User:Elipongo/RfA review Recommend Phase

Welcome to the Recommendation phase of RfA Review. In this phase, you will be asked to offer suggestions and proposals to address specific concerns and problems with the current Requests for Adminship process.

The questions below are taken directly from the 209 responses from the Question phase, each of which offered editors' thoughts and concerns about RfA. Based on those concerns, we identified the most frequently mentioned problems and included them here. These are the elements of RfA that are currently under review.

Please take your time and read through the concerns below. For each item, you are invited to offer a proposal that addresses the concern. Where possible, you are encouraged to provide examples, references, diffs and so on in order to support your viewpoint. There isn't a limit on the scope of your proposals; the sky is the limit, here. The intent of this phase is to get ideas, not necessarily to write policy - recommendations that gain traction and community support will be refined during later phases.

Most importantly, Answer as few or as many questions as you wish. All responses are evaluated, so any information you provide is helpful.

If you prefer, you can submit your responses anonymously by emailing them to User:Ultraexactzz. Anonymous responses will be posted as subpages with the contributor's details removed. If you have any questions, please use the project talk page at Wikipedia talk:RfA Review.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. We stress that editors who didn't participate in the question phase are encouraged to participate now - more responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results.

Once again, thank you for taking part!

Questions

Selection and Nomination

A1. Editors note that the RfA process can be daunting to prospective administrators, and that the process itself may discourage otherwise qualified candidates from seeking adminship. How can this "Selection Bias" be countered?

• Response: The qualities of a good sysop are honesty, emotional stability, and good judgement. All these artificial criteria like how much someone's been involved in XfD or if they've written featured articles, etc. have very little to do with the everyday tasks of a sysop. Of course an admin who is going to be working over at XfD should know the ins and outs pretty well beforehand, but there're a LOT of admin tasks to be accomplished outside of XfD. As for featured articles, a wise man once said that a person doesn't need to be able to write a symphony to be able to appreciate it, or to tell the difference from rubbish. I should be able to tell, just from someone's edit record, whether they are honest, emotionally stable, and have good judgement; however that takes effort and time and most people are far too lazy busy to do that.

A2. Editors expressed concern over unprepared or unqualified candidates at RfA, noting that their candidacies result in NOTNOW and SNOW closures that can be discouraging. In lieu of minimum requirements for adminship, how can prospective candidates be educated about RfA and the community's expectations of its administrators?

• Response: Tell them that their edit histories may have to stand alone as a record to prove to the community that they possess good judgement, honesty, and emotional stability. Their edits will have to speak for themselves before they make a single statement or reply to a single question.

A3. 44 editors expressed concern over excessive co-nominations. Some of these editors advocated a limit on co-nominations, perhaps capping them at one or two per candidate; others recommended asking prospective co-nominators to post a Strong Support in lieu of an actual nomination statement. How can the concern over Co-nominations be addressed?

• Response: Eliminate co-nominations. I would be comfortable with taking a page out of Robert's Rules and require one editor to nominate and another editor to second the nomination before an RfA proceeded- in the search for a second an unready editor may get the advice he needs to wait and to improve himself. After that just plain supports and opposeses, none of this silly strong, weak junk. I find such modifiers to be rude.

The RfA Debate (Questions, Election, Canvassing)

B1. 60 editors expressed concern over the number of questions asked of candidates, and indicated that questions should be limited in number. How can this be accomplished? What limits could be fairly imposed? Are there alternative means for the candidate to provide information about themselves without the prompting of questions?

• Response: I've always thought most of the questions were rather silly anyways. If it's a simple policy question all you'd need to do is open a tab to the policy and follow it. The hypothetical "what if" questions are just plain absurd- it's very hard to explain and decide what you're going to do in a situation unless you're actually in or have been in that situation. I truly don't see the Q&A as being the least bit useful in deciding whether someone's going to be a good sysop. Again I return to my basic premise that an editor's history is what matters. A person's basic character isn't going to change once they're promoted- if they've had temper tantrums, sulks, poor judgement, etc. in the past then they will likely do the same thing as an admin. Contrariwise, if they've shown good judgement, honestly admitted and fixed their mistakes, have been able to work collaboratively and reach compromises when their opinion differed with others- then it is likely that their good character will hold up to the promotion.

