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Latest comment: 6 years ago by MelanieN in topic Just a "what if"
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Excessive attacks on oppose !voters

Latest comment: 7 years ago32 comments21 people in discussion

I will just note here that I believe things w.r.t us having the necessary freedom of process have gotten to the point where blocks or some other intervention against those that attack oppose voters may have to be considered. The level of vitriol for simply voicing one's opinion in accordance with the process has become excessive, and we need an urgent reversal of this. Mob rule is not an acceptable way to conduct an RfA, and I think we urgently need to demonstrate that RfA as an open process is salvageable and will not be needing replacement with a secret voting system. Samsara 10:31, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree, there is far too much being said to that one oppose voter on MLG's RfA. The point has already been made that the opinion is not popular, in fact, the point was already made implicitly by the tally of 200something/1/0 when the comment was published. All the hounding is just turning it into a mare in red. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 10:36, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
As somebody who has been there and done that, all I can say it's just a standard part of discussion. As Paul Graham put it, "Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there's less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you're entering territory he may not have explored." So an "oppose" is more likely to attract discussion about differing views than "support", which are merely endorsing or regurgitating what the nomination has said. You get the odd badgering of support voters on obvious NOTNOW cases. Obviously I have a dog in one of the fights currently running at RfA so I wouldn't personally get involved, but in my experience the best option is to shunt discussion off to the talk page, and if necessary, hat the discussion with a comment that paraphrases "what has any of this got to do with deciding that 'x' would be a good administrator?" Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:39, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Ritchie is correct. RfA is a discussion, not an election, so disagreements should be discussed. That said, if ten people have already raised the same criticism of a certain !vote, one does have to consider whether they really need to add another response. Imho, some more clerking by crats might be in order when it comes to such discussions, removing off-topic discussion to the talk page. Comments such as "baseless and shameful", "bad faith", "sad I supported your RfA" etc. might reflect on someone's feelings but they don't add anything to the discussion and are better added on the talk page. Regards SoWhy 10:46, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Except that it is actually an election, with numeric cut-off points for pass and fail, and even 'crats acting as sort of electoral college for grey-area cases. RfA is both an election and a discussion, and no amount of Wikipedian distaste for vote counting is going to change that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  20:57, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
As a wikipedian of 10+ years - and someone who's passed RFA I would have to disagree. RFA has been a discussion as far as I can recall. If you make a weak argument on either the support or oppose side, you are fair game for a counter-argument. SQLQuery me! 04:06, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Thus the "and" in "RfA is both an election and a discussion".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  17:27, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
There's a rather important distinction you're missing between badgering a random oppose and condemning an oppose that's rather overtly based on sexism. We would never see an oppose based on someone primarily writing articles on men. ~ Rob13Talk 11:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
The only sexism that has been displayed in this whole sorry affair is the assumption that User:Xxanthippe is male. It seems that that editor has been pretty scrupulous about not disclosing whether she is a woman or he is a man, but the only person I have heard of with that name (without the double "X") was female. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 12:40, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Feel free to point me to where I assumed a gender. I did not. ~ Rob13Talk 12:44, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
You did not, but others did. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 12:58, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)It is important to universally establish a few things here:
    • What are the correct grounds to strike any vote?
    • Should explicit consensus exist to strike a vote?
    • What are the grounds in which discussion of a vote is acceptable? (one might think here, WP:CIVIL and such, but I think that may have failed us in this case)
    • Should the above be a binding guideline or policy, rather than the informal advice given in WP:RFAV?
  • The problem lies in that we have varying opinions and ideas related to this. It's all a little bit chaotic. The Megalibrarygirl oppose was struck, unstruck, struck again, and then unstruck, with explicit instructions by Cyberpower678 to not strike the vote again. A vote which has been overlooked here was Paulmcdonald's vote on TonyBallioni's oppose, which pressured him to move to neutral. He may be wrong, IMHO, but that was not nice. My name continues to not be dave (talk) 11:27, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • "sad I supported your RfA" - I said that, oh yes. But not before having thoroughly reviewed their history. And why did I do that? Because I just couldn't believe at first that an admin could be so mean spirited. It was a deliberate attempt to provoke drama (he said so), and drama he got. And peer pressure did what it was supposed to. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:52, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I fully agree with the sentiments in the subheading being discussed and second the full letter and spirit of filelakeshoe's eloquent admonishments against such belligerence. Please check all strawmen at the door and refrain from usurping this discussion by such means. I see nothing in Xxanthippe's oppose rationale remotely close to the blatant personal attacks being volleyed about for the sake of comparison.
I'll go a step further off the beaten path and disagree with notions that subjectively chosen commentary ought be refactored, as published, and segregated away from the RfA to its talk page. In my opinion the whole RfA process would improve many fold if instead we followed the Arbcom model and prohibited threaded discussions outright. If a threaded discussion was needed, I would concur that the RfA talk page would be the best place for it to sprawl, and it should then be published to the talk page, not moved there; so as I believe.--John Cline (talk) 12:44, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • FYI, I'm indicating towards an RfC on this matter, or some clear resolution. We can't go on like this. My name continues to not be dave (talk) 12:50, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The question is "what is excessive". I do believe that ridicule is the only correct response to ridiculous votes ("less than 100000 edits, less than 10 FAs, fails my criteria"), but I usually voice that in the support section. Outright misinformation ("candidate has 2000 deleted edits, so doesn't understand WP:GNG") must also be called out. But what we really should do is focus on the candidate, not the voters, so discussion about votes is often offtopic and should be moved to the talk page. Especially if it gets in any way personal. —Kusma (t·c) 13:19, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree that we do need to clearly establish when a vote can be struck, and by whom. In future we should try to avoid the back-and-forth striking and unstriking we saw here.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:27, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Well, the conversation took sort of detour. Coming back to the original subject: i think presenting oppose to any vote should be welcomed. But attacking that vote/voter should be discouraged. If the vote is blatantly stupid, or obviously with grudge, then the policy of striking it out can be thought about. @My name is not dave and My name continues to not be dave: i think either only crats or admins should be allowed to do that. In case of blatant vandalism, anybody (already) can revert it. —usernamekiran(talk) 16:47, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • PS: The phenomenon I am referring to happened with me in Ansh666's RfA. Mz7, and Ritchie opposed my vote in very civil manner. 16:50, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • To be fair, my RfA was a bit different. Other than that one random "NO!" vote which ended up being struck, the opposes were largely understandable (if not reasonable; depends on who you ask) and mostly civil (again depending on who you ask), and it wasn't headed for unanimous support with no major concerns. In those circumstances, people felt less need to defend my honor, so to speak, and allowed for more reasonable discourse. Of course, Xxanthippe also hasn't responded to the furor over their oppose; staying and clarifying (or doubling down I guess) would probably have led to less heated discussion. Drive-by opposition, especially of such a controversial nature, should be discouraged.. ansh666 18:44, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I'm ready to give my full two pence:

What are the correct grounds to strike any vote?

What may be constituted as appropriate grounds to strike or unindent a vote -- which construes the vote not being counted in the vote counter at the top of the RfA, are:

  • Any vote which unambiguously does not adhere to the relevant behavioural guidelines, such as WP:CIVIL/WP:NPA etc.,
  • Any vote that is purely trolling or vandalism,
  • Any voting where the same user has voted twice, or there has been evidence to establish that sockpuppetry has been involved. Discretion should be given as whether the first vote should stand.
  • An oppose vote, where evidence has been asked for the voter's rationale, and it has not been given (within what period of time)??
  • An oppose vote, which clearly misrepresents or misinterprets the candidate, broadly construed.
  • Any vote that has a rationale which is patent nonsense, or not comprehensible.
Should explicit consensus exist to strike a vote?
  • Consensus to strike a vote should be recommended practice when the vote is controversial. Otherwise, the vote can be removed by a 'crat, or, if vandalism, anyone.
What are the grounds in which discussion of a vote is acceptable?
  • This has a few options to it that I have. The first, as recommended above, is to disallow threaded discussion of any vote. Discussion of a vote can be placed in the General comments section, or on the RfA's talk page. The second option is allow threaded discussion, but to prevent pile-ons or the Justice and Retribution team turning up with many pitchforks and burning sticks. Of course, discussion can be allowed that is around consensus for removing a vote.
Should the above be a binding guideline or policy?
  • The current instructions, contained in WP:RFAV and WP:AAAD, are guidance only. They deliberately are that; the harshness of replies to certain opposes is new. There should be binding recommendations as to when votes should be removed, some of which are unwritten convention (vandalism and sock puppetry), and some not.

Yours, My name continues to not be dave (talk) 19:06, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

  • As I see it, there are roughly two kinds of situations where an oppose !vote becomes a candidate for striking or unindenting. One is where it is just plain wrong, by leaps and bounds. When that is the case, and there are no additional problems, it seems to me that it should be left in place, but refuted by replies. Unfortunately, there can be way too many replies, but that can be dealt with by moving the discussion to the talk page. But instead of striking it, just rely on the Crats to recognize it for what it is. That's what they get paid the big bucks for. :) The other situation is where the !vote actually violates existing policy. If the violation of policy is such that it disrupts the RfA process, then strike it (or when necessary oversight it). If there is an oppose !vote that offends many editors but does not violate existing policy, then that's reason for a discussion about whether a new policy needs to be adopted, but not a valid reason to strike it. We don't need to make it more complicated than that. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:44, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I strongly oppose the striking of votes for any reason (If an edit is pure vandalism it can be reverted). People will support and oppose for their own reasons, if their reasons are good they will convince others, if their reasons are bad they will not. The striking of votes necessarily causes drama, and almost always for no gain: if an editor already has 200+ is support, why is it critically important that they have 0 instead of 1 or 2 opposes? Antrocent (♫♬) 20:51, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
    I know where you are coming from, but my RfA received nearly 200 supports, and I still didn't get the T shirt. Striking a few votes may well have made a difference to the outcome. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:23, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • /sees all of the "grownups" in the room and raises his hand/ I too am more than okay with not striking 'bad' votes. In the case of an absolute blowout, the one vote won't make an overall difference. In the case of a "close call", other factors will come into play (*WP:NotNow, etc*), so the one vote still won't make a difference. As much as some of these RfA's seem to turn into popularity contests, I seriously doubt that a candidate will see this "blemish" as some reflection on their ability to use the tools the job comes with. Will it be disappointing to see a ###-1 "score", maybe, but if you're that concerned with the final tally, then maybe you're looking at it for the wrong reason. In the situation that is driving this topic, I don't quite understand the editor in their reasoning, but at the end of the day, that's their opinion, and nothing I say or do will change that fact. Respect their (*maybe misguided*) vote, and the process will continue to be healthy, because all voices are being equally heard. Start striking votes that don't quite fit the expected norm, and you're now opening up the process to all kinds of drama that isn't needed in the community, in my opinion. - NsTaGaTr (Talk) 21:46, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • This is my major gripe with the issue. It needs to be confirmed, however, that this should or should not be case. I shall continue no further, however, and I will start up an RfC on this matter, which shall confirm, going forward, whether the community finds it acceptable to strike votes that are not blatant vandalism or personal attacks. My name continues to not be dave (talk) 22:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • We've all seen oppose vote reasons from the ludicrous ("Wikipedia is in maintenance mode, so we don't need admins anymore", "I'm trying to rack up 100 oppose votes", "I always oppose fourth or higher nominations") to the bizarre ("the candidate urinates in public"). But I'm not in favour of striking votes. If votes violate WP:NPA or WP:SOCK then they should be removed, not stricken. The crux of the problem is that oppose votes are intrinsically worth twice as much as support votes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:40, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The only acceptable case, as I see it, is if someone is voting twice (no opposition there I guess?) or if there is crystal clear, undeniable evidence of sock puppetry. Saturnalia0 (talk) 06:41, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

RFC concerning the above

...the RfC has been moved here, per suggestion by Kudpung. My name continues to not be dave (talk) 07:59, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#Include_instructions_for_using_Template:Rfan_in_the_RfA_Editnotice

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#Include_instructions_for_using_Template:Rfan_in_the_RfA_Editnotice. Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:48, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

"Vote" vs "!Vote" terminology

Latest comment: 7 years ago12 comments9 people in discussion

This has been bugging me since a long time. "!vote" means negative/oppose vote. And "+vote" means positive/support. There is also an essay about this terminology but I cant find it now. It is evident that most of the editors think "!vote" = "vote". Well its not. Also, the use of ! as a prefix to vote, has its roots in computer programming. —usernamekiran(talk) 10:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

You're only partially right. Yes, the ! operator comes from computer programming - it's the negation operator, so !vote just means "not a vote" (i.e. not a straight poll), rather it's a consensus-building discussion where arguments are weighed, not just numbers. No, it has absolutely no relation to whether a "vote" is negative/oppose or positive/support at all. WP:!VOTE is what you're looking for. -- Begoon 10:15, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
The terminology/slang we have of "!vote" is supposed to imply a "nonbinding vote" or "soft vote" and not a "no" vote. It's meant to remind us that these pages are not treated as straight up numerical tallys. For example, back in the day, the place where articles were deleted was called "Votes for Deletion" or VfD. It was changed to "Articles for Deletion" in order to downplay anyone taking it as a straight "vote". -- Fuzheado | Talk 16:02, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

oh. So the ! operator still means negation, but used here in a different context. ie, "!vote" doesnt mean "oppose vote" but it means "this is not a vote, this is a personal opinion". Thanks Begoon, and Fuzheado. —usernamekiran(talk) 17:45, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Typically it's used in two manners: either to say "I know this isn't supposed to be a vote but I'm framing my comment as a support/oppose vote anyway", or "I know this isn't supposed to be a vote, but we all know that the closer is going to treat the supports/opposes as a straw poll". It's an affectation that is only accessible to programmers, and personally I think it would be better to use "discussion" if you want to emphasize that this isn't supposed to be a vote, or "viewpoint" (or something similar) if you're expressing your support/oppose view. isaacl (talk) 01:14, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Yep, I tend to use "comment" and "discussion" instead of "(!)vote". ansh666 02:06, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

