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Would these current admins still be accepted today?

We all know that RFA standards are improving all the time, so our admins are just getting better and better. Right? So, by edit count, would you support these users?

John Doe #1 

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Comments
Comment here.

Jane Doe#2 

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Comments

Jane Doe #3 

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We get that people have edit counts. Already. We get that they contain useful information only when viewed in a wider context. Already. Splash - tk 00:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

John Doe #4 

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Comments

Need more then edit counts

I'm not sure what has started this, but I've never used a number of edit-counts only to determine my !vote on RfA. While they are useful to determine what areas somone is active (or inactive in) more information can usually be garnished from edit summaries! — xaosflux Talk 02:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Alot of people do so, or are perceived to do so at least, in ways that can seem capricious. One user is currently opposing a candidate partly for a lack of edits to WikiProjects, for example. --bainer (talk) 04:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Matt Britt

Like the Moralis RfA, this RfA has been refactored. However, in this case it has been refactored to be more like an RfC. The refactoring was done with the knowledge and consent of User:Matt Britt. The intention here is to break away from the obsession with vote counting and focus on discussion and relative merits of the nominee. Please keep meta discussions about the format of that RfA here, rather than on the RfA itself. Thank you. --Durin 22:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting experiment. I believe this one will turn out to be ok but I'm not sure we've got the right guinea pig. I have a hard time believing that this format for a more controversial candidate would not rapidly turn into an incoherent mess whose interpretation will be difficult. B'crats are supposed to evaluate consensus and it would be nice to have a format where we have some sort of confidence that different b'crats won't make different decisions. Pascal.Tesson 22:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Finding a guinea pig for this experiment is harder. It's a very radical change, far more so than Moralis' RfA. If another user wants to be an additional guinea pig for this format, who might be more controversial, feel free to ask :) --Durin 22:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a bad, bad concept, an application for a North Korea travel visa would be simpler than this. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. I can't see any advantages in this model, and I can't figure out how is a bureaucrat going to determine any community consensus with so many parameteres.--Húsönd 22:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a good notion, but I think the format is entirely too byzantine. A Traintalk 22:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Readily granted. I admit having a bit of a time getting my head around this sort of format, and coming up with a reasonable formatted RfA in this form. It can probably definitely :) be evolved. --Durin 22:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
If I believe that the candidate has all five or six of the favorable qualities listed, what would have been a "support" with a comment becomes five or six separate entries. Multiply that by the number of supports, and then similarly with the number of opposes, and one envisions the page quickly becoming unwieldy. Newyorkbrad 22:25, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Not unlike some RfCs :) --Durin 22:27, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • On those, it's sufficient to endorse the "Outside view by Newyorkbrad" and then move on. :) Newyorkbrad 22:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Newyorkbrad has hit this nail on the head. The structure of the RfA requires discursive answers from contributors over several measured dimensions. What are the advantages and the practicalities of this structure over the current model - I know about the vote-counting and the pile-on issues. This model is obfuscatory. I might support in three areas and oppose in two areas or any combination of the same, as well as the 60+ other regular contributors to the RfA articles. 60x5=300 comments to read through and balance out. The result would have to be issued as a Supreme Court ruling, showing the Bureaucrat's working out of the answer as evidence is weighed up. I'm not convinced that this is the best way to establish consensus and measure the opinion of the contributors on the evidence in-hand. (aeropagitica) 22:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I like this format quite a bit better than the one chosen for Moralis - that one had the advantage of making it less "vote-y", but also made it very difficult to follow the discussion. I'll be interested to follow the development of this RFA. JavaTenor 22:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The only word that comes to mind is "idiotic". No offense to whomever decided upon this format for an experiment (as I have no idea which editor(s) decided upon it, and I would not hold it against him/her/them, anyway), but this is the worst possible way to run an RfA. It's one thing for an RfC, when there are only a dozen people expected to contribute to the outcome, but it's another for an RfA, where there could be hundreds of opinions. It also doesn't leave wiggle room- with an RfC/arbitration/whatever, there are findings of fact; with an RfA, everything is opinion. Everybody has a different answer to "Is this person experienced?", "How much do I trust this person?", "Does this person need the admin tools?", "Will this person abuse his/her newly-found powers?", etc. An RfA should never be about agreeing or disagreeing with pre-written statements. It's about looking at a candidate's background and arguing for why or why not someone should be an administrator. There is no reason to make the page this long and unwieldy, and there's no reason to expect half a dozen comments from a single user when one would be sufficient. I don't expect Matt's RfA to get much action, and that's a shame, but I know that I, for one, am certainly discouraged from contributing under this format. -- Kicking222 22:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

This is another interesting idea, thanks Durin for these experiments. This one may provide a challenge to the closing bureaucrat as the head-counting heuristic will be difficult to apply, but it should also be more useful in exposing widely-held concerns about the candidate, if they exist. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Good to see the discussion is already in full swing. :) I was coming by just to say this version needs another category: "Nomination is the craziest dang thing I ever saw and I hardly know where to begin." Users who support this view: Kafziel Talk 22:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The idea is fascinating, and good luck to the candidate, but I really feel that in some cases it is going to be totally impossible for the closing bureaucrat to determine consensus. If this format is adopted we are going to fail to promote an unknown number of potentially good candidates. I assume that the policy of >80% promote, <70% no (except User:Ryulong), between the two is bureaucrat discretion is going to go, because when opinions are given seperately on seperate parameters this percentage calculation will become wholly meaningless. For the record, in the light of recent applications, I would suggest that if this same format were to be applied to bureaucrat selection we would never, ever select any. And if it were not to be applied across the board, would that not be discriminatory? Tell me I'm wrong - I don't mind.--Anthony.bradbury 23:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, well I've had a good go at using all the features of the new format. To summarise my experience:

  1. Best bit - I like the way the discussion focuses contributors on the various skills of the candidate, it feels like a more in depth process
  2. Worse bit - amount of time it took me to understand the template enough to create my own section for the comment I wanted to make
  3. Concerns - judging the consensus may be difficult. But more importantly I think there's a risk that we can get too focused on a candidates lack of experience in one are- it took me a while to consider the candidate as an overall package rather than as a collection of skills that were present or absent.

I'm not sure its enough of an improvement on the present model to justify losing the convenient elements and it is horendously complicated. That said its an interesting experiment. Perhaps we should have another go at making the first X days of RfA discussion only and then the !vote happen for the rest? WjBscribe 23:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The first time I read the idea of formatting RfAs as RfCs it felt like a good idea but once you actually see it, it's hard to really like much about it. As WJBscribe notes, this will make the candidate a collection of skills and non-skills. As I said earlier, the guinea pig is pretty solid so we might not get to see how disastrous this can become but WJBscribe's new section on "no XfD experience but not a problem" is (definitely not taking a jab at WJB here) a mild example of perverse effects of the format. People who feel that the summary of others is not quite right will keep adding sections with slightly tweaked formulations and there won't be much to conclude in the end. Also I'm afraid we'll arrive at impossible situations where pretty much everyone agrees that the editor needs the tools, does great work but, say, is uncivil. Unless we have two sections that are "the positives outweigh the negatives" and vice versa, it will be the b'crats job to assess that balance. And if we do have these sections, well, we're just back at voting. Pascal.Tesson 23:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Why do you think that large-scale surveys are of the 'Choose to agree or disagree with A,B,C,D' and not 'Give us your opinions about A,B,C,D'. The former is easy to analyse, the latter nigh-on impossible. This might just work with a dozen-or-so contributors but with the numbers that regularly participate the discursive nature of the RfA will not serve its subjects in the long run. (aeropagitica) 23:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
The results of this format.

Durin, I beg you, please stop these experiments before you accidentally invent a virus that wipes out the human species. I commend you on not taking the criticism by Kicking222 personally, but also intend to add to that criticism. As I see it, the only effect of this format change was to make turn RfA from one clear yes/no semi-vote into half a dozen overlapping, convoluted votes. Also, by discouraging many people from participating, I expect it will reduce transparency.

