Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 26

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Ending times

I would like to discuss the nature of end times for voting.

In general, bureaucrats (including me) have taken some liberty with the end times, often closing the matter some hours or more early, especially when the consensus is clear. Speaking for myself, I do this when I know I will be away from Wikipedia when the nomination end time is reached, usually as a courtesy to the nominee so that they need not wait an excessive time for promotion. I expect that others' reasoning is similar.

I wonder whether this remains wise. Since there are now a fair number of active bureaucrats, it seems to me that it may be best to wait until the end time for the nomination has actually passed before promoting or removing a nomination. Given the number of bureaucrats who followe RFA, the likelihood that a new admin will have to wait more than a day or two for promotion seems low.

User:Biekko recently brought this up WRT their own nomination at User talk:Cecropia and I thought it wise to raise a discussion of the general case.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:12, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest a certain level of flexibility when consensus is clear. If it isn't, then leaving the time to the close is probably safer. Nevertheless, with adminship being "no big deal", I wouldn't be too bothered by pre-empting an obvious promotion. However, I think this should be left to the bureaucrat's discretion, not enshrined in policy. Smoddy (_t^g_e^c_k) 15:21, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Generally, I would prefer to see an RfA closed after 7 full days of voting. However, in cases where the consensus is clear (either to reject or promote), I don't see a problem with closing the RfA on the seventh day (ie. between 144 and 168 hours have passed). In the specific case of User:Biekko's RfA, he had around 70% support (depending on how you count neutral votes). Although it's extremely unlikely he'd achieve a consensus to promote, it probably would have been best to leave the RfA until the full seven days had passed. Carbonite | Talk 15:48, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

UC, Biekko and all: My bad. I did not intend to end this nomination early. In fact, I don't believe I have ended a non-promoting candidacy early any time recently, leaving it up to give the candidate any chance possible, even if it's remote. The only time I promote early is if I know I'm going to be away for a while (like sleep--I do, occasionally) and the nomination is obviously going to succeed comfortably. If one of our editors has too much free time check me out and see if I'm mistaken.

Anyway, UC obviously did the right thing by restoring the nomination; I would have done the same if I had seen Biekko's query on my talk earlier. We can continue this discussion if you like, but my policy (sans lack of sleep and coffee) is as above. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 15:57, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Personally it seems like Biekko's nomination is going to become very close, it's now 25/8, which gives it around 76% support - User:Neutrality was promoted (third time) at 61/16/3, which translates to 76.25%. I know I sound like lasson, but I am a statistician by training... --JuntungWu 03:44, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've always thought that "neutral" votes should be counted like ties, giving .5 votes to "support" and .5 votes to "oppose". In Biekko's RfA there are two neutral votes, so it would be 26/9, which is 74.3% support. In this case, virtually every non-supporting vote (including mine) is because of relatively little interaction with the English Wikipedia community. He'll be a shoo-in in a month (unless he's promoted this time). Carbonite | Talk 21:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You can't count "neutrals" 50/50 because that makes them effective "oppose" votes, since consensus is 75/25 to 80/20. But to reiterate a point I've made many times before, when adminship turned to vote counting, a lot of editors were disturbed, and I see their point, though I'm not very partisan on the issue. So trying to endlessly parse the numbers is non-responsive. When the nomination is in that gray area, Bureaucrats have to look at the total candidacy and make a decision. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 23:04, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Uncle G's nomination

Ordinarily I have no problem making a decision, but I voted against this nomination for cause, so I don't feel it's proper for me to make the decision. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 21:36, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unless I can't read time right (A distinct possibility given UTC time) this vote's been over for a while. Can someone besides Cecropia call it? - Taxman 18:12, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

This is about 8 hours overdue. At 45/22/2 (67%), this is no longer a matter of bureaucrat discretion and no call to be made, therefore I am comfortable with removing it as a matter of simple housekeeping. If any other bureaucrat disagrees, they know where to find me. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 18:40, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

idea for improving this article

when this Wikipedia project page moved to its new format, in which new nominees were added using the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/furrykef syntax, the page fell off of my radar screen (i.e. my watchlist).

is there a way that a developer could fix it so that any changes to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship sub-pages would show up as a change to the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship main-page? this would help me out considerably. Kingturtle 02:39, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Another way to do it would be to have all sub-pages appear in my watchlist. Kingturtle 14:41, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think the best way of doing this would be to make a feature request for the "watch" option in namespaces with sub-pages enabled to be split into "watch this page" and "watch this page and sub-pages", or to have an option to watch sub-pages or not on the added to watchlist screen. Ideally this could be turned on or off by defualt in the preferences. Please feel free to copy this comment to the apropriate place for such a feature request, as here almost certainly isn't it. Thryduulf 15:45, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Grammar

Knowledge Seeker recently reversed my grammar fix:

(Restore to "Requests for adminship...is a page to..." from "A request for adminship...is a page...")

Can somebody explain to me why, in this case, it's wrong for number to match? —RadRafe 16:35, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I changed it because the title of the page is "Requests for adminship", not "Request for adminship". The lead sentence is not describing what a request for adminship is, but rather is describing what the page "Requests for adminship" is. While the title of the page is plural, it itself is singular. Requests for adminship is a page where people are nominated for adminship; a request for adminship is one of those such requests. Maybe an analogy would be if I opened a video store called "Cheap Videos". If you were writing about it, you would write "Cheap Videos is a store that sells cheap videos", not "A cheap video is a store that sells cheap videos", even though the subject has been made singular. Does this make sense? If I have misunderstood, anyone please change it back. — Knowledge Seeker দ 17:28, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Interview questions

When did the interview questions become mandatory rather than optional? Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 14:32, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

since people started to feel the need to vote on every candidate rather than those they had prior knowlage of.Geni 15:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Selfnoms

I see that the idea that self-noms should exceed the usual requirements for adminship has returned to the page, probably for reasons of brevity and reduction of instruction creep. Brevity is good, but still, I really disagree with the very absolute form it has now attained:

You may nominate yourself, but should exceed usual expectations before doing so.

(Diving into the History, there seems to have been a slippery slope via a suggestion that it's "advisable" for self-noms to exceed the usual expectations). I've edited the sentence to read:

You may nominate yourself. Some voters feel you should exceed usual expectations before doing so, but most voters can be presumed to consider all nominees on their own merits.