The whole "!vote" thing is horrible jargon that should have never become common in the first place. It's serves as intimidating exclusive lingo that obscures the RfA process rather than making it more transparent. As Ansh666 points out, there's better ways to phrase it. We never vote on Wikipedia so calling our input a "comment" or a "support" or "opposite" etc is just fine. Jason Quinn (talk) 08:26, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

It is a vote though; it's only pretended not to be a vote because, as you say, "we never vote" here. So we call a vote something else. — fortunavelut luna(Currently not receiving (most) pings, sorry) 13:18, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
No, it really is not a vote. That it often functions as a vote is different from actually being a vote. If there are 10 well thought-out supports and 50 lousy "what found" type of opposes. Guess what? That person is still well supported as far as the closing bureaucrat cares. That's why people in RfA need to stop making a big deal out of nothing over ridiculous or even offensive opposes pop up. The closer knows how to treat them. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:01, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Ignoring the extreme case where the opposes are obviously bad votes (e.g. "I oppose because I was paid to do so"), then the straw poll nature of RfA has been essentially codified with the explicit creation of a discretionary range in the support percentage. In theory, the bureaucrats could still fail an RfA where the straw poll result is above the discretionary range, but they'd have to have ironclad justifications. Which is why we get all of this back-and-forth arguing, because changing the minds of individual commenters can actually affect the result. If we really want to weigh the relative strengths and weaknesses of a candidate, then we should stop wasting time criticizing specific criteria, and spend more time discussing how the candidate's pros and cons should be considered in relation to each other. isaacl (talk) 19:27, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
I think this is mostly true, tbh. The few cases I can remember of RfAs being decided by something other than vote-counting were all very controversial - meaning, they were all below 70% support but still passed. And they were all a very long time ago too, around the time when "!vote" got stuck in the Wikipedian sociolect. By contrast I can't remember any RfA being above 80% support and failing.
And yes, they are discussions as well, but in most cases what decides the outcome is de facto the number of people in the support and oppose columns. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 20:05, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Yep. But various people are going to continue being denialist about this indefinitely.  :-/  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  10:03, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Is a withdrawal better than riding out a failing RFA to the end?

Latest comment: 7 years ago11 comments7 people in discussion

Does a candidate who withdraws when it's clear that their RFA is not going to succeed, rather than letting it run the full week to the inevitable failure, have a better chance next time, or does it make no difference? I cut my first RFA short when it turned clearly negative, I feel it was to my advantage when I returned for my second (successful) RFA, but what do the stats say? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

  • I have seen candidates who withdraw their candidacy when an RfA clearly will not succeed enjoy kudos of small favor in their subsequent RfA for having done so; and there's nothing wrong with positive recognition of such a decision. Unfortunately, I have also seen candidates endure a backlash of negativity for not withdrawing, in such a circumstance, and that recognition inevitably rest upon wrongful conclusions derived by assumptions of bad faith; in my opinion.--John Cline (talk) 12:22, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
    Note to self: Use the phrase "kudos of small favor" in casual conversation at least once this week... Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:19, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
    That doesn't appear to be grammatical, though (in two different ways). I'm not sure if the intent is "kudos for a small favor" or "kudos, in the form of being favored a bit". Kudos means 'thanks, gratitude, acknowledgement', or 'honors, praise, acclaim', depending on context, but in either case "kudos of" doesn't really parse in English.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  03:08, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I do think if a candidate withdraws early when their RfA is clearly not going to succeed, it's a sign of good judgement and respect for consensus. However I don't necessarily think the reverse is true. RfA is an election, and strange things tend to happen as elections proceed (ahem). Waiting it out is maybe just hopefulness, or maybe the candidate appreciates the feedback. Editors who attack a candidate for not withdrawing reveal more about themselves than about the candidate. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:27, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The key to that question is "when it's clear". I think RfA candidates typically quit sooner than they need to, perhaps out of shame. I wouldn't pull out unless the numbers were below the discretionary range after the first couple days. Any candidate running should know where they stack up. ORCP is good for that, too. Between the candidate and the nominator, they should know where the potential issues are. The only people that are surprised by the aggregate's reactions are editors lacking self-awareness and honesty. Headbomb's fourth RfA failed after it went the distance, as did his third RfA. GAB's first RfA was withdrawn after a couple days and the second was successful. Anarchyte's first RfA was withdrawn after five days and the second was successful. Clpo13's first was withdrawn after five days and the second was successful;Same with Primefac's first. However, Cyberpower678's first went the distance and closed no-consensus in 'crat chat before his second passed. If you look at that recent sample, the answer would seem to indicate discretion is the better part of valor. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:07, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
    That confirms my gut feel. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:19, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Imho, it depends on how you handle either way, not which way you choose. Personally, I would see neither withdrawal nor letting it run as negative, as long as the candidate does show that they know that the request will fail and either now see it as a way to grow as an editor or as a waste of everyone's time that should be stopped sooner rather than later. But even a clearly failing RfX (like my recent RfB) can be a source of useful feedback for the candidate, provided they are willing and able to follow it. Likewise, a withdrawal can make sense if more feedback is clearly unlikely to happen and all new !votes will just be rehashing old ones. In the end, it boils down how the candidate has handled the failure itself, not the specific way they did it. Regards SoWhy 17:13, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
    I agree when the opposes turn into pile-ons without any new feedback it's time to pull the plug. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:19, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The context is everything. As SoWhy says, either path can reflect positively on a candidate. It depends on the way a candidate goes about it, and their motivations. I think if there is significant opposition, it generally reflects better on a candidate to simply bow out gracefully, with a promise to address the issues raised and return in a few months for another try. That demonstrates maturity and a willingness to accommodate community concerns. On the other hand, if a candidate acknowledges their RfA is going to fail but requests that it be left open so that they can receive the feedback, that demonstrates the same thing and can reflect just as positively on the candidate. Swarm ♠ 18:12, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
  • My withdrawal from my first RFA was probably motivated by embarrasment more than anything else, when the opposes turned into simple pile-ons, there was no further useful feedback. I even cringed when I read parts of it now, several years and a successful RFA later. My withdrawal statement was an attempt at a "graceful exit" even though I would have preferred to just slip out the back door as quietly as possible. So when I see a candidate stay with an obvious "crash and burn" all the way to the end I wonder if they are impervious to embarrassment, which, imho, is a rather undesirable trait for an admin. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:42, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Is RfA a horrible and broken process?

Latest comment: 7 years ago36 comments21 people in discussion

There always seems to be a lot of talk about how RfA is broken, and it needs replacing etc etc, but I wanted to get some hard data to see if this was really the case. The most obvious thing to pick up on is a record of recently failed RfAs, and see if I can discover why they failed and if there was anything that could be done to prevent that. I had a look and made some brief notes:

Candidate Date Tally Cause
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Headbomb 4 16 October 2017 72/85/10 Incivility, answers to two questions
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kostas20142 11 October 2017 9/22/9 Hat collecting
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Crboyer 9 October 2017 11/36/1 No content creation; weak understanding of CSD policy
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Robert McClenon 2 4 September 2017 66/76/22 Questionable CSDs; minimal content creation
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cwmhiraeth 10 May 2017 20/41/7 Recent ArbCom case
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Dane 13 April 2017 74/56/13 Questionable CSDs
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CaroleHenson 9 March 2017 12/5/4 Questionable CSDs
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lourdes 9 February 2017 20/26/4 Insufficient tenure (14 months), RfA badgering
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Onel5969 5 January 2017 81/27/5 Political bias
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mike1901 3 January 2017 48/12/3 Not enough experience
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Yash! 9 December 2016 55/11/3 Sockpuppetry
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Godsy 6 December 2016 138/65/4 Treating InfoWars as a reliable source

Looking at all of those, there seems to be a common theme to the reasons each one failed. What I also discovered is the first couple of opposes are rarely picked up on by other people; the more substantial opposition tends to come later. The actual opposition that makes an RfA fail tends to on the whole be civil and constructive; I don't think Yash! got a fair deal, and Godsy was right on the knife-edge of support, but of all the others I think the result was probably correct and matched what I normally think the RfA bar is.

People say that too many people who could be admins don't want to run. I've had a look through emails over the past year and found the following comments:

  • "I do not wish to take on this role at present"
  • "I decided not to proceed any further in the process at that moment. I had a lot of real-life commitments to attend to, and things were still very much in flux."
  • "Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I honestly think it's beyond me. In a lot of ways, it is like glorified babysitting and really, really stressful."

There doesn't seem to be much complaining about RfA itself at all - most of the discussion is me either deciding a candidate is not suitable or them saying they do not have time per above.

