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Administrator elections

Well, it certainly seems to be working to get potential candidates to participate. It's interesting that so far all candidates are self-noms. Valereee (talk) 22:24, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

that's true. But if the voting is confidential, and radio button clicks, then I'm afraid there would be lots of baseless oppose votes. —usernamekiran (talk) 00:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, that is one of the reasons why some people support this idea - it allows for opposition without retaliation. Primefac (talk) 11:48, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
It may indicate a couple of things. It could mean that the typical potential candidates contacted by the usual group of nominators aren't enticed by the election process, and that an election is less daunting to editors who aren't inclined to look for a nominator. Putting those together, the trial is pulling from a broader pool of candidates. isaacl (talk) 04:13, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
I reckon the fact that all other elections across Wikimedia (ArbCom, steward, U4C, BoT) operate solely with self-noms probably has something to do with it as well. Giraffer (talk) 14:07, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

This is absurd. We're up to 19 candidates now. Does anyone realistically think anyone has the time to review 19 candidates within 10 days to make a realistic determination whether all of these candidates are ready for adminship? I sure as hell don't. I'll be voting oppose on all of them that I don't have a chance to review. At a bare minimum, the number of candidates for an election should be limited to 5 per election, and no more. This is overwhelming. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:38, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

It is a secret ballot, so you are allowed to vote oppose for any reason whatsoever, even one that is absurd and unrelated to the candidate like "I haven't reviewed the candidate". The hope is that sufficiently many voters evaluate sufficiently many candidates to make the outcome meaningful. —Kusma (talk) 20:46, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the sideways comment. My opposes for the candidates I don't have the time to review is both an oppose to an unreviewed candidate and an opposition to this system in the first place. Nobody considered the implications of this system, including having potentially dozens of candidates running at once. Nobody has that kind of time. That means candidates will be getting through who aren't ready, who haven't been vetted. Opposing such candidates is a necessity, not unrelated to the candidate. Thank you. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:51, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
This latest round of RFA reform does what previous reforms did not: it is throwing a lot of things at the wall and seeing what sticks. If your predictions turn out to be true (i.e. too many candidates, not enough time, and unqualified editors getting the mop as a result) then that will be born out in the feedback process at the end of it. If enough people feel as you do, then I suspect the number of successful candidates in this part of the overhaul will be low, and it will not happen again. Primefac (talk) 21:08, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Back when I became an admin, about two or three new RfAs were posted every day. Not every potential voter evaluated every candidate (there were only eighty-one voters total on mine) but candidates were still vetted (to the lower standards of the day). —Kusma (talk) 21:10, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Fortunately, you don't have to review all of them, as there is the option to abstain on those you couldn't review. Much fairer to the candidates. I think a limit (of like 12/15) would be good for any future elections, even though I suspect there will be fewer candidates in a second election. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:52, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
1) "Neutral" might be a better default vote than "oppose".
2) It's not too late to propose that each candidate have a certain minimum number of supports+opposes to ensure that they receive enough scrutiny. This would prevent a situation where a candidate at the bottom of the list had like 20 supports and 0 opposes and gets elected with a very low quorum. You could propose this on WT:AELECT and we could implement it before the end of the election, if there is a strong enough consensus.
3) Voter guides may be a tool to properly research a large number of candidates. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:55, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
I'll be interested to see how this turns out. And I agree with Primefac, it's better to try something and see if it works than not try anything (the strategy for the past 15 years). If I were in charge, I'd have made a few changes, but this is worth an experiment. FYI, NL, voter guides are explicitly frowned on in the instructions. And I suspect (though I'm not sure) that it is too late to change the default to neutral. Question: is the order of the candidates going to be randomized each time someone votes? Floquenbeam (talk) 22:03, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
voter guides are explicitly frowned on in the instructions. It's under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections#What should the page say on voting guides?. I happen to think there is no consensus to discourage voter guides, but I was reverted.
And I suspect (though I'm not sure) that it is too late to change the default to neutral. It sounds like the voting choices for each candidate will be support, abstain, and oppose. I have proposed that all choices default to abstain or blank, without objection so far. Further discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections#Voting choices and defaults.
is the order of the candidates going to be randomized each time someone votes? I proposed that it be alphabetized at Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections#Should candidates be shuffled?. Folks on this page should feel free to join any of these discussions. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:27, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
SecurePoll doesn't support randomizing the order of the candidates. I proposed that the third option be "Abstain" back in April, to accurately reflect the effect of that choice. SecurePoll setup will occur after the nominations are closed and the list of candidates is finalized. isaacl (talk) 01:29, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I think SecurePoll does support randomizing the order. I see the option in Special:SecurePoll/create. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
My apologies; I misread another conversation on this topic (I should have thought about it some more, as my memory of previous discussions was that randomized order was supported). isaacl (talk) 05:20, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I think the order should be random, not alphabetical. There are ballot ordering bias effects, and I'd prefer they be neutralized as much as possible. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:05, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