That's the practical side of the issue. I am also morally opposed to this format (for this, see my comments here). This format not only increases bureaucrat discretion, but does so in a way that accountability becomes impossible. What would we do with an RfA with this format that has 150 participants and 40 overlapping subsections? -- Black Falcon 23:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

We'll need to institute a whole other bureaucratic process to try to figure out what the bureaucrats were thinking, like a wise man once said! Kafziel Talk 00:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this format is a huge improvement over the previous experiment. Problem is of course that it is still a vote, and the decision can be very difficult to reach if some of the views pass and others not. Another (bigger) problem is that anyone who finds a new ground on which to oppose has to write a new view. That means that constant vigil is required from people who want to express their opinions, because after they have done so, a new view could have been added for which they feel the need to endorse or not to endorse. Furthermore, I worry about the quality of the views. In this RfA, a couple of views have been worded badly. E.g, User has no experience with XfD: if I don't endorse this view, does this mean that I think the user has enough experience with XfD? Furthermore, if I agree with some, but not all the points in a view, would I have to say I don't endorse, and write a view of my own? It all becomes very fragmented this way. Errabee 10:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Harakiri

Oh great! Instead of just one vote, we now have several and, indeed an unlimited number. Discussion may occur within each voting section, but that's blatantly the case with current, sensibly-arranged RFAs. So would both i)the nominator and ii) the nominee please explain to me how this is better than before?

Once they've done that, I'd like them both to tell me how they think that presenting a series of leading questions for people to vote on (oh hush, they're discussions like its snowing in Africa) is in some way going to demonstrate consensus. Would they have people i) oppose the leading questions, ii) write opposing leading question or iii) do both? If not i) alone, then ii) is just comedic since people will oppose and support with opposite meanings both of them.

If you're going to wail at the altar of consensus, and whip yourselves on the back with a nine-tailed whip called "RfA is broken", please try not to put entertaining make-up on before you do so. (Copied here because someone invented some rulecreep where I'm not allowed to discuss this on the discussion page of the RfA. Heaven forbid we might actually have a negative statement anywhere near it). Splash - tk 23:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Abort?

In all fairness to the candidate, I believe we should abort the experiment before it blows out of control. Now I understand some will disagree and say it's too early but I'm not sure this is very helpful for Matt Britt. Pascal.Tesson 00:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I second the motion. It's turning into a foundering morass in here, making it very tedious to look at every view and endorsement, not only for an evaluator but for a bureaucrat. bibliomaniac15 00:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
The amount of text in the nomination at the moment is much less than any contentious RFA in the normal format. What about this format makes reading less text so tedious? Christopher Parham (talk) 00:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
You realise it's been running for all of about 2 hours, right, when you make that calculation? Splash - tk 00:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and comparing to other RfAs at the two hour mark, and the difference is not significant. Moreover, as time goes on the fact that there is less need to repeat similar reasons/conversations over and over may allow this format to save space; we don't really know. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'll pile on as being this seriously opposed to this format. This is far worse than the Moralis format, which is itself far inferior to the standard format. What is completely missing from the format are the sub-sections for "I think this view is reason to promote" "I think this view is reason to not promote" and "I think this view should be completely ignored because the issue isn't relevant". And of course, since these are almost independent of whether the view is agreed with or not, everyone gets to vote again in this sub-section of each view. This doubles the needed effort level from the horror stories described above. GRBerry 00:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Agreed with GRBerry that more nuance than "support" and "oppose" is needed to avoid an excess number of views. JavaTenor 01:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
green card --- RockMFR 01:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I guess it is Matt's call although he should be made aware (if he isn't) that this is definitely an option. Sure it's nice to have a "see, it doesn't work" example but this is his RfA and he should be able to make that decision. Pascal.Tesson 01:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. I favour aborting this particular experiment, but think deferring to the candidate is appropriate. I also don't want dislike of the format to be mixed with sentiments about the nominee, who is an excellent editor. -- Black Falcon 03:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Enough with the voting already. --Tony Sidaway 17:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Durin, I congratulate you on you boldness and good intentions. I hope you can find a more user-friendly way. For example, what if there were sections for "support" and "oppose" for people who just want to leave a single general comment, and a "discussion" section where the specific issues can be hashed out? It's probably worse than the current system, but at least it's reasonably user-friendly. YechielMan 02:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

  • If we did that, we might as well have the current RfA format. The idea in this format is to get away from voting, not support it.
At least we now know what course of reform we should not take. And, of course, we shall thank Durin for pointing this part out, whether it was intentional or not, and I mean it with all sincerity. —210physicq (c) 02:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Of course its intentional; this is just one of the potential outcomes of the experiment. We do these things not because we necessarily expect them to work, but to see if and how they will fail. That's what an experiment is all about. --Durin 13:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

My impression from looking at this format is negative, there are altogether too many locations where we need to enter our opinion, and I don't think that is truly needed. But the experiment is well-intentioned, and are a better way of realizing possible benefits and drawbacks with the proposed system than a priori guesses at the significance of the pros and cons. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

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

This method of RFA is so confusing that I am unable to participate.

Editor's note: I have move this view from Matt Britt's RfA to here, as meta discussions regarding the format of the RfA are inappropriate for the RfA and are better directed here. --Durin 12:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Determining consensus

Considering this is meant to be a way of making it easier to determine consensus, I'm surprised to see that there are no guidelines on how consensus will be determined. RFCs work in this format because they aren't intended to reach any kind of conclusion, they are just a way of finding out people's opinions. An RFA needs a definite result, and I see no way to derive one from this format. It's easy to determine if there is consensus on any individual view, but how are the crats meant to determine an overall result? --Tango 17:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with Tango. Currently we have several views that definitely have consensus:

  1. Matt has demonstrated a need in sysop tools.
  2. He is trustwothy. (there are de-facto two views about this, WTHeck?)
  3. He sometimes misuses automatic reversion.

Now what should bureaucrat determine:

That means that most RFAs, except for really obvious ones will rely heavily on bureaucrat's discretion, much heavier than now. Is it what was intended? MaxSem 18:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I was just going to create a new thread. In a RfC, there is a "council" that offer solutions and determine which ones should be applied. If RfA are going to have an RfC format, bureaucrats should work like in Danny's case, using a public page to discuss and reach consensus. No more decisions made by a single bureaucrat. If it looks like a RfC, formats like a RfC and ends like a RfC, it is a RfC.
As a side note, were us to adopt RfC format, people would not be able to dismiss a RfB candidacy because "we are enough." -- ReyBrujo 04:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Council? -Amarkov moo! 04:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
The Matt Britt experiment is ridiculous, you have to read several sections, figure out a disjointed structure, comment several times, etc...one either supports someone or one doesn't, one input, one place, keep it short and simple. The way we have now is the best of all I've seen on this talk page, not any of the experiments.Rlevse 00:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I have an idea

Since it's apparently experiment week at RFA, does anyone want to run for adminship with my idea, which is an arbitration-workshop-like structure (proposed principles, findings of fact, etc) with the discussion divided into comments by bureaucrats/by candidate/by others. Anyone up for it? --Random832 02:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