So what is the issue exactly? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Reading Godsy's RfA, I don't think treating InfoWars as a source was the reason for it to fail. Behavioral concerns seem to be the main reason here (which was expressed in the crat chat as well). That said, I think the analysis shows that reasonable, civil, clueful editors have nothing to fear as the recent successful RfAs demonstrate (MLG, Ansh666, Cullen328, GAB, Anarchyte, etc. (Tony most likely as well)) and there are plenty of candidates that fit that bill. The comments you mention show less a problem with RfA and more one with adminship as well but unfortunately no change to RfA can change the characterization of adminship as "glorified babysitting" and "really, really stressful". No amount of RfA reform can change that... Regards SoWhy 12:01, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I'd say the pendulum has swung the other way and that the main problem currently is that people get frustrated when their opposition !votes are not listened to. For example, there may be 150 votes in favour of someone with rationales such as: 'Why not?' Then there are 20 or so oppose votes with in-depth genuine concerns for why the candidate is not suitable for the responsibility of the extra tools. At the end of the 7 day period, the bureaucrat comes along and closes the RfA as successful which subsequently makes what should not be a simple vote into what is effectively; a simple vote. However, on the other side of the coin, there are still individuals out there who just want to oppose for the sake of opposing and will find any old rationale for doing so. I think it's a good thing that RfA is more critical now than it used to be, on balance. Weeding out those who are hat collecting, those with unsuitable temperaments and those who would quite plainly make veteran content producing editors quit with their administrative actions is a critical responsibility of the RfA process. There are simple solutions to the issue as a whole that would mitigate the previous concerns and soften the process up significantly but implementing them requires convincing people of the need for change. Many people might agree that there should be change but if just 1 millimetre of a suggestion for reform is unpalatable, it ends up derailing the idea towards no-consensus. Solve that and you solve RfA. -=Troop=- (talk) 12:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • My RfA is/was pretty drama free. I didn't mind the opposes in general, and the only thing that really bothered me was the implication that I somehow exhibited a pro-Catholic/mildly LGBT-unfriendly attitude in the way I handled new pages. I didn't get into it both because I didn't want to increase the drama that would come with those specific examples, and also I felt engaging on that specific topic would only lend the (IMO) false implication credibility. Of course, I was lucky enough not to have to deal with the opposes and ensuing drama that happened on the MLG RfA, and mine was relatively drama-free (the arguments on the talk page IMO were more about the concept of the draft space than me, so I didn't mind). TonyBallioni (talk) 12:42, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The problem with RfA is not always the results but rather the way in which people oppose. For instance, I would consider my RfA an example of why RfA is broken, in that multiple editors spent the week claiming I was a sock. That was a rather hellish week for me, and my activity dropped off for a bit afterwards because I wasn't the most motivated to do anything on the project. When people who would clearly be net positives as admins look at that, sometimes they decide just not to run. I know of at least one case at the moment where someone who would be a real asset as an admin is uninterested in running due to the RfA environment. ~ Rob13Talk 12:59, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • My impression is that the (intentionally?) mean-spirited inquisitions of a few years ago have toned down a lot recently. I suspect it may somehow be connected to the significantly higher number of !votes in recent/current RFAs. When there were only a few dozen participants the inquisition fires burned hotter. My first failed RFA in 2014 had only 74 participants, the second successful one in January this year had 145. Currently the norm seems to be in the 200 to 300 participants range and the discussions seem far less acrimonious. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:31, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
On RfAs like Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rickyc123, the discussion certainly seems to be more towards "moral support, thanks for your interest, have a go in the future" rather than chewing the candidate up and spitting them out. Indeed, if I had to pick the most snarkiest oppose in that RfA, it would probably be my own. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) This is one of my arguments for why ORCP is more toxic than RfA itself and should be marked as historical. Just putting that plug in here. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:13, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
TonyBallioni I wonder if ORCP might actually be the reason why RFAs are less traumatic these days than before? Perhaps ORCP is drawing the fire away from RFA, with a significant proportion of unqualified candidates getting "roasted" there and so don't come to RFA at all. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:35, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
Dodger67, I think it does that but I also think it scares a lot of good candidates who could easily pass. I know of at least one candidate who I think has an excellent chance of passing who was treated to a useless ORCP that could be used against them in an RfA. I also know that the advice that had been given is that you should aim for a 8/10 or higher average to have a shot at RfA. That is of course, ridiculous advice that makes people who get an average of 60% chance of passing think they shouldn't stand. I think more RfAs from candidates that range the spectrum is important. While everyone should want a 100% RfA, we need more people who are willing to stand on the chance that they will pass with 75%: not everyone is going to be perfect and get 99% or 100% support and that is okay, and we need to start letting potential candidates know that. Thus endeth my soapbox. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:56, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
  • In more recent RFA’s oppose votes have been subjected to a higher degree of scrutiny for a variety of reasons both good and bad (calling out bias, disagreeing with policy interpretation, disagreements over activity in certain areas or lack thereof, I want to see this RFA pass with 0 opposes). That a well-qualified candidate usually has a number of people willing to defend them when opposes appear is a good thing for the candidate and eases their burden. There also appears to be an increasing trend towards “I think I might oppose but let me ask a question about my concern first” which helps the candidate further defend themselves in a visible area and not look like they are badgering the oppose votes. ZettaComposer (talk) 14:16, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • When I ran a couple of years ago, I made the admittedly-stupid-in-retrospect mistake of letting a couple of editors here whom I'd had positive interactions with know about it, though in a glib "Hey look at this!" manner (I have an odd sense of humor sometimes). This was subsequently and perhaps predictably depicted in my RfA as canvassing, and led to a snowballing of opposition to the point that I withdrew my nomination. It chafed more than a little that some if not most of the opposers seemed to think my stupid mistake was instead an intentional attempt to sway the vote. Of course, noting WP:AGF at the time wouldn't have been practical or prudent. I do sometimes wonder how things might have gone for me if that had been a non-issue, and I might consider running again, but there's no way I'd nominate myself, and for better or worse nobody's come forward to suggest I run again. I also admit that while I think I would be an asset as an admin, I'm not entirely sure that anything I'm most strongly interested in doing here really requires the tools. I'd be curious to have a conversation about that with anyone who'd be interested in nominating me, but that's not an explicit request for such a discussion. DonIago (talk) 14:33, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • For whatever it is worth, the numbers suggest RFA may be having a bit of a turnaround. Total and successful RFAs are already more than last year, and the rate of success is the highest in over a decade. That doesn't speak to the subjective experience of being a candidate, but statistically a plausibly qualified candidate (leaving aside the NOTNOWs) has been more likely to pass than to fail at RFA this year. --RL0919 (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • There's a lot of ways to look at the data. Plus, there's lots of effects on the data as well. The statistical data set is also very small, so it's quite hard to draw conclusions from it. January of this year was quite the statistical blip (9 successful RfAs). If January had been a 'normal' type of month, the number of successful RfAs per month this year would be at the lowest level ever. Over the last 8 months complete since then, we've had a record number of 0 successful RfA months (3), and the worst February - September run of RfAs since RfA began (8 successful, vs. last year's low record of 10). I don't mean to be a downer, or to say that the RfA sky is falling. Rather, any statistical variations have to be taken with a very large grain of salt. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:19, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
  • To answer the question in brief, the problem is a series of cultural and structural issues surrounding adminship and the RfA process. On the structural side, the standards have increased from 4000 edits / 6 months in 2007 to 10000 edits / 2 years today. Candidates are judged on one-off or rare instances of mistakes, rather than evaluated on their overall competency. On the cultural side, we demand a "need" for the tools, when we actually mean "potential use" - the stronger language helps lead to an increase in standards. Adminship has also become a status symbol, and admins are held to higher standards of behaviour than non-admins. All of this combines to create an environment where the tools are a sufficiently big deal, and where the process to get them is sufficiently difficult, as to prevent candidates from wanting to step forward.
As to why you get such vague answers when asking people why they don't want to be an admin, there is also a truly comical culture around here that you can't want to be an admin. I'm sorry to burst any bubbles here, but I would estimate that 99% of people who are admins wanted to be one. Maybe there is the odd one that had their account hacked and put up to RfA in 2004 that passed. But the notion that someone is around for a decade, has edited in all admin-related areas, and then just happens to stumble across RfA and accidentally submit their candidacy is ridiculous. Admins wanted to be admins or they wouldn't have volunteered for it, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you're concerned with people being power hungry, there are other ways to see that - hat collecting and always trying to win debates are two easy ones. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:50, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry to burst any bubbles here, but I would estimate that 99% of people who are admins wanted to be one. I'd take that bet. I was one that had to be "dragged kicking and screaming" to RfA, 2 1/2 years ago. When people first started suggesting it to me I responded "no, no, never!" It took a good 8 or 9 months, and massively flattering offers from several prominent admins, before I finally got up the nerve to run. I know the same is true of at least one other current admin whom I recruited a few months into my tenure - he initially refused to consider it before saying a month later "well, maybe..." - and several other people that I have urged to run that have so far refused. I think the reluctant admin, who gets talked into adminship rather than aspiring to it, is not as uncommon as you think. Don't get me wrong - I now enjoy contributing as an admin - but I think there are a lot of good admins who had to be persuaded to run. --MelanieN (talk) 21:58, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I think this is an issue of wording, much like the word "need". We've twisted the word to mean something it doesn't. Whether others persuaded you to run doesn't change the fact that, after they suggested it, you wanted to perform the administrative duties. Nobody in any volunteer role is there unless they want to do it. I edit on Wikipedia because I want to; I'm not paid or coerced to be here. It's not a bad word. We've co-opted it to mean something nefarious, that the person is secretly planning to gain advanced permissions so they can do naughty things with them. But that's not what "want" means. What we really mean by "not wanting to be an admin" is that people should want to be an admin for the right reasons - helping people, doing boring maintenance tasks, protecting the quality of the encyclopedia. We currently associate "wanting to be an admin" with being power-hungry and not here to contribute to the project - just playing the MMORPG. But that's not what the word means, and if we can move away from treating any desire to help out in admin areas as bad, that will go a long way towards a more healthy culture surrounding advanced permissions.
I'm curious why you were reluctant to run. I think it probably has something to do with a) the standards expected of RfA candidates, and more generally, b) how admins are viewed and treated in the community. Adminship has become a very big deal now. If an admin makes a mistake, they are dragged over the coals for it. Adminship is very exclusive, because the vast majority of admins passed RfA years ago. But imagine how it would be if all you had to do to become an admin was email a bureaucrat once you got 1000 edits and had used a sub-admin permission without issue for 3 months (not a serious proposal, just a thought exercise). Imagine how it would be if admins were treated like every other editor, just with a few extra buttons, in the same way that someone with rollback or page mover rights is treated. Would the same stresses prevent you or others from volunteering yourselves? -- Ajraddatz (talk) 22:38, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I think that an example might help get my point across here. Imagine that you are looking to volunteer at a local food bank, helping to sort cans. You are talking with the volunteer coordinator, and they ask if you want to do it. You say "nope, I have never wanted to do this". Do you see how strange that would be in the real world? The organization would probably direct you elsewhere, because they want people who want to be there. It is still possible to want to help at a food bank for the wrong reasons, like if you steal some of the food you are there to help sort. But the issue isn't with wanting to help, it's with why you want to help. Same deal with adminship here. When we associate any desire to help out in admin areas with having bad reasons to want to help, we develop a vocabulary that is separate from reality. And one that, I would argue, contributes to the unhealthy culture surrounding advanced permissions in general. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:00, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
If that's what you mean by "want" - that they were willing to take it on for whatever reason - then I wonder how the other 1% wound up as admins? 0;-D In my case (reverting back to the subject title here) it wasn't because "RfA is a horrible and broken process." It wasn't that I was afraid a bunch of nasty people would tear me to shreds. It was more a matter of self-doubt - fear that I might not the grade, might not be worthy. Personality, not process. As it turned out, my personal experience with RfA was not horrible or broken at all - to my surprise I enjoyed it. And back to the even bigger question here: one way to get qualified people to run is for us as individuals to make more of an effort to identify them, approach them, encourage them, and maybe eventually talk them into it. Personally I quietly evaluate a dozen or more possible candidates a month, although most of them wind up in my "not suitable" basket for one reason or another. --MelanieN (talk) 23:20, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
The other 1% probably got it way back when all you had to do was email Jimbo or whatever, and didn't really know what it was for. :D Then again I wasn't around for that time so I don't know if that's accurate or not. ansh666 23:30, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I made an obviously bad attempt at humour, suggesting that the other 1% were accounts that had been compromised and taken to RfA without the original owner's consent. But you've got my point - what I mean by "want" is what the word actually means, a desire to do something for whatever reason. When we change the meaning of words here, it impacts how we think about the issues. When "want" means "want for nefarious reasons", then any want - good or bad - becomes bad. When "need" is used instead of "potential use", then anyone who would only use the sysop tools twice a day no longer meets that criteria, despite clearly having a potential use for the tools. When "notable" is used instead of "inclusion criteria", we attach a normative judgement to the quality of the subject of an article, when we are just trying to set a standard for what should be included or not.
Thanks for sharing your own reasons for not running. Your suggestion of identifying and contacting potential candidates is great. But I fear it is very complacent to how we treat advanced permissions here. The reason that Wikipedia was so revolutionary is because the most important right on the project - edit - was given to everyone. This allows people to make mistakes, because everyone else can fix them. Obviously administrator rights should be a bit more restricted than that, but any admin action* can be reverted in a similar period of time. So why do we have such a higher standard for admins? Now, I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be a higher standard, but I wonder what the right balance is. We're on a website where everything can be changed and undone, but we're fixated on promoting admins who will never make mistakes. I would propose that moving towards a better balance, between expecting competence but not perfection, would help people who fear that they might not be worthy to step up to the plate. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:39, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I first became aware of adminship around three years before I actually ran; in my case I'd had advanced privileges on other projects and sites all the way up to full root access on the server and had just "been there and done that" one too many times. I eventually concluded that since there were so many existing admins and that no admin is obliged to use their tools, that I wasn't going to end up in the same situation I've been in the past where I seem to be running the whole show in my spare time. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:48, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
As long as it remains a popularity contest it will remain broken. It really should be based more on objective measures of competence. This would remove the "you're going to fail because you pissed off an admin who has a bunch of friends and they're all going to bloc vote against you" problem, and also weed out "best behavior" near-noobs who don't have any enemies but also have insufficient experience to do the work properly. But, such a reform will likely not happen any time in the next decade.

What is more likely is that more tools will be unbundled. At some point we should get to where the only admin stuff remaining admin-only is "dangerous" things that involve deletion, blocking, and privacy/security matters. Some deletion tasks, maybe even all of them, could be offloaded, if the application process required sufficient clue. There are plenty of non-admins who know CSD better than the average admin, and plenty of admins make CSD mistakes, so the adminship bar is actually too low when it comes to CSD, while it is too high for many other tools (which is why we keep unbundling things like WP:Template editor, WP:Page mover, and WP:File mover). Another one that could be unbundled would be temporary page protection. It doesn't take a genius to figure that stuff out.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  03:21, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I've been of the opinion that we've reached the limit of what we can safely unbundle, but you do have a point, SMcCandlish. The anomaly is that all the minor rights carry a clearly set entry threshold while adminship has none (bar the arbitrary criteria exercised by the voters) but candidates come under heavy scrutiny. Any of the unbundlable rights on the lines you suggest might not need an RfA style process, but they would require a high level of proven clue and trust. It would still leave RfA however, as that one place where users can be as nasty as they like - to both the candidate and each other - with almost total impunity. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:19, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
But "we've reached the limit of what we can safely unbundle" is what most editors say, until we unbundle something else. The very fact the the requirements for getting them are technically higher (demonstrable experience, need, and clue) but socially lower (not a popularity contest) is why it works despite howls of naysaying and predictions of doom every time a new unbundling is proposed. I just outlined two additional things we can safely unbundle, at least partially and step-wise. Every time we do this, all the "sky will be falling" predictions turn out not to be true, and it works out just fine. The bare fact of the matter is that most long-term, active editors who do not have a history of blocks and topic bans can – if they have the requisite skills – actually be trusted with most admin-level activities, or they would not have survived here. They're certainly more trustable, as a practical matter, at these things than editors with 6–18 months experience and lots of smiles but little in the way of applicable experience and community "institutional memory" who nevertheless "earnestly" (desperately) want admin hats to wear. This is why, e.g., I voted for Headbomb despite his being a bit irascible (like me >;-) – he has a great deal of experience in the areas he wants to be an admin to be more effective at, and no interest at all in the "drama" processes where his patience and temperament might be strained or be a strain to others. Meanwhile, we have various near-noob editors who want to be admins and who have not pissed off anyone, but who have no idea WTF they are doing.