And now we're up to 31. This is utterly impossible. <smdh> --Hammersoft (talk) 17:28, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I see this as an absolute win. We should want more candidates willing to consider RFA. No single voter needs to personally evaluate every single candidate, just enough voters to collectively evaluate them all. Regardless of how many people get elected this cycle, this process is doing exactly as promised. Soni (talk) 17:44, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Which is a disaster in the making. You're right. No single voters needs to personally evaluate all candidates. But, with 31 candidates no candidate is going to be properly vetted by enough. This is insane. Absolutely insane. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Is it crazy to assume that people will vet as many candidates as possible, then leave the rest of their ballot blank/neutral, therefore not allowing/blocking bad/good candidates? Considering the order will likely be randomized I doubt this will lead to issues like the last candidate getting 1 support and 0 opposes then becoming an admin. I do think there should be a limit on the no. of candidates going forward (perhaps 10?) but I doubt we will get this many again. I think it's silly to oppose and possibly tank someone who could be a good admin for no real reason, but I guess one of the proposed benefits of this system is that you can oppose for whatever reason without badgering lol. Regardless, as Primefac said, everyone recognizes RfA has issues, but nobody wants to Do Anything about them. Why not throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks? ULPS (talk • contribs) 18:23, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I was going to alphabetize them, but if enough folks want them randomized, I can switch to that. Please weigh in over at Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections#Should candidates be shuffled? –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:07, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

(to allow insertion of table) I'm not going to vote to support someone whom I haven't vetted. I'm not going to vote neutral when the system is so obviously broken. Given the insane timeline and lack of controls over this, the default has to be oppose until a candidate can prove themselves. Let's compare this to ArbCom elections:

ArbCom Elections Admin Elections
Candidates 11[1] 35
Self nom period 10 days 7 days
Discussion period 6 days 3 days
Voting period 14 days 7 days