That makes it incredibly hard to analyze support and oppose, which is what bureaucrats have to do until there is a consensus to change that. If it's just intended to be an experiment, though, with no actual effect, then I'll do it. -Amarkov moo! 02:57, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • RfA is not a vote. RfA is not a vote. RfA is not a vote. Bureaucrats are not expected to count votes. They are expected to evaluate consensus. --Durin 13:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Perhaps RfA should be a vote, though. It is very hard to get consensus about a "yes"/"no" answer, and we should think about promoting based on numbers in non-consensus situations with 66-90% support. Kusma (talk) 13:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Go ahead. But I can say that it's going to be even more convoluted than the current standard template, though. —210physicq (c) 02:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I need a victim guinea pig volunteer, though... --Random832 02:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Choose a suitable one from the Category:Wikipedia administrator hopefuls list. Note the emphasis. —210physicq (c) 03:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I am considering accepting your offer, but I would like to see an example of this method of gaining adminship first. Captain panda 03:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I do suppose it could limit the amount of obviously unqualified candidates with an "opinion on hearing this request" type of thing at the beginning. bibliomaniac15 03:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Um, I am interested in trying out with this method. AQu01rius (User &#149; Talk) 03:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
shudder... that sounds even more complicated than the Matt Britt experiment. And I don't mean that as a compliment! :-) Pascal.Tesson 03:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
There's no harm in trying. At least we know what doesn't work so that said unworkable ideas won't come up again. —210physicq (c) 03:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Well my gut feeling is that this is a step in a direction which is not turning out to be too convincing. Pascal.Tesson 04:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I also share the same sentiments, as I have indicated above, but if people want solid proof of the unworkability of this proposal, might as well show it to them via hand-on experience. —210physicq (c) 04:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
RFAr is an even worse format than RFC for this purpose, unfortunately. -- nae'blis 14:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea and I will volunteer to be the guinea pig although I am not sure that my RFA will pass. Or, perhaps it is because I am not sure that my RFA will pass that I would be a good guinea pig. Presumably, the "Decisions" section will consist primarily of "Recommend for adminship" or "Decline adminship" with some possible additional recommendations. --Richard 19:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Withdrawn. I'm convinced that this isn't going to be as easy as i thought, based on the results of the "RFC-like" experiment. If someone else wants to do it, go ahead, but it's not worth the trouble for me. --Random832 03:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Ahem...

I've seen quite a few people (including myself) voicing the opinion that the current format is fine, or at least that there's no suitable replacement at this time. How come our opinion is just being ignored? I have no hard evidence, but I'm willing to bet there are more people who support the current version than there are people who support any one alternative. So if these alternate versions don't have significant support beforehand, why all the disruption? I know eventually (once there's support for them) we'll want to give these new versions a real-world try, but couldn't they at least go through some peer review-type troubleshooting sessions before being forced on us in a real RfA? It seems to me that in the stampede for "consensus building", you guys are actually trampling consensus by throwing these other formats out there almost unilaterally. Kafziel Talk 03:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

  • For three+ years, your opinions have been listened to. The opinions were not in any respect ignored. They were talked about, hashed out, lathered, rinsed, repeated, spindled, folded, hung out to dry, shat upon by passing seagulls, sent back to the laundry, re-washed with a few applications of a stain stick, rehashed, then put through a conventional dryer, put in a laundry basket and dumped in a closet somewhere. If you doubt me, have a look at the archives. Shockingly, somebody decided that...*GASP*...we've already had enough talking :) and decided to try something different for a change. Of course, Jesus was crucified for suggesting wouldn't it be great to be nice to people for a change too. Not equating myself to Jesus here, but the reluctance to change... --Durin 13:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm the one saying "wouldn't it be great to be nice to people". If you have an idea, don't make some other guy be your guinea pig, with his own actual RfA on the line. Do it in your own space, with your username and history, without dragging anyone else into it. It's not binding (obviously), it's not disruptive, nobody is forced to participate, it can weed out the obvious bad ideas... there's no down side to it. Kafziel Talk 13:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Except of course less participation. This has been done Kafziel, with little result. --Durin 13:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Then the problem is the advertising, not the lack of disruption. Kafziel Talk 13:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Except of course that advertising was done in previous attempts. Further, Moralis' and Matt Britt's RfAs are not causing any disruption to the project. Disliking an experiment, even vehemently, is not the same as disruption. Nobody else's RfA is being affected by these experiement. Nobody's. Nobody is being forced to comment against their will. --Durin 13:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, if I have to ask, I guess I'll ask. What attempts? Kafziel Talk 13:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Um... these are intended to be real RfAs, with a binding result? That's stupid. Are we going to start running AfDs with weird formats and then declaring the results (which can't be interpreted well because the process is different) binding? -Amarkov moo! 03:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Absolutely. Why not? It's not as if an admin can cause irreparable harm to the project. If he is not trustworthy, it'll still show up in the RfA. What's the big deal? --Durin 13:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you are so keen in trying to stop experimentation. No one is disrupting anything here. I am of the opinion that the current system does not work, except all the other systems are even worse (in short, there is nothing wrong with the current system). Just as long as there are willing volunteers for this, let it go. Obstructing new ideas is only going to cause more "overthrow the current regime system" agitation. Rather, let these ideas come to reality, and when we see the abject failure of these proposals, we shall be able to prove that the current system is really the best we can get (so far). —210physicq (c) 03:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
No one is disrupting anything? Have you seen the Moralis RfA? I haven't seen such a swarm of disorganized input and pissed-off editors since... well, maybe since one of my own RfAs.
I'm not saying experimentation is impossible, but it shouldn't be so wanton, either. If you come up with an idea, set up the format in a subpage of your user space with yourself as the "nominee" and give it a week to see how it goes and get feedback on the talk page. Kafziel Talk 03:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Interesting. Could you please point to some negative effect on the main namespace because of the Moralis RfA? A few diffs would suffice. Let's remember the goal of this project is the encyclopedia, not RfA. The project is not being harmed by this. --Durin 13:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Well Moralis' RfA is pretty awful but I tend to agree that it could be a blessing in disguise. That is, of course, if the few supporters of that format are willing to recognize that it has created more problems than it has solved. Pascal.Tesson 04:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
But what about the next one, and the next one, and the next one?
A similar result could have been had in a test run on a user subpage. It wouldn't have gotten quite the same level of response, but we would have seen a similar pattern. If someone comes up with an alternate format, he should be willing to put his own dignity on the line for his experiment, rather than someone else's. If things seem to be working out after a week or so, then he can go looking for a willing test subject for RfA. If not, no harm done to anyone. Kafziel Talk 04:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I doubt that to be the case. A subpage experiment lacks the ruffled feathers and "they moved my cheese!" effect we're seeing by having these be actual RfAs. Subpages get considerably less attention. --Durin 13:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
One problem: historically, RFA tests on pages away from WP:RFA receive little attention, if any. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Everyone on this talk page will know about it, and given the recent activity here, that should be a decent number of people. We can keep a list of links at the top of this page to the various test pages, so people dropping by can see where to go. Kafziel Talk 04:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
The number of people here right now is not drastically different from the number of people that watch it routinely. However, why should I (to pick an example) care to go into a test page, when I could spend my time better in other community matters? At least when a real nomination with a potential promotion is concerned, there's an incentive to comment. Again, if the part is any indication, until someone is bold and breaks the window, no one bothers to comment. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Why should you? Well, that's kind of my point. Whether you care to go to a test page or not, consensus appears to hold that the current format is better than any other format, so these new versions shouldn't be forced on the community by one or two people. It's similar to moving an article to a different title when consensus has already held to leave it where it is. Being bold does not include being reckless. Kafziel Talk 12:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • You do know that a recent survey had a large majority of people indicating RfA was broken, yes? Your estimation of consensus might need adjusting. --Durin 13:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I think not. There was no consensus found for any particular format, let alone one that outweighed consensus for the current one. It's easy to say something is broken in a vague way, but it's another thing entirely to actually come up with a viable alternative. Kafziel Talk 13:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with experimentation per se, but I'd like to see the list of alternative RfA structures proposed to-date, along with their pros and cons listed alongside too. Are the alternatives just Moralis' and Matt Britt's? It's brave of them to try but it's clear that it is much harder to interpret the balance of opinion in them compared to the other running RfAs following the established structure. Is this the way that a new structure is to be drawn up, by performing live experiments and rating the comments on WT:RFA? I'd like to be able to read the rationale behind each new structure as it is field tested, I think that this would be useful to see the method that the proposer is using to attempt to establish consensus for the candidate. A link to this on the RfA would be an excellent idea. (aeropagitica) 05:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The hypothetical discussions went on forever. The pros and cons were very difficult to evaluate without concreate examples. --Durin 13:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  1. Support. I support the current format, and see no need for change.AKAF 06:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
PROD didn't disrupt AFD. It was tried out on a separate page, people were (and still are) free not to use it, and it didn't wreak havoc on anyone's chances at adminship. Kafziel Talk 13:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The experiment isn't disrupting RfA. No animals or plants, or even other RfAs were harmed in the making of this experiment. And, whether or not it wreaks havoc on Moralis' of Matt Britt's chances at adminship is irrelevant. They agreed to the experiment; the consequence is for them to decide, not for us. Personally, I think it's patently absurd to hold the format of an RfA against a candidate. --Durin 13:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
It may seem irrelevant to you (by the way, I'm sure they appreciate your sympathy) but I doubt a failed RfA seems irrelevant to them. Kafziel Talk 13:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, I'm a cruel and harsh task master who forced these guinea pigs into evil experiments where we drilled holes into their skulls, amputated toes, and tied them to a rack while sending electrical shocks through their testicles. You presume too much Kafziel. These are willing guinea pigs who know full well what the potential consequences are. Please stop trying to defend them against the great injustice of performing an experiment intended to help RfA evolve. If they want to end the experiment, there is nothing stopping them from doing so. Don't make decisions for them. They made the decisions. Not you. --Durin 13:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I wouldn't say the current experiment is wreaking havoc with Matt's chances, though. If the experiment goes to the dogs I'm sure he can file a regular RFA and pass with flying colours. Haukur 13:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah Matt Britt is a very good candidate by current RfA standards. It perhaps makes him less of an ideal candidate for the experiment :/ Still, we're getting lots of discussion on the format, and it's less than a day old so maybe it's fine. --Durin 13:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