Please discuss here or edit ad libitum.--Bishonen | talk 14:43, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I fail to see the point of that section anyway. It simply incourages poeple to descriminate against self noms.Geni 15:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Genius, Geni! I totally agree with your version. Much better. Bishonen | talk 15:28, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

• What he said. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:43, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Promotions for self-nominations should be judged the same way promotions for regular nominations work. Kingturtle 16:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The candidates will be "endorsed" by the supporting voters anyway, so uncertain editors will look out for trusted names in either camp. But I do think there should be some slight discouragement of selfnoms: If you're going to stand a chance, it should be simple enough to find a nominator, and afaik, asking someone to nominate you is not discouraged at all, and the practice of nomination is a nice tradition. dab (ᛏ) 16:59, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. For promotion purposes, self-noms are treated the same way. What I think the wording was originally` trying to convey was a message to self-noms that a number of voters had a bias against self-noms (I think it's less than it was a year ago) and they should be prepared for this. I think we should either spell this out in the wording (i.e., make clear that this is a voting issue, not a policy issue) or remove it. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 17:01, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

There's another reason to discourage self-noms, if only slightly. Most experienced Wikipedians won't nominate someone unless they are a good candidate. Many self-nominators, however, don't have a clear idea of what makes a successful nomination, and may be discouraged by the results of their self-nomination. Isomorphic 21:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Minghong

Can you explain how 11 support vs. 3 oppose equates no consensus? Kingturtle 22:03, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Kingturtle, I could look at this different ways. At the time I posted the closing notice to try to attract some interest, the vote was only 6-2. I have explained in some detail how I reached my conclusion on this lightly voted, under 80% nomination. It is on Minghong's RfA page. Please read it. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:45, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I'd guess because it is only 78.5% consensus, which is not the 80% for a definite decision. That does seem a litte pedantic to me. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 22:13, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, I think he should have been promoted. Andre (talk) 22:32, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

While I don't believe that neutral votes should be counted normally, in a case like this where the person actually fell short of 80% the neutral votes can be seen as evidence of "lack of consensus". It strikes me as the logical way to proceed. Guettarda 22:37, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

In a case so close, maybe bureaucrats whom have not participated in the vote should make such decisions. Kingturtle 22:39, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Kingturtle, I was not a participant in the vote, giving no personal opinion at all, except to make it definitive in closing the vote. When time ended, the vote was 9-2, but there was another positive just after ending time, so I let it go another 18 HOURS to see if anything would change. So I did my job. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:45, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the feeling is that maybe you should have made your decision based on what was there without having to put in a vote. Voting negative then removing it seems like you wanted to remove it, but the % wasn't low enough for you, so by voting you dropped it from 85% to 79% and then removed it. I would feel the same way if it was the other way around (79% and then you voted to bring it up to 85% and then promoted). CryptoDerk 22:55, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

I did make my decision on what was there, given the thin support and interest and the substantive comments against Minghong combined with his evident cluelessness about the position. There is long history in RfA that numbers aren't everything. Bureaucrats can and do vote on candidates, although I usually defer. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 23:00, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I must be misreading it. It looks like the third vote in opposition is your vote. If that is the case, I propose we have the bureaucrats who didn't vote for or against Minghong decide whether 79%% is enough. Or maybe we should let the case remain open for more voting. Kingturtle 22:53, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Kingturtle, I treid to get interest in this adminship when I saw people weren't paying much mind to it, and the vote was 6-2. I let the adminship go on for 18 HOURS and no one took action. My negative vote at the end (I have no bias for or against Minghong personally) was based on my examination of the candidate and the comments of others in the RfA. I resent the implication of wrongdoing or conflict of interest in my reasoned judgment call. When I ran for bureaucrat I said I would not withdraw from the difficult cases, I haven't and I won't. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 23:05, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

There is a conflict of interest here. You didn't want to promote, so you could have left it at 11/2/4 and not promoted. Instead, you voted, stated you did so to tip the scales, then immediately removed it. I agree that a bureaucrat should be able to make the hard decisions, but I also think that sometimes the right decision is to step back. In close cases I think a bureaucrat should vote or promote/reject, but not both. I would not question your decision if you had voted days before. CryptoDerk 23:27, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

First, the substantive point. If I really had something against this candidate, I would have made my feelings known earlier, as I have a few candidacies, and then I would not have decided on the promotion if it were close. Now, as to your rhetoric, you are not simply accusing me of bad judgment, or even bias, but "you didn't want to promote, so you..." attributes motive of malfeasance. I think you should back up this speculation or moderate your rhetoric. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 23:36, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't mean to be accusatory or speculative, but you did state you voted to tip the scales and closed it as soon as you voted. How else am I to interpret that? If you didn't want to promote, you could have left it at 11/2/4. Even with 85% support there, you could have argued lack of consensus, neutral votes, etc. Note that I have no problem with you rejecting minghong, but the manner in which you did it. I'm not asking you to take back anything that happened, I'm just trying to get some discussion going because I've always had the view that bureaucrats shouldn't do what you did. CryptoDerk 23:48, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

78.5 is ridiculously close to 80%, and the page says only "about 80 percent." I fail to see how this ISN'T reaching a consensus, especially if we're supposed to be assuming good faith (of Minghong, I mean) and all that. --Whimemsz 22:40, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Whimemsz, I prefer the community to make the decisions, not me. You didn't vote on this nomination, but you're here disputing my judgment minutes after it was made. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:48, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I should note that I do not have strong feelings about minghong one way or the other. I've never run into him, but I did look into his edits and talk page before voting support. Regardless, I find it a bit improper (for the lack of a better word) that a bureaucrat would vote and then make a decision in a matter as close as this. With respect to Cecropia's objection, I would imagine that his phrasing and word choice is perhaps because English is not his first language (his responses certainly read that way). With respect to the neutral objections, I found minghong to be in the right when dealing with the UML page, as he removed massive POV (the article was previously calling programs "fast", "simple", "powerful", etc.). The other objections didn't cite anything specific, and I (in my cursory look) didn't see anything about him putting speedy tags on stuff that weren't speedies. CryptoDerk 22:41, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

No disrespect to Minghong--he speaks English well and I'm sure I don't speak his native tongue at all, but this is English Wikipedia, admins need to deal with other editors, and misunderstanding in language can have significant consequences. And we don't know that he didn't mean what he said. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:51, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

To those who think Minghong should have been promoted, please read my comments on his RfA if you haven't already. In a month's time, make some more pursuasive arguments to attract support, have him respond to editors' objections, and maybe we won't have this discussion next time around. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:56, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

• Comment Just like to draw attention to my RFA which ran 48/12/1. Although it was far closer to 80%, Cecropia got some flack for promoting me. With Minghong we have a case where more than one third of those who cast a vote could not say "support", so I think that was correctly taken into account. Cecropia did use his power to extend voting past the normal period when the vote was 9 out of 15 votes, well short of consensus (he had been criticised for not extending voting when my vote stood at 48 out of 61 votes). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:11, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Bureaucrats have the toughest job of all; no thanks, and always flack when they actually need to make a call. But honestly, below 80%, it is their call, no two ways about it. I actually liked the way Cecropia even added an own vote to make the official situation more clear. :) Kim Bruning 23:46, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Speaking as a bureaucrat, I agree fully with the above -- this was Cecropia's call to make and he made it. 11-3 is a gray area, and that's what we have beaurocracts for. →Raul654 23:49, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the support, Kim and Raul. Though I feel I acted appropriately I restored this nomination for 24 hours for the specific reason I state in the RfA. I hope you're not disappointed, but it is not the criticism, but the one salient point (since it was nominally over 80% when I ended it without my vote) of the chance to give Wikipedians a chance to respond to my negative vote that motivated me. Or to put it another way, if I can't stand the heat, I'll get out of the bureaucracy.