([1] average over the last three cycles for ArbCom)
As you can see, we have 3 TIMES as many candidates, with HALF the discussion stage, and HALF the voting stage. I.e., the work load is essentially six times the load for ArbCom elections. Worse, voter guides are not allowed, so you can't turn to someone else's analysis to help guide you in your review. So here, you've got half the time, thrice as many candidates, and no assistance allowed. And this, to put people in a position which arguably has more day to day power and impact on the project than a member of ArbCom. This utter steaming pile could have been avoided if somebody had thought...even for a moment...about the impact of this system and where the failure points might be. What an absolute clusterf***. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Coming in hot! If your goal is to vent, hopefully you feel better. if the goal is to persuade, then you might want to dial it down some. You're not coming off as persuasive. I believe this is not the first time you've used an "everyone is a moron except me" approach. Floquenbeam (talk) 19:43, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
If your goal is to insult me, it's not working. If your goal is to persuade me to think otherwise about this failed system, it's not working. You're coming off as attacking me. Have a nice day. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:54, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
What, so they've managed to attack you without insulting you? This seems like an excellent skill—where can I learn it? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:17, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
You could also take a page from Floq here, and ask yourself "Is this comment productive, or am I simply getting a crack in?" Attempts to lower the temperature would be appreciated. Parabolist (talk) 21:40, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
A song from Billy Joel comes to mind. No, this isn't the sandbox, but expecting silence in response is unreasonable. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:36, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
I do think it's going to be difficult to have any kind of meaningful discussion about 33 candidates in three days. It would be unfair to change the process half way through, so we're kind of locked into that now, but maybe next time we can limit the number of candidates, stagger the elections more, and/or allow more time for discussion. – Joe (talk) 20:08, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree with this. A limit of like 10 at a time seems like a good idea. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:19, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
yes, this is surely going to be #1 in the "lessons learned" debrief afterwards. Floquenbeam (talk) 20:22, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, it's crazy we'd get 30+ candidates when we couldn't get even one a month with a traditional RfA. I don't think anyone would have predicted that. Clearly if we want to encourage people to run, this is a way to do that. Valereee (talk) 20:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Would it be worth asking if anyone is willing to postpone their candidacy? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:48, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Postpone to what? There is, as I understand it, no agreement to doing this again and I can see that the crowded field may lead to opposition to doing it again. I suspect we'll just have to see how things work out. Wehwalt (talk) 22:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
That's actually a great idea. If we could do one per month for the next four months, maybe? Although maybe skip December because of ArbCom Elections...maybe one each Oct/Nov/Jan/Feb? If the scrutineers/Secure Poll aren't negatively affected. Valereee (talk) 22:01, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Where are you going to find time and consensus to change the format? Wehwalt (talk) 22:04, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
If you are thinking long term, should the election process gain consensus support for ongoing use, sure, the various recent proposals (including the original one propsed in the 2024 reform discussions) are to have regularly scheduled elections. However running them regularly imposes a cost on the WMF support staff, as well as requiring scrutineers. The plans to make SecurePoll run on local wiki servers and be configurable by local admins would help alleviate the first issue, though there would still be a cost (and it's unclear when that might happen). Scrutineer resources could become a bottleneck (whether or not the role is filled by stewards as with the current trial, or by English Wikipedia editors). isaacl (talk) 22:12, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
If we could do one per month for the next four months, maybe? Getting WMF T&S to set up SecurePoll and the stewards to scrutineer it is an expensive process. I don't think we could convince those stakeholders to do this 4 times. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
The process can be tweaked further if we want to have a more regular use of the SecurePoll. On zhwiki, they are pretty much mandated by the Foundation to use SecurePoll for voting on RfAs CheckUsers appointments, and after a RfC for the use of SecurePoll for RfAs (including interface admins and bureaucrats), and they do so regularly. But instead of just the stewards scruntinising, the local OSers can assist as well. Additionally, maybe tweak the duration of the discussion and/or voting further as well. If the concern is that there are too many applicants, extend the discussion to two weeks (also like that on zhwiki). – robertsky (talk) 22:40, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
modified above comment to clarify what was mandated. zhwiki links: talk page archive 8, RfC to use SecurePoll for admin elections. – robertsky (talk) 09:15, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps a more troubling aspect of this is that some of the voters are just going to vote mass neutral or even mass oppose for everyone they didn't get time to vet, and then some of those candidates are going to think "wait why do these 100 people think I'm not ready to be an admin", and we could be back to square one with shy candidates, because that outcome could well depress the volume of candidacies later. --Joy (talk) 11:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
So far as 'mass neutral' goes, neutral/abstain votes have no impact on the result. Mass opposes are certainly possible, but candidates could consider that some may be editors opposing the process, not them personally. — xaosflux Talk 13:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
</smdh>There are a few "obvious yes" and a few "obvious no" candidates I'm familiar with. That is, candidates for whom I am very confident I could predict the lopsided results of a traditional RFA. It will be interesting to see how much support an "obvious no" candidate gets (a reasonable stand-in for an overall lack of vetting), and how much opposition an "obvious yes" candidate gets (a reasonable stand-in for an overall default to no). --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:18, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm not as worried about the practicality of evaluating the candidates, as some other editors are. Yes, there are significantly fewer days and significantly more candidates than what we have in ArbCom elections. But it's still 10 days from the end of nominations until the end of the time for voting (and 17 days from when at least some of the candidates came forward). And there are fewer than 33 candidates who need extensive research, given that some of them may be "obvious no"s. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:01, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Actually, I forgot about the SecurePoll setup period when I wrote that, so 10 days is actually 17 days, and 17 days is actually 24. With 30+ candidates, one could, if one wants, research an average of approximately two candidates per day, which isn't necessarily so daunting. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:11, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm surprised you're very confident on some. My concern has been the ways that moving from open voting to secret voting has typically caused a decrease in support percentages as people who might not vote otherwise in a public process do so in a private one (for any number of reasons). This happened way back when with ArbCom and CUOS and more recently with Stewards who ran for the U4C. So I'm concerned some people who would have passed with 95%+ in an open process will struggle or fail after "paying" a 15-30% private voting decrease. I hope your optimism is right and my pessimism is wrong. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: I think you may have misunderstood. I’m not confident about the results of this election; I’m curious about them. I’m confident that I know one candidate who would definitely have passed a normal RFA by a large margin, and I’m confident that I know a few who would never have. I’m saying it will be interesting to see how different this election’s results are from the few I know something about.
surely you know me well enough to know I’m never optimistic… Floquenbeam (talk) 01:32, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
As far as "failure points" go with this process, I don't think anybody could have anticipated that we would have a problem with the number of candidates being this high, especially given that elections were aimed at solving the opposite problem. 36 candidates is an insane number – the last *year* to have 36 candidates run (at RfA) was 2017, let alone all at once. Only 14 people have run at RfA this year, and only 19 the year before. To have this many people running at once is unprecedented, and I can't fault anyone for not preparing for it. Giraffer (talk) 23:05, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
My thoughts exactly. It's like getting a flash flood in a drought zone (spoilers for the end of Holes!). theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 02:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