B2. Editors expressed concern over the content of questions, with 43 editors disapproving of "Trick questions", 8 disapproving of questions that require only a quotation from policy to answer, and 54 favoring questions that relate directly to the candidate and their experiences, contributions, conflicts, etc. How should the scope of possible questions be determined? Conversely, how would the decision to remove bad-faith or problematic questions be made, and by whom? What subjects should be specifically off-limits, and why?

• Response: I don't really think you'll be able to keep people from saying what they want to say unless you ban questions alltogether- not a very likely scenario. The only questions I feel could be relevant is to clarify someone's intentions and though processes regarding particular edits or disputes in their history.

B3. Editors note that RfA is seen as a negative process, with issues such as badgering of opposes, personal attacks, and a general lack of civility being prominent concerns. How can the RfA process be changed to address these concerns?

• Response: Politics is politics, even if we want to deny that we have politics on Wikipedia (as if!), if you have a thin skin you probably shouldn't get involved in the first place. It's never easy or comfortable having your actions examined and analyzed, but anyone who has been here for a little bit should know that working on any wiki is like lying naked in a greenhouse- anyone can know everything about you if they care to look. If editors, either the candidate or the voters, become uncivil- then the simple answer is to apply the policies as written, plain and simple.

B4. The very nature of the RfA process was disputed. Some editors desire rationales with every vote, and favor a more discussion and consensus-based process similar to other processes on the English wikipedia. Other editors desire a more vote-based election, where the raw numbers of supports and opposes are the critical factor. Is there one of these methods that would provide a clearer consensus on the community's view of a candidate? Or, alternatively, is a hybrid of the two preferable, and how should that be structured?

• Response: I would tend more with the consensus approach. If you're going to say yea or nay, then you should give a rational reason why you are doing so so that the closing bureaucrat can judge the merit of your opinion. The votes that just say "per that other user." should get low priority.

B5. The amount of discretion held by Bureaucrats to remove or discount problem votes was also discussed, with some editors favoring increased discretion for Bureaucrats. 25 editors also favored a detailed closing rationale from Bureaucrats, detailing the specific factors that resulted in the candidate being successful (or not successful). What changes to the RfA process or format could clarify community consensus on this issue? Should Bureaucrats take a more active role in managing (or clerking) ongoing RfAs?

• Response: I would support increased discretion as I described above, and I also like the idea of a closing rationale. The biggest change to make would be to take those numbers off the Bureaucrats' noticeboard- if we're working on consensus and not a vote, then the numbers have less meaning and could in fact impose a bias. Replace the numbered lists in the oppose/support/neutral sections and replace the whole thing with a simple discussion format. I really don't see why the 'crats would have to manage or clerk anything- the community should be well able to police itself.

B6. 68 editors noted that a limited form of Canvassing or advertising would be acceptable, if such canvassing was done on-site and in a neutral fashion. How could a candidate advertise the fact that he or she is a candidate for adminship, while being completely neutral in the audience to which he or she advertises?

• Response: I think a simple template to the effect that so and so is up for an RfA, you're invited to add your voice to the discussion. If someone could code a bot that would deliver that template to the talk pages (excluding anons) of the other editors he's corresponded with- that would be great.

Training and Education

C1. Though 73 editors responded favorably to the Admin Coaching programme, 39 were critical of the process for "Teaching for the test", or for being an RfA preparation programme rather than an Adminship preparation programme. In what ways could Admin Coaching be improved to focus more on adminship itself?

• Response: I've never tried it, but from the descriptions it seems to be good enough as is in getting people used to doing more of the routine chores to be done around here. I don't think anyone *can* really "teach to the test" for an evaluation like an RfA.

C2. In evaluating New Admin School, some editors noted that a Mentorship element would be of great benefit to newly minted administrators - something that Admin Coaching provides in a direct one-on-one coach-coachee team. Similarly, 15 editors characterized Admin Coaching, a primarily pre-adminship process, as being invaluable after the RfA, which is traditionally when New Admin School is used for training. Are there areas where the two processes overlap, and can be made more complimentary? Are there common themes or elements that could be shared between the two processes, in order to improve the effectiveness of both?

