepping in like bureaucrats at the end to decide consensus? It would be a clusterfrak ... and not because we weren't enforcing the right rules, and not because the problems are external to Arbcom ... but because it's really, really hard to do that stuff, and takes some serious time and some serious experience to do it in a way that at least tries to take everyone's concerns on board and get to a fair result. So ... I'm actually not sold on just one solution, the main goal is to get people together who share that view of the problem and see what we can come up with. But I was afraid that if I just talked about the problem and didn't have any solution to offer that looked promising (and people have responded very positively so far), people wouldn't get interested enough to work on it. - Dank (push to talk) 21:23, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I do not think we can proceed without a dedicated page with the statement what the problem is. And we can not proceed until we have somehow consensus that this is a problem, otherwise every solution is going to be voted out whatever reasonable it could be.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:32, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
That's been the problem, but I'd like to suggest there are two possible ways around it: Jimbo hasn't responded yet today, but what he's said so far suggests he's going to be willing to pick something that doesn't have consensus in the usual sense (but unless something big has changed, he'll want to see some kind of supporting discussion online). Also, after the four groups (and there are probably more) have figured out among themselves what the consensus within their group is, there's always a chance people will be willing to compromise ... we'll vote for your solution, at least in part, if you'll vote for ours. - Dank (push to talk) 21:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Btw, that may sound like politics, because it is, and politics should be the absolute last resort ... it would be better if any of the groups can put together something that's really persuasive and deals with a large chunk of the concerns of all the groups. But if that's not possible after putting in some real effort, it's not a sin to compromise, to acknowledge that I see it how I see it how I see it and you see it how you see it, so we might as well both get something we want. - Dank (push to talk) 22:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Have things slowed down a little? How about a straw poll where we ask people to agree with one of the following statements, with the idea that they will then spend most of their time talking with other people who share their views? Anything to add to this list? "I believe the main problem is that (pick one):"

  • we need to elect someone for something.
  • we need to enforce rules at RfA on what people can and can't say.
  • we need to focus on the real problem, not RfA.
  • since RfA usually reaches the right result and reform has never worked, we need to stop spending time on this.
  • something else - Dank (push to talk) 14:40, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
    I see it slighly differently. Smth like this.
    • Do we have (a) systemic problem(s) related to the activity of administrators in the project (yes/no);
    • Is the (main) problem RFA related (yes/no);
    • If we have the majority for double yes, go for the options (enforce RFA rules; change the RFA mechanism; make trial admins; make admins non-permanent; other ideas)
    • If the first is yes, the second is no, open the discussion;
    • If the first is no, we are not yet prepared to discuss the issue.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:45, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
We need to encourage discussion among like-minded people if we're going to get anywhere, and it doesn't work to tell people under what conditions they'll be allowed to talk. (Actually, that's not quite right ... it works well for people in the fourth group, who believe we should stop spending time on this.) I know that it would be ideal if everyone were rowing in the same direction, but we're not. - Dank (push to talk) 14:55, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
But if the majority believes the problem does not exist or is not FRA related, we will be just wasting time brainstorming.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
That's usually a good approach on Wikipedia ... because usually, we're trying to decide something people haven't made up their minds on, and if they have, we just keep trying ... the odds are that eventually things will tip one way or another. That's not going to happen with RfA reform, so we need a different approach. We know for certain at this point that significant numbers of people have significantly different ideas about the goals and the problems. And, all of the major views are right, at least in their main points.- Dank (push to talk) 15:14, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

On the basis of lack of empirical evidence I do not accept the following:

  1. That the current level of active & available Admin resource is inadequate to meet current and future (2 year) demand.

I would prefer to see evidence of a problem before considering how radical a solution is needed. However, I accept the following:

  1. Evidence shows a steady reduction in RfA candidates
  2. Evidence shows a drop over time in successful Admin applicants
  3. RfA, despite problems, still selects good calibre Admins
  4. Few if any rejected candidates were actually of sufficient calibre, despite the protestations of their supporters/nominators
  5. The most suitable candidates are almost always unknown to the majority of the community until they arrive at RfA and have not spent their entire wiki life grooming a coterie of supporters via IRC or making comments at every discussion board
  6. Too many candidates are unprepared, immature or lacking in effective communication skills but are still heavily supported
  7. Admin is seen as community recognition / promotion and RfA itself as an election
  8. RfA can be hostile
  9. RfA is not managed
  10. Admins selected on a nod and a wink in the old days may not be suitable for Admin activities in the current era
  11. Admin for life is an obvious impediment to the reduction in antagonistic questioning of many borderline candidates at RfA
  12. The supporting of candidates in droves before a question has been answered is a clear demonstration of a popularity pole via social networking and should be prevented by a simple block on voting until an enhanced set of questions have been answered
  13. Simple solutions can be implemented to resolve these issues but there is little collective will to change the system
  14. Imposed solutions from Foundation will not result in better quality Admins than currently selected by the community
  15. Unfortunately the efforts on this page risk becoming a severe case of WP:TL;DR.