From what I can see, the analyses/tables that would go into an Arbcom-style guide can be split up and placed in the discussion section for individual candidates (please!!). Since there's no quota/priority to be filled, the associated explicit declarations of voting intentions and consolidated structure is less useful. ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 04:39, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
Speaking as a candidate, i'm not particularly offended by some of the "Oh my goodness! How awful" comments, because if i serve or not, i'm still here; speaking as a member of the candidate group, i find it quite offensive that some of my colleagues are seemingly being attacked ~ "There're too many of you, go away" ~ after they've answered an open call to the community; speaking as a member of the community, this is great, we wanted to test if a change in process would lead to a change in result, apparently the answer is Yes. Perhaps a little less horror and a little more in the way of thoughtful responses (as some here definitely are) would be more appropriate. Happy days, ~ LindsayHello 05:55, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
Some folks seem determined to bring RFA culture to admin elections. Sorry about that, and thanks to all the candidates for having enough faith in the community to participate in this trial. Levivich (talk) 06:20, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
It really is heartening to see that there's this much interest even if there might be better ways to handle this logistically going forward. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 06:33, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, @LindsayH and others, I didn't intend my own comment to communicate "Go away". I am very happy to see this level of interest. Valereee (talk) 10:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
  • With respect to the whole "oppose everyone I can't vet" thing: remember the law of large numbers still exists. Vet who you can, trust other editors to fill in the gaps. Almost certainly many more editors will vote in these elections than a typical RfA. So long as each voter vets who they can (even if it's only 5 candidates), including during the discussion period, and the voting order is randomised, I think the scrutiny received by each candidate will not be too dissimilar to an RfA.
    There is real opportunity for meaningful RfA reform in the form of these elections. Clearly the elections process needs changes in future iterations (if we continue it), but I hope we don't waste this iteration - and potentially the entire concept - by doing something like mass-voting oppose. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:06, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    We may have a problem with that as it isn't that obvious who is vetting which candidates. With the normal format it is easy to look at a three day old RFA and see how many people have opined on that candidate. That said this isn't the busiest RFA has ever been, we had 68 successful and 33 unsuccessful candidates in December 2005, so provided we find a way to spread RFA voters between candidates 31 should be doable. If we do wind up with a load of candidates rejected because a small number of voters oppose anyone they haven't had time to assess, then I hope those candidates consider a conventional RFA. Conversely if we have nearly 30 new admins and couple turn out to be insufficiently scrutinised, then I hope we find ways to batch this smaller in future. Though given the amount of time many of these candidates have been around, I suspect a repeat in 12 months will get rather fewer candidates. ϢereSpielChequers 12:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    I am not incredibly familiar with this process, but I thought I understood it until now. Why is it necessary that the user above vets every candidate? As far as I understand, none of us have special status in terms of voting rights or veto power. Best, ForksForks (talk) 13:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    I think the idea is every voter should research a candidate before voting for them. – Joe (talk) 16:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    That is certainly appropriate, which is why they can skip all candidates they haven't researched as well. — xaosflux Talk 17:42, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    That might be the "idea", but the reality has always been that lazy voters like myself rely very largely on a sense that some other editors of competence have done the due diligence, picking that up as WSC says (relatively easy when noms were becoming rare). As I've said in a comment rather officiously moved off this page to somewhere more obscure (see just below), if I don't get that sense, I'm perfectly ready to oppose this batch en masse. Johnbod (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, I'm worried about that too. The only solution I can think of is voter guides, but those are apparently "discouraged". – Joe (talk) 18:16, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    I'm more and more feeling that the sentiments among those discussing the elections are disengaged from those of other editors. I have been trying to move broader types of discussion here, but the attempt below was boldly relocated by a candidate. Espresso Addict (talk) 18:22, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    @Espresso Addict: I've reverted the move. The move was a trifle rude, being as it was in the middle of an ongoing and relevant discussion, I think. SerialNumber54129 19:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not sure if this was your intention, but this change has made it so that the section now appears both here and WT:AELECT#Notice not on watchlist, but with the version on RFA missing the large majority of responses, and with no link to the larger discussion. Bug Ghost🦗👻 19:57, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
It shouldn't have been moved in the first place: pure move banditry. SerialNumber54129 20:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Also, the majority of candidates at RfA in recent years have had one or more nominators, so one can rely on their diligence/judgement, while the great majority of election candidates are self noms. Espresso Addict (talk) 18:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
  • You know, Hammersoft and I are usually on opposite ends of just about any discussion. In this case, I agree with Hammersoft. This is untenable, unreasonable, and is going to have a net negative result. Frankly, I'd suggest that candidates who think they would stand a good chance of passing in a different RFA format should withdraw from this. They're running a serious risk of failing RFA because of systemic issues, but it will still count as a failed RFA on their "record". I can't support proceeding with this election process, given the number of individuals who have signed up as candidates. Risker (talk) 02:25, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
    Express yourself only on candidates of whom have an opinion, not on the others. Install a minimum number of votes required to establish concensus of fifty or so and have the election continue until the end of the voting cycle where the minimum is reached, possibly falling back to "concensus not reached" after three or four cycles. 2A01:E0A:CBA:BC60:96F2:D690:8206:39A1 (talk) 12:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
    I believe the issue for some folks is that a quorum or minimum vote number is not part of the procedures, so it does not matter if you reach 70% with 7 votes or 70. Since the process is already running, I do not think it can be changed for this round. Primefac (talk) 13:02, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Voting hasn't begun. It can be changed up until the SecurePoll is open. We need to have a minimum number of active votes for each candidate, or we're going to get admins who are poorly vetted, poorly prepared, and we'll probably also lose out on some who would have done just fine in other systems. Risker (talk) 03:28, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
We don't need a minimum and it's way too late in the process to change the rules and requirements. Hey man im josh (talk) 03:48, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree that changing the process anytime after candidacy is opened is a bad idea, and I'm going to take particular issue with Risker's edit summary of suggest 70 votes (either support or oppose). This would pass someone at 49s-21o and fail someone at 69s-0o, which is both absurd on its face and, worse, would make opposition be less bad for a candidate than abstention. If/when we do this again, we should pick a minimum number of supports, not a minimum number of total votes. —Cryptic 04:36, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
"You're changing the rules on us half-way through" seems problematic for several reasons. How many candidates have, or would, complained about the addition of a quorum? Realistically, the ones who were hoping to get elected with a tiny number of expressed opinions which don't really represent a concensus anyway.
Adminship isn't a trophy, a prize or a recognition of something: an editor offers to help out and the response "we've got to check, hang on a bit" seems more reasonable than "we've got to check but don't have time so 'no'" 2A01:E0A:CBA:BC60:E54B:972C:8544:80FB (talk) 12:05, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
We've got a process. Let's run it and then discuss what needs to be done for next time, if there is one. If it's a trainwreck that defeats all candidates, I doubt many will hold the candidates' participation against them. I think whatever the outcome there, the wiki will survive. Wehwalt (talk) 14:24, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
The danger isn't that the process will "defeat" candidates, but that the process will let problematic editors—for example, who might even be incurring community opprobrium at noticeboards as we speak. SerialNumber54129 14:38, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
That doesn't seem very plausible to me. They will surely get a visible comment or question about that, and if not replied to adequately, these candidates are unlikely to succeed. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
There are too many people invested in making the process an easy ride. But I hope you're right. SerialNumber54129 14:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