I want to reiterate that my goal here is to generate discussion, so please don't take this the wrong way. Why do you (Kim, or anyone else for that matter) feel that voting to make the "official situation" more clear is good? I certainly could have lived with a 11/2/4 rejection, but when the rejecting bureaucrat puts in an oppose vote I think people could interpret that as perhaps them thinking "I don't want to promote, but I also don't want people bitching at me over rejecting someone at 11/2/4, so I will vote to oppose" — basically the bureaucrat not having confidence in their decision. To generalize, is a bureaucrat voting right before closing (to change the balance) a bad thing? To me it seems like putting extra weight behind a decision that isn't supported by the community. Yes, I realize the bureaucrat is part of the community, but timing is an issue here. Voting at the beginning and having to make a close call at the end is OK by me, though I concede that some might say "You only rejected/promoted because you voted oppose/support earlier".

To make an analogy, it's like a biking time trial — the last rider has the advantage because they know what they have to do to win. Most RFAs aren't so close, but a bureaucrat who wants to close and does or doesn't want to promote the candidate can get lucky in some instances and change the balance. Note that although I'm using numbers from this specific instance, I have nothing against Cecropia, I'm not trying to speculate what he may have been thinking, and I believe him when he says he doesn't have anything against minghong — I respect him and think he does a fine job, I just want to figure out what people think. CryptoDerk 00:48, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

To clarify a point. I sometimes vote a negative at the end of voting for the double purpose of making the vote decisive and giving me an opportunity to explain my reasoning, which I feel gives voters confidence in the process. If it were simply a question of the numbers, I wouldn't have needed to do more than state: "Oppose Not qualified" or whatever. As to Minghong in particular, I will not comment more on this than I already have, since the vote is currently open. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:08, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

That makes sense. Thanks. CryptoDerk 01:13, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Kingturtle, as a bureaucrat, you are free to promote him yourself if you disagree with Cecropia's decision not to promote. This is not without precedent. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 02:14, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Never mind, I see the nomination has been reopened. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 02:17, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

• I realize I have the power to promote Minghong, however, I did not want to start a feud among bureaucrats or among wikipedians. taking it to the TALK page was the appropriate way to proceed -- especially because Cecropia had voted to oppose the candidate, and I had voted to promote the candidate. it wouldn't have been right for me to defy another bureaucrat's decision by promoting minghong. and in the end, these are community decisions, not power moves for individuals. Kingturtle 02:27, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Cecropia, thank you for lengthening the vote time for Minghong. i am sure your intentions were good, but the actions (changing the vote from 11-2 (85%) to 11-3 (79%) and then immediately announcing a failed consensus) could be seen as dubious - especially when 11-3 is considered by some as enough of a threshold for promotion. Kingturtle 02:27, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for having the wisdom and good will to accept that these are honest disagreements. If bureaucrats cannot work with an assumption of good faith, then we can't work at all. It would be great if you felt you could join me in encouraging Wikipedians to take the time to consider someone with a small number of votes. To put it another way, we have had nominations that have attracted 50, 60 or more votes. If only 20 voters had given Minghong consideration and he came out with 85% (17-3) my adding an oppose wouldn't have brought the consensus under 80%. As I've said early and often:

If we can reach clear consensus, there will be no need for Bureaucrat judgment.

-- Cecropia | explains it all ® 04:59, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I applaud both Cecropia and Kingturtle for doing an impeccable job living up to the expectations of their roles as bureaucrats. This has been one of those gray area cases, and Cecropia acted completely appropriately in initially failing a candidacy for which there appeared to be little community feedback, and Kingturtle acted completely appropriately in challenging it. That's what I would hope and expect, that a case like this would generate healthy discussion. Kudos to both of you, I think you both deserve a raise ;) --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 05:31, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

changing the vote from 11-2 (85%) to 11-3 (79%). Surely the sums are wrong here. The neutral votes should be counted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:30, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Neutral votes count as zero. If neutral votes counted against, then they'd be oppositional votes. They are not oppositional votes. they are neutral votes. Kingturtle 06:33, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Tony, neutral votes don't count numerically. Your nomination was exactly 80%--the neutral wasn't counted. The place where neutral votes can count a lot is when bureaucrat discretion is needed, then all the comments and arguments are taken into account. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 16:56, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

If it is as you say then it seems to me that at the original end time there were 9 supports and 2 opposes, which makes nearly 82%, and in that case you probably shouldn't have exercised discretion. Wally came along a couple of minutes later and entered one more support, which seem to me to tip the balance even more. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:13, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Tony, let's not split hares, as Bugs Bunny used to like to say. The standard for admin is not a fixed number, it is "consensus." Who determines consensus? Bureaucrats do. Poll after poll in this section has affirmed that Wikipedians trust bureaucrat judgment over simple numbers. But people take comfort in numbers. Have you ever wondered why a cop sees someone driving erratically (U.S., anyway) and tends to pull them over for speeding instead? Simple. If the case goes to court, the cop says: "I observed this driver going 73 mph in a 65 mile zone, as recorded here in my daybook. I clocked her from behind using my tracking speedometer that was last calibrated two days ago." Open and shut case. But if the cop says "he was failing to stay in lane, and driving erratically" the guy's lawyer says "what does that mean? She was distracted for a moment by the sight of a California condor on a nearby traffic sign, which she feared would fly into her windshield. What does the officer mean 'driving erratically'? That is too subjective." And so on.