Leaky Caldron 15:43, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

As with many of the comments here, that seems very intelligent, Leaky, but I still think we're stuck. I'd like to see consensus that a straw poll is okay, as a first step to encouraging people to pick a direction and get to work. If the straw poll idea doesn't get support, then I'll invite everyone who's been in one of the recent RfA conversations to consider joining one of the 4 discussion groups. I don't know what else will work, at this point. tweaked - Dank (push to talk) 17:40, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
As Hammersoft pointed out and per my opening point, can those who claim that the reduced number of Admins being confirmed is actually a problem? Intuitively it should be, but is it in actuality? There needs to be a measure of demand and supply with regard to the amount of Admin work and the queues for the various services provided. Simply claiming an impending calamity because candidate numbers have reduced (for whatever reason) is not convincing when we have no evidence of resource demand outstripping supply. It doesn't mean that RfA reform shouldn't happen but it helps to determine how big a change or whether just tweaks is required. Leaky Caldron 17:51, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
At the extensive WP:RFA2011 discussions, there was consensus that the process could probably produce better results if some rules on what could and couldn't be said were added. There was no consensus that anyone was required to prove that Wikipedia would fall apart if no action was taken, only that any change should be a change for the better. Also: are you okay with the disenfranchisement an entire wiki-generation? (I'm guessing a wiki-generation is about two years, heh.) There were about half as many promotions last year as the year before, and about a quarter as many as three years before. As a basic question of fairness, is it appropriate to make it four times as hard for new Wikipedians to get to a place where they can close some of the most important RfCs, to pick just one admin function? (Note: the usual answer is "our standards were poor four years ago, and we're paying for it now, so we don't have a choice". But that's the wrong answer, because the number of candidates has also fallen dramatically, so there's a problem with the perceived nastiness, intrusiveness and/or unfairness of the process ... it's possible that if we fix that problem, the number of successful RfAs could jump with no lowering of standards at all.) - Dank (push to talk) 18:06, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
There is no doubt that standards must have been lax to have allowed some of our Admins to pass RfA in years gone by. I happen to think the current standard is about right but that if some of the simple points above were addressed many more good candidates would be willing to come forward. I'm not too bothered about disenfranchising a generation of IRC, social networking, hat seeking college kids - no. It is interesting though that you have confirmed what I suspected - the alleged numbers issue is a perceived one - not a proven one. I don't think it appropriate to consider radical reform when the perceived problem is more about concern for people's sensibilities rather than a genuine threat to stability due to lack of numbers. Leaky Caldron 18:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, changed "happy with disenfranchising" to "okay with the disenfranchisement" ... I'm not blaming you, of course. It sounds like fairness (along with the broader consequences of inequality) is a bigger concern for me than for you ... fair enough :) I don't want to fight with you. In order of what I'd most like to see: 1. Whatever solution I wind up supporting (of course :) 2. Any solution involving a consensus of people who roughly share my view that we can probably craft some kind of rules to make RfA better than it is 3. Any consensus by anyone ... or even a political solution, meaning that any two groups (who don't initially agree) decide to compromise in order to get up to 70% or whatever in a vote 4. A solution picked by Jimbo that at least follows the outlines of some proposal that some group has agreed to. 5. A solution that Jimbo pulls out of ... the air. We're still waiting on Jimbo to clarify, but since the last thing he said was that he was going to make a proposal that involves him stepping in when we can't reach consensus, starting with RfA, I'd rather assume that he meant what he said, and I'd rather beat him to it and come up with something that a big chunk of us can support, if we can. - Dank (push to talk) 18:33, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Not so sure about fairness not being as big a concern to me. WP is full of inequalities but what I don't want to see is a bunch of new recruits under an easier process mimicking their Admin nominators by threatening to block content rich contributors who occasionally step out of line in an RfA or other discussion. The existing process safeguards against that and with a few minor tweaks would be more welcoming. No need to reinvent the already round wheel! Leaky Caldron 18:46, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Quite right ... I didn't mean "fairness not being as big a concern" in the sense of being less moral or less enlightened ... sorry, I'm working fast. More on your talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 19:24, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Is (4) really generally accepted? Based on when complaints arise about the process, it seems pretty likely that the vast majority of concern is about candidates whose suitableness is disputed; people who've been around for a while, made some friends, but have questionable events in their past (especially when they get early support, which drops as questionable events are brought to light). Whether or not those candidates are suitable isn't clear (and indeed, I'd certainly oppose someone I thought had a 50-50 chance of being a suitable admin - but if such judgement is right, half the time I'm be opposing a suitable candidate.) WilyD 09:44, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Jc37's proposal is taking a beating ... but anything that gets people to express an opinion is good, because any complex negotiation has to start with learning, even in a vague way, where people stand. So, we need more bad (but plausible) ideas that generate a big reaction ... anyone? :) When this phase finishes, when everyone has had a chance to say something that suggests where they stand, the next step ... and this is where we usually fall down ... is to "go to our corners", to get people who basically agree with each other to figure out the best, most attractive proposal they've got, so they can try to win the skeptics over, without letting the skeptics bog down the discussion while it's going on (mostly unintentionally). - Dank (push to talk) 15:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