We should be prepared for some bad admins as a result of this election. It's a near certainty. We don't yet know whether the election will be easier or harder to pass than RfA (or more plausibly: which qualities in candidates it will emphasise and de-emphasise relative to RfA). But it was certainly hoped that it would be easier – that's the whole point of trying it. And even if it's no easier or harder than RfA, the statistics speak for themselves – we have thirty five candidates! That's two years' worth of RfAs, and RfA also lets in plenty of bad admins. So I think the discussion we need to anticipate after the election is not whether its a perfect filter, but whether the proportion of bad admins elected is worth the benefits and whether our mechanisms for dealing with them (i.e. XRV, ArbCom, and perhaps soon WP:RECALL) are up to the job. – Joe (talk) 15:27, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I feel like we're more likely to have nobody elected than to have bad admins elected. Only a handful of candidates have nominators (whose backing would probably be a valuable benchmark at this stage), and we've introduced a secret voting system that lets you oppose for whatever reason without consequence. Realistically, nobody has time to analyze each candidate to the same degree they would at RfA, and there are likely going to be many more people willing to oppose someone they don't know than support them. The purpose of this election was to get more candidates (lord knows it succeeded), but I'm not sure that the status quo is going to be to support them; in all honesty, I'm struggling to think of a reason why support would go up here versus RfA. Giraffer (talk) 22:38, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Supports might go up because others' reasons for opposing are less visible. The usual pattern for a plausible but non-successful RfA is that you get a flood of early support (both the RfA and election systems let you support for whatever reason without consequence), then 2-3 people will make a case for opposing, and the rest of the week is a waiting game to see if enough people agree with them to tip the scale over that in-built mass of support, with a tendency for opposition to snowball.
With the elections, I don't see any reason not to expect the in-built mass of support from the WP:BIGDEAL crowd (which is fair enough). But people won't see why others opposed unless they write it in the discussion section. And even putting aside the very short time for discussion compared to the number of candidates (hopefully just an issue this time around), you don't have to look at that page to vote, the arguments will be amongst a mass of threaded discussion instead of neatly listed under "Oppose", and you can't see how many people agreed with them.
That's just a theory, though, and I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing. I can see your scenario happening too. Time will tell! – Joe (talk) 07:57, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
While I agree with Giraffer on what will happen and said as much, I think think the whole premise of this discussion is faulty. We already have situations where 70% (or less) of the community supports an admin. That doesn't mean they turn into a bad admin. When I did an analysis of the admins who got desysooped in 2016-2021 the median RFA support percentage was 96% and the average was 91% (which includes a 64% outlier in the dataset). And even if it's not a faulty premise, we have a way to remove bad admins - and most likely in the near future a second way as you know well. I think we're already prepared. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
What premise? – Joe (talk) 19:26, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
We should be prepared for some bad admins as a result of this election Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
It's a possibility that we'll get some bad (as in clueless, rather than abusive) admins as a result of this, but we've had admins who seemed sane at RfA but have been a disaster with the tools and enthusiastic younger editors whose RfAs have attracted opposition but who have matured into well-respected admins with excellent judgement. There's no real way to tell which way someone will go until they're in that position. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:53, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
I'd think that the concern isn't so much that sub-par candidates are elected (which as you and others have pointed out isn't the end of the world) but that many candidates will not get elected due to the "haven't reviewed so oppose" style votes. 2A01:E0A:CBA:BC60:4433:CD87:A611:8938 (talk) 17:56, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