We cite numbers because they are easier to understand. In the case of your nomination the vote was 48-12 (IIRC), which is a big voting base, which means that your candidacy was well vetted by the community. There were some substantive reasons given for some of the negatives, but four dozen positives mean that 80% of the voters took these arguments into account and voted for you anyway. In the case of Minghong, there were fewer than a dozen votes TOTAL at closing time, and significant negative arguments, some of which were expressed in "neutrals." I investigated these and determined they had merit. This is bureaucrat discretion, not just percentages. A number disputed me, and that is their right, and I responded in detail. I still assert that Minghong's consensus failed, and he should have been allowed to address the issues raised and come back after a month. The only reason I restored the nomination is because the argument that voters had a right to continue voting after viewing my negative vote as a matter of fairness and openness was pursuasive to me. Bureaucrat judgment, like an umpire's call, must stand unless it is egregiously wrong and the bureaucrat refuses to explain his/her reasoning, otherwise every close call is a debate. If bureaucrats lose the confidence of the community, they should stand aside or be removed. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 18:51, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

wise words, and I support Cecropia in this. It also shows that we should be careful to pick bureaucrats we trust: like admins, they do have to use their judgement, sometimes (otherwise, their job could be done by a shell script)- dab (ᛏ) 23:11, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. That makes it much clearer to me. In fact I think that, shorn of personal details, those words would probably make a good basis for an article on "what it takes to be a bureaucrat." --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:56, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

"Bureaucrat judgment, like an umpire's call, must stand unless it is egregiously wrong and the bureaucrat refuses to explain his/her reasoning, otherwise every close call is a debate." How ironic. – ugen64 02:59, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Guess there haven't been any egregiously wrong calls on RfA. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 03:25, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

ImpalerBugz and Chanting Fox

I have removed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Chanting Fox and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ImpalerBugz's self-noms. The first has been around for a week, the other about a month, both have few edits and have rapidly piled up negatives. I am not judging the sincerity of these users in seeking adminship or wanting to contribute to Wikipedia, but my judgment is that they are devaluing both the process and themselves with these obviously inappropriate candadacies. I am also not listing these as failed nominations (unless they persist in renominating themselves), as they are doubtfully "real" nominations.

If any other bureaucrat wants to restore these, or wants to list them in the failed nomination list, I will stand aside. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 14:31, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Poiuytman

I'm anticipating that, having removed the two earlier self-noms, and this nomination is currently 3-3, that editors will be asking why I shouldn't remove this one, too. The answer is that the user has been here long enough and has a reasonable number of edits to indicate a commitment to Wikipedia. I am not trying to start a general slice-and-dice of self-noms, just remove the (so far) rare inappropriate ones that just become oppose soapboxes. However this nomination goes, it falls into the area where it is up to the candidate to continue or withdraw. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 14:46, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Bureaucrats

I have been bold and added to the Bureaucrat rubric to say that the last few candidates have attracted comments about there being no need for new appointments. I suggest that potential candidates should start a discussion about the need for new bureaucrats but I coudl not decide where the best place to do that might be. Is it on this talk page? --Theo (Talk) 10:29, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I'd have thought that on the project page is better — it's more likely to be seen. By the way, I've just reinstated your text, after it had been deleted as being PoV. I can't see how it's PoV, but I'm hoping that the editor involved will explain here. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:58, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree, it seemed fine. James F. (talk) 15:52, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I'll tell you why it is POV...because "the three failed applicants since that time all attracted comments that there seemed little need for new bureaucrats" makes it sound like that was the single issue in the consensus - it makes it sound like no need for bureaucrats was the primary reason - and it wasn't at all. For Golbez, there were

4 supporting votes

3 opposing votes because of EXPERIENCE ISSUES, 1 opposing vote because of no need for bureaucrats, and 1 opposing vote who made no comment at all

4 neutral votes because of no need for bureacrats and 1 neutral vote because of lack of experience.

Taking all that into account, when looking at only the supporting and opposing votes, only 1 out of 9 who said that no need for bureaucrats was the only determining factor. When adding in the neutral votes, 5 out of 14 said that no need for more bureaucrats was the only determining factor. Experience was a more determining factor.

I am going to remove the POV text from the article again. Kingturtle 19:24, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Kingturtle's assessment. →Raul654 19:26, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

It was a factor however, albeit a small one. It should be mentioned, but maybe in a less POV way. Howabout1 19:28, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I am not opposed to someone re-writing the text in a NPOV manner. Kingturtle 19:32, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I made an attempt at it, is it any better? —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 20:18, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

Kingturtle's understanding of Theo's original text is surprising; I certainly didn't read it in the way that he did (and I don't see that the English supports such a reading). In any case, it isn't a question of point of view; he's really complaining that it's inaccurate, which is a different matter entirely. To improve the accuracy (in so far as that was really needed) is one thing; to delete it with the claim that it was PoV is much more aggressive, and much less acceptable.

Brockert's replacement makes an assumption that's not obviously justified (what's the basis for the claim that some votes are automatic?), and fails to give the crucial advice to would-be bureaucrats. I've gone back to Theo's version, but made some changes to emphasise the points that Kingturtle found unclear. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:39, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Kingturtle's new version doesn't change the meaning at all, to my eye, but if it keeps everyone happy... Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:05, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

The current text reflects my original intention (which was to encourage potential candidates to seek agreement that more bureaucrats are needed before entering a candidacy that may lead to feelings of personal rejection when the problem is not personal). I would, however, prefer the phrase "attracted comment" to "provoked comment", because the former is milder. I would also like us to state that the discussion should be started in that section. Does anyone object to these changes?--Theo (Talk) 23:13, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I've been watching these pages for some time. There have been a number of people who vote a specific way on every nomination, based upon one criterion. They are automatic, in that they follow rules and do not vary from one vote to the next. I don't doubt that the best of editors could nominate himself and get at least one "don't need" vote. In the six failed noms, one had four opposes because of this, one had two opposes and four nuetrals, one had three neutrals, one had one oppose, and none of that counts the number of votes with no reason at all. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 23:32, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

Policy concerning banned users and voting

Today, we had a sockpuppet come in and not only vote oppose on a legit nomination, but also nominated someone. The nomination is currently in a skeletal structure and I would like to remove it. What is the policy concerning users who have been banned from Wikipedia and what is the status of their votes/nominations? Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 20:37, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

They cannot edit, they cannot vote, they cannot nominate. I would suggest that their edits are only made valid if another user "adopts" the edit, taking responsibility. I reckon it's safe to remove them. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:44, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

The point of banning someone is that they do more harm than good here. Hence, there's no particular reason we should pay attention to them on a page like this. Isomorphic 21:29, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

As the person who they voted against I'm interested in this. I don't recall having any interaction with this user in any of the guises that has been noted in my RFA. Should I (or ideally someone else) strike out their vote and adjust the tally count accordingly? I can accept the oppose from Everyking (I was half expecting it tbph), but from someone I've not had any dealings with seems a little disingenuous and for want of a better term, trollish. (discalimer, written while less than 100% sober) Thryduulf 22:03, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I'll strike it, but don't worry, you'll get adminship anyway :P gkhan 22:10, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Who is he a sockpuppet of anyway? If it's a user who has actually been banned we ought to revert all edits by them, so not only do we disregard the vote against Thryduulf, we actually take it out. I'd like to know which user this is circumventing their ban first though. I assumed they were just a common troll of some kind. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:09, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what BeBop's playing at, but this is a brand-new user name, yet the user proclaims things about the candidate that suggest a long-time editor. So one way or the other, this is at least insincere. Unless someone objects, I will also delete the nomination page. If anyone legitimate wants to make this nomination, feel free. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 22:48, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