@Leaky Cauldron, I disagree with several of those points, but in particular the idea that the question section is so important. Personaly I think that reviewing the candidate's contributions is far more important and a !vote based purely on a review of contributions is generally going to be more useful than one based purely on a review of the q&A section. So I'd replace "The supporting of candidates in droves before a question has been answered is a clear demonstration of a popularity pole via social networking and should be prevented by a simple block on voting until an enhanced set of questions have been answered" with "One should always be suspicious of votes in the first half hour, unless the candidate and !voter have extensive interactions such votes imply that less than half an hour has been spent assessing the candidate". I'd also dispute the idea that RFA usually gets it right when it rejects candidates, judging from the number of useful admins who failed their first RFA or sometimes more than their first I think we have pretty good evidence that RFA does sometimes reject people who would have made good admins, and there have been plenty of rejected candidates who have never run again. ϢereSpielChequers 03:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Adminship and social skills

Admins' duties seem to be dividable into fairly straightforward tasks such as technical page moves and oversighting, and tasks requiring fine social judgment, such as page protection, and blocking for behaviour other than obvious vandalism, spamming and threats. By bundling these two tasks, technical adminship and social stewardship, into the one job description we set the bar too high for technical admins and too low for social stewards. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

It's the internet. No-one here has fine social judgement. DrKiernan (talk) 14:54, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
↑ This. ‑Scottywong| spill the beans _ 15:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:Moderators/Proposal, user:Jc37 proposes a new user group, moderator, with all the sysop rights but those that involve the assessing of user behaviour. Jc37 proposes that admins who don't want to deal with the drama here, may renounce the behaviour modification tools and switch from admin to moderator. I think we should have separate selection processes for new moderators and administrators. That way we would have a larger pool of technical admins to choose from and could ensure the admins blocking, banning and protecting, are well suited to the task. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea, but a very awkward division. Boiling it down, it's a proposal to give a set of editors the delete button and the authority to use it in all the regular adminnish ways, but not the protect, semiprotect, or block buttons. I suspect that anyone thinking that the delete button is just a technical, content-only, not-at-all social or user conduct-related tool are not familiar with...well, the delete button. Admins using the deletion tool (whether responding to CFD and PROD templates, or closing AfD discussions) are probably the ones most likely to encounter difficult social situations involving potentially good-faith, possibly-recruitable new editors who nevertheless are angry (because their articles are being (considered for) deletion), and who lack sufficient Wikipedia experience to competently navigate a deletion discussion. Breaking out individual tools from the admin toolbox also invites "I only have a hammer, so the hammer is the tool I will use" problems. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
The rawness of the emotions at CFD, PROD and AfD discussions makes it more important that only editors with fine social judgement are wielding the block tool in those environments. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
"Administrators are expected to uphold the trust and confidence of the community,..." so it says here WP:ADMIN. For me, an obvious lack of empathy, knowledge and maturity etc. is enough to say, "no thanks, I don't trust you". Until Admin is removable in quick time without fuss, the higher standard needs to apply to all candidates. The one's choosing to work in a techy dungeon, if one exists, are not exempted. Leaky Caldron 16:36, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
We don't have the luxury of selecting only highly socially sensible people for all the tasks presently covered by admins because we need so many, and there aren't that many people here with demonstrated social sense. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Prove it. Show me the lengthening queues awaiting Admin intervention or the existing Admins complaining about creaking under the strain. Sledgehammers are rarely any use - other than for destroying things. Leaky Caldron 18:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I thought we had a shortage of admins. Sorry if I'm wrong there. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Leaky: en.wiki itself is stagnating at best, if not declining (the one measure on which one could argue we are growing is overall article count, but even then the rate of growth is slowing). If the very way the site operates isn't contributing to us levelling off, then what is? —WFC— FL wishlist 18:14, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
IMO, it's dubious that the difficulty of RfA is a major factor in that, though. Much more likely is that this stagnation is be due to ever-rising standards and hoops to jump through to avoid summary deletion of new articles or reversion of new users' edits. And the fact that most interaction with new users is a "welcome" template full of policy links and templated warnings of whatever they do wrong; at least things like the Teahouse are changing some of that. There may also be some truth to the statement that much of the "low-hanging fruit" has already been picked outside of some niche areas. Anomie⚔ 18:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Oh, RfA is a very small part of that, without question. Even adminship is only one piece of the jigsaw, albeit a sizeable one. But those other things you mention, as well as many others and indeed other permissions, are all interelated. IMO it is the very culture of the site (primarily SOP, to a lesser extent civility) which needs a complete overhaul, and it is meaningless to attempt to do so without all the main focal points being involved.

With enough will, I think the community is capable of reforming almost any aspect of Wikipedia in a way that better meeds modern needs. This is the exception. —WFC— FL wishlist 18:44, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

(ec)The principle behind all this (giving mops to janitors and gavels to judges), is one I've been pushing for ages. A combination of disagreement over the mechanism, and a vested interest from some, has always been the stumbling block. And it's no longer just a matter of believing that there might be a better way. There simply must be, and we simply must find it. The options appear to be to either do something radical, to do nothing and most likely decline, or to have someone turn us back into an autocracy. —WFC— FL wishlist 18:14, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Still, no proof that existing Admin capacity is unable to meet current demand for Admin. intervention is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. A reduction in RfA candidates doesn't automatically equal an imminent shortage in terms of supply & demand. Why is it so difficult to measure what we need by way of Admin. resource, rather than assuming that we must have the same number of Admins coming forward every year? Leaky Caldron 18:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I didn't respond to your earlier call for a reason to reform. Not because I was ignoring it, nor because of any lack of respect for you – I didn't respond because I take it for granted that no-one seriously feels that everything is running hunky dory. Evidently I was wrong.