"There are no current nominations"

WT:Requests for adminship#Current nominations for adminship currently reads: 

Current time is 23:44:29, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Purge page cache if nominations have not updated.
There are no current nominations.

To the contrary, there are more (self) nominations at AELECT than I can ever remember before. Can this be changed? ☆ Bri (talk) 23:47, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I added a note, though doubt anyone is looking for only that line. But it is correct in that that page is a list of RFAs, and there are not currently any nomination for RFA and Admin Elections are a different thing. Anyone is welcome to open a RFA at anytime, including now if they wish to. — xaosflux Talk 00:21, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Administrator Elections: Voting phase

Administrator Elections | Voting phase

The voting phase of the October 2024 administrator elections has started and continues until 23:59 31st October 2024 UTC. You can participate in the voting phase at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Voting phase.

As a reminder, the schedule of the election is:

  • October 25–31 - SecurePoll voting phase
  • November 1–? - Scrutineering phase

In the voting phase, the candidate subpages will close to public questions and discussion, and everyone who qualifies for a vote will have a week to use the SecurePoll software to vote, which uses a secret ballot. You can see who voted, but not who they voted for. Please note that the vote tallies cannot be made public until after voting has ended and as such, it will not be possible for you to see an individual candidate's tally during the election. The suffrage requirements are different from those at RFA.

Once voting concludes, we will begin the scrutineering phase, which will last for an indeterminate amount of time, perhaps a week or two. Once everything is certified, the results will be posted on the main election page. In order to be granted adminship, a candidate must have received at least 70.0% support, calculated as Support / (Support + Oppose). As this is a vote and not a consensus, there are no bureaucrat discussions ("crat chats").

Any questions or issues can be asked on the election talk page. Thank you for your participation. Happy electing.

You're receiving this message because you signed up for the mailing list. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

In order to vote on the candidates, you will now need to read more than 200 (printed) pages of content at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Discussion phase. And, to help you along in your decision process you get the extra prizes of having the vast majority of nominations be self-noms, and voter guides are discouraged. Best of luck! --Hammersoft (talk) 00:58, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Voter guides are no longer discouraged. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:38, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
And that decision was made while this election was ongoing leaving precious little time for people to prepare anything. Unsurprisingly, there are no guides connected to these pages, though at least two exist (yours included). --Hammersoft (talk) 02:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Both Novem's and my overview point towards other voting guides (there are 7 in total, in various states of completion). I hope to get more information summarized from the discussions, but that might not happen until Sunday/Monday. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
The correct measurement of too much text is {{tomats}}. There are roughly 3.5 tomats of text in the discussion phase. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
  • As Hammersmith points out, this change was made while the election was ongoing. I note that elsewhere the was much hand-wringing when other things were proposed but supposedly couldn't be changed for the same reason. SerialNumber54129 10:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