A radically alternative approach to adminship would be something like 100+ WP:NACs with 95%+ rate of not being overturned, and no [legit] blocks or bans within the last two years = automatically an admin. Make it an administrative judgement meritocracy instead of a popularity contest. Something sensible like this will probably also never happen, because the RfA crowd are addicted to candidates' sweetness, with little regard to competence. This is why I support the unbundling approach – just make the admin position less and less relevant, and increase the number of people actually able to clear out backlogs without needing golden magical wizard hat to do it, when a crumpled Template Editor tool bag and some grubby Page Mover overalls, etc., will get the job done.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  07:10, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

"It would still leave RfA however, as that one place where users can be as nasty as they like - to both the candidate and each other - with almost total impunity." But my research from the past year shows that in general, that's not the case - at least not to the candidate. Indeed, most of the biggest slanging matches at RfAs appear to come from experienced participants slugging it out with each other (and yes, I'm guilty of this) which generally have little effect on the candidate. Perhaps if we all let it go a bit (and I'm including myself in this) then that would be the most obvious way to improve the atmosphere. If somebody puts up a daft oppose that makes no sense, well as the old saying goes; "never argue with an idiot, they will just bring you down to their level and beat you with experience". Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:48, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
I think RfA is better than it was, and I think the scrutiny of opposes is right and proper, especially when by those that almost always oppose. Sure, there are supports with no real rationale as well, but I believe that the watchlist notifications are making it more inclusive and democratic. I was surprised how easily my RfA went, after watching the drama for several years and being reticent to expose myself to the negativity. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:30, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: most of the recent unbundling has had the benefit of 2 factors: support by the community, and ease of technical implementation. The suggested items you have above don't enjoy the second factor - as they would require both new software programming and the decision to incorporate that to WMF projects. With community support creating a new group "deletors" that can "delete pages" is much easier then "delete pages in namespace x, that are less then y days old, with less then z contributors"; likewise assinging "change protection levels" is much easier then "change protection levels, only for articles, only for protection times <x time, etc, etc". — xaosflux Talk 13:25, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
That's what rules of usage are for. All sorts of things on WP are technically possible but not permissible, and the system is generally just fine. Not every restriction we might want is necessarily a technical limitation.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  00:41, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
Yup, administrative controls - I've suggested that as an option before, usually shot down as "just be an admin". These are still SLOWLY getting broken out, the most recent was EFH. — xaosflux Talk 01:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
Unbundling is admittedly the best and most practical solution to the unhealthy culture surrounding RfA and adminship in general. But I'm still not a fan; you describe adminship as the golden magic wizard hat, but it doesn't need to be. Being an admin has exactly as much "social status" here as we collectively give it. Adminship is put up on a huge pedestal, and further unbundling only makes the group more exclusive and unattainable - something which I think is contributing to its social status. The unfortunate truth here is that, as you say, for any experience editor the admin tools are very easy to use. The most difficult part on enwiki is interpreting the maze of policies and guidelines written by a small fraction of the community over years as they relate to using the tools. So why is it such a big deal? (Obvious answers: no easy way to remove bad admins, standards so ridiculously high at RfA that anyone wanting to help out in admin areas needs to "campaign" or do all the right things for at least a year, an expectation of perfection in admins despite us being on a site where everything can be undone)
I would be in favour of complete unbundling. Adminship can't have some ridiculous social status if it doesn't exist. Some devolved groups, namely those using delete and block, would probably require RfA-style requests. But we could establish standards for those, and have merit-based evaluation rather than the current type of free-for-all. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 18:20, 21 October 2017 (UTC)


I still maintain that there's an aspect of not enough nominators actively looking for candidates. In the past year, of 37 RfAs - 26 of which had a nominator - 19 were made by the same 5 nominators (Ritchie333, me, MusikAnimal, and Kudpung, and There'sNoTime). When I made an effort to search out candidates, ask them about running, and nominate them, I was able to nominate 5 users in the space of a month, and I've got plenty of notes about other editors I'm either still talking to or am planning to ask later. I wonder what RfA would look like if, rather than having a daily thread where we write thousands of words about whether or how RfA is broken, we got out there and found editors who could do good work with the tools and just nominated them. Sam Walton (talk) 12:58, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


The question asked in the heading of this section is "Is RfA a horrible and broken process?" Horrible sometimes, but i'm not sure about really broken. In the last 100 RFAs, (say), how many of those new admins have since demonstrated they should not have been appointed, and how many who missed out have subsequently demonstrated that they should have been successful? I don't think the process is as "broken" as many people claim because it seems to be producing the right results. The unfriendly/unhealthy aspect of the process only exists because we allow it to exist. . Moriori (talk) 02:30, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

To somewhat echo was Andy Dingley said a couple of posts above, RfA producing admins we later need to desysop doesn't really seem to be the main problem. The serious breakage is that for every person who passes RfA (and, yes, most of those who pass should pass) we likely have dozens or more who will not even try because the process is too horrific and the outcome too uncertain because it's all subjective and personality-based. I.e., as long as RfA is a popularity contest and the primary concern is, basically, "has the candidate ever pissed off anyone who has friends", then we're always going to be short of admins we actually should have. Our community mistake is is making this a political process based on charisma rather than a meritocratic one based on competence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  03:22, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Lots of good points here, as someone who went through the RfA gauntlet and eventually withdrew at the start of the year I find myself mostly agreeing with those saying that RfA generally does get the right result, though sometimes not in the kindest of ways. Looking back, I probably wasn't quite ready in January - but some of the negative comments did perhaps result in me losing my enthusiasm for editing for a while afterwards. That being said, the vast majority of those comments were constructive, it was just the views of a few that I took somewhat to heart. I think the process itself isn't that broken, and if a minority of users rephrased how they put across their views on candidates, it'd be a far nicer place to be generally, and perhaps encourage more people to run. OcarinaOfTime (talk) 09:07, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

RFAs and canvassing - is this usually a legitimate concern?

Latest comment: 7 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion

I'm probably going to step in it here, but...

As I noted in the above thread, when I ran for adminship previously I made the stupid (especially in retrospect) mistake of telling a handful of editors about it, because I got carried away in the moment. This effectively derailed my RfA, as concerns of canvassing came to dominate the discussion.

This bothered me a bit at the time, and I've come to realize it still bothers me a bit, so I wanted to try to verbalize my concerns. If nobody wants to speak to them, I'm cool with that. At least I'll have gotten it off my chest. I'm really not looking for an argument here, and I'm certainly not looking for any sort of apology or such.

  • The way RfAs work seems to be at odds with most "election" systems I'm aware of. When someone runs for public office, it's typically widely-publicized. But the RfA system seems to encourage nominees to keep their candidacy secretive, on the grounds that a nominee could bias the vote. Even when an RfA is in progress, the announcement states that there's one or more RfAs in progress, but not who is running (that's likely a system limitation, and not one I'm especially concerned with). My point here is: do we really think that a candidate could, through canvassing, get so many editors to participate in an RfA that it would significantly bias the result? As I said, in my case I notified a handful of editors. Certainly if I'd notified, say, every editor I'd spoken to in the past year, that would be a different matter. If this situation is really a bit of a trap, just to see whether a candidate is aware of canvassing policies in general, then I guess that's something else, but it seems like something that could be handled by asking the nominator to speak to it rather than Opposing purely for that reason (unless we want to assume that no Admin has ever experienced their own lapse in judgment). I'd also note that because I was nominated by another editor, anyone watching my Talk page would already have seen that I had an RfA developing, which arguably would make my contacting editors redundant, though granted I have no way of knowing who actually does watch my Talk page.
  • Even assuming I was attempting to contact other editors to bias the RfA (I would note that the actual messages I left at the time didn't contain any wording actually soliciting opinions, but I suppose that could be considered to be implied), there seems to be a failure to assume good faith here, if we believe that any editors I approached (and potentially editors who would see their Talk pages) would then speak well of me at the RfA solely because I approached them. Especially now, when RfAs are publicized, I don't think we have any clear way of determining what motivates an editor to speak to an RfA. Put another way, "canvassing" attempts may reflect poorly on the canvasser, but I have trouble with the idea that they actually have any net effect on the RfA unless we assumed that the canvassed editors also cannot be relied upon to exercise good judgment.

TL;DR - yes, if you're involved in an RfA, approaching other editors about it may indicate a lapse in judgment, but I'm not convinced that it can really shape an RfA except in the most grievous of cases, especially given that now ongoing RfAs are announced in any case (even if names are withheld). If an editor has been approached for an RfA than results may already be biased, as those watching the editor's Talk page will be aware of the situation.

Thank you for your time! DonIago (talk) 13:48, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello Doniago. Just to put the perspective, the guideline exists to protect Rfa candidates as well – to prevent involved candidates from appealing to like-minded editors to oppose an Rfa (clearly, such attempts would be enough to tank Rfas of long-time editors who've had their fair share of disagreements in their tenure). Lourdes 14:06, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Just to be clear, "approaching other editors about it may indicate a lapse in judgment" isn't the half of it. You'll be crucified as "canvassing" even if you did nothing but notify a couple of editors who opposed you last time, in a beyond-good-faith attempt to make sure your detractors get their say. I made this mistake years ago in my second RfA (when I was actually ready, willing, and competent, unlike in my first), and basically got lit on fire for it. I've never bothered to try RfA again, since I later realized I don't want the shackles that come with the "job".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  12:08, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
  • In a sense, yes, RfA is secretive. Another way to think of it; in some jurisdictions it is illegal to campaign within X distance of the polling booths (Ok, RfA is not an election, but the analogy holds a bit for this case, bear with me). All of Wikipedia is within any X distance of the 'polling booth' of RfA. Thus, some people may be quite sensitive to any hint of campaigning for that reason alone. I think what is more common though is that RfA voters look for any misstep to hand a negative vote upon.I read your notifications [1]. The tone of your notifications did not violate any policy. But, there's a couple of underlying things here. For one, how were these people selected for notification? Random? Prior positive contacts? The assumption people will make is that these contacts are people who will likely support your RfA. Certainly it is unlikely someone would contact someone whom they think will likely oppose them. In your RfA 3 of the 5 that contacted you responded, and all of them supported your RfA. I.e., these people were chosen for their likelihood to support you. Regardless of the wording of your notifications, it is self evident these notifications were canvassing. I.e., it violated the canvassing policy by way of WP:VOTESTACK, which is also part of that policy. There's a nice grid on that policy page at Wikipedia:Canvassing#Inappropriate_notification. Where your notifications failed was at the "audience" component. What is important to understand here is that people can not know your intent aforehand. What they see is your notifications. Is it a failure of WP:AGF that people assume bad faith in these notifications? Not really; again, who would contact people who would likely oppose them? It looks like canvassing on the face of it because of audience selection. A casual check [2] shows for example that you're one of the top contributors to the talk page of one of the people you notified. I.e., it's not random. So, with some mild digging the canvassing seems confirmed. The appearance of impropriety weighs heavy. That's true in real life, and it's true at RfA. Another aspect of this is that while contacting five people, plus inadvertently notifying the people who are reading those talk pages, there's another impact; dominoes. People are swayed by the presence of support from other users. The status of your RfA was 3-0 with the first edit by one of the people you canvassed [3]. 10-2 at the second [4], and then 12-4 right before the first notification of the votestacking (edit where votestacking was made known). Then it tanked. If the people you notified had not edited the RfA up to that point, it would have been 9-4; 69% vs. 80%. I.e., it would have fallen into the discretionary range, and possibly not pass. The support votes influence downstream people. Canvassing can influence the outcome, even if it is not readily apparent. People are rightfully concerned about this, and respond with the only tool they have at their disposal; not supporting the RfA. I seem to recall one RfA that tanked because a candidate placed a notice on their user/talk pages indicating they had an active RfA. I don't know or think that RfA demands candidates to be perfect, but any missteps that happen just prior to or during an RfA are going to come up. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:43, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
    • This isn't the first and I fear won't be the last RFA where this has been an issue. But I think that RFAs where the candidate is accused of advertising are rare and the advice to candidates looks good to me. The relevant advice is at Wikipedia:Guide_to_requests_for_adminship#What_RfA_contributors_look_for_and_hope_not_to_see ""Advertising" your RfA: Some editors do not like to see an RfA "advertised" by the nominee on other people's talk pages or on IRC. RfA is not a political campaign. The intent is to develop consensus. Impartial evaluation of a candidate is the goal, rather than measuring their popularity. Canvassing is generally looked down upon. Consider using {{RFA-notice}} on your userpage, which is a more neutral way to communicate your RfA to other users." I think the advice is still correct today. ϢereSpielChequers 14:06, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
      • I don't have any dispute with that, and I (hopefully made clear I) wasn't intending to contest how my own RfA evolved, even if it was a bit disappointing. I just wonder whether the advice is really effective. It seems to me that in this day and age, anyone who really was trying to bias their RfA via canvassing wouldn't do it nearly as transparently as I did. Maybe I'm giving an editor who would do such a thing too much credit? Either way, I guess there's no harm in leaving the advice there. I guess the core of my "grievance" is that it seems more like something a nominee should be trouted for versus having their entire RfA go down in flames with potentially concomitant damage. Anyway, thanks everyone for your thoughts on the matter. Happy to talk about it more, equally happy to move on to other things. DonIago (talk) 20:09, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Extended confirmed?