For me, the only pressing need for more admins is the same as it always has been – dealing with users whose only interest is to harm Wikipedia (I'm primarily talking about vandalism, but leaving it just that little bit more open-ended because there are other ways in which it happens). Whenever we protect a page that is not in the global spotlight (currently or perennially, an example of the latter being a living person on this list) for any length of time whatsoever, we do so because there is not a hope in hell of stopping the vandals through other means.

But the problem is that it's not as simple as saying "so let's get more admins". One decision by an admin can make a huge difference. It only takes one admin to close a policy RfC for instance. As a direct result of one tight decision by an admin with little understanding of the subtleties of the objections (closing on the assumption that there is either consensus for everything or consensus for nothing; a "black-and-white basis" as I call it) 5% of the entire project's articles now cover association football, and a massive proportion of those are 'biographies' of living people. The fact that we create more football articles every day is good in theory, but does an ever-increasing repository of stats and one-liners on ordinary people with low-profile careers bring us closer to fulfilling our purpose? [in my opinion this is something best handled through a combination of lists and Wikidata] Or does it fuel the perception that Wikipedia is not a serious attempt at being a comprehensive, balanced encyclopaedia? Regardless of your answer, surely the fact that one admin making one decision can have such a huge influence gives you pause for thought at RfA? That's a very specific example, but more generally and widely, whenever admins make decisions which seem ill-judged or improper at places such as ITN (and DYK to a lesser extent) – places in which qualitative arguments are significant factors – it drives newbies and regulars alike away from those areas.

Therefore, the point Anthony makes is spot on. It is madness that we could trust hundreds upon hundreds of people to block those who have never done anything but vandalise/harrass/attack/do exactly what a blocked user was doing a minute ago/etc on sight, but don't give them the means to do so because they haven't mastered the subtleties involved with closing a qualitative discussion. Or because they once called a dick a dick. We need more janitors, and while I won't comment on how many judges we should have, we should assess them in their suitability for that very specific, very difficult role. —WFC— FL wishlist 19:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Rfacom

Inserted: my guess from the subsequent discussion is that the Rfacom proposal won't get consensus, so let's take this one off the table. - Dank (push to talk) 14:38, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

First: I hope people will go along with my suggestion to have an RfC with 5 proposed solutions to the RfA mess where everyone has to pick just 2 of 5 sections to comment in ... I really think that's the only way to do it that's fully respectful of the different positions. Some say that the problem is with what adminship has turned into, others say the problem is that the community can't demote admins ... and therefore, if we spend all our energy twiddling with the RfA process itself, we're actually hurting rather than helping, by diverting attention from the real problem. And there are several attractive proposals around on RfA itself. I have no beef with those other arguments ... it's just that when you have so many completely different perspectives all trying to talk at once, people haven't been able to figure out how to distill all that into an attractive, coherent proposal to vote on. So let's work kind of separately and kind of together.

Second: one proposal has been for what you might call "Rfacom", a group of 15 or so people elected every year to be the RfA voters for that year. [Disclaimer: this isn't self-promotion of any kind; neither I nor my closest wiki-friends (I think) will ever run for something like this.] The whole community still gets to participate in all RfAs, on the talk page ... but only offering relevant facts (or what they think are facts), not offering votes or opinions on the candidate or opinions on standards. Crats would continue to make the call on consensus, but only on the consensus of the 15 voters. Jimbo would have veto power in the yearly Rfacom election in case a nutjob gets voted in. (And just as with Arbcom, that role would very likely become ceremonial, as soon as it's clear that nutjobs aren't getting elected.) There are a lot of positives and negatives to this proposal ... but we haven't discussed it in a long time, for the simple reason that it's not going to get a strong consensus ... in part because, as I say, there are a lot of people who think the real problem is something else so the real solution needs to be something else ... but also because a significant number feel that the "wrong people" are already running the system, and that "crowning" the people already in power would just make a bad problem worse. But even though it won't get consensus at first, it might gain consensus ... if people see that it's working the way it's supposed to. That is, say you feel strongly about anti-religious userboxes (with apologies to you-know-who :) Say you have a tendency to bring it up once too often ... then everyone yells at you, and some potential candidate who once had a userbox you don't like decides that the environment at RfA is too toxic and doesn't run ... people not running and getting turned off to the whole system is a lot of the current problem. But if even one of the Rfacom members understands and shares your concerns, they'll bring it up (especially if you alert them on the RfA talk page about it) ... but they'll do it tactfully, and more important, only when it might actually make a difference to the outcome. So instead of voters bringing up the same points over and over just to make sure everyone is listening ... with the result that no one is listening ... you have a committee of voters sensitive to what the community thinks are important issues (because we have 10 years of RfAs telling us that!), bringing those issues up as needed. If done right, instead of the minority voices getting buried, the minority voices get even more representation than they have now ... because there's less being said during each RfA, and it's being said with more tact and gravitas. If people see that happening, then consensus for this proposal is possible.