)CTU( 7002 lirpA 81 ,83:30 (em ksA ?pleh deeN)BCnIghiH .sdrawkcab stsop enoyreve erehw AfR na od ew tseggus I

--

<sarcasm>Really? I think if we did it backwards it would fix all the problems, because of course, changing the style of the page will change how people think and act.</sarcasm> HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 04:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
But the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says... Err wait. Actually, if you change the procedure described on the page, people will act differently. Though I can think of ways where changing the style of a page might have effect.
For instance on WP:VAND, if we change the style of the word "not" in "Do not vandalize" so that the word not is rendered in the background color... Wait...
/me stops, before I start stuffing beans up people's noses, too ;-) --Kim Bruning 04:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

leizfaK - (: ?AfR ta tupni reffo meht tel ot uoy rof hguone "dettimmoc" si resu a evorp sdrawkcab gnitirw t'ndluoW ?miK ,ton yhW

Nope, if we want to have our RFAs written backwards, we could use a bot. Doing it by hand wastes everyone's time! :-P --Kim Bruning 04:22, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Subpages not working; partially to Kafziel

It has been suggested that a better method of testing things on RfA would be to create a subpage, advertise it, and allow me to comment on the subpage. I've argued that this has been tried before, with dismal results as the subpages receive little in the way of attention. To support this, I offer some examples:

Recently, I created User:Durin/What is wrong with RfA. I duly advertised it here on this talk page, and also on IRC. The page has been in existence for a week. During that time, the number of people who have contributed to User:Durin/What is wrong with RfA: 16.

Some time ago, effort was made by User:Werdna to try to run an RfA as an RfC Wikipedia:RFA as RFC/Werdna. It too was duly advertised [1]. The number of people who have contributed to Wikipedia:RFA as RFC/Werdna: 40 (and only 11 on the experiment RfA itself; the rest was discussion).

Contrast;

The simple fact is, subpages do not generate as much traffic as doing the experiments as we are. It's been tried before. Matt's RfA has, in less than a day, exceeded Werdna's experiment in the diversity of people commenting on it, much less all the discussion that has happened here on WT:RFA. --Durin 14:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Durin: first could you please lay off the caps lock and the bold? And second, not that I want to spoil your fun but comparing your experiments to space exploration is maybe, just maybe, a sign that you're taking yourself a tad too seriously. Sure, there's no horrendous disruption going on but why shouldn't we seriously restarting Matt's RfA when a number of editors are saying that the format prevents them from participating in the debate? You seem to object to "disruption" but if the experiment is getting in the way of the community's ability to make a decision, surely this outweighs the benefits of experimentation. Pascal.Tesson 15:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Using emphasis is hardly unusual Pascal. Further, I'm rather far removed from taking myself too seriously. Look at the upper right of my user page if you doubt that :) As to the analogy, it should be blatantly apparent that experimentation is a good thing, and using the Apollo program was a great example of that. Yet, people here still seem to think experimentation is disruptive and damaging to the project. I've asked several times now for people to provide feedback on this, or even diffs supporting this supposed damage...with nobody providing anything. Rather funny :) These experiments do not get in the way of the community to make a decision in any respect. --Durin 15:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
You're getting all these responses because you are disrupting the RfA process. Is it for a good reason? Maybe. But it's still disruption. The fact that a practically unheard-of editor has 121 comments on his RfA should be evidence enough.
To clarify what I meant about yours: Everybody has a subpage where they publish their manifesto, and nobody cares. Very few people are going to read it, let alone offer suggestions or copyedit it for you. An experiment that actively invites participation is quite different. People do participate on user pages that seek simple input like a comment or a vote.
To stick with your analogy, what I'm suggesting is that you do some testing before the unmanned launch. NASA doesn't just launch a rocket without testing it under controlled conditions first. They don't just let each scientist come up with his own design and take it to the launch pad. Kafziel Talk 15:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The testing was already done on a subpage. So you're suggesting more tests on a subpage? And having 121 people comment on Moralis' RfA is a bad thing? How? --Durin 15:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
What subpage, and where? Who knew about it? What changes were made? What about all these other proposed formats? Where have they been tested? That's what I'm asking.
The comments themselves are not bad; they are a symptom of the disruption. Contentious situations draw crowds. Intentionally creating a contentious situation with the purpose of drawing a crowd is disruption. Kafziel Talk 15:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Kafziel, we're talking right past each other. Have a nice day. --Durin 15:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I think that with respect to Matt's nomination, Apollo 13 may be a more apt comparison :) >Radiant< 15:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
You have 9 editors expressly saying on this talk page that the format is too confusing for them to participate in the debate. Why shouldn't that be considered as "getting in the way of proper decision-making"? As for using emphasis, well, WP:TALK#Good_practice might be a sound reminder. Pascal.Tesson 15:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Not a single non-experimental RfA is being affected by these experimental RfAs. No articles, no policies, no protals, no projects, nothing is being affected by these experiments except the experiments themselves. Any "disruption" is illusory. --Durin 15:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

At some point in time, I guess we just need to try stuff, else you end up stuck in a rut. So this method is too tricky for some folks? Ok, in that case, propose ways to fix it, and see how far it goes. Worst case we don't promote this candidate. (And hopefully the next experiment will go better! :-) )

RFA can use some spring cleaning. And besides, isn't this fun? :-)

--Kim Bruning 15:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC) hey we're volunteering for this project. If it's not fun, what are we doing here? :-P

I must slightly disagree regarding your call to ((sofixit)) ... if you have a severely gangrenous leg, you don't try to fix it, you cut it off. Likewise, if you adopt a cuddly hamster that turns into this, it's probably better to reconsider that decision rather than trying to de-mutate the thing. One last example to follow this space exploration theme: if, during the final countdown, you spot a fire on the shuttle, you don't just try to put out the fire, you abort the launch. If the goal is "spring cleaning" maybe we ought to wait until September so everyone in the Southern Hemisphere can catch up? -- Black Falcon 16:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
<grin> Well, this is an experiment. Blowing up is as interesting a result as not blowing up. So try to figure out what's making this one blow up, so that the next experiment doesn't. :-) --Kim Bruning 02:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

what?

i requested for admin but it doesnt show up on the page, what am i doing wrong? The juggsd86 15:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Reduce onerous requirements: note bad opposition reasons

Danny's RFA gives precedent for bureaucrats to just ignore irrelevant oppose reasons. To that end, I've started noting when a given oppose is irrelevant to the question "is this person likely to cause damage with the admin tools?" and suggest it be ignored.