Latest comment: 6 years ago145 comments73 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
It has been almost two weeks, and since comments have slowed to a trickle, I believe it is appropriate to close the discussion.
The proposal is successful. There is a general agreement to protect only the page "Wikipedia:Requests for adminship" so that only extended confirmed users can edit it. This does not create a requirement that one must be an extended confirmed user in order to nominate oneself or another editor for adminship; however, such editors will now have to ask an extended confirmed user to transclude the RfA subpage for them.
Those who supported this change noted that by today's RfA standards, it is unlikely that a user who is not extended confirmed will have a significant chance of being successful at RfA. Many non-extended confirmed users who attempt to start an RfA end up having their nominations deleted or closed early. Since these RfAs typically don't have any chance of passing, the argument is that preventing these users from transcluding their RfAs directly would minimize the amount of time spent dealing with the premature RfAs.
Opposition to the change centered around its necessity: some editors felt that the level of disruption caused by premature RfAs is insufficient to justify the use of extended confirmed protection, arguing that obviously premature RfAs are dealt with fairly quickly and that similar levels of disruption are not met with extended confirmed protection elsewhere on Wikipedia. On the other hand, others argued that protection would encourage experienced editors to give counsel to newer editors prior to transcluding their RfAs, which could avoid the biting effect of harsh oppose votes if they had actually transcluded. Jo-Jo Eumerus noted that, if appropriate, we can replace the standard "page protected" notice with a custom notice specifically for this page at Template:Editnotices/Protection/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 08:13, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

After the recent cluster of hopeless, clueless "nomination" attempts on the RfA page, I had a thought: what would people think about putting the page under Extended Confirmed Protection? Certainly, nobody has any business posting there if they aren't at least Extended Confirmed. Just a thought. --MelanieN (talk) 04:04, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

  • Agreed - this is a good proposal. This sets a very low bar for any user with a remote change of passing RfA that is also agnostic to users' work on Wikipedia (i.e. isn't a requisite number of featured articles, AfDs, article creations, etc.) - Upjav (talk) 04:17, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 247#RfC: Apply extended confirmed .5B30.2F500.5D protection to requests for adminship for the most recent discussion on this matter. If anyone has some additional points to add, please do! Most of the opposes, I believe, were around limiting commenters on requests for administrative privileges, rather than setting a threshold for candidacies. isaacl (talk) 04:25, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes. I would also support adding a formal 5000 edit and 6 month account age requirement for candidates, to start the process of making formal requirements for adminship and move away from the current free-for-all. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 06:07, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    I want to be clear that protection here won't prevent disruption. But it will make the process just a little bit more fair to those interested in becoming admins. Imagine you were a new volunteer at a local community centre, and there was a mop closet (with a mop in it!) that had an open door. But when you go to try and take out the mop, dozens of angry other volunteers jump on you for not meeting the "informal mop withdrawal guideline" that you had no idea existed. This is also why I would prefer that we more explicitly set out the requirements for adminship, but this is a very small step in the right direction. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:42, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    WP adminship has been nothing like routine janitorial work since the 2000s; it actually is a big deal. A better analogy would be access to the security guard armory and surveillance system. The fact that admins are charged with applying discretionary sanctions and summarily deleting things based on extremely nitpicky speedy deletion critera, dealing with revdels, and other sensitive matters, many of which result in indef blocks, is far from pushing a mop around. If I show up somewhere new and ask to be made one of the security managers while having worked there for a only a month or two, I would expect to be told "not on your life".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  20:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    I really don't think it is a big deal. The tools themselves are dead simple to use; the difficult part is navigating the community guidelines and responsibilities surrounding their use. That navigation is hardly more difficult than figuring out all the community guidelines around editing. But beyond that, even if adminship is some super-special managerial position, we should have a request process that reflects that fact. We can't go from calling it "no big deal" in one place, to demanding applicants have two years of experience and 10000 edits in another. Making a realistic assessment of the importance of adminship, and establishing a corresponding written standard for applicants, would help fix this process IMO. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 21:27, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    One commentator's personal standard of 10K edits is immaterial; there is no rule to that effect. I agree strongly what you think would help fix this process, but the community is loath to ever do anything about it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  23:50, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    Adminship is still mostly routine janitorial work. You just notice the high-profile, wikipolitically divisive actions more than you notice someone deleting a few speedies every so often while waiting for the bus. Most of them aren't nitpicky, most revdels are uncontroversial, it's perfectly possible to get by without knowing anything about how DS works. (Check my talk page, you can be an arb for two years and still have to use a lifeline when someone asks about DS details! ;) Opabinia externa (talk) 06:27, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
    Police work is mostly driving around in cars, asking people questions, and doing tremendous amounts of paperwork. But we still have policy academies, and do not randomly deputize everyone with license to use deadly force any time they feel like it. WP's "Wild West" days ended in the mid-2000s. The idea that adminship is no big deal is a nostalgic fantasy. The fact that most of the work is no big deal is immaterial. The part that's not is not, and the community takes it very seriously. This is not an argument or a stance, it's a factual observation. What to about it? Unbundle more admin tools and authority to competent editors. It's worked fantastically so far.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  09:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
    I would say that unbundling has been both the best and worst thing we have done with advanced permissions here. On the one hand, it does allow trusted users to gain access to the tools they need to contribute. But on the other, it further pushes adminship onto a pedestal, making it more difficult to justify requesting the full toolset. The big issue here is that those difficult admin functions are left to the "2007 group" - users who joined early in the project's history, and thus were made admins under the lesser requirements. Why are these users so much more capable, just because they joined earlier? What exactly is the difference between an admin who joined in 2005 or a non-admin who joined in 2015, all other factors being equal? You talk about how sensitive the tools are, but the current admin corps was not selected on that basis. That suggests to me that we could be a lot more liberal about how we assign advanced permissions without negative effects. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 01:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
    I've never in my 12 years here seen anyone argue that the "became an admin when all you had to do was ask and not be clearly insane" people are "so much more capable". Frequently people argue the opposite, and that opposite turns out to be close-to-objectively true in plenty of cases, since some of them do not have what we'd today call the administrative temperament. But adminship is for life as long as you remain active and don't screw up too badly, so we're stuck with many of them. We could be more liberal about granting adminship, but it's not going to happen because the community is what it is. It's just more practical to unbundle tools that aren't terribly dangerous; the community will buy into that much more readily than to letting any random yahoo become an admin these days. Maybe shouldn't be that way, but years of trying to get it to not be that way have failed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  04:19, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Sure, why not. One of the recent ones was extended confirmed (4 months/1000+ edits), but the rest in the last ~500 edits to WP:RfA haven't been. And if there's a special case for whatever reason, there's always edit request. ansh666 06:48, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. Clearly not unreasonable and a good solution for the misguided newbies. A Traintalk 09:19, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Seems like a solution in search of a problem. There are actually cases in which a non-EC user successfully requested adminship (e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/lustiger seth) and any user in good standing should be allowed to request adminship if they so desire, NOTNOW/SNOW notwithstanding, without adding additional barriers. Whether a page should be protected should be decided based on the protection policy and this policy specifically states that we should aim to have as many of its pages as possible open for public editing so that anyone can add material and correct errors (with no limit to the article mainspace). The page is already semi-protected, let's just leave it at that. Also, allowing non-EC users to add their RfAs helps identify users who wish to help out more in administrative roles and thus allows us to guide them more productively. Regards SoWhy 09:54, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
The fact that SoWhy needed to go back to 2008 to find an edge case that this policy would block is telling. The reason that we err on the side of leaving pages unprotected is so that as many people as possible can edit Wikipedia. RfA is a remote backwater that 99.9999% of editors and readers never visit, and for good reason. There's no conflict with Wikipedia's mission and no considerable benefit to leaving RfA open to editing to all and sundry. Well-meaning and ambitious new editors who fail to put themselves up for adminship with the page semi-protected can always go do an Orc Pee. A Traintalk 12:01, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • SoWhy makes some very good points, and I would tend to agree this is unnecessary. Also, since this was just discussed via RFC a couple of months ago, it seems premature to be bringing it up again... Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:07, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • That's not what page protection is for. This page is so well-watched that protection isn't required to guard it from disruption, and the current system allows us to talk to the people who are unwilling to read the instructions. Replacing that human interaction with a "this page is protected" message does not seem such a great step forward. —Kusma (t·c) 10:16, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I don't see the benefit, really, and SoWhy points out some valid objections. Just as a not really on topic, and probably unimportant observation which crossed my mind, so I'll share - it's not a rare occurrence for problematic editors to "hand themselves in" by adding a frivolous/disruptive nomination here. -- Begoon 10:21, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    Oh, very droll. wikt:give him enough rope and he'll hang himself I guess.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:28, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    No, I wasn't saying that it was worth preserving the 'honeypot' element, or sensible/desirable to do so. I was sharing an observation just for the sake of sharing it. I'll try to find a more bullet-proof way than the text I already included to make that even more stupidly clear next time. -- Begoon 10:39, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. I find SoWhy's arguments unconvincing; IMO a good faith editor hoping to get involved in administrative activities is far more likely to be discouraged if they add themselves in good faith and are immediately reverted with some variant of "you're not wanted", than if they see the MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext message when they try to edit it and are diverted to the talkpage where people can talk them through their particular situation step-by-step. Other than in the very early days when Jimmy and Larry were handing out adminship to their drinking buddies, the number of credible RFAs from editors who didn't have 500 edits could be counted on the fingers of one hand (and probably the fingers of one finger); besides, if someone is so unfamiliar with Wikipedia that they don't grasp the concept of "if you're unable to edit a page, put an {{EPER}} on the talkpage" (which is just a case of clicking the enormous blue button they'll see when they try to edit the page), we don't want them touching the admin toolkit. The RFC is irrelevant; that was about preventing new editors from commenting on individual RFAs, not about preventing them from adding their own RFAs. ‑ Iridescent 10:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC) ‑ Iridescent 10:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
You make some well considered, good points here, which help me to see the benefit I wasn't seeing above. I still wonder if there's a more specific and personal way to deal with this, though, even if that means resorting to custom edit filters. -- Begoon 11:01, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
I see your point and you are correct on one count: If they are reverted with a "we don't want you message", of course they feel discouraged. But if they are left a nice message explaining the revert and how to use their talents, as for example, Majora recently did, the impression should be different. That those editors are mostly not ready for adminship does not mean they won't be someday and tutoring them at an early stage might be beneficial to the project. Regards SoWhy 11:27, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. It's weird that it doesn't already have this protection level, and it would go a long way to avoiding pointless – both community-time-wasting and hopeful-but-too-soon-candidate-discouraging – self-noms by noobs.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  11:08, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support The previous discussion seemed to be protecting all RfAs, which is different to here, where we're just talking about protecting the main RfA page. Given there have been a bunch of edits that have had have been reverted, and it's a high-traffic page, protection seems justifiable. The choice of lustiger seth as the exception that proves the rule from SoWhy is somewhat strange considering this, but even in that case, they can always ask a nominator to do the transclusion for them. Indeed, Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:15, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
That I didn't believe seth should be granted the tools does not invalidate my argument because his request did succeed despite my objection. But you do make another good point in my favor: The whole discussion here seems based on the assumption that non-EC editors are not experienced enough but there are plenty such editors who are, just on other projects and thus should not be blanket-restricted from editing WP:RFA. I would trust a Commons admin with 10 years service there but only 49 edits here more than an editor who amassed 501 edits using Huggle in 31 days, yet this proposal would bar that admins from editing the page while allowing the newly created Huggler to do so. Regards SoWhy 11:34, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm struggling to think of actual examples, myself. I am pretty sure an experienced Commons admin, on finding WP:RFA protected, would pop over to the talk page and enquire about it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:51, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Personally, when I am working on another project and can't do what I want to do because I lack permissions (for example, I don't have reviewer permissions or voting rights on dewiki because of my low edit count there) I tend to be annoyed by the lack of openness, feel unwelcome, and go away. But probably that is just me. —Kusma (t·c) 11:56, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
It's not just you, I feel the same. I just couldn't put it into words as well as you did. Regards SoWhy 12:02, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support From January 2017, from those who have edited the main Rfa page to add their or someone else's Rfa or to simply vandalize it, I see 12 currently blocked names. I'm sure an appropriately nice message guiding good-faith editors can be placed in the edit template, if the main page is ec protected. This is common sense in my opinion. Lourdes 11:54, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I'm not sure I find the arguments on either side terribly convincing at this point, but the onus is only on one side of that debate, and in the absence of compelling reasons to protect, we don't. The level of disruption at this point (if much of it can even be called that) wouldn't be sufficient to protect anything else on the project with the exception of our most high profile templates, and only because those can affect a few thousand readers in the course of a few seconds. If the level of disruption rises to the level that would regularly get anything else in project space similarly protected, then any passer-by can protect and probably without much if any discussion. The only reason we need an extended discussion is likely because this fairly obviously falls afoul of our normal protection procedures, and I'm not sure this page is particularly special so as to make a preemptive exception. GMGtalk 12:44, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Is the number of early requests sufficient to be called "disruption"? The rule for use of WP:ECP is: In cases where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective, administrators may use extended confirmed protection to combat disruption (such as vandalism, abusive sockpuppetry, edit wars, etc.) on any topic. --Izno (talk) 14:35, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    • Looking through the history I see five (5) edits that the proposed protection would have stopped in the last 50 edits dating back to 24 July. I don't think this is enough to justify protection. (clarification, I originally said 3 edits, thjat is because there are two back to back edits on 8 Nov, I counted as one, one edit on 6 Nov and two back to back on 9 Aug I counted as one even though it is two different editors) ~ GB fan 14:57, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
      The word "disruption" has multiple meanings. On WP we most often mean an individual or WP:TAGTEAM's WP:Disruptive editing, but here it just means "this is a tedious pain in the backside and a waste of time", i.e. a drain on editorial productivity.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  18:01, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
<sarcasm alert>Yes, it is so much a waste of time. In the last 4 months we have had to revert 3 people who this proposal, if implemented, would have stopped. I don't know how we survived the disruption of those 15 minutes over the course of 4 months when something was on WP:RFA that shouldn't have been there.<end sarcasm> We probably have spent more time discussing this today then was spent on the three RFAs that this would have stopped from being added to the page. ~ GB fan 18:31, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
That's the ones someone bothered to revert. Too many actually proceed as RfAs. Those waste lots and lots of time. But whatever; this looks like a near-snowball support so I won't argue further (per the same productivity rationale!).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  18:49, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
The problem is those that weren't reverted, would not get stopped by this proposal. They were extended confirmed and would have been able to edit the page even if it was protected. ~ GB fan 18:56, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. We measure disruption, not disruptive edits. Here, the disruptive transcluded RfAs cause many wasted editor hours when they occur. People start evaluating the candidate as if they were a serious candidate, there's a pile-on oppose, there's discussion about whether it should be SNOW closed, it has to be closed, etc. The disruption initiated by the never-going-to-happen RfA extends far beyond one edit having to be reverted. The actual disruption here is such that ECP is warranted, and the fact this will hit precisely zero false positives makes this an easy decision. ~ Rob13Talk 15:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
On that note, I'm pretty confident that had Nickboy000 transcluded his RfA successfully to the point of not being CSDed, somebody would have called him a racist or a Nazi, or something approximating that, and all hell would have broken loose. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:33, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow. Evaluating the candidate "as if they were a serious candidate" sounds exactly like something that would only happen if the candidate is good enough to not appear unqualified at first sight, no? After all, no editor will evaluate a candidacy that "screams" "unqualified", will they? Regards SoWhy 16:08, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
So since 24 July there have been two RFAs transcluded and one username posted that EC protection would have stopped. In total these three were on the page for 15 minutes. (12, 1 and 2 minutes newest to oldest) All three editors did create RFAs. One was edited by a non sockpuppet/IP, the other two were only edited by the creator. The one edit by an experienced editor was to tag the RFA with a WP:G6 speedy deletion tag. Adding the time from creation to deletion of all three together there is a total of less than 13.5 hours (2:45, 6 minutes, 10:30), All three user talk pages were edited by experienced editors explaining why they request would never pass. These three didn't take up a lot of time from other users. The ones that take up a lot of time from users are the ones that this protection won't stop, the ones that already have extended confirmed. ~ GB fan 16:14, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - To be honest I think it's a great idea, Yes we're an encyclopedia and yes anyone can edit it however in reality who's going to give the mop to someone with less than 500 edits and a 30 days editing ? .... might of worked in 2004 but certainly wont work now .... and as pointed out above no one really needs to edit the main RFA page anyway. –Davey2010Talk 16:00, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:BITE: that is, a user who hasn't met the EC threshold is quite likely to be bitten upon transcluding their RfA. If we protect the page instead then a crafted-in-advance message can gently advise them in more civil terms that their RfA has a roughly 0% chance of success, rather than being told the same thing by the RfA mob. Regarding SoWhy's findings: post-2011 RfA is a wholly different monster; things that happened before 2011 really shouldn't inform decisions about RfA today. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:48, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. Instead of clogging up the watchlist of everyone who watches RfA, direct non-EC users to the talk page. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 16:57, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    That also shows up on your watchlist, so in which way is that an improvement? —Kusma (t·c) 19:00, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
    Depending on watchlist settings, talk page edits get collapsed into the same line as other talk page edits, whereas RfA edits are rarer so typically create a new line. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 08:52, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Weak Support I am not really convinced that this is a major problem and was leaning oppose. But I do think that preventing obviously unqualified candidates from self nominating reduces the likelihood of their getting rude comments and feeling unwanted. And with due regard to SoWhy's point, I think that standards have evolved to the point where the likelihood of someone with less than 500 edits getting the mop is so low that it just doen't bear serious discussion. If there is someone who thinks they are that exception then they can always ask an experienced editor to nominate them. All of which said, as a problem this falls on my priority scale somewhere behind trying to deal with the IP who kept trying to insert how many steel rivets and port holes there were into the article on the RMS Queen Mary. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:03, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose at present, but will support if disruption ramps up. In recent months there has only been two non-EC (extendedconfirmed) users who have disrupted the page: Nickboy000 and RPF2 (now blocked). The rest have been EC users, so ECP would have been ineffective. As such I don't feel there has been sufficient disruption to have indefinite ECP, although of course this could change in the future. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:18, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support with the caveat that an appropriately friendly editnotice is crafted directing users to areas where they can help out if they want to be an admin eventually. Obvious NOTNOW closes take a lot of time, between people having to do a quick verification of the user's experience, people deciding to !vote or not, people thinking about what encouraging advice they can give, people debating whether to close it early. This is a tremendous time sink that is discouraging for new users. The helpful advice could be given in an editnotice perfectly fine. In edge cases like SoWhy's example, they should have enough experience/connections to either post on this talk page to request the RFA to be transcluded or get someone to post on their behalf. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 19:02, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support as an official policy. An admin candidate must either be extended confirmed (30/500), or else have a nominator who is extended confirmed. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:47, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • All this will do is make users act so when they finally reach 30 days and 500 edits, they immediately make a RfA. I added a pretty screaming banner on the RfA self-nomination section that tells users in plain English to consider the standards, but it is surprising how many editors fail to read that notice. This will worsen the problem as editors who can't follow simple instructions will be incredibly tempted to apply after getting extended confirmed. Esquivalience (talk) 21:29, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I Support this proposal, as it does no real harm, and has the possibility to clean up some clutter. Hallward's Ghost (Kevin) (My talkpage) 21:35, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support to apply some very minimal standards. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:51, 8 November 2017 (UTC).
  • Sure for the same reason we routinely G6 RfAs of people nominated against their consent and sometimes of new users who are NOTNOW'd: if they decide to give a serious go for adminship down the line, this early transclusion will likely hurt them then. Its also a lot less bitey. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support I find SoWhy's arguments unconvincing. A user applying on that rationale as that user did in 2008 would still not pass today. --Rschen7754 01:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose this is probably inoffensive in and of itself - it's true that a non-EC viable candidate is unlikely - but I am getting really sick and tired of seeing the spread of EC protection all over the wiki to manage problems that barely even exist when it was originally deployed only as an absolute last-ditch measure to stop a specific type of chronic disruption. The community does not need to protect itself from a handful of dumb edits on the RfA page that consume virtually zero "community" time to take care of (as opposed to repetitive discussions about how various parts of our back-office operations should be EC-protected because reasons). The community does need to stop pulling up the ladders behind its existing members because new joiners are just so difficult. Implementing this means that the people who are making good-faith but inexperienced offers of help won't get feedback and encouragement to focus their efforts on other, more accessible ways to help, and people who are trolling will just troll somewhere else. As for the argument that an early NOTNOW effort will be used against an editor who later develops into a solid candidate, I'm not aware of any actual examples of that speculation coming true, but if you spot one, you can stop that nonsense by not doing that, and by calling out any idiots who show up at the second, serious RfA with their noses out of joint about early newbie mistakes. Be the change you wish to see in the world, and all that. Opabinia externa (talk) 06:20, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support per above. Saves newbies who don't know any better and deters trolls. Net positive. -FASTILY 08:20, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment A solution looking for a problem. More effort expended discussing it that would have been required to selectively notify 50 such RfAs. Leaky Caldron 09:31, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Why has this turned into a vote with bolded supports and opposes? It was supposed to just be a discussion on the topic. And as already noted, we just had an RfC which included this proposal and was rejected. To overturn that result would require a fresh RfC, advertised in the proper places.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:36, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Time to grass up User:Godric on Leave, to answer User:Amakuru: It waz this edit which enboldened the situation :D — fortunavelut luna 11:48, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
@Amakuru:--Well, it was just for a quick grasp of the entire comments of a particular discussant and as a viewing aid, in cases where definitive parsing was possible.Revert with pleasure, if you don't like it that way.But, as a curiosity, does normal discussion prohibits bolded keywords or that a disc. with bolded keywords gives you the impression that I (and maybe others) are trying to side-track the RFC? (which at a glance, looks to me to be primarily targeted on a diff. topic).Regards:)Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 11:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
@Fortuna:--Hmm...Many have, by their own will, cast bolded keywords.Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 12:07, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Yes. But for the purposes of grassing you up, we don't count those ones :p — fortunavelut luna 12:10, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
The recent RFC was about limiting the !voters in RFAs to extended confirmed members of the community, this is about the candidates. A very different debate, plenty of people are happy to see new members start !voting in RFAs long before they are ready to run. Hence almost all the oppose arguments in that debate were opposing because they defended the right of newish members to !vote in RFAs. ϢereSpielChequers 12:35, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment I have added this discussion to Centralized discussion.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:15, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support sensible move, we do need to make the place more newbie friendly and this would be an easy uncontentious small step in the right direction, the one exception in the last ten years could easily be resolved if we have a candidate who really needs to run before being extended confirmed they just need to convince a nominator who is extended confirmed. As for the argument that more effort is being expended on this debate than the benefit, firstly we will never know - but it only needs one bitten and driven away newbie to stay and become productive for this to be worthwhile. Mores to the point it is such an obvious good idea that it comes up every year or so and is chewed over in long debate before not quite getting consensus with opposes ranging from why worry about biting newbies to is this a big enough benefit to be worth doing. If we actually do it, we don't just avoid biting a bunch of newbies, we don't have to debate this proposal or a variant of it every year or so. ϢereSpielChequers 12:10, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support, per arguments made by Iridescent, Fastily, and WereSpielChequers. If a non-EC user is requesting adminship in good faith, a carefully worded edit-notice is going to be a much better thing for them to see than a revert transclusion. If the user is trolling, they have no business here. If there is an exceptional candidate who does not have the EC flag, they should have no difficulty finding an EC user to transclude it for them. Vanamonde (talk) 13:30, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support per above support votes. This method does not make it impossible for a non-EC user to request adminship, it just avoids accidental requests. In such extraordinary cases in which this could pose an issue (and, to be honest, will most likely never occur) they really should have an experienced editor to help explain the situation and vouch for them. ZettaComposer (talk) 13:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: Much of this debate focuses on concerns over "biting newbies". Supporters say having your attempted transclusion reverted, with accompanying comments, may be discouraging to newer editors. Opponents argue that meeting a protection barrier may be discouraging. In either case, it seems to me, it depends how the would-be RfA candidate is spoken to. At present, comments to the applicant may be polite and helpful or they may be unwelcoming and snappy. Exactly the same would apply if protection was brought in and the new editor went to a talk page or elsewhere in pursuit of their application. So the case for change is not clear-cut. – Technical question: is it even possible to vary the standard "This page is protected" message to show Ivanvector's crafted-in-advance message for this particular page?: Noyster (talk), 14:59, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
    Yes, you need to add something to Template:Editnotices/Protection/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship and it will be transcluded instead of the default protection text. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:53, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Fully understand the reasons for, but find them unconvincing; i agree with GreenMeansGo that the level of disruption here doesn't rise to the level of needing such preventative measures: The page is well-enough travelled that anything added by someone with no chance of passing is quickly seen and either reverted or SNOWed. That is sufficient. Happy days, LindsayHello 17:29, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Break 1