As I said, this hasn't come up in a while because there was no point. But I think this is something Jimbo might actually go for ... and recent comments by a lot of people have suggested to me that the tide of opinion is turning, maybe not in this direction but in some direction close to this one. Any thoughts or pros or cons or alternatives would be very, very welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 20:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I entirely endorse your first proposal Dank. That's the most sensible proposal I've seen for some time. However, expressing alternative views about what the the admin system might be is becoming a fraught process on Wikipedia. I'm pessimistic that there is a collective will amongst admins to change anything much other than further consolidating their power over content developers. A recent arbcom decision included a reference to (in the context what I take to be my views about the admin system) "blind vitriol". I take that as a warning against dissent, and as an indicator that the new arbitration committee is gearing itself to clamp down on dissenting viewpoints. An arbitrator has also made a current assertion that arbitrators support the view that admin power comes as a single package, and is not to be unbundled. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
'I'm pessimistic that there is a collective will amongst admins to change anything much other than further consolidating their power over content developers.' Everyone is entitled to their thoughts but there is absolutely no evidence to support such a view. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:43, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
How can you possibly say that Kudpung. There is endless and compelling evidence in the form of admins and their retinues smothering constructive proposals for change, particularly if they might encroach on the existing admin power base. But backward-looking recrimination is not the way to go. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:07, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Although I don't necessarily agree that Admins are the source of the problem I mostly agree with Kudpung. The majority of the community seems, based on previous discussions on this topic, lacking the will to do any major changes to this. Kumioko (talk) 01:28, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Most participants in these discussions are admins and their retinues. People working to build the encyclopedia often want to focus on their work, and find these policy discussions too fraught and intimidating to want to participate. The power is too asymmetric. I participate in these so far unproductive discussions, because I want a better deal for dedicated content builders, and because I think Wikipedia is too important to allow a dysfunctional admin system to wreck it. That said, I think there has been a marked improvement over the last year, partly due to the influence of exemplary admins like Dennis Brown and Worm. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:30, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
If you would like to see changes enacted, perhaps you should try running for adminship yourself. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 03:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I'd likely support such an RfA, but I don't think that would help drive policy changes. It's not like admins get more votes or something. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't know if your talking to me about running for RFA or Epipelagic but I have already run twice and failed. I don't have any desire to run again. Someday maybe but not anytime in the near future. If the comments were for Epipelagic then I agree they should run. Kumioko (talk) 11:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
The vast majority of mature, serious content builders have nothing to fear, do not need policing, and hence do not feel the need to be part of the background processes. A 'dysfunctional admin system' is rather a sweeping claim - there are some rogues amongst them indeed, but to tar them all with the same 'wrecker' brush is not really appropriate. Some users would prefer a Wikipedia without admins, but the result would be anarchy, crap content, and little reason for those of us who care for quality of content and collaboration to continue contributing at all. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:18, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung, take a look at the system as it actually is. A system whose members are appointed for life, where most members were appointed years ago when standards for admins were very low, where members who have little or no experience with content building can block any content builder, no matter how experienced and able, on little more than whim; where those blocks, once made, remain forever as a red flag and indicator to other admins that they may now block again with less impunity, putting the editor on an increasingly slippery slope. A system where, as this thread is being written, another thread on the blocking policy is advocating that experienced editors, once blocked, should thenceforth be blocked indefinitely and without waning. One of the proponents of this approach claims that content editors feel no pain when this done, discarding the clear evidence from content builders on the same page that such treatment can be the most painful and humiliating experience that can happen on Wikipedia. Reminds me of two articles I wrote, the consciousness of animals and pain in fish. Admins should be assured that, however lowly we may be, content builders are still conscious beings and we do experience pain.
A huge sense of ownership currently runs through the admin ethos, even though most admins have done little to write the encyclopedia. As you know, there has hardly ever been a case where an admin has been sanctioned for insulting and/or punitively blocking content builders. Sanctions are, however, readily applied if an admin upsets other admins. And you are wrong if you are including me when you say "some users would prefer a Wikipedia without admins". I certainly want admins, and I want them better empowered, not less, but in ways that are sensitive to those of us who have come here to build the encyclopedia, instead of treating us as an inferior class and even as the enemy. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I think you mean "with more impunity", not "with less impunity", although a different word entirely might work better. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 08:07, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, from emails and comments on user talk pages (check my contribs if you're curious) and here, the vote is running 20 to 1 in favor. I think if we're trying to come up with (say) five proposals, this one should make the cut. Personally, I like the work that Kudpung and others did too. Wales said he'll have something for us soon. - Dank (push to talk) 04:14, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I think this Jimbo thing is being blown way out of proportion; Jimbo's trying to propose a way to get us out of corner solutions / constitutional issues such as the RFA situation. I'm sure his solution will look at the bigger picture rather than focusing on RFA. --Rschen7754 04:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I think Jimbo is our best hope at this point. We have proven incapable of fixing the problems, whatever they may be, ourselves. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 04:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
  • @Epipelagic I've taken a very good look at the system as it actually is and that's why I became Wikipedia's most fervent campaigner for reform. I am well aware there has hardly ever been a case where an admin has been sanctioned for insulting and/or punitively blocking content builders.
You would be surprised to learn that the very reason I became interested in admins (long before I even thought of becoming one) was because I was mercilessly insulted by an admin and finally bullied by him off one topic area of content work where professionally I had most to offer this encyclopedia. So I wanted to know more about who these 'sysops' are and how they get to become one. Lo and behold, years later that same admin who had never voted on an RfA before, left the most hateful RfA vote and comments - certainly blockworthy if coming from a 'lowly' editor - I have ever seen. That admin is no longer an admin although it took 7 long years to get rid of him. That RfA was mine.
So you see, I'm the last person to claim that all admins are angels. It is interesting to note however that the admin concerned was 'promoted' (36/9/5) in 2005 with only 5 (FIVE) namespace edits - and (I'll stand corrected) that's the period where most of the badmins come from. Ironically, with everyone screaming that today's bar for adminship is too high, is that what they want us to go back to while at the same time as making it easier to desyop? That's why I became an admin (after much badgering to run at RfA): to press for change and to protect 'inferior' people like you from the likes of admins like him, and good admins and RfA candidates from the likes of some non admins who persistently vote negatively (not to be confused with opposing for legitimate reasons), and disparage the work of the reformists. So you see again, that you and I are really on the same side, although our approaches are very different indeed. If you really want to know what adminship is like on my side of the fence, all you have to do is nominate yourself tomorrow, your RfA wouldn't - couldn't - be any more humiliating than mine was. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:37, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Let's assume from now on that, while we may sometimes disagree and come at things from different angles, we are both operating from essentially the same page, since it seems that is so :) --Epipelagic (talk) 07:56, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung, if you and Epipelagic are becoming good friends, can you please try to explain to him why hyperbolic distortions of the views of people he disagrees with don't really advance discussion? I've tried, but it's clear the point isn't getting across.—Kww(talk) 18:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
What distortion? --Epipelagic (talk) 20:28, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Hopefully, someone else participating in this discussion will try to explain it to you. I've tried, and apparently only succeeded in increasing the freedom you feel to distort my statements. Personally, I find it hard to take your protestations of ignorance at face value. Perhaps others can.—Kww(talk) 20:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I think Epipelagic should submit an RfA. I'm not saying I would support them, but I believe that if one wants to participate in these types of discussions about the future of RfA, it helps to have first hand experience with the process. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 18:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
No it doesn't and I find that statement truly divisive. I have no first hand experience and no desire to seek it. Non-candidates can still contribute effectively here, regardless what anyone thinks of their contributions, without experiencing RfA personally. Leaky Caldron 19:33, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
If you have never run for adminship, how do you know if it helps? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 20:54, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't see why it would help to have experienced an RfA in order to participate in discussions about reforming the process. You ran and withdrew prematurely. If that limited experience helps you participate in these discussions, fine but suggesting that running for Admin. would help any other contributor form an opinion on the process is presumptuous. Leaky Caldron 22:44, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Again, if you have never ran for adminship, then you really don't know if it would help anyone form an opinion. I'm not trying to discredit those who have never run, I'm simply trying to point out that it stands to reason that one would know a little bit more about a process if he had personally experienced it. The problem is, most people don't want to go through it because it is such a mess. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 19:46, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Thoughts