Remember that adminship should be No Big Deal - thus, the only question at RFA is "will this editor cause damage as an admin?" 6000 edits, five featured articles or being put forward by three WikiProjects is utterly irrelevant and any bureaucrat should pay it the appropriate amount of attention, i.e. none whatsoever.

Others, e.g. you, are welcome to do so as well. This alone should help reduce irrelevant overrequirements - David Gerard 16:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I ask that you stop your highly inappropriate postings. I have looked over some of them, and they come off as disrespectful and arrogant. If your standard is, "is this person likely to cause damage with the admin tools?", then you are more than welcome to use it. Please have enough respect for your co-editors and do not call for them to be ignored just because you disagree with them. If you think a particular oppose reason is "irrelevant", then you are free to ignore it; please do not call for bureaucrats to do so. -- Black Falcon 16:56, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Certainly. The first things I'll be marking as inappropriate are the comments claiming that other comments are inappropriate. It is up to each RfA participant to determine the issues they consider relevant, and the community has not placed its trust in you to determine that. GRBerry 18:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Determination by the group that a particular opposition to consensus is not held of value by the group is fully within the purview of the process, however. "This user does not like the color blue." is not a deal-breaker. While I take issue with David Gerard's standards and don't believe they represent the consensus of the 'pedia, you are also incorrect that it is inappropriate to object to objections. -- nae'blis 18:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
There is a difference between participating in a discussion by objecting to, or questioning, an objection, and by claiming the right to tell the closing bureaucrats "you should ignore this". Having just gone through one RfA where David did the latter, in every case he was not only unreasonably arrogant, he was wrong because the issues were relevant. GRBerry 18:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
David, please do stop that experiment. Your comments come off as completely inappropriate. No good can come out of this way of doing things. Pascal.Tesson 19:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

People misnamed admins early on. People who actually administrate wikipedia are called "developers", or "foundation employees". Adminship is more like a drivers license, (an editing license if you will). With the admin bit set, you are allowed to do some more traditionally destructive kinds of edit. In fact we could possibly drop adminship at the moment, or grant it to many more people, because a lot of the issues that previously required restrictions (delete an image and it was gone, for instance) are now not so big a deal anymore. (In the case of our example, commons pushed to have reversible deletion on images) --Kim Bruning 17:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at the vote count per se. If an editor gets 100 opposes, then the bureaucrats will piss some of these people off when they promote him to admin; they should weigh the advantage of the additional admin versus the potential damage to the community. (Carnildo's last RfA is in my opinion an example where the promotion (which I supported) was not worth the resulting commotion). So bureaucrats should probably have some range outside of which they just do what the vote count says: do not promote below 60% (66%, 70%, whatever), always promote above 90% (80%, whatever). Inbetween, I don't mind bureaucrats using their discretion if they do so all the time. There were perfectly reasonable oppose votes in Danny's RfA, and there are many failed 70%+ RfAs of less well known people that could have been closed as successful by a bureaucrat applying actual discretion (by which I mean: look at the arguments, make up his own mind, and make an informed decision; I do not think that discounting sockpuppets or new accounts has to do with discretion: that part should be automatic for any crat worth his salt). But there needs to be some consistency in what the bureaucrats do. That makes people believe in the system and helps against accusations of cabalism. If the bureaucrats are unable or unwilling to use their discretion in a way that is perceived as mostly fair, we should use a pure voting system instead, which will likely cause less disruption of the community. It would also be faster, leaving more time to write an encyclopedia instead of arguing whether "only 28 Wikipedia space edits" is a "valid" oppose reason. Kusma (talk) 18:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Need for tools as a criterion

In Matt Britt's RFA, Tony Sidaway seemed to indicate that the "need for the admin tools" was not a necessary criterion for adminship. I found this interesting as this is a very common objection to RFA candidates. I'd be interested in hearing Tony's explanation of his stance. --Richard 16:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Not answering for Tony; whether or not a person needs the tools is not a reason to oppose. The admin rights are being treated as a status symbol when they are simply additional rights. If an editor finds they use them once a year, that's enough for them to have the admin tools. One admin action is still a benefit to the community, and is equivalent to one admin action from an editor that uses the admin rights a thousand times a day. It's all helpful. One of the editors I nominated for adminship, User:Edcolins, has since being promoted barely used the admin tools. Is he any less trustworthy, any less capable as an admin? No. Is he an inherent danger to the project because he so rarely uses his tools? No. Read Ed's RfA, specifically his answer to question 1 where he says his behavior won't change. Adminship is not about how often you might use the tools, it's all about whether you are trustworthy enough to not abuse the tools when you do use them. That's all that matters. --Durin 16:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks. That's enlightening and I think I agree. It's really hard to figure out what are good and not-so-good criteria for adminship based solely on watching WP:RFA. I would never have thought to question this criterion until Tony made the comment. --Richard 16:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I would disagree. We run a risk every time another editor is given the admin tools. Since we don't have a functioning community based system for removing those tools, it is quite reasonable to decide that the risk isn't worth running because they won't be actually using the tools to benefit the project. So the concern is relevant. (On the other hand "need" is the wrong wording, "intention to regularly use the tools to benefit the project" would be more accurate, if longer.) GRBerry 18:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Please enlighten me of this "risk". Everything an admin can do is reversable, and there are almost always stewards around, should there ever be a need to urgently remove the tools - which there hasn't been iirc. Majorly (hot!) 19:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Always worth unpacking an argument that people miss the middle steps in. 1) Wikipedia is built by a community of editors. 2) Administrative actions have effects on the perceptions of other editors and of readers. 3) The ability to reverse the technical steps taken by an admin does not include the ability to reverse the effect that those actions had on other editors prior to their reversal. 4) It is false that everything an admin can do is reversable, and they can drive away other editors and make the encyclopedia worse for a significant amount of time, at least in specific areas. If you want relevant recent specific examples, consider Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Darwinek, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war, and the Essjay scandal. (Not acting also carries risks; if I recall correctly an admin that declined to take action with regard to Philosophy has probably made the philosophy section of the noticably worse by contributing to the loss of a high value add contributor.)