As the one who was nominated, I just want to make clear I have no problem with the nomination being deleted. AlistairMcMillan 00:05, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

automatic nominations

A discussion started at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Thryduulf:

• Comment on the process, not on Thryduulf (who I suspect will make a fine admin): By my count (from WP:LA) there are a total of about 500 current, inactive, former, or nominated but denied admins. Thryduulf is not in the top 1000 list in article space, and ranks >700 in total edits, which says to me that there are probably several hundred editors who have contributed more and probably been here longer. Based on the number of "I thought he was already" votes above, perhaps the admin nomination process should be changed to be more deliberately inclusive. One possibility would be to establish edit count and/or activity length thresholds that cause automatic nomination. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:21, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • I can think of a number of editors who've been around for a long time, and have large edit counts, but who wouldn't stand a chance of being adminned. Making nominations automatic would result in a number of hopeless nominations. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:39, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
    • And, would that be a problem? Any feel for the percentage of folks who've been active for, say, more than 6 months and have made more than, say, 5000 edits who shouldn't be admins? Is it more important to avoid occasionally denying an automatic admin nomination or to avoid overlooking well deserving editors? The current system has an element of capriciousness to it that I think can and should be avoided. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:10, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Well, including those who wouldn't want to be admins, I'd expect the percentage to be on the high side. There are a lot of editors who contribute useful material, but who have absolutely no interest in the administration side of things,as well as those who'd love to be admins, and who'd be disasters (there are those who'd include me in that, of course). My worry is, in part, that with the significant increase in nominations, editors would have less time to consider each case, and poorer decisions might be made. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:26, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

My fear about things like this is that it encourages users to stop using the "show preview" button, ie: edit counting seems to be addictive with many users, and tends to cause lots of tiny little edits that pollute the name space. In my humble opinion, the very best editors and admins on Wikipedia are the ones who have created the most content with the fewest edits. :) func(talk) 19:27, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I see from /Archive 23#Admin suggestions that User:Cecropia basically did this a while ago. How about if the results of an SQL query like this are posted (probably here, or on some standard subpage of WP:RFA linked from WP:RFA) fairly regularly, perhaps monthly? -- Rick Block (talk) 19:56, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the big problem is that it encourages even more edit count stuffing, and a lack of focus on the right things-being a good editor and janitor. Also auto nominations would create a mess of nominations where the nominated person had not accepted the nomination yet. Now if you want to create a list of non admin editors with over 2000 edits for ex, and contact them first to see if they would accept the nomination go for it, but I would be opposed to automatic noms, for the above reason and that it would make it difficult to evaluate the nominations properly. That could be solved by limiting the number of nominations I suppose. - Taxman ^Talk 20:29, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with automatic nominations for two reasons. Firstly, there would be far more nominations at any one time here - currently simply being nominated by someone is some indication that someone thinks there is some worth in what a person is doing - surely those of us who are around Wikipedia can better judge whether someone is able to perform as an administrator than simply setting an arbitrary figure? Secondly, with more nominations, there will be more rejections of candidates, and I for one know that I would have been very disheartened if I had been put forward and not accepted. There may well be some potential candidates who would be put off working ion wikipedia if they faced a formal rejection as potential administrator. I would recommend, however, that someone comes up with a list of non-admins who have produced high numbers of edits - it would give us some idea of who we are missing! Perhaps it would be worthwhile putting an asterisk after people's names on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits if they are admins, to make that search easier. In fact - I'll cross post this to W-talk:LoWbnoe, see what people think there... Grutness...wha? 01:00, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

See User:Rick_Block/WP600_not_admins. I'd prefer the list to be sorted by date of first edit, but I don't have convenient access to the data. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:39, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

There are definitely some intriguing candidates there, and I did the standard "I thought (s)he was..." to several of the names (for the record: Alkivar, Andros1337, Beland, Ceyockey, Gene Nygaard, Grm wnr, Lectonar, Maurreen, Mzajac, Romanm, Sam Hocevar, and TheParanoidOne). Definitely a few there worthy of nominating. Grutness...wha? 02:27, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Strongly oppose any kind of automatic nomination. I have no problem with people periodically pulling lists of top contributors that aren't admins, and looking over them for good candidates. But there needs to be a layer of human judgement between that list and this page. Also, edit counting in general is bad. If you really want to find out whether someone is a good candidate, you don't look at the number of edits, you look at what they've done. Isomorphic 03:06, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I also believe any kind of automatic nomination would not be good. Since adminship is a responsibility and not simply a title, the baseline is that someone should affirmatively demonstrate that they feel a particular person (including the person him/herself) should be an admin. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 05:29, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the system works pretty well as is; it's good to have good candidates nominated by those familiar with the candidate's work. Frankly, it is hard to amass thousands of edits without someone noticing, unless your edits are all pretty minor, and I think that good candidates are very likely to be asked. Someone who wants to be an admin can always self-nom, or even ask someone they know to nominate them, and it is rare for someone with a lot of experience to go down unless they have had some serious issues during their tenure. Just my two cents. Antandrus (talk) 03:18, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the minor edit thing: I have amassed more than a thousand edits in the past ten days, but haven't actually done anything.
By the way, I support this idea in principle, but we definitely need a layer of human screening, as recommended by Isomorphic. →Iñgōlemo← ^talk 03:53, 2005 May 31 (UTC)

Semi-automatic would be fine - the main point is to force a mechanism for users who contribute to be noticed rather than rely on anyone "noticing" them to avoid even the appearance that adminship is a Good ol' boy network. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:29, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

I think that periodically making a list like Rick has done, and looking through it for Wikipedians who should be nominated is a Good Thing. I suspect I'm not the only one perusing that list to see who to ask next... Grutness...wha? 05:22, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Grutness here, but I'd also like to add that the whole novelty of being nominated for adminship and going through the process is in general an exciting experience. I also think it increases the quality, effort, and more importantly the civility of many contributors because they hope to one day be nominated based on their performance. If we institute automatic editing, being nominated would lose its mystique because it becomes something of a routine or an expectation. Automatic noms do seem like a good idea, but if you probably analyze things deep enough you'd find that the more edits a contributor makes above the 2000-3000 count mark, the less likely they are to go without being nominated, so things do iron themselves out. — oo64eva (Alex) ^{(U | T | C)} @ 09:26, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