My point in griping about this isn't to gripe. The point is this system was not thought through properly. Little or no consideration was paid to potential impacts of using this system, how nominations would really play out, the impact of the lack of voter guides, what would happen if 30, 40, 50 or more people signed up, etc. The whole thing is an unmitigated mess. The only takeaways that can really be taken from this steaming pile is how not to do this. As an evaluative tool on whether or not to do this in the future it's absolutely worthless. If any country were to run elections like this, there would be open revolt. I have spoken many times about proposed RfA processes in that people come up with brilliant solutions all the time that are looking for problems to solve, and that nobody does any problem solving to try to work through what ails RfA. Instead, we get this...another case of throw something super sticky at the wall and see if it sticks. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:39, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Your underlying point is not unreasonable, but frankly, this kind of thing was never going to be arranged perfectly or to everyone's satisfaction, and it's far far better to actually try something new (and get a bunch of new admins in the process) than spend countless more hours arguing about it. The ball is actually moving down the field - we have a number of highly qualified candidates who we can hope to see get the bit - and we have the potential to make things better next time. Wikipedians are conservative by nature, and making decisions by consensus is hard. I'm thrilled we're at the point where we're actually voting and we have a bunch of people I'd like to see become admins! That's enough to outweigh procedural squabbles, which can be fixed as we move forward. Why not wait for the point at which changes will be discussed and make your proposals there, rather than throwing mud at the process from the sidelines? —Ganesha811 (talk) 12:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Hey, no one said we can't try something new and spend countless more hours arguing about it. signed, Rosguill talk 13:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Less flippantly, I think that the most salient concerns regarding how this has gone (and we should really reserve some judgment until we see the results) would be almost entirely addressed by just having limiting elections to 10 (or other small-ish N) candidates at a time. I do also wonder about the fact that we currently have (I believe, I may be misremembering or miscalculating) a longer voting period than discussion period, which seems a little backwards as far as our community priorities go. signed, Rosguill talk 13:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
In the original 2021 proposal, the discussion period was chosen to be very short on purpose, to improve the candidate experience. That part of admin elections appears to have worked as intended, as the promise of only 3 days of discussion, spread out amongst many candidates, attracted an incredible amount of candidates. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Ganesha, if you think I'm throwing mud from the sidelines, you're completely missing my point. I said above I'm not griping to gripe. As for results, we won't have any idea about how this idea has worked until at least a year after this is over. Admin performance is a thing, and simply electing people doesn't mean this system works. We won't know what to 'fix' until that analysis is done. I'm sure there will be 'fixes' just as this system was hatched out of a woeful misunderstanding of problem solving. But a reasoned approach won't attempt this fiasco again until well down the road when there's actually results to assess. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree that a full analysis of success or failure will need to take into account the performance of any admins elected this month, and will probably take some time. But that's no reason not to move forward in the meantime. If (as I approximately suspect) we end up with 5-6 new admins who definitely would have passed RfA, and 5-6 new admins who might've passed RfA, and 1-2 new admins who probably wouldn't have passed and make some mistakes, that will be a significant net positive for the encyclopedia. We are not supposed to be a bureaucracy, but the fact is that Wikipedia in practice *is* highly bureaucratic and procedural issues end up wasting a lot of everyone's time. I look at this trial in the spirit of WP:IAR - let's try something new and see how it goes! I don't think you're wrong on the merits, I just think there's no point repeating criticisms you already substantially made when there's a pre-planned place for criticism and improvement coming up soon. —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:38, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Honestly, I would unironically be still happy even if we end up electing 1-3 candidates "total", like I suspect. (I believe the secret voting without a threshold change will unfortunately tank lots of deserving candidates). But even if that results in barely an admin or two elected, I call it still a positive because the core idea (encouraging more editors to run) still worked fine, maybe even wildly well. And we know what didn't work about the process.
I hope my prediction does not happen, which is why I was more liberal with my supports to counter the mass-opposers. But we're actually a ways off from even "How many new admins did we get" and figuring out the positives from that. Soni (talk) 14:55, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
That's my point of view as well. I feel like the number of candidates, and a couple of problems with the process itself (that we'll iron out), will cause some candidates to fail who might have otherwise had success. The next one, should there be consensus for it, seems like it'll be modified a fair bit and I'm excited for that version to run. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:05, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Honestly if the election process stayed as it was with all its current flaws with only 10 candidates we'd all be talking about it in a different light. ULPS (talk • contribs) 18:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm inclined to wait and see. It seems likely to attract more votes than any recent RFA, perhaps any RFA by the time all is said and done. Wehwalt (talk) 18:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
From The Department of Idle Speculation, I can see some editors who say that they are opposing a lot of candidates out of concerns about the process, and I can see some editors who say they are supporting a lot of candidates in order to counteract the opposers. I'll be curious to see whether one of those groups outnumbers the other, or whether they just cancel each other out. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:11, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Which makes the result basically random. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:34, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
The 70% threshold means that an oppose vote is worth two supports. So they won't cancel out. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:17, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
Admin elections could have been stuck in the consensus phase or the planning phase forever, and almost was. Sometimes you need to just get something started, then iterate to get results. Do it once, fix the biggest issues, do it again, fix the new biggest issues, etc. It's possible that not a single candidate will pass because people blanket oppose. That'd be a terrible outcome, but will tell us crystal clear what needs to be fixed if we do another cycle. And I guarantee the second cycle would be better than the first. etc. etc. until the process is polished and running very smoothly. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Exactly this. The problem with moving forward with all sorts of things here is that people tend to oppose the specific proposal rather than the general principle. We need to be more pro-active in trying stuff, and if there are problems, fix them. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:09, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
This process is out of hand, it would have been much better to run it with a smaller number of people, with different experience levels. This would have guaged how people took to the format without causing harm to so many or risking the potential of bad admins getting the tools there are reasons why some of these people have failed at RFA before. Yes the system is broken and a new approach is needed but it needs to managed in meaningful way where the outcomes could be assessed before it was open slather. Rather than 2 or 3 being successful its more likely the opposite with just 2 or 3 being unsecessful and bunch of new admins which cant be monitored to see if the format created a good outcome for the community. With that no meaningful observations that can be used to craft a good balance for the future. Gnangarra 15:54, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
While allowing only a picked selection of candidates to run might make it easier to evaluate the usefulness of holding elections, it would require some person or group be responsible for choosing who would get to run, and I suspect many in the community would object to one part or another of such a process. Donald Albury 18:06, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

why gender pronouns?

Why, and since when {{user and pronouns}}? What happened with {{admin}}? —usernamekiran (talk) 03:49, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Context? –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:13, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
Template talk:RfA#Pronouns. Charlotte (Queen of Hearts • talk) 04:18, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
Is there a valid reason why this offends you? Everyone has pronouns. Acalamari 01:06, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
hehe. It doesn't offend me, it was a question out of curiosity. But to be honest, generally speaking (not regarding to Wikipedia particularly), sometimes I feel genders/sexuality should not be disclosed, I mean, it's better than later saying "I'm not being treated equally". —usernamekiran (talk) 16:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

tally in admin elections

I'm currently on mobile, and couldn't find it. After the election results, are we going to publish the tallies of all candidates? —usernamekiran (talk) 15:58, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: The votes are being scrutinised by the scrutineers, who will publish the tallies at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Results once they are finished. --bonadea contributions talk 16:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Acronyms

I would like to make a plea for acronyms to be either blue-linked or written in full (e.g. WP:RfA or Requests for Adminship) - preferably the latter. I am familiar with many of them, but many newer editors may find them off-putting. Tony Holkham (Talk) 13:36, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