Consistent availability as a criterion

As a follow-on to the above discussion about the "need for admin tools", would you agree that consistency of editing is equally not important? If someone has made lots of edits but has also shown a fall-off from wherein he/she has not edited for a while, this should not be a criterion for opposition either? The idea being that the trustworthiness of the candidate and the good use of admin tools are more important than logging on every day and being available. I mention this because this is another criterion that is often used to oppose RFA candidates (i.e. rate of edits is less than x/day or y/month). --Richard 16:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that "rate of edits" or "consistency of activity" are both poor standards by which to judge candidates. Quality of edits is far more important. However, (and this is addressed more to Durin than you) I also think that we should not try to impose our standards on everyone else. Most of the regulars at RfA are smart enough ... let's let them make their own decisions as to their standards. -- Black Falcon 17:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • No, everyone else is stupid and I'm the only one with the right answers! ;) If I see something that I think is wrong, I'm willing to stand up and say it's wrong. David Gerard did so above himself. This is part of how we encourage a process to evolve. I don't see anything wrong with that. I recognize that the defacto social currency system we have here actively discourages people from ruffling feathers. That's one of the primary reasons why I ran my RfB knowing it would fail, and why subsequent to that I stepped down from adminship...to intentionally remove myself from the social currency system. People might not like what I have to say, but there's little they can do to hold it against me unless I violate Wikipedia policy (and I'm not). Thus, if I see something that I think is rubbish, I'm going to call it into question. This isn't a matter of trying to enforce my own standards. It's a matter of me expressing my opinion. Nobody is forced to go along with me. --Durin 17:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It's one thing to challenge arguments that you perceive to be wrong. It's another to write (and I paraphrase), "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! I don't want to listen to you. Lalalalala ... Hey everyone, IGNORE THIS IDIOT!!!". The difference may be subtle, but it's there. :) It's not particularly conducive to the idea of "discussion" when people decide to ignore what others say. If we feel that an argument is wrong, we certainly ought to challenge it. I wrote that people's comments ought to be respected, but that doesn't mean I hold them to be sacred dogma which is to be worshipped under the full moon. I'm just saying, I think our challenges of various arguments ought to consist of more than just this. -- Black Falcon 18:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • There's a difference between "ignoring" and "considering, rejecting, and not accounting for in decision making." If someone opposes (or supports) a candidate using a line of argument that the community as a whole rejects, the community should not account for that input in making its final decision. (i.e., the closing bureaucrat should ignore it.) This avoids the situation where community action is dictated by elements and positions that the community rejects. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Consensus can change. The only valid evidence that the community continues to reject a particular line of argument is the people who, having seen it attempted in a particular case, nonetheless hold the opposite opinion about what to do. GRBerry 20:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I think there's a question of degrees -- if I ask somebody why they deleted an article or blocked a /13 range (500,000+ IPs), I'd rather not wait six months for an answer. I personally wouldn't make too big a deal about this, provided somebody makes reasonable efforts to respond to communication, but taking an extreme example as above, I could see it becoming a deal-breaker at some point. – Luna Santin (talk) 05:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment on the Durin/Matt Britt RFA format

On the one hand, I like the format because it shifts the focus away from a straight "up or down" vote/!vote on the candidate. On the other hand, I hate the format because it destroys the readability of the WP:RFA page. Matt Britt's RFA is so long that I can't just page past it to look at the RFA's below it. (Yes, I know I can use the TOC to navigate but that means that I have to page up to the TOC to get to each RFA.)

Could we consider having the Durin/Matt Britt RFA format as a supplemental discussion page? In other words, the Durin format discussion would be a separate page that is linked to but not transcluded onto the WP:RFA page. Before !voting on the standard format RFA page, editors would be asked to read and comment on the various assertions made on the Durin format discussion page. A committed participant in the RFA process would read and participate in the discussion on the discussion page. However, editors could choose to ignore the discussion page and just !vote on the RFA page as they currently do.

Thus, using my idea, you get the best of both worlds. With the Durin format discussion page, you get focused discussion that assists bureaucrats in focusing on what the contentious issues are for a particular candidate (if there are any). But you also have the readability advantages of the currrent streamlined RFA format.

What we have to ask ourselves is what happens if the discussion on the discussion page diverges from the consensus on the RFA page. I think this would only happen in those "discretionary" cases where the consensus is between 70% and 80%. If a candidate has less than 70% support, the discussion page is likely to have at least a few negative points raised. If the candidate is above 80%, it's likely that there will be few negative points if any. When the consensus falls into the "discretionary" range, there will be a mix of positive and negative points. In this situation, I think the Durin format will help the bureaucrat sift through the many opinions and decide which are the critical issues for this particular candidate and how much weight to give the objections.

--Richard 17:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Note: Haven't read the above; just want to donate my 2c to the discussion somewhere, then go to bed. This header covers it.
Have to say, the Matt Britt format is excellent and exactly how RfAs should work in the real world. Sadly, this isn't the real world, this is Wikipedia. The mark-up is horribly complex for those of use who dread wikimarkup and all of its devil-like ways. There's no easy way to comment in each section - I defaulted to editing the subpage directly and, spending time finding, considering, finding again, checking I was in the right place, finding again and finally commenting, I was continually terrified that the world was about to end and I'd get an edit conflict after putting all the time in. I would have walked away at that point, my dead important views lost to an uncaring world. This is the ideal format, as long as 'crats can gain a consensus from it of course, but the mark-up and the layout need simplifying for those of us who are hard of thinking. Bed now!   REDVERS ↔ SЯEVDEЯ  22:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Redvers. Even though I've gotten good at reading between the code (so to speak), this format is very unwieldy and a pain to use. I like the idea behind the format, but I don't believe it is a practical format to use for this purpose. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Determining/forming consensus

Yup, I think that is consistent with what I wrote just a little bit earlier on this page about "forming consensus" rather than "determining consensus". I think we are in complete agreement on this and, if I wrote anything above that seems to indicate otherwise, then it was probably poorly stated.
The point that I was trying to make above is simply that the !vote count gives a bureaucrat a high-level idea as to whether a consensus has formed or not. Your example is an exceptional case in which the consensus changed at the last minute due to new information.
In general, if the !vote count is over 80%, all it takes is for the bureaucrat to scan the Opposes to see if there is any really troublesome evidence. I'm not a very consistent RFA participant but I would wager that there are darn few RFA's where the count was over 80% support and yet the RFA failed because the bureaucrat thought the opposes were significant enough to outweigh the supports. Of course, the politic way to handle such a situation is to extend the RFA and let the editors shift the consensus appropriately. The Carnildo 2 RFA was highly contentious because the bureaucrats did not or could not help the RFA community shift the consensus and so they just made the promotion decision by fiat.
If the !vote count is below 70%, most RFAs will fail but it has not been made crystal clear whether the failure is due to the count being below 70% or because the 30%+ editors raised valid objections. In the case of Carnildo 2, the b'crats seem to have decided that the objections were not valid enough to outweigh strong reasons to re-admin Carnildo. I applaud the new effort to provide transparency of b'crat discussions regarding candidates with <80% support. I think the Durin format will also help shift the focus away from numerical percentages and onto the substantive issues. I envision the bureaucrats using the Durin format as supporting evidence for their discussion of RFA candidates whose !vote counts fall in the "discretionary" range.
--Richard 17:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Tallies

A question: can voting tallies be automated? Or can someone create a bot that fix them automatically periodically (30 minutes, e.g.)? I just wonder. --Neigel von Teighen 18:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

No, tallies should be removed if anything; RfA is NOT a ballot. Majorly (hot!) 18:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
We already have a bot that does its best, but regularly is in error, so it updates a different page instead of the RFA pages. However, Majorly is just plain wrong, with the large number of participants that RFA gets, the tallies are the best tool available for measuring the consensus of the participants. GRBerry 18:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
In fact Majorly is plain right. The tallies are the worst tool at gauging consensus. Majorly (hot!) 18:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I realized yesterday after readin this page that I regularly ignore candidates based on the bot-generated tally at WP:WATCH. That's illogical for a consensus-based model so yes, once again, remove the unhelpful tallies (I'll go through and find all the places people have objected to them later, Husond). -- nae'blis 20:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think RfA can work by consensus, so the tallies serve a useful purpose helping us to see the current vote count. I agree with Nae'blis though that deciding whether or not to vote on an RfA based on the current tally does bring some problems; I ignore too many RfAs where I feel my vote won't have an effect either way. Kusma (talk) 20:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem is this: if we keep tallies, they're almost always wrong and should be automated (somehow). On the other hand, I think they're absolutely useless: you can easily watch the last number from the list. I remember there was an experiment to implement tallies on AfD and was a dissaster. --Neigel von Teighen 11:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

RFA is not a vote... yeah, right

I wandered off to go shave and, while doing so, I got an insight about the Durin format. While I stand by what I wrote above, my new thought on the Durin format is that it still retains the !vote aspect of the current format except instead of one big !vote, we have a lot of little !votes.