As long as RfA is about voting to indicate an individual's "trust" in a candidate, rfa will be what it is.
If we ditch JUSTAVOTE and METOO, and just focus on each person's explanatory argument and/or examples, then we might get somewhere. But as it stands, it's support your friends, oppose your not-friends, with typically only a few actually looking in contribs, or bringing actual person experience of an editor to the table.
If you want to change it, change the expectation of what the closer is to assess. But as long as people are hung up on percentages, this will be what it is. - jc37 21:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I know one way to change this, but nobody would like this, including me. Instead of one vote (yes/no/neutral) make the whole table, with, I do not know, ten criteria: experience, content contributions, dispute resolution contributions, XfD contributions, familiarity with policies etc. Each point must be voted as yes/no/neutral, blank votes are not accepted (or become neutral). On top of this, there is a final vote which does not need to be a weighted sum of the partial votes. However, if the whole matrix is displayed, it is obvious who is voting for friends without looking at the contribution, and who actually did their homework. And eventually unjustified votes can be discarded whatever.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
How do you determine characteristics such as maturity, judgement and other non-button related attributes? I'm not interested how good someone is in some obscure technical area. I want rounded, mature, sensible and calm in a crisis Admins. I don't see a table determining that. Leaky Caldron 21:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Again, this comes back to the expectation of what we are asking the closer to assess and weigh and what to discount or ignore.
And thus, based upon that expectation, what we're asking commenters to bring to the discussion. - jc37 21:48, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
To take maturity as an example, it is determined from the search of contributions, answers to the questions and often from the reaction to the comments. It just takes time.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:51, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
(ec) - And drive-by voting typically does none of those things. - jc37 21:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Actually, in my proposal it would be easier to have the partial votes without the final vote, and then let the closer(s) decide what is relevant. The problem with such approach would be that if I know someone is an asshole I would vote them down, but often it would be very difficult to break this into partial votes. Assholes can be mature, experienced with AfD or even familiar with the policies.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:54, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
How your voting "against assholes" is better for Wikipedia than their voting "for friends"? In both cases, social considerations overweight actual fitness of a candidate for the task. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 08:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I am not saying it is better, I am saying it is more difficult to split into partial votes. If I think someone would be a good admin, I should be able to explain why. This is what the partial votes are about. If I think someone will be a bad admin, it is sometimes notoriously difficult to pinpoint exactly why, and the problems, though real, are not always very well visible. I am sure you know some examples.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Certainly ☺ Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:45, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I support Ymblanter's suggestion. Under the current system, any little ignoramus who has chatted on IRC for ten days can amass enough support to become an admin, and attack long-standing editors of the highest calibre, driving them away from Wikipedia. That these people (who universities would fight to employ) are treated with such disdain by a pack of semiliterate high school kids is depressing, because it spells the writing on the wall for wikipedia. As a result, the vast majority of currently active sysops appear to be teens who, judging by their lack of interest in contributing content, fail at school and can't do Pythagoras theorem. Some seem to hate learning and hate knowledge. They spend most of their time chatting on IRC making infrequent appearances on Wikipedia only when rallied by other IRC admins to add their voices to a chorus of support. Hence my contempt for the Wikipedia officialdom. --Ghirla-трёп- 14:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm not seeing the "voting for friends and against non-friends" thing very much; I believe the pile-on phenomenon is more significant - someone finds something in the candidate's history, mentions something they are aware of as a rationale, and others are attracted to that point or issue, in either agreement or disagreement. And I see a lot of evidence that the size of the project means there are far fewer editors with a high enough profile to be generally well known; that issue often arises in current RfAs in the guise of "seen them around" notes, assessment of trust of the nominators as proxies, and points about inadequate experience ("I would have expected to have seen this person more at X, Y, Z" or "Yes, they don't have much experience, but I've seen them at X and liked what I've seen"). Also, starting with my own RfA (a contender for oddest RfA), I've seen a number of examples where quantification would have been difficult. I suspect formalizing criteria in such a manner would take us away from "Does this person seem low-risk" and I believe we want to move back toward that. Partly because ... and I hoped I wouldn't have to be the one to say this ... there's a real elephant in the room with large parts of the community fearing admin abuse. I found out after the fact that over the holidays, there were several cases that overall tempt one to use terms like "nuttery". The fall-out has included long-term editors leaving the project and admins hanging up their tools. Unless this fear is addressed, of course RfA is often going to be a gauntlet. Proposed solutions to the dwindling size of the active admin corps that don't address it can at best be deckchair arrangement, and - especially if imposed by the Foundation or Jimbo - may make that problem worse; and whatever one feels about the merits of the fear or the behavior of participants at RfA that may be a result of it, driving away either productive non-admin editors or active admins isn't helping the project. So there is clearly a whole additional dimension to this problem, and it needs to be taken into account. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Then you may appreciate my thoughts here. - jc37 22:12, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Not withstanding the time that would be spent on the elections, I think the RFACOM proposal has a lot going for it. My main question would be how would the vote work? If we ran it like arbcom, there is a real risk that a sleight of candidates who support specific RFA criteria may get elected and radically shift who gets made an admin. I would suggest each voter gets at most 1-5 votes, so that minority view points are more likely to be represented. As to the special rules RFC idea, I continue to believe we would need to first hold a conventional RFC on that, so that the result of the special rules RFC is clearly legitimate. Monty845 23:15, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Having voted on around 200 RfA and closely analysed 100s of others, I find the 'voting for friends and against non-friends' thing very much in evidence - it's not difficult to prove either. RfA is partly very definitely a popularity/unpopularity contest, but that said, I'm not sure that such votes actually have much impact on the end result - whether it's a nice place or not, RfA still does its job: those who should pass generally do, and those who should not generally don't; borderline cases are still extremely rare. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
@Leaky: 'I want rounded, mature, sensible and calm in a crisis Admins.' I believe that at the end of the day that's what we all want. The way to achieve it is to have rounded, mature, sensible and calm voters; but there are no tabular metrics than can express those qualities in candidates. It's very easy to demonstrate what RfA candidates have done wrong, but not so easy to express that most of them do in fact do most things right most of the time - this does not mean however that their RfA should succeed.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:20, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
What we actually need is rounded, mature, sensible and calm candidates (the type who, despite RfA these days, still pass without drama) and who, if successful have a 4 month probation period and a 2 year renewable tenure. Nominators need to be more thorough and willing to accept, when the need arises, that their preferred candidate is not quite ready, due to facts arising during scrutiny, rather than clinging to the idea that their protege is fail safe and needs some sort of protection from community scrutiny. Kids who arrive and immediately push themselves into the limelight in order to gain a following need to be put right to the back of the queue. If the benchmark for candidates is raised the clamour that surrounds RFA will diminish. There is no need to constantly blame those who challenge the competence of a hat collecting adolescent who is seeking powerful rights for life over the editors who actually do the encyclopaedic work here. Introduce moderators for RFA - provided we get the highest calibre, not the gun slinging, block threatening type I recently encountered in an ACE2012 discussion (might even have been a member of Arbcom). Leaky Caldron 12:15, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Isn't the lack of borderline cases actually a symptom of the problem? No-one goes near RfA unless they're sure of winning, either because they know they have substantial support, or because they're delusional enough to think they do. Those in the middle wouldn't go near it. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:41, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
The success rate argues otherwise. Last year there were 28 successful and 68 unsuccessful. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Which over recent years irrespective of the number of RfAs, is fairly consistent: roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of all RfA fail for whatever reason. Some aren't even captured in the stats because they are deleted as non-starters immediately on transclusion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:06, 9 January 2013 (UTC). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:06, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Final rates don't tell us much, because that's just counting pass/fail, not how close they came. My point is that current RfA candidates seem to fall into only two groups: those with a clear chance of winning (good, but rare) and those with no hope, but who don't realise this (we probably don't want them anyway). The process is thus excluding the middle ground, people who might pass but not obviously so, and who also comprise a large number of good editors who would make good admins. Our process is denying us these people as a resource. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I haven't nominated anyone for over a year and I stopped trying to persuade people to run some time before that; But in my experience the most common reason why qualified candidates don't want to run is that RFA is such a toxic and horrible process. If we can reform RFA and make it less toxic, less arbitrary and more focussed on whether or not someone would make a good admin then there are plenty of well qualified people out there who would run. ϢereSpielChequers 01:53, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
It so toxic precisely because the community cannot agree amongst itself what qualities indicate someone will be a good admin. Monty845 15:45, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that we can't agree on what to look for when assessing admin candidates; But I am convinced that RFA isn't structured for such agreement to emerge. If we had an RFC to settle at last some of the RFA criteria then we could decouple the two debates - does this candidate meet the criteria? and what should the criteria be? ϢereSpielChequers 08:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Another solution looking for a problem