I think the data contradicts this last point. The list I've posted only includes editors with more than 2500 edits in article space, and includes at least 200 editors who have never been nominated. Even if half of these would not make suitable admins (which would astound me), that leaves 100 editors. At the rate of 4 per week it would take nearly 6 months to nominate all of these editors even if no others were considered (which would mean in 6 months, anyone who does not currently have 2500 edits would not have been nominated). IMO, the rate of nominations has not been keeping up with the rate of participation which I think is a Bad Thing. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:11, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Adding admins for its own sake is not useful; it just encourages paper admins. I might have given more credence to your point when it wsa more difficult to become an admin through self-nom, but lately there have been a flurry of self-noms and many of them being promoted. If someone has 2500 real edits and they haven't applied for admin, maybe they're not interested. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 14:30, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I am not in favour of making edit counting a key criterion - it rewards irresponsible editting. I would rather use the preview button 5x than save a typo. In addition, the list presented lists edits only to the Main namespace. Someone who spends time on the Talk page rather than reverting, or who spends time cleaning up VfD is more valuable to Wikipedia and probably has more of the skills needed by an admin. Someone who spends his/her time changing spellings from BE to AE (or AE to BE) will amass a lot of edits, while doing nothing useful (since their edits will quickly be reverted). In addition, people who edit war acquire many more Main Namespace edits than people who resolve their differences on the Talk page. The flip side of this would also be that people who had not met some threshold would be far less likely to be successful on RfA. Quaity of actions, quality of edits, and suitability for adminship should trump edit counts. The assumption that edit counts is the way to go should only come into play if there is some way to separate signal from noise. One edit per page per half hour maybe? Let edits less than 5 characters be worth only half? Have some maximum number of edits on a single page that count? Weight Talk page edits and WP namespace edits double? Weigh cleanup triple? Something that rewards good behaviour (using the preview button) more than less good behaviour (5 edits to clean the typos out of one sentance; revert wars)?

In addition, why put people through the pain of RfA if they know they will be shot down? There are many controvertial editors who know they are controvertial. There are also editors who show bad judgement in the heat of some dispute, but then go on the make ammends. If noms are automatic, you have no reason to make ammends for your heat-of-the-moment misbehaviour - the clock is ticking no matter what you do. As for the "old boys network" - that's why we have self-noms. Anyone can nominate themselves - and as Cecropia said, it really isn't that difficult any more. On the other hand, succeeding at RfA requires that you have made it into the network, to some extent. Guettarda 14:33, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any need for it; I think if somebody is being passed over, and wants adminship, then they can self-nominate. We should perhaps reduce the stigma attached to self-noms, if there still is any; I know we used to demand more out of self-noms, don't know if we still do. Occasionally somebody will be passed over for an excessively long time, that's true, but I don't think it's such a big injustice because they could self-nominate or, if they have any good reputation, ask someone who they're on good terms with to nominate them. Everyking 14:40, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I was nominated when I had 4000 edits (my 4000th was letting Grutness know that I would accept a nomination), after I'd been almost eaxactly 5 months (my first edit was on Boxing day). I had been considering a self-nomination, but I didn't fancy being shot down in flames. My thinking was that after I'd been here 6 months I would have a much better chance of success. Whether this is typical or not I don't know. Thryduulf 15:02, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The "admin suggestions" was my doing, not Cecropia's; as I recall, he was so vehemently opposed to such a list that he ultimately ended up placing a prominent "banner" on RFA with regard to the matter. While automatic nominations may be helpful, in actual fact most qualified people get nominated fairly promptly. There is also a lack of agreement about what constitutes sufficient edit counts and months of editing to qualify, and this would have to be resolved before any automatic mechanism could be agreed upon. Though Wikipedia:Another list of Wikipedians in order of arrival is now out of date, re-running the queries could give us a new list and any candidates we have overlooked would become obvious. When I did this before, at least half of the experienced non-admins either did not want adminship, had been denied adminship previously, or had been such a source of conflict that they were clearly unsuited.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:58, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I hae no problems with a periodic list of non-admins who have made the most edits, but I would strongly oppose any sort of automatic adminship. There are far too many edit warriors and POV pushers with lots of edits who should be banned, not given admin privileges. RickK 22:52, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Has anyone suggested automatic adminship? I think the proposal currently on the table is to keep and regularly update some sort of quasi-official list of "high edit" (TBD) users sorted by date of first activity with number of edits listed, presumably to be consulted when thinking about nominating someone for adminship. No automatic promotion. No automatic nomination based on arbitrary edit numbers. No requirement that anyone even look at the list. I actually rather like Wikipedia:Another list of Wikipedians in order of arrival. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:06, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I am not a fan of even a "quasi-official" list if it's based on edit counts. If people want to consult such lists on their own, great, but the point several people have raised is that edit-counting is not something to encourage. It's an anti-pattern. 10,000 edits means little if they're all spelling corrections. On the other hand, if you made 50 edits that each created a new article, 100 thoughtful posts to talk pages, and 50 constructive edits to policy pages, you'd be a fantastic Wikipedian at only 200 edits. Edit count may be a handy guage of activity, but it's not what Wikipedians should be striving for. I'd rather see a list of "Wikipedians who have written a featured article but aren't admins", or something like that. Isomorphic 07:46, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agree completely with Isomorphic. Filiocht | Blarneyman 07:56, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I think I may have misunderstood what Rick Block were saying. I would like to see who the non-admin "senior users" were. Actually I would like that there be a class of "senior user" that did not require the politics of an adminship vote, and which did not attract all the flak that admins tend to get. On the other hand, like Isomorphic, I have reservations about edit lists. Featured Articles is one option, though again, it doesn't capture the whole range of what non-admin editors contribute. Now, if we could also give them access to the "rollback" tool... Guettarda 13:40, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Alturnatively we could get rid of the whole nomintion process altogether. On the basis that we know that self noms want to be admins we are less likely to get papaer adimns. another thing to take into consideration is that not all good editors make good admins.Geni 12:04, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I like this idea. Guettarda 13:40, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are two problems I'm hoping to address with this proposal. One is that I think it's likely there are more than a few, possibly more than 100, "senior users" (I like that term) who, for whatever reason, are reluctant to self-nom and, for whatever reason, have been overlooked. The other is that some (many?) of the current class of admins are perceived by at least some users to be highly arrogant. Whether this is true or not, I believe the perception exists. IMO switching to a self-nom only process would basically select for high arrogance, which would over time make this perception the actual reality. On the other hand, if most "senior users" (excepting problem users) were made admins and were expected to do admin sorts of things, I think they would. Unless consistently contributing to wikipedia over time also selects for arrogance (and it might), making "senior user" and "admin" essentially the same set of users might help diversify the population of admins. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:55, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Adminship does not exist to reward good editing. It exists because wikipedia needs caretakers and some of the technical abilities of admins can do quite a bit of damge in the wrong hands. What everdence do you have that people percive admins as arogant? Most of people's perceptions of admins comes from those who for whatever reason do a lot of high profile stuff. Creating more paper admins isn't going to help in that respect.Geni 15:56, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Which does get back to the idea of having some sort of non-admin "senior user" with a few more tricks - specifically, the rollback button (I find the process of reverting vandalism to be tedious, and it's something you do every day). But I realise that this is getting OT for this talk page. Guettarda 17:21, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Re Geni's comments: How much evidence would you like? Would this comment and most of the exchange that led up to it suffice? I actually agree that adminship does not exist to reward good editing. On the other hand, including featured article contributions as a criteria for nomination sure makes it sound at least related to good editing (I'd think the policy would be if you're a featured article contributor you would be extremely discouraged from spending any of your wikipedia time doing administrivia tasks). Speaking of editing, I'm sure we'd all rather be editing than continuing this conversation. I think I've said my piece. Thanks for listening. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:33, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Too easy to become an admin

Ok, don't flame me for stirring up this volatile issue. I just want to provoke an important discussion.