This is already best practice, but we get lazy. I'm as guilty as anyone else, and do try to pipe my WP:/MOS: UPPERCASE to appropriate descriptive text at venues frequented by newcomers.
If people at this venue are not experienced enough to 1. recognise the acronym, nor 2. know to prepend "WP:" to it in the search bar to navigate to it— they probably lack sufficient tenure and understanding of community expec­tations, norms, and dynamics to express an informed opinion.
Apologies if that stings, but the observation is genuine, and meant to be neutral. Folly Mox (talk) 16:56, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Reworkshop

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Reworkshop. Sincerely, Dilettante 17:27, 8 November 2024 (UTC) Sincerely, Dilettante 17:27, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

WP:RECALL is now policy

After a request for comments, Wikipedia:Administrator recall is now a policy. The procedure is as adopted by the 2024 RfA review. Some questions remain, which may be discussed at the policy's talk page. Soni (talk) 18:15, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

And we already have the first petition. In one fish's opinion, it is evidence that I was right to oppose this becoming policy, and it's too bad that consensus was against me. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Shouldn't there be something about RECALL and RRFA added to the main RFA page? I don't even think there are links to those pages in WP:RFA#Related pages. It seems that there's should be something about them given that the process has already started to be used. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:11, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
So, looking at it from a critical position: This "Policy" was enacted by a very quiet RFA, which was not well publicized, with a maximum of 37 support votes. That's too few to elect a single admin. The linking is now not very good, in keeping with submarining a policy into the wikipedia core. I'm not suggesting that this was the intention, but this is how it can look. I have a concrete suggestion: Let this "policy" stand for RFA, and be !voted on, plus or minus. If it reaches at least 70%, with at least 100 !votes, it will have a solid standing. AKAF (talk) 07:18, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
@AKAF: See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Is_WP:RECALL_a_policy? for a discussion of similar issues. – Joe (talk) 08:28, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
Realistically at this point, I think we are stuck with this for a while. We will need to see how the initial implementation of the process works out. And then, rather than relitigating whether or not this should have been enacted, will will likely have an RfC on whether to revoke it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:24, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
The recall process needs more visibility, including one ongoing. How about watchlists? And WP:CENT? George Ho (talk) 18:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
I think that would be reasonable, considering that RfAs are advertised on both venues. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:02, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
I think this is something that should be discussed and figured out prior to another recall, not during an ongoing one. But that also leads me back to the idea that 25 is too few signatories since so many more people will become aware if it's advertised at those locations. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm not saying go do this now, but it's probably something that should be discussed at the reworkshop if it hasn't been already. Even in my RfC, there have been recurring comments of "only if it's more well advertised". Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:33, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
Regardless of whether this is "policy" or "process", it's something already in play; so, trying to change it in some significant way while there are active recall petitions playing out seems like a really bad idea, and might also be seen as being unfair. The possibility that there will always be at least one recall position active at any given time or which can be started at any given time should be assumed, which means a moratorium on new ones should be enacted if and when it's determined things need to be changed. You don't need to go back and retroactively apply any said changes to petitions that have already run their course, but you shouldn't by trying to significantly change things mid-stream. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:11, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
As I said, I'm not saying go do this now. One RfC is all the stomach I have for trying to change things as they happen. Anyways, since I didn't link it in my previous comment, I was talking about Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Reworkshop. Might as well do my part to make that more advertised. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:40, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: FWIW, my post wasn't specifically directed at you as in "I think you need to do this"; it was intended to be taken in a more general sense as in "I think this should be done". When I used "you", I didn't mean you specifically but rather you collectively. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:46, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for clearing that up. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:05, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
I think the re-confirmation RFAs will be advertised using watchlist notices and T:CENT. I don't think it's a good idea to also advertise the recall petitions. The drama and stress for the candidates at these recall petitions is already way past what I would consider comfortable. Further marketing would only make it worse. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree. A recall petition doesn't need more attention from editors who wouldn't have found it on their own in the course of an entire month. That's just asking for participation from people who have zero clue what's actually happening but think pile-ons are fun. Valereee (talk) 12:32, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Support percentage and colors

Graham87's RRfA support currently stands at 54%, which would, under the RRfA criterion, put it in the middle of the discretionary threshold. However, it is shown in bright orange (and has been since coming below the regular RfA discretionary threshold). Should the colors be adjusted for RRfA, to match the different threshold? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:25, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I would say yes, that would make sense and I can't see any reason we wouldn't do that. No clue how easy to impliment that would be, however. CoconutOctopus talk 15:28, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Just checked and it was indeed implemented by User:SD0001 a few hours ago at Module:RFX report/colour – missed it earlier, but Graham going back up to 55% makes it more visible. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:31, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Problem solved! CoconutOctopus talk 15:33, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Most of the credit goes to Theleekycauldron for implementing RRFA support in the template. I just adjusted the color range. – SD0001 (talk) 15:54, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Don't worry, it won't stay orange for long. SerialNumber54129 17:50, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Told ya  :) SerialNumber54129 10:16, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
c'mon, man, too soon :( theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 11:03, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
About 45' early  :) but OK, I withdraw my colour analysis. SerialNumber54129 11:08, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
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