  1. Over the many years, there have been literally dozens of ideas for RfA 'reform'. Almost all of them (I can think of only one that didn't) were proposed as solutions without any careful analysis of extant problems. This proposal is no different. It perceives problems and suggests a solution. This, as opposed to careful research to identify problems first. I can't tell you a hammer is the right tool if I don't know what the job is.
  2. This proposal would almost certainly result in RfaCom being comprised entirely of administrators. This will create an even greater divide between administrators and the community.
  3. The notion that a mass of people can produce something good was tried in 2001. You're reading a page from it right now. Creating RfaCom effectively says that the mass of people are no good at this, so we're breaking the Wikipedia model.
  4. Wikipedia already suffers from a bloat of bureaucracy. This just makes it worse.
  5. As with anything, there will be unintended consequences. Where is the analysis of potential pitfalls, and strategies for managing them?
  6. What methods do you intend to use to evaluate success of this proposal if it is accepted? This is probably unanswerable at this point because without identification of problems, there's no way to know if this 'solution' is fixing anything. I could be happily hammering away at all these nails I'm putting into the wall, not realizing the car won't start. That's what not identifying problems first causes.

I don't believe there is one golden spike, one golden solution to all that ails RfA. It's a broken system; everyone seems to be able to agree on that. Eventually, if nobody can figure out a better way to do it, you have to acknowledge that as broken as it is it's working better than anything anyone can come up with. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:42, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Hey, I'm as shocked as you are, asking people to vote to voluntarily give up their right to vote is a little crazy :) But you and Jc37 are the only ones who have disapproved so far ... I've asked a few other people if this was or wasn't in line with their own proposals, and you can see the answers I've gotten so far on this page, and on their talk pages (User talk:Sphilbrick, User talk:Kumioko, User talk:Kudpung, User talk:Mbisanz, User talk:Ymblanter and my talk page). With this much support, it's worth at least keeping the conversation going until we can figure out whether we've got a lemon or lemonade here. And ... there's a chance that any proposal will fail, so I totally support building other proposals simultaneously ... it sounds like you're in favor of "small tweaks only" and "fix the real problem", which are both sure to get a lot of support. - Dank (push to talk) 16:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I'm not in favor of anything because, like you, I haven't identified the problems that need to be solved. I like hammers. I really do. But, they make miserable tools for starting cars that won't start. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:36, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
  • This whole comment is brilliant. I've seen a lot of asserting there are well known, agreed upon problems. But rarely (if ever) are they articulated, and I suspect if people tried, we'd find there aren't any well known, agreed upon problems. Indeed, the only specific complaint I've seen repeated is that there are occasional nonsense opposes; but those don't influence the outcome, so I'd say it's a minor concern. WilyD 18:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Most of us agree that there are RfX-related problems somewhere. However, there is no consensus as to what those problems are and therefore there is no consensus as to any possible solutions. Now, even if we knew what the problems were, I doubt that we could reach a consensus on solutions, but as it currently stands, I think we have the cart before the horse. However, it doesn't really matter, because we need consensus for both the cart and the horse and I'm not holding my breath on either. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 19:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
AutomaticStrikeout, the problems with RfA have been examined in great depth and clearly identified. That's what 99.9% of the work of WP:RFA2011 comprised of: sheer objective research, and tons of it. The project never actually got around to making formal proposals for some of the solutions they suggested. Today, WP:RFA2011 is still an excellent handbook of relevant resources - it's a shame people don't read it before making sweeping statements based on conjecture.
The participants on this current series of discussions here on this talk page generally concur with those findings, and thanks to new initiatives here, are now taking some of the ideas from WP:RFA2011 forward in the hope of really getting something done before Wales or the Foundation does it for us. I admit that the retro-reading of that project would require the same time as a paperback, and some knowledge of reading stats and tables, but this thread summarises it in less than 10 minutes. The horses and carts are in the right order and have been for nearly two years:) --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
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