No. Lourdes 18:03, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Lourdes You are truly a master of verbosity. GMGtalk 18:14, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
(My apologies. The intention in leaving a short comment was to be precise, not anything else. Warmly, Lourdes 18:17, 9 November 2017 (UTC))
  • Oppose – I see no reason to go to such lengths to prevent something so minor. It really wouldn't even prevent the very thing people are worried about. Nihlus 18:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict × 2) Support per arguments above. The furthest I would make it is 6 months/2000 edits. No more. J947( c ) (m) 18:21, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. There is nothing good faith about an attempted transclusion by anyone with less than 500/30. Over the last few years we've added so many 'in-your-face' warning banners, written some detailed advice pages, and created ORCP, that only someone practically illiterate, a non native speaker, or very immature would still go ahead. We don't get many bids for adminship at all these days, and the SNOW closes are even more rare. Those who argue that it's no trouble to catch them in the bud manually are quite right, but protecting the page would do it for us and spare such users' feelings. The English Wikipedia is the only major project that does no have some threshold, not only for candidates, but also for voters. The projects that were created later obviously learned from our mistakes and/or omissions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:31, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support There is no way an editor can show his knowledge/worthiness in less than 500 edits. I cant understand if you oppose in RfA with "too short tenure" or "not many edits in blah-blah-blah area", or something like that, then why oppose a threshold? Is it a double standard, or just opposing everything? —usernamekiran(talk)
  • The sys-op toolset is not a joke. It should be given only to the people who are tustworthy enough. And there is no way any editor can acquire enough trust in less than 30 days, or 500 edits.
  • Just in case if there is a candidate worthy enough, he can ask someone to nominate, or make an edit request.
  • And for the voters, I think any registered voter should be able to vote, and IPs should be welcomed to ask questions. —usernamekiran(talk) 22:22, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support it is extremely unlikely that a user who isn't extended confirmed would stand any reasonable chance at RfA, and in the event that one does it should be no trouble to get a nominator (or anybody else who thinks the RfA has a chance) to add the RfA to the page. Non-extended confirmed candidates will be either trolls or people whose nominations will be closed under WP:SNOW whilst having their feelings thoroughly trampled on. Neither is a good idea to list for consideration. I don't think it really matters what the protection policy says on the subject, it makes sense and if we get consensus here then we can do it. Hut 8.5 22:30, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Not sure, leaning toward oppose I generally don't like seeing knock-out criteria being made official (though, of course, everyone gets to use their own criteria, individually, when !voting) ... there are always exceptions to the rule (which automatized thresholds probably would miss). I supported self-nominated Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/lustiger seth, who wouldn't be allowed to post under the new rule, and he passed, for example. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:32, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
    @Sluzzelin: well, in case the candidate worthy, then he can ask someone to nominate him, or he can make an "edit request". —usernamekiran(talk) 22:50, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
    I guess I compare it to shutting out unregistered editors via page protection. A powerful tool that must be used diligently and selectively, shutting out constructive editors who wouldn't pass the barrier as rarely as possible. As mentioned above and below, truly non-constructive contributions can be dealt with personally and individually (↓). I don't see the crisis warranting this step. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:37, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - since I didn't bold my opinion above. I share Opabinia's concern about creep/overuse of ECP, and still think a more personal, individual approach would be preferable here. -- Begoon 23:09, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose No one has shown how there is any amount of disruption that this will prevent. ~ GB fan 00:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree with both SoWhy and GB fan. There is no real reason to ECP this page. -- Dolotta (talk) 03:12, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This would be an unnecessary change as even at 30/500, people still won't pass. It'll result in people editing like crazy to reach the mark and then be shot down because they (still) don't have enough experience. The current message on WP:RFA is enough: There are no official prerequisites for adminship other than having an account, but the likelihood of passing without being able to show significant positive contributions to the encyclopedia is low. If someone can't read that and realise that only being on the site for a week and having 100 edits isn't enough, then reaching one month and having 500 edits won't change anything. Anarchyte (work | talk) 05:23, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
    By the time people have become extended confirmed they have usually learned to be less bold. I'd be very surprised if more than a tiny minority were merely delayed until becoming extended confirmed. ϢereSpielChequers 13:27, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - can't believe people are opposing this. There is literally no reason to let someone who isn't even Extended Confirmed transclude an RfA. They just get reverted immediately! I agree that this isn't the most pressing issue, but so what? Protecting the page will still be a positive. Swarm ♠ 05:41, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
    @Swarm: Because it goes against policy. Nihlus 05:44, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
    ....which in turn, goes against policy. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:16, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
    @Nihlus: - That's literally the opposite of how this project is governed. Implying we're not allowed to make an exception to standard practice via community discussion is asinine. See WP:5P5, WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY, WP:IAR, WP:COMMONSENSE etc. Swarm ♠ 04:57, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
    @Ritchie333: That's a terrible argument and one that people often use to justify weak arguments. @Swarm: I implied no such thing. Making an exception that goes against the very purpose of a core policy with terrible arguments is what is asinine. Nihlus 05:04, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
    @Nihlus: You say the supporters have weak arguments, but your argument is "I see no reason to go to such lengths..." The proposal is something that would take less than a single second to implement, and it would do nothing negative, but it would prohibit, to a limited extent, some wastes of time in formally closing and de-transluding nonstarter RfAs. So, you have no downsides, and an obvious, if limited, benefit. And your position is "but policy", an argument that goes against one of the fundamental pillars of this project, in which we're encouraged to bend and ignore the rules as we see fit. But we're the ones with a "terrible" and "weak" position. Yikes. I don't know if you realize this, but this is Wikipedia. Petty policy wonkiness is not a way to build credibility when it is lacking. Swarm ♠ 05:54, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
    My point is that it would only prohibit the transclusions from being done. That's it. It would save the time it takes to undo an edit, but it would preemptively protect a page. So to steal your line, you have one big downside, and an obvious, if limited, benefit. You're encouraged to bend and ignore rules when it improves Wikipedia; however, I do not see the net improvement. Euryalus said it best right below: The disruption from extremely premature RfA's is minimal, and has no effect on the primary function of the encyclopaedia. Nihlus 06:15, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
    I don't see what's, as you call it, the "big downside" to this, and I'd think many others would agree. I feel like that's the main point of contention in this entire discussion. Could you explain exactly what this "big downside" is? ansh666 07:51, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
    And that's the great thing about communities: people can disagree on ways to handle things. The big downside is that you have a solution looking for a problem and are preemptively protecting a page to solve a problem that really isn't a problem. I'm not sure there is a point in continuing this arguing as many people are clearly entrenched in their stance, myself included; as such, I won't be making further comments on this. Nihlus 16:08, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
    (←) @Nihlus: So, in your view, the disruption is minimal. Action is not necessary. It's not a genuine problem to begin with, so what's the point? That's fine, but where's your "downside"? You yourself acknowledge that it would prevent nonstarter transclusions, and it would save time closing and reverting nonstarter RfAs. So far this is nothing but positive, if somewhat unnecessary. However I'm still not seeing any negatives, so by definition a little positive and no negative would be a net positive. Where is the negative? Where? Swarm ♠ 07:04, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per GreenMeansGo, who keeps popping up as a voice of reason. Also per OR. The disruption from extremely premature RfA's is minimal, and has no effect on the primary function of the encyclopaedia. In the absence of any more compelling reasoning than we have in this debate, let's not layer on more restrictions and conditions like this. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:49, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
    • I note that there are in fact no restrictions that currently apply to filing an RFA: "There are no official prerequisites for adminship other than having an account". So we would not be layering on additional restrictions in a situation where there are none to begin with (or at least no official ones). This might be a case where the opposite of WP:CREEP applies: there aren't actually enough rules. — This, that and the other (talk) 08:42, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - I see nothing in our protection policy that hinders the use of ECP as sought in this proposal. I rather see a proposal that shows Wikipedia:Requests for adminship as nearly being a "textbook–example" of a page in need of ECP; a page that most-likely will be immediately improved, upon its use.--John Cline (talk) 08:26, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
    • The improvement seems to be tiny (the "disruption" really isn't worth mentioning on a standard Wikipedia vandalism scale). The disadvantages of the proposal are also not huge, but I am really surprised by the enthusiastic response of some people. Basically we are arguing in whether we want to stop or to discourage clueless people from making a fool of themselves. Neither will stop the influx of clueless people, or the fact that you need to talk to them over an extended period of time to make them obtain some clue. —Kusma (t·c) 10:15, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support the protection of the main RFA page only. I think a gentler way of discouraging newbies from trying for RFA is a good thing, and less likely to scare them away with their tails between their legs than a rapidly closed RFA with possibly some harsh comments. I'll note (for those who want no minimum requirements for admin) that it would not not actually prohibit them from running, but it would mean they'd have to get someone to transclude for them - and if a truly stellar non-EC applicant turned up, they could be admitted that way. My other note is that I generally share Opabinia's dislike for the creeping invasion of EC protection, but I do think this is one example of a good use of it with no real downside. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 01:57, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
    I'll just add that I oppose the use of any page creation blacklists and also oppose any attempts to protect individual RFA pages. This is just a simple suggestion for a simple (and not overwhelming) problem, and it could help a little - there's no need to go over the top and try to extend it to being an impenetrable defence. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:27, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:52, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support like Swarm, I can't believe that people are opposing this. Except that I can, given that anything related to RfA is likely to draw opposition no matter how harmless and reasonable it is. We've even had a 9-year-old RfA dredged up as evidence in opposition. Things have changed just a wee bit in 9 years. Lepricavark (talk) 03:33, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support, and also use the title blacklist to prevent non-extended-confirmed editors from creating their own nomination page. Jc86035 (talk) 05:51, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support per Kudpung. There are so many warnings that adminship is only for experienced users that anyone not extended confirmed and choosing to ignore them all and transclude is very unlikely to be doing it in good faith and is just wasting everyone's time.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:28, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
    Or "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" ;-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:23, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. If there's a good-faith reason for someone with fewer edits to start an RFA, there will surely be someone who can transclude it for them. Otherwise, being able to do this just makes an editor look bad when they come back at a more-qualified time. (+1 to Alan's "kinder" comment below.)--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:15, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support It seems kinder to do this than to not do this, and it will preclude the unneeded or wasteful. The supports make more sense, and the opposition seems largely mistaken (like pointing to what a single admin should and should not do, not what the community in an RfC may do). Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:37, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support No reason for anyone without 500/30 to be filing an RfA. With all the warnings around I'm not sure what the heck is going on with someone if they continue to transclude. My name isnotdave (talk/contribs) 17:44, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support: quite reasonable. Jonathunder (talk) 20:42, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support it behooves us to prevent disruption and that's what protection is for. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:21, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Will prevent disruption, and I'm not seeing any downside. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:37, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - since the beginning of 2017, there were 16 editors who edited RFA itself while not extended-confirmed. Of these, 11 are blocked; 1 was a joke RFA on April 1; and the other 4 (ChocolateRabbit, Mark0880, Roman sajid and Tube Geek 77) - the last one never creted a nomination page, the nomination pages of the other 3 were deleted. I see no reason to allow these edits to happen. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:06, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Weak support. I would support the approach suggested by Boing! said Zebedee. SoWhy makes an important point where we should account for people who need the sysop toolset for niche scenarios. feminist 14:26, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Let's look at how this would actually work