• Response: There is a very good reason that Apprenticeship has survived for millennia in one form or another until this very day- because it works and it works well. Call it internship it that makes it more palatable, but it amounts to the same thing. Change the name from Coach to Advisor and let the relationship continue from before an RfA until some point after it when both parties are comfortable with allowing the new sysop to work independently. Perhaps even make it mandatory.

Adminship (Removal of)

D1. Editors noted that the current voluntary Admins open to Recall process is redundant to Dispute Resolution process such as Requests for Comment and Arbitration. In the absence of Recall (i.e. if it were removed altogether), how could existing processes be adapted to more effectively deal with issues of administrator abuse?

• Response: Is this really a very big problem? I can't say that I've ever seen very much "admin abuse" going on. When something happens, the drama at WP:ANI seems to take care of things quickly enough.

D2. Editors cited the voluntary nature of the Admins open to Recall process as problematic, and 40 went as far as to recommend a mandatory process for all administrators, either as a mandatory form of Admins open to Recall, or a more formal version of the process administered by Bureaucrats. As a separate process from WP:DR, how could the current recall process be standardized for use as a mandatory process? Who would be responsible for such a process?

• Response: The only reason I would ever support such instruction creep as to create such a process is if there had been a history of lynch mob type, unfair de-sysopings. Since I can't say I've heard of any happening, I wouldn't support a new process.

D3. 44 editors criticized the recall process for being too open to abuse, both through spurious or bad-faith calls for an admin to be recalled, or through administrators who fail to follow through on a commitment to stand for recall. How can the recall process be amended to address these concerns?

• Response: Get rid of it entirely, it's useless and probably even harmful to the project. If someone's a true jerk, they're not going to leave voluntarily whereas an honest admin will step down after a few people complained. Such a negative selection process would dilute the quality of our admins over time.

D4. Some editors recommended that administrators be required to stand for some form of reconfirmation after a given period of time. How would such reconfirmation be structured? How long would an admin have before such reconfirmation would be required? Could such reconfirmation be triggered by an effort to recall an admin, and how would that be handled? What form would such reconfirmation take (RfA, Straw Poll, etc)?

• Response: We have been working on a de-facto vote of confidence style system all along. If someone has a problem with an admin, they go to WP:ANI and post a complaint, if enough people find the complaint valid and substantive then action is taken and be taken to Arbcom. It's worked pretty good so far so I say don't fix what ain't broken.

Overall Process

E1. The earliest version of the RfA policy states that adminship is granted to "anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community." Current policy leaves the definition of a "trusted editor" to the community. Editors offered a wide range of basic characteristics desirable of administrators, including Trustworthiness, competence, and communication skills. How could the RfA process be amended to either A) more fully ensure that editors selected as admins do indeed have the full trust of the community, or B) more fully fit the community's expectations for administrators?

• Response: Less emphasis on silly hypothetical questions and more on the user's past behavior. If they've displayed good character qualities in the past, it is very likely they will do so in the future. The opposite case is also true.

E2. Editors expressed concern over the format of the Requests for Adminship process. Some suggested that RfA has become a form of high-impact editor review, while others expressed concern over the view of Adminship itself as a goal or "trophy" that all editors should attain after a certain period of time. In taking the RfA process as a whole, what elements work well? What elements should be removed or amended?

• Response: If you're evaluating whether someone is worthy of the community's trust, I don't see how it *isn't* going to be an editor review. If you don't want your past looked into, don't apply for the job. As for the "trophy" status, I'm not sure what to do about it and I am saddened to see it. I guess it's inevitable in a group of people that some will want to seek more "control" to validate their images of themselves. I suppose we could start by getting rid of some of the more egregious stuff out there, like in some anon welcome templates where it says, "you could even become an admin!", heck it sounds like we're selling soap or something...

Once you're finished...

Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process.

Your responses will be added to Category:Wikipedian Recommendations to RfA Review, which will be used to review the responses after this phase is concluded.

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 08:58 on 14 September 2008.