Look, if substance is what counts over pure quantity of votes, why not dispense with the !voting altogether? Just have a discussion page that has two major sections... "Arguments in favor" and "Arguments against". Editors would be encouraged to enter their opinions in each section, maybe even in both sections. However, editors would be discouraged from repeating the comments of other editors. We don't need 20 people saying "civility problems". Either there is a civility problem or there isn't. If there is, provide diffs to support the case. Having 19 extra "yup, I agree, civility is a problem" !votes doesn't change anything. What would change things is if there are people who say "Yeah, and here's another example". Additional evidence supporting or refuting an asertion is valuable. "Me, too" comments are not. If you know that your "me, too" comment will be discounted (maybe even deleted), hopefully you won't waste your time writing it.

The bureaucrat could then read through the discussion and decide if there are any substantive issues. This would allow a bureaucrat to discount issues related to edit-count, use of edit summaries, frequency of edits, lack of image or category experience, whatever.

In such a situation, the example of the 37-1 vote wouldn't be an issue. The question would be whether, in the bureaucrat's judgment, the evidence provided by that one sole opposing editor outweighed the opinions of the other 37 editors.

This, of course, is a difficult call and, especially in a post-Carnildo 2 era, it would take a lot of courage on the part of a bureaucrat to support one editor over 37 others. This is, perhaps, why we have !voting as a crutch for the bureaucrat to leave the responsibility for the decision on the RFA community.

This proposed approach of not counting !votes at all changes the nature of RFA and the role of bureaucrats dramatically.

But, if you believe RFA is broken, then such radical changes might be what is needed.

--Richard 18:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Sounds good to me. I'll be happy to create an RfA if there's a willing guinea pig... --Durin 18:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Just to be clear, this would be a change completely away from having a consensus based process. For consensus, it matters how many people think a certain way, not just what the points mentioned are. GRBerry 18:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Let me try to understand this: editors provide evidence, bureaucrat makes decision, the end. Umm .... where the hell's the consensus? This proposal is no different than allowing bureaucrats to promote at will (e.g., see user -- promote user), only with the aid of a few research assistants. Again, what happened to the role of editors who are supposed to aid in developing consensus? They're just lowly research assistants now (I write this having been a research assistant)? That's not consensus! That's centralisation of power and responsibility. Does the portion of WP:NOT that states "Wikipedia is not a democracy" somehow imply that Wikipedia should be authoritarian? Am I missing something? -- Black Falcon 18:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, actually you are.

Refer to the title of this section... If numbers matter, then RFA is a vote just not a majority vote with every vote counting equally. If RFA is not a vote, then what is it? Right now, it's a vote requiring supermajority to pass with bureaucrat's having discretion to determine where exactly the supermajority threshold is (usually 80% but sometimes as low as 69%) and also discretion as to which votes to count. Like it or not, this kind of !voting is the way we determine consensus in RFA today.

I think we all agree that a major objection like edit warring, incivility, etc. should stop an RFA candidacy. The questions to ask are: when does an objection rise to the level of being "major" and do a lot of minor objections (e.g. use of edit summaries) count as a major objection? Also, who decides whether an objection is "valid" or not?

My proposal clears the table by saying that the bureaucrats should decide all this and that they should do so on the basis of quality of the objections not just on the quantity of the objections.

--Richard 15:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

One problem with the proposal from you is that there are not usually very good reasons for supporting a user apart from 'Hasn't done anything wrong', 'Won't misuse the tools' and 'Very helpful editor'. There are far more reasons to oppose somebody, and so, surely, most RfAs will fail like this. -- Casmith_789 (talk) 15:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. First, the nominator will have given a lot of good reasons. Second, the proposal rests on the principle that "adminship is not a big deal" and therefore the default assumption is that, failing a very strong objection to promote, the candidate will be promoted. Finally, your comment still betrays a "voting" mentality because you are looking at the numerical quantity of objections over the numerical quantity of reasons to promote. My proposal focuses only on one thing... the quality of the reasons to promote versus the quality of objections to promote. A single, verifiable act of recent vandalism or incivility should be enough to derail a candidacy. In practice, it usually does if only because editors will switch from support to oppose if evidence of such misbehavior is provided.
That said, I am not saying that my proposal is the absolute best way to do RFA although I think it could work. What I am saying is that this is one way that it could work if we want to honestly assert that "RFA is not a vote". Otherwise, we should just be intellectually honest and say "Well, RFA is a kind of a vote with special rules".
Either it's not a vote and the weighing and discounting of for/against reasons is done in the mind of the bureaucrat without considering how many people have the same opinion or it is a vote and the weighing of for/against reasons in the minds of the "!voting" editors with the bureaucrat giving strong weight to the number of people with the same opinion. Let's grapple with the issue and describe what RFA really is.
--Richard 16:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts on ignoring "oppose" comments

As I see it, there are four classes of "oppose" comments:

  1. Obvious vandalism opposes. For instance, "Oppose. Anyone who wants to be an admin needs to get a life." I'm quite sure that everyone agrees that these types of comments, whose purpose is only to disrupt the process, may be ignored.
  2. Sockpuppet opposes. These may be expressed more diplomatically than the example above, but their purpose is still disruptive, and so they too should be ignored. I think everyone also agrees on that.
  3. Bad-faith opposes. These are cases where an editor opposes a candidate for a reason that that editor does not view to be relevant to adminship. The defining feature of this category is the commenting editor's thought process. For instance, if I think that tea-drinkers cannot make good admins, and I oppose a tea-drinking candidate, that does not qualify as a bad-faith oppose, no matter how ridiculous my standard may appear to be.
  4. Good-faith opposes. These are cases where an editor opposes a candidate for a reason that that editor does view to be relevant for adminship. If I sincerely believe (and I don't, by the way) that an editor cannot be a good admin until he or she has acquired 4336 edits, and I oppose an editor with less than that number of edits, my oppose is made in good-faith.

Here's the problem when it comes to ignoring "oppose"s. The first two classes of "oppose" comments can be relatively objectively identified and there is near-unanimous agreement that they should be ignored as disruptive. I believe bad-faith opposes should also be ignored as disruptive, but realise that it's difficult or impossible to identify whether an oppose was made in good or bad faith. W should always assume the former in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

Now, the only argument that can be offered to justify ignoring good-faith opposes is that the standards by which editors judge are somehow "wrong" (i.e., irrelevant to adminship). "Wrong" is a hopelessly subjective word. RfA is mostly about trust; we can't just say "if an editor meets criterion X, you will trust him, damn it!". So, the only way I see that ignoring a good-faith oppose can be justified is if the editor making the argument is stupid and should not be allowed to participate. I know that this is not the intention of the various editors who've suggested ignoring good-faith opposes which they deem to be "irrelevant", but I view that to be the logical conclusion of any proposal to ignore certain good-faith opposes. Either we must allow them, no matter how much we disagree with them, or we must simply ban most editors from participating in RfA. -- Black Falcon 20:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm a racist. A Jewish editor requests adminship. I sincerely believe that Jews abuse power, given the chance, and therefore make bad administrators. When I write "oppose, Jewish", I am certainly meeting your standard of good faith. How do you believe the community should react to this (obviously hyperbolic example)? I simply ask because the correct answer is plain, but it is appears to me that your system would arrive at a different one. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
That's actually not hyperbole. They tend to draw swift criticism and accusations of all sorts of violations, but I don't know if they've ever been officially discounted by a bureaucrat. Kafziel Talk 20:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
It's hyperbolic in its directness, since usually the comment is more of the form "pushes POV on balkans article and vandalizes serb pages". Usually this requires some sorting out of the extent to which the claims are true. HolyRomanEmperor's third RfA featured some attempts to discount such votes although it nonetheless turned into a disaster. But dealing with opinions that are obviously motivated at least in part by nationalist fervor is a real problem, and a good example of one that a simple test of good faith can't really overcome. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for the late reply - I've been busy. ;) I've actually seen people just say "Oppose: there are too many Indian admins already" and the like. Yes, the vote is immediately derided as racist/nationalist/what have you, and notes telling the closing crat (in boldface, of course) to disregard them, but I don't remember a bureaucrat ever showing up to confirm that it wouldn't be counted. I don't know if there's precedent for a comment like that actually being thrown out. That's all I mean. Kafziel Talk 16:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
A few racist opposes will make their way in is I suspect an understatement. I believe a problem we've had getting good administrators with expertise in the Balkans, for instance, is that whichever nationality they happen to be, people of the other tribe show up and oppose. No, we should not be accepting bad opposes at all. There is no need to do so, and doing so devalues the honest and well thought-out opinions of the rest of us. --Tony Sidaway 22:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
See right below? --Kim Bruning 22:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
And how exactly do we determine what is a "bad oppose" and what is a "honest and well thought-out opinion"? The simple criterion of "is the comment relevant to the candidate's merits as a potential admin" is not enough as people will have different "honest" and good-faith interpretations of what is and is not relevant. -- Black Falcon 22:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
O RLY? I wonder what the section right below this one is about? --Kim Bruning 22:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I commend you on the subtlety of your nudges. =) Your suggestion could possible yield positive results, but it's certain that it will result in a lot of pissed-off people. Lest we forget, that's how the French Revolution started. ... Hmm ... maybe you're onto something ... In order to implement your suggestion, you'd first need to find a willing victim candidate. -- Black Falcon 22:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe ignoring oppose votes is a bad idea. I read Christopher Parham's comment above where he gives example of a voter who is racist, and he states that this is a vote to be ignored. Sounds reasonable.