I would like someone to explain, in step-by-step detail, exactly how (a) EC protection can be used to prevent the creation of an RFA page for a candidate who does not meet the qualifications for editing through EC protection (b) how an editor without EC protection permission can nominate another editor who meets the qualifications; (c) how editors without EC protection permission can subsequently edit an RFA (i.e., vote and comment). I get the theory. But since there is no absolute rule at this time that only candidates with 500+ edits will be allowed to run (honestly people, just write the rule, it's been the standard for more than 10 years), and definitely no rule that an editor with fewer than 500 edits is disqualified from nominating other editors for adminship - first, delineate these rules. They should be black and white, since they've been standard for a decade. This is step one before adding protection levels. Risker (talk) 05:14, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Step 1 - the text There are no official prerequisites for adminship other than having an account, but the likelihood of passing without being able to show significant positive contributions to the encyclopedia is low. is replaced with The only official prerequisite for adminship is to be an extended confirmed user (or, in exceptional cases, to be nominated by one), but the likelihood of passing without being able to show significant positive contributions to the encyclopedia is low.
Step 2 - do nothing else. The nomination pages won't be under ECP as a result of this, so !votes and comments won't be effected at all. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:24, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
Not disagreeing with you about the appropriate course of action, Power~enwiki, but given all the people supporting EC protection above without having yet figured out how it will be done...the obvious path seems to be the one less taken here. Risker (talk) 06:10, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
@Risker: I think the title blacklist could be used to prevent page creation by non-extended-confirmed editors on subpages of WP:RFA. That makes EC a requirement of the nominator, which is probably what we want. Jc86035 (talk) 06:25, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
That's how I see it too, we want to stop self nominations by newbies, as they are just a waste of time (and bytes). Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:16, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Hold on...you want to use the page creation blacklist, whose primary use is to prevent disruption, vandalism and abuse? Wow, what a message to send. Risker (talk) 07:51, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
    @Risker: as Power said, the original proposal said nothing about protecting individual RfA pages (i.e. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Example), only the main Wikipedia:Requests for adminship page. I don't believe there is support for EC protection for individual RfA pages. ansh666 08:02, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • For my part, what I'm supporting is the use of EC protection to prevent new editors from making their RFA active by transcluding it. If someone wants to create a draft RFA and not send it live until they qualify—or in the hypothetical case of the highly qualified editor who somehow doesn't have 500 edits, persuade someone else to transclude it for them—I have no problem with that. What this proposal is intended to prevent is the current situation where a good-faith but overenthusiastic new editor applies for the admin bit after a couple of weeks, gets bombarded with "oppose, clearly not competent" messages, and thinks "fuck this" and leaves Wikipedia altogether. ‑ Iridescent 11:03, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I think people are misunderstanding; this is the attempt to create that rule, more-or-less. ~ Rob13Talk 12:16, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
    Nope, a consensus here for applying EC protection to a page would not establish such a rule. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:36, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
    In the same sense that indeffed LTA cases aren't always actually banned, perhaps. But if you can't find someone who will agree to transclude your RfA for you with only 15 edits, then de facto, you cannot run for RfA. ~ Rob13Talk 12:55, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
    Sure, being unable to find someone to transclude an RFA would effectively block a run. But I can understand an objection that an actual minimum requirements rule should be set first, as this proposal would prevent someone from running when there's actually no policy that says they can't. Then again, if this passes it might be a useful step towards getting such a policy (which many people, me included, think we should have). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

This is slightly silly

Look at how much time we've spent debating whether we should allow no-hope RFAs to be transcluded and then immediately marked NOTNOW (after which they're usually swiftly deleted altogether) or whether we should just not allow them to be transcluded at all. This is approaching a point at which it's all a tad silly. Both options achieve the same thing. One takes slightly less effort. We (myself included) perhaps need some perspective on the low importance of this discussion. The only thing we're really achieving here is creating a useful case study on how hopelessly impossible any meaningful RfA reform is, given the fact we can't even achieve meaningless RfA reform. ~ Rob13Talk 13:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

By my count it's about 43–18 support versus oppose, with far more persuasive support rationales than the other way around. So yes, it is silly to keep debating round in circles on this. The solution to the time wasted in this discussion is to stop opposing something that clearly has sufficient support, especially since the objections all raise the same handful of points over and over again but they have already been addressed multiple times – and these refuations have not been convincingly rebutted, when responded to at all. I.e., the "we've wasted more time talking about this than would have been saved by the proposal" borders on fait accompli and filibustering, not a position to take seriously. Otherwise, every single time-and-efficiency proposal ever made on WP could be derailed by simply refusing to stop going on and on against it in an WP:ICANTHEARYOU manner.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  16:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC); updated: 19:28, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
This tiny change is probably going to be implemented. I don't expect it to be a significant improvement, and oppose it out of general principles (keep pages unprotected whenever feasible). There is nothing wrong about having a minority opinion, and no reason to switch to support a proposal that you don't believe in just because that is the "consensus" opinion (unless you are a non-admin wanting to become an admin who needs to watch their AfD stats because some people are silly enough to base their RfA votes on AfD percentages, but that is a different problem). I fully agree with BU Rob13. —Kusma (t·c) 21:51, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I’m not writing this in opposition of the change (which I have supported). I’m pointing out that those passionately opposing streamlining the process are perhaps acting out of proportion with the suggested change. The fervent opposition, even from some who agree RfA has issues, is depressing. The time put in to argue against a proposal that reduces the time we spend on no-hope RfAs could have been spent elsewhere. ~ Rob13Talk 22:48, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm surprised you interpret the opposing posts as "fervent" and "depressing". ---Sluzzelin talk 22:50, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. To dismiss well-reasoned and valid opinions by experienced editors as "fervent" and "depressing" is a bit disrespectful IMHO. And this proposal is not about "streamlining" RfA, but about restricting newbies from something that could help them learn more about the encyclopedia, just to save a few people the bother of explaining WP:NOTNOW to the user and then closing it. I understand where the supporters are coming from, but I think it's valid to say it's a solution looking for a problem.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:39, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I believe that to list as a RfA candidate the editor should be extended confirmed. But, the voters shouldn't require any protection or autoconfirmed protection. The starting editors should have a say in what the community admins should be. Cocohead781 (talk) 01:24, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Just a "what if"