It's too easy to become an admin. i consider myself much more experienced (7222 edits) than some candidates, who often have around 2-3000 edits, yet i wouldnt nominate myself to be an admin (at the moment). Why? Well because i have relatively little experince on RC patrol, VFD etc. Yet I see admin candidates who have little experience of everything in wiki. (for clarification, i mean "little" with respect to admins, no Wikipedians in general).

These candidates, who are nearly always very good users, then get comments like "great user", or sometimes no comment or just one word comments. So what? who cares if they are a good user, I want to see good admins, not good users!

Now i dont think any minimum requirements would help, but could we at least try and make it a bit more difficult.

I dont claim to have any answers, but is definately a problem here.

Bluemoose 12:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Being an admin is no big deal, it's a housekeeper role. By my lights, if someone is a good user, that means they are doing their bit around the place and deserve the keys to the broom cupboard. Filiocht | Blarneyman 12:39, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

in my view, character and behaviour is more important than experience or number of edits. I.e. as long as you don't think you have more experience or authority than you do, you'll be a fine admin. Personally, I only started to show community involvement after I was made an admin, and I took great care not to use my privileges until I thought I knew exactly what I was doing. That said, if you would like the mop&truncheon, just ask for them, I am sure your chances are very intact. I do agree, however, that over-zealous admins may be a problem, sometimes, and we may need a simple de-admining procedure in the future, but at the moment, a proposal to this effect was clearly turned down. There are also hardly any rfcs because of admin abuse of privileges, and imho that goes to show that we do not have a problem with inexperienced admins right now. dab (ᛏ) 12:53, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

btw, I hardly ever vote for users with <2000 edits, and other people have other criteria for voting on rfa. If you state your own, I am sure nobody will resent if you vote oppose based on them (provided they are at all reasonable. Asking >8000 edits would seem a bit unrealistic. After all, we want enough admins, so a couple is likely to be online at all times). dab (ᛏ) 12:56, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To clarify, i dont think edit count is very important either, my main problem is with people who are clearly voting without any reason or just looking at edit count/user page to decide which way to vote.

I think the fundamental point is that people assume innocence until proven guilty (which is normally good of course), whereas when voting here i personally think you should not assume either way without actually checking. Bluemoose 13:18, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oh and 2 other things i forgot, 1) a lot of people seem to see adminship as a reward which is just plain silly. 2) It is considerably harder to get a featured article voted in than it is to become an admin! Bluemoose 13:25, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Quite right too. An FA is something we are telling the world displays our worth as an encyclopaedia, an admin is in the background with a mop and bucket. Filiocht | Blarneyman 13:32, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Try saying it like this: It is much easier to get powers of deletion than it is to get a tag that indicates about 15 people think think the article is a good one. Bluemoose 13:45, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Or try saying it this way: you say that there is a problem and now appear to be implying that it has something to do with overly-easy access to the power to delete pages. I therefore ask you to produce evidence of consistent abuse of that power by those who have it. I grant there are odd instances of pages being deleted speedily that shouldn't. I even did it myself recently. But it was just a mistake and it was quickly spotted by another admin who restored it. I learned a lesson. But I would never have learned it if I had to wait until I was perfect before I had the power. Nobody is born knowing how to wield a mop.

In short, I'm saying that in the absence of hard evidence to the contrary, the rational thing is to assume the absence of a problem. It is less rational, and less helpful, to try to solve problems that do not appear to exist. If evidence to the contrary exists,I'll be perfectly happy to look at it and reconsider my position. Filiocht | Blarneyman 13:57, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

I have never noticed a page being deleted when it shouldnt have, I was poining out the fallacy in your statement, either way, you clearly know more than I on the subject, but my other points still remain. In regards to having evidence of admins actually being bad, the fallacy in this becomes obvious when you ask yourself why we even bother voting, why not just give it to everybody? or less extreme, automatically give it too people when they have made more than a certain amount of edits? Because we are supposed to ensure that they are admin quality. If i was a vandal and i wanted to wreck Wikipedia, it wouldnt be unrealistic to get myself 1500 edits, get admin'ed, then launch hell. Bluemoose 14:08, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Edit counting isn't a good tool. There are people who rack up thousands of minor edits in a few weeks. Voting is useful because it allows people who have interacted with the editor to say whether they think s/he will behave well or not. That said, people who should really be admins are shot down all the time. Guettarda 14:22, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Bluemoose14:31, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think part of the problem here may be your interpretation of the phrase "Good User". I cannot speak for others, but when I use the phrase, I usually mean "this person has shown, through their past interatcion with others and editing, that they are a good user of all of the types of pages that an administrator is likely to frequent, and will be a good user of the tools of administration, if those tools are bestowed upon them." That is, the person is conscientious, already does many of the things an administrator would do and does them well, and it would be in the interests of Wikipedia if this person was aided in their tasks by being able to use the (largely minor) powers of an administrator.