However, if you think about it, such silly votes would be extremely rare and this is a hypothetical situation. Now let me give you a real example. In Danny's RfA the vast majority of oppose votes were well reasoned and in good faith. Some of them mentioned that they did not like Danny's WP:OFFICE activity, yet each of them as far as I saw also mentioned other reasons for opposing. And here is Christopher Parham's own vote:

Support, I don't think any of the issues brought up below are particularly serious, and the large majority are idiotic even by the low standards of RfA.

So, here's my belief. Ignoring oppose votes is, in general, a bad idea. The bigger danger in my view is not a few clueless voters, but rather voters who are firmly convinced other people's votes are worthless. If we were to start an education of the electorate, the latter class of people need to be educated first. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Contested opinions

Would it be ok to ignore "contested opinions?"

I think people are worried that bureaucrats might start ignoring random opinions.

How about keeping that under community control to an extent?

Sometimes people leave opinions that other people would like to discuss with them. (This is often -but not always- one of those valuable oppose opinions).

It can be very frustrating when people just do "hit and run voting" as opposed to participating in a meaningful discussion.

So I'm sure lots of people have already thought of this themselves, but we could just ignore opinions where someone has asked a question, and that question has gone unanswered.

People should at least have the decency to keep an RFA on their watchlists while it's still running. If someone really cares about their opinion, and it gets contested, they will reply. (and thus prove their sincerity, and their opinion gets counted :-)).

Does this seem fair? Does this cover all the issues mentioned in some of the sections above? If not, where are the flaws?

--Kim Bruning 20:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately this process sounds rather mechanical. Practically, it might get better results. But, it has the same flaws as simple vote counting since it uses basically the same heuristic: the existence of a block of text in a specific place is the primary input it considers. The content of that block of text is devalued. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree that this is mechanical, but then again the objective is rather limited. It just forces people to actually respond when people speak with them, no more.
Despite being purely mechanical, perhaps it's already enough to get people past some certain invisible threshold. Or perhaps not. The only way to find out is to try it. :-) --Kim Bruning 20:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Umm ... I can think of one question and one flaw. First, the flaw: someone can easily manipulate the process by writing "Could you clarify your position?" after even the most thought-out and developed arguments. And now, the question: wouldn't we also have to apply this to the "support" comments? -- Black Falcon 21:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Dunno if this applies, but if you're asking why oppose !votes get more attention than support !votes, it's because an oppose is worth about 5x as much as a support, so folks want to see a reason why. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 21:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
That's a good point, although I would say the correct number is about 2.5 (70-30 usually passes). I'm not opposed to "oppose" comments being subjected to more scrutiny; but determining whether "someone really cares about their opinion" applies both ways. Hit-and-run supports are no more desirable than their counterparts. -- Black Falcon 21:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually I'm hoping that people will put "can you clarify your position" after every single support opinion at least once. ;-) the answers might be quite educational

The correct answer, of course, is "Which aspect would you like clarified?".  ;-)

--Kim Bruning 21:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Could we stop calling opinions "!votes"? That alone would be a huge improvement. I'll always do my best to justify my opinions and explain why I think they're relevant to the question of adminship. I expect others to do the same. I don't see a problem with a bureaucrat ignoring my opinion if he disagrees with its relevance to candidacy. We expect bureaucrats to be honest and good judges, so there isn't a problem there. --Tony Sidaway 22:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
So do you agree we should try a Contested Opinions rule in some next experiment? --Kim Bruning 22:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
No, I think it's too mechanical. The bureaucrat should use his common sense. --Tony Sidaway 22:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Which has different results. Sometimes a hard rule can have more interesting consequences than a soft rule --Kim Bruning 01:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) A second flaw is timing. Someone could mass add the "clairfy" (or equivalent) questions a few minutes before the RfA ends. In principle this is solvable via instruction creep. (Maybe a 2448 hour clause in the rule?)
A more significant flaw is that sometimes the person leaving the comment that was questioned has seen the question and doesn't think it merits a response. Times when I've done it is when I've said effecitively candidate C should not be an admin for reasons X, Y, and Z. Additionally, they might want to improve on areas Φ, Ψ, and Ω but these are not reasons to deny the tools, and then someone asks a question about Ω, which I've already said was an area for improvement but not a reason why I believe they shouldn't have the tools. GRBerry 22:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
This might not entirely be a flaw. Apparently someone misunderstood your opinion, right?
If we do this experiment, and such a situation occurs, you could state that Ω was merely an additional optional area for improvement, but that you might change your opinion if something can be done about X, Y, and Z.
That would seem to be a reasonable statement.
Since the current criterium would be strictly mechanical, you could also get away with "you misunderstand" or some such very short answer. But be aware that I'm hoping that people would respond to such an answer in interesting and useful ways.
--Kim Bruning 22:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

This would seriously increase the commitment required to vote. I know I don't pick up every response people make to my edits even though I watchlist every page I edit. Simply, watchlists don't work like that for busy pages. All it takes is another edit, or an edit without an edit summary, or 50 edits to other pages that bury the XFX edit so I don't see it. Regards, Ben Aveling 23:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the objective is to seriously increase the commitment required to vote to a level needed to hold a proper consensus forming discussion.
It's a deceptively simple measure that would force people to continue to follow the whole discussion until the conclusion. :-)
So by that (perhaps counter-intuitive) path, it suddenly means that people's opinions will have to be listened to, and possibly might influence other people. (whereas right now, peoples opinions get averaged out and lost.) --Kim Bruning 23:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that the influence of opinions on other people is one of the great flaws of the "discussion" part of RfA. If people could simply "oppose" for any reason they wouldn't have to invent stupid "criteria" which then spread like a disease. I have seen more harm come from "oppose, not enough experience with images" which was copied and used by others than from a simple "oppose" with no reasons disclosed. The "reasons" do not answer the question "should this candidate be an administrator?", they answer the completely different question "what should this candidate do differently so I will support him?" Kusma (talk) 05:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It would mean that people who have the most time to troll rfas would have their opinions count the most. If someone systematically asks nitpicky questions from every opposer/supporter, it shouldn't be counted against them. This change would make it more like a shouting match and less like a debate. - Bobet 10:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I'd just stop voting if I had to put this sort of effort in. Before I vote I typically do a review of the users contribs, maybe check on some of the claims that have been made about them. That sort of effort I'd like to see more of, not this 'guarding' of my vote. I someone wants to make a comment about my vote, they can go ahead and do that and people can make up their own minds. If someone wants to ask me a question, or feels I need to know about a comment someone else has made, I have a talk page. Regards, Ben Aveling 23:11, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
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