Latest comment: 6 years ago38 comments20 people in discussion

What if every editor with more than ten years and 50,000 edits, and an acceptable behaviour record of course, were simply given the mop, no inquisition, no debate. Here, take this mop, it's your punishment for being a good dedicated veteran editor. How many admins would we gain? How much damage would they do? (This is not a real proposal, it's just a "what if" thought experiment.) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Yo Dodger67, something of the sort at WP:FREQUENT, specifically this. Thing is, you'd ed up with characters like me :p on a serious note, would it affect for even-more-advanced permissions like oversioght, checkuser etc., which I think actually require a vigorous vetting procedure (i.e. what we see at RfA); if RfA wasn't vigorous, would that have legal implications? — fortunavelut luna 08:14, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
The problem is right there in your question: what is an "acceptable behaviour record" and how do you determine it without the inquisition? Once you know that, you can check WP:WBE and see how many people you gain. I don't expect they'd do a lot of harm. —Kusma (t·c) 10:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
plus 1 re difficulty of agreeing an acceptable behaviour record. I'd add that someone who does 49,900 edits in their first year and then averages 1 a month may not be an ideal candidate even if their only block is over 8 years old and they have edited in the last two years. More importantly though, adminship isn't suitable for every experienced editor. Some people don't want to risk the delete button falling into the hands of a deletionist, and others don't want the block button going to a member of the civility policy etc etc. Also people who've been here ten years aren't really the most important target group. The wikigenerations who we underrepresent among the admins are particularly those who started editing between January 2009 and the end of 2015. ϢereSpielChequers 14:08, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I endorse any attempt at reforming RfA voting in one way or another. I would support your idea. I've had a lot of 'what if' ideas like... What if everyone who voted at RfA were required to simply vote: "Support - per my criteria.' or "Oppose - doesn't meet my criteria." With the link actually linking to their set of criteria that they would be mandated to have on one of their user pages in order to vote. If people wanted to make an exception to their criteria then they'd have to give a reason in their !vote as to why they are deviating from their own criteria. I think this would reduce the 'Why not?' support votes and the extreme nitpick oppose rationales that are seen at many RfA's. It would also assist Bureaucrats in assessing consensus because it would be easier to see whose opinions are valid based on the sensibility of the criteria set. The process has been stagnant for quite a few years though so I would expect opposition on any change because people believe the status quo to be the best albeit imperfect solution. -=Troop=- (talk) 13:35, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
    Trooper1005 The problem of moving from a discussion to a straight up vote is that you lose the discussion. You lose the strongest point of RFA, the ability of those who actually assess candidates rather than question them to find the diffs that sometimes derail an RFA from someone who shouldn't pass. You also lose the dialogue that sometimes happens when people oppose on mistaken assumptions. As for the idea that the process has become stagnant and any change is better than the status quo, I agree that the debate is stagnant, you only have to look up one section to see that any change will be opposed - even by people who admit it will make the project better at nil or negligible cost! If you are thinking of RFA reform in general I'd be interested in your views on User:WereSpielChequers/RFA reform where I've tried to list all the main reform ideas and most of the minor ones. ϢereSpielChequers 14:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • It would likely be completely harmless, as long as one thing changed: ANI or AN had a the power to desysop, not just ArbCom. ArbCom moves too slowly to deal with suddenly thousands of new admins, some percentage-small but head-count-high number of whom would be boneheads, jackasses, or PoV-pushers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  17:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
You'd like desysops handled by ANI? Ok - that could be "fun". -- Begoon 17:26, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
We'd lose them as soon as we made em. It can be enough of a mincing machine as it is, let alone one that's on a conveyor belt! — fortunavelut luna 17:43, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Well quite.SMcCandlish isn't wrong about the "boneheads, jackasses, or PoV-pushers". -- Begoon 18:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
It's wouldn't work well for today's adminship system, but in an alternate-reality Wikipedia, where virtually everyone became an admin if they stuck around, it would be the only practical way. It's how we handle everything else. E.g., every editor (in our reality too) is entitled to edit, and to edit when they want, and to edit what topics they want, and to talk with whatever other editors they want, and in whatever wording they choose. When this goes badly awry, ANI (or another venue, like AE) can impose blocks, community bans, topic bans (and move bans, etc.), interaction bans, and restrictions like prohibitions against incivility/attacks with escalating sanctions. In this Alt-WP, one's auto-granted admin bit would be just one of numerous editorial privileges one takes for granted and is left alone to use – until one becomes a pain in the community's backside.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  19:19, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I take your point, but Iri's observations about whether WMF could even allow this seem crucial. Plus, it seems it could potentially make people like you and me sysops of alternative-reality wiki, depending on the exact "parameters", and I'm certainly opposed to me. -- Begoon 13:18, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Yo Begoon... Suport + Opose = Suppose... ;) — fortunavelut luna 13:48, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
At my age I mostly prefer repose. -- Begoon 13:53, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Also, @Dodger67 who decides what constitutes an acceptable behaviour record? You? A star-chamber which is either populated by elections with all the hassle and bad feeling that entails, or a self-appointing group which will by definition be filled with the blowhards and fuckwits who like to hang round on drama boards bitching about everyone they ever encountered who didn't agree with them on something at some point in the past? Or the entire community, based on a process in which the prospective admin explains why they think they'd benefit from the admin bit and anyone who cares to offer an opinion then gets to support or oppose over a period of a week, at the end of which one of the 'crats weighs both the numbers and the arguments and decides whether there's a consensus? ‑ Iridescent 18:21, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • 50,000 edits don't even guarantee that someone won't be banned, let alone that they'll make a decent admin. Darius Dhlomo, probably Wikipedia's most prolific plagiarist, had more than three times that when he was indeffed for massive copyright violations. Granted, he only had five years' tenure rather than ten, but IMO that doesn't constitute much of a safeguard. The only thing potentially preventing adminship from getting into very unsuitable hands under this is the "acceptable behaviour record" standard, and for that to fulfill this function it'll have to be something which looks very like RfA. Hut 8.5 19:25, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Which basically brings us back to square one: RfA is already mostly a "acceptable behaviour record" test, so the only thing that would change is that competency would no longer be checked for. I don't know if that's really a good idea though... Regards SoWhy 12:00, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
The big issue is that RfA is more a "completely spotless behavior record" test. It's easy to find one example of an editor making a mistake among a general pattern of thoughtful, useful, and civil contributions. Everyone has at least one diff they aren't proud of, perhaps on a bad day or when they rose to the bait. All it takes is that one diff to oppose an RfA, and then it gets picked up and magnified by others who don't bother even looking at the record to see all the good a candidate has done. ~ Rob13Talk 04:05, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
  • To be honest, I think that for RfA reform, we need to enact reform in other places. If we can really change the feeling of the drama boards, then we should be able to change how editors think. But, I do think that there is one reform we could implement. Specifically, it would be nice if comments (not votes) could be removed if the crats agree that it is inappropriate. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 14:20, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Great idea but for me I'd prefer all RFAs to go on the record, Any editor can go rogue and start blocking anyone and everyone ... ofcourse this can happen anyway but the chances are very very slim, I do agree RFA does need reforming but personally I don't think giving the mop freely is the way to achieve this. –Davey2010Talk 23:03, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Giving the mop to people with a decade of tenure and 50,000 edits is almost what RfA does these days anyway. Real reform would involve a) recognizing that most of our current admins were admitted with under 10,000 edits and less than a year of editing experience, and b) stop clinging to inflated numerical standards that so obviously don't reflect whether an individual would use the sysop tools well. We need to stop systematically excluding newer users, not reinforce that by formalizing the "only people who have been here forever can be admins" rule. However, there is one idea presented here that I really like - RfA as a process solely concerned with evaluating the behavioural suitability of a candidate for adminship. That's a decent proposal for reform right there. Decide ahead of time what we want the numerical standards to be and fix those so they stop increasing. Then, RfA would just be about evaluating the candidate's behaviour. That could be a significant step in the right direction, if appropriate numerical standards were set. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
    • Ajr, while I have some of the loosest RfA standards out there, I do have a rough numerical number in my head, and that is because I expect to be able to see how you interact with others before getting the bit. To be blunt, the tools are easy to learn (its basically advanced Twinkle), but what I actually care about is that someone isn't a jerk and doesn't go power hungry or rush into drama once they get the bit. If I don't have something to go off of, I'm not comfortable supporting. To me, this is a much larger concern than the desysop rate. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:37, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
      • Yes, there definitely needs to be some numerical standard. I would generally peg the absolute minimum here at 2,000 edits and 6 months of experience - I don't think anyone could learn our maze of core policies and guidelines in less time. The issue is that people look at random arbitrary statistics (how many articles created, percent edit summaries, voting record at AfD) without actually looking at how the editor interacts with others or understands our policies and guidelines.
Imagine the following system instead. We agree as a community that any candidate for adminship must have 2,000 manual edits and have been here for 6 months. We then set a series of competencies that we expect to see in admins: interpersonal skills, accountability, and the ability to find and understand our community policies. Instead of the current question free-for-all full of gotcha questions, we could have 1-2 questions for each of these competencies. "Show us an example of how you maintained a cool head during a tough situation." "Here is a scenario of a new user making a certain type of edits, is this vandalism? Please justify your answer based on existing community policies and guidelines." These questions could be tailored to the candidate and the areas they want to work in, or be totally general. Or we could have a set of pre-made questions depending on the field they want to be active in. If vote reasons were then required to be related to the candidate's meeting or not meeting of the competencies, rather than whatever the opposition or supporters feel like, then we might have a functional process. This isn't a new idea at all, but I think moving in this direction is the best way we could fix what is currently broken. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 01:33, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
Regarding "the field they want to be active in" - I think these are good types of questions - if you want to be involved in AfD - are you ready to close AfD's and delete things is perfect -- however I also consider a broad will this candidate take the time to learn how to properly (both from a community standards pov and a technical pov) use any other admin function before they start using it in the future - because most candidates don't vow to never use the other tools - so yes you could be the best afd closer, but if you are likely to just slam changes in to the abusefilter without clue then you're not getting my admin support. — xaosflux Talk 01:53, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
That's definitely a good point. If we had two questions on the "finding and applying policy" competency, the other could be a scenario-based question in an area the candidate is unfamiliar with. Not a gotcha question, like asking about some incredibly obscure procedure like when to use Special:MergeHistory versus delete-move-restore, but something that would require the candidate to do a little research into an unknown field. My experience with advanced permissions is that these competencies are pretty generalizable. If an admin can find and properly apply policy in one area, then there's a good chance they'll be able to do so in others. But this does require them to have some general project knowledge, and there is no harm in testing that rather than assuming. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 02:21, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
I have a whole library of these sorts of questions, but there are some current admins who are clueless about our policies and procedure who really, really don't like them. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:46, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm not really that interested in candidates who can look up the relevant policy during an RFA. I'm more interested in whether they follow policy under normal editing conditions. ϢereSpielChequers 09:20, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
My concern about the Q&A section is that it probably distracts people from assessing the candidate. I'd prefer a rule against questions that aren't supported by a dif from the candidates editing, that way at least the questioners will have reviewed at least some of the candidates edits. ϢereSpielChequers 08:55, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
Fair point as well. That's why I would want to limit the questions to one or two per competency. Done correctly, questions should assist with a review of a user's contributions, not detract from it. But questions should certainly not be a replacement for actually looking through a candidate's contributions. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 18:58, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
If that were per competency in the area where they have indicated an interest then fine, but it should be possible to support them with diffs. Competency questions in areas where the candidate hasn't been active and doesn't intend to work are a bit of a waste of time. All the candidate has to do to ensure it won't alter the RFA is to start their answer "I haven't been involved in this area and have no intention of getting involved in it let alone using the tools there, but "[puts policy in own words]". Even if you get the policy a bit wrong it isn't likely to sink an RFA if you make a policy mistake in an unfamiliar area. ϢereSpielChequers 19:55, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
  • The OP's "what if" is a non starter. We would never have the capacity to track, trace, and revert all the errors they would be making. RfA is also one way for the candidate to obtain the required level of trust for the job. Or do we want 1000s more admins using their tools for paid editing? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:35, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
I agree. The thought of hundreds of unscreened people being given the unrestrained power to block other users and delete articles is absolutely terrifying. To me the most important comment people make at RfA discussions is "I trust them with the tools." There are a lot of people who have the suggested tenure and number of edits for whom I could not say that. --MelanieN (talk) 18:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
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