As to the comparison with getting an FA article, it makes a lot of sense that that is considerably harder. Being an admin is no big deal - but a featured article is Wikipedia's display to the world of how well it can do. An analogy would be to say that becoming an admin is like having the training wheels taken off your bike, whereas having a feature article is like winning a bike race. Grutness...wha? 14:19, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Problem is, Grutness and i'm sure Filiocht, are respectable users, but i think a lot of people vote who dont really think first (or as i said before only look at edit count/user pages), would making it so only existing admins vote be at all practical? Also what about the scenario of a vandal making lots of sock puppets/nasty friends then voting themself in as an admin? Bluemoose 14:31, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The current system doesn't prevent said scenario. Someone could cultivate a nice peersona, get elected, and then launch hell. Though how much hell is debatable as a truly rogue admin would arouse a united and skilled opposition. Equally the best way to learn how to be an effective vandal is to be a legitimate user for a few months (I have learnt a few tricks in my own conflicts with vandals). Fortunately most vandals are neither bright nor systematic enough....SqueakBox 14:23, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Heres a quote, admittedly from User:Boothy443 (users archived talk page), but i think he/she does actually have a point;

Why is is that you, adminstrators specificaly and other useres, only confront users that vote in oppsition, i see a majority of votes for support with no explnation what so ever, yet no one questions them why they voted in support, and when most resons for support are give they are things like "i think he will do a good job", or "i have had no problems with the user in the past", or "because so and so voted oppose". yet an oppsition supporter basiclay is forced to write war and peace to explain why they voted no or else they are basisicaly left to felt like their vote is discounted. So no you dont need to know why i voted oppose, only that i voted oppose. --Boothy443

Obviously i am not defending the users arbitrary opposition, but equally i cant stand for arbitrary support. Why do people never question support when little or no comment is given, yet always do in opposition. I find this trend very worrying. Bluemoose 15:31, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've heard this argument a few number of times, and it seems quite silly to me. There are a number of reasons why supporters don't explain themselves. First of all, the reason a user should be an admin is stated by the person nominating. By voting support, you are basically agreeing to that person. Second, the fact is that there is no burden of proof on the part of the supporter (note that this is my personal interpretation, but it seems quite natural), if there is no evidence that the user would do the job badly, why not support him? Third, in many cases which an adminship succedes there is an overwhelming majority of supporters, and only a handful of objectors. Case in point, look at Bishonens RFA. There are over 100 supporters and only two objectors. It is natural to ask why someone would oppose. In cases where there is an overwhelming majority of objectors, supporters do explain why they vote as they do. Case in point again, Kils RFA (well, not overwhelming amount of objectors in this case perhaps).

As for your other concern that it is to easy to become an admin, if some user has behaved badly it will ALWAYS come out in the open. ALWAYS. So even though a couple of people voted by pure habit, they will most likely change their vote, or there will be enough opposers anyway. Also, different users votes carry different weight (undemocratic? no......what do you mean?), if 2/3s of the ArbCom voted against and 20 troublesome users voted for, there is not a snowballs chance in hell that any bureocrat (can't we call it something else, it is impossible to spell!) would promote.

I hope this answers some of your concerns. gkhan 16:05, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and one more thing, personally i think it is something of an insult to vote object and not give a reason. It's like saying "it's obvious that you arn't good enough to be an admin!" instead of saying "well, a little to few edits, good user overall, object". gkhan 16:21, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

edit conflict, so I may seem to parrot Gkhan a little bit: Usually, support votes without comment are just "me too" votes agreeing with the nominator. Similarly, it is ok to vote oppose with a "what he said" if an earlier oppose vote gives reasons. Yes, the system isn't waterproof. But it is a basic practice of the wiki to fix problems as they arise. To the best of my knowledge, it has never happened that somebody accumulated 1500 "good" edits, had himself elected admin, and then started vandalizing. Nor would that be a problem, because he would be speed-de-adminned in five minutes. The problematic cases are admins with a choleric temper who are acting in best faith, but put their judgement too far above other people's. A good faith editor will exhibit such traits even in his first couple of 100 edits, and his RFA will be a bumpy ride. As soon as oppose votes start accumulating, people will pay close attention, and it will not be too easy to pass. RFAs only look easy in cases that really are obvious. dab (ᛏ) 16:07, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What you both seem to be saying is roughly "it works most of the time so it's ok", but that isnt good enough i dont think. Also you give examples, well look at the present top candidate, there seem to be real doubts, yet the user will probably be voted in due to sheep voters (to coin a phrase). only 3 of the 10 offer a comment (excluding "a nice person" and "all my support") Bluemoose 16:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Note - i dont oppose the user in above example, my point is that it will be carried through by sheep voters. Bluemoose 16:22, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It was added today, wasn't it? Give it time, and you'll probably see a few more oppose votes (alot more is my instinct). gkhan 16:30, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Eequor's nomination is controversial, and it only started today. It is impossible to say how it will turn out. It is more instructive to look at mature, or concluded votes: Many people will hold back their votes to see if something will tilt their opinion either way. You do realize, of course, that you need "consensus", usually amounting to 80% support votes, to be promoted? So that at this point (10 support, 3 oppose), Eequor would likely not be promoted, needing another two support votes to reach 80% support. dab (ᛏ) 16:33, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I can only speak from my own experience, but I generally vote for someone I have interacted substantially with and have a good opinion of. If there is someone who I have a positive opinion of, but feel I don't have a thorough enough knowledge of, I tend to wait and see how it goes - if they are getting strong support I tend to stay out. If it looks borderline, I look at their edit history, look at what other people have said...and form an opinion. I am more likely to make a comment on a Support vote if I know the person and their edits. If I have to look things through and determine things on the balance of evidence I am less likely to explain my Support because it's not due to any single thing, but due to the overall balance of things. In addition, if I have nothing to add beyond what has already been said, I tend not to make a comment. Guettarda 16:58, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To sum up: Bluemoose raises a valid concern: "Sheep votes" skew the RfA process, which is unfair. However, no problem to Wikipedia has been shown: The primary power of an admin is to delete pages, and there are no significant abuses.

I would like to add my opinion: Being voted admin is a seal of approval, which brings about increased respect. Some let this goes to their head. It is not uncommon that a user behaves nicely at the eve of his/her nomination and becomes over-zealous or opinionated afterwards. I therefore completely agree with dab that it is important to focus on character. I can imagine that a "simple de-admining procedure" could mitigate this. (I missed that discussion). — Sebastian (talk) 18:03, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

My conclusion, I am actually very impressed with the level of thought on this matter, its very encouraging to see that many take the issue so seriously. I think I have possibly over estimated the power of admins, but still have concerns over Sheep votes being overly influential.

One good thing has come out of this conversation - a new phrase Sheep vote, which i am honoured to be credited with!. thanks Bluemoose 19:57, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

HELLO

Can you please tell me how many votes are necessary to gain adminship, like minimums. Also, what proportion, a simple majority, or a 2/3 majority, etc.

- Marmosa —Preceding unsigned comment added by MARMOT (talk • contribs) 15:45, 17 Jun 2005

It seems to be spelled out at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#About RfA. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:05, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Idea about protecting closed RFAs

After an RFA has been closed, should we also have the bureaucrat who closes said nomination protect the RFA? I think it would make lives a bit easier, and it would force people to use Joe Wikipedian (2) instead of erasing a previous failed nomination. Just a thought; please comment. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 02:50, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

At first glance, this looks like a solution in search of a problem. However, It certainly wouldn't hurt anything. Ingoolemo ^talk 22:40, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

Agree with the above, I can't see the problem this solution would solve. I'm suspicious in general of protecting pages without a cause; imagine for instance someone wants to add a category to all of them, or a link to some related page. --cesarb 22:45, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)