Wikipedia talk:Discussions for adminship/Archive 2

And once again, no list of "what is wrong" with RfA

This new idea for RfA reform is no better or worse than any other idea we've had for RfA reform over the last many months. The difference here is that it has the weight of a couple of bureaucrats behind it. Problem is, what they have their weight behind has not been evaluated for its ability to solve the problems RfA has. That's because, once again, this idea has been spawned and developed without any prior identification of what is wrong with RfA. Coming up with new ideas and even implementing them is easy. Having the courage to figure out what is wrong first and then coming up with a plan of action that responds to the problems seems to be beyond the members of this community that are bent on reform.

I know in response to this that some are going to cite User:Linuxbeak/RFA_Reform#What_is_not-so-good_about_the_existing_RFA.3F. But frankly, that was far from sufficient. Those comments are just one facet of determination of what is wrong and many of them lack basis. Here's a list of the problems noted on that page (and rebuttals as appropriate):

1. Low standards: Problem is, quite a few people think the standards are too high. Also note that at Wikipedia:Admin_accountability_poll#The_standards_for_becoming_an_admin_should_be_higher_than_they_are_now, more people were opposed to standards being higher than people in support of them being higher.
2. Unfair to veteran [non-admin] users: I provided data that disproved this notion.
3. Use of RFA as a soapbox: Ilyanep suggests people vote to make a point. Maybe, maybe not. Any basis in fact? I don't know and I suspect nobody does. I'd like to see cites of how these 'point' votes actually changed the outcome of an RfA.
4. Lack of efficiency: Bureaucrats have to make 5 edits to promote someone. One bureaucrat raised this point, another refuted it. Doesn't seem supported.
5. Impersonal: This boiled down to providing diffs/not providing diffs. From discussions here on this page, this is obviously controversial.
6. Maintenance (RfA always the subject of reform): This isn't a bad thing; it's a good thing. When we stop having discussion about how to make RfA better, there's possibly a problem. Silence doesn't mean it's perfect.
7. Lack of standards for voters: People are encouraged to use their own standards, and there is a standards page anyways.
8. Herd mindset: No way to fix this that is community friendly.
9. Focuses on wrong qualities: The comments on the RfA reform page seem to more or less agree. Maybe this is a real issue. This is hard to know without having any feedback on how admins are failing in their work as an admin, and how often it happens. Maybe RfA as it currently is filters out >90% of the admins who would fail. We don't know.
10. Waves of oppose votes based on one edit: This isn't necessarily a bad thing. RfA can be oriented towards finding what is wrong with a person than what is right. RfA is something of an investigation into whether a person is suited to being an admin. Finding negative evidence is part of that process. I don't think this should be removed as a factor, nor do I suspect there'd be much community concensus for doing so.
11. The voters: RfA reform lists a long littany of different problems with voters. As a whole, too diverse a set of statements to adequately answer or consider as a basis for RfA reform.
12. A small group can manipulate the vote: Implies people working behind the scenes trying to make certain RfAs pass or fail. Campaigning in RfA is widely recognized as bad, and is looked upon very poorly. I don't see the effect. Some citations of example cases would be useful for clarifying this problem (if indeed it is a problem).
13. Encourages vote counting: Bureaucrats have, can, and will discount votes from perfectly well meaning contributors to RfA in pursuit of consensus. This is a critical function of bureaucrats in discerning consensus. It isn't an easy job, but the bureaucrats have done a pretty good job of it. This job is in direct opposition to vote counting, and it works. --Durin 14:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to note that it does not appear that the group that has been working on this new RfA reform idea has done any point by point analysis of these problems, decided what is important/what is not, and shown how this new process might solve any of these problems. There's scattered discussion along these lines, but no cohesive statement showing this.

In all of these supposed problems that RfA has, there's little in the way of suggestion that RfA is promoting bad admins too frequently. Will RfA promote bad admins? Absolutely. Why? Because we're human, and no process is perfect. Ships sink, airplanes blowup, trains de-rail, and RfA promotes bad admins occasionally. We can't prevent all bad admins from getting through. What we can do is help to ensure we have adequate mechanisms in place for handling such failures, and ensure that the process isn't letting through so many bad admins that we overload the processes that handle these failures.

Another tool (yet to be used) we can use to identify whether RfA is doing a decent job is by identifying negative behaviors of admins, and see how many admins are engaging in such behaviors. If it's a very small percentage, then RfA is doing a good job. That small percentage can be handled by dispute resolution processes. If that small percentage isn't so small, then RfA needs to evolve to make it smaller so as not to overburden the dispute resolution processes. There are other tools as well.

You develop processes that work by using a number of evaluation tools, not just one. Opinion input is just one tool. Focus groups that develop discussion and talking points are another. Culling of behavior from logs is yet another. There are others as well. --Durin 14:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a very good summary, and I endorse it. However, I don't think there are any problems with having a new process run parallel with the existing one, per above. Demi ^T/_C 16:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

• I don't have any problem with a parallel process running. In fact, I think it would be a good thing to do if certain prerequisites are met. One of them is to identify what is wrong with RfA so you can fairly evaluate whether the parallel, proposed process has been capable of solving the identified issues and/or if it raises other significant problems. In essence, by creating a parallel process without prerequisites, we are designing an experiment with no control, no targeted observations, and no experiment management overview. The results we get from such a parallel process will be debated, sometimes hotly, and at best yield dubious results. --Durin 16:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

• Just try running a parallel process. Then see how many complaints you get. You can't have legitimate results when people choose to go to either DFA or RFA. — Ilyanep (Talk) 02:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• Until something is done along the lines I suggested above, it simply doesn't make sense to run an experiment. You might as well plow snow using a sledgehammer for all the good it will do. --Durin 05:16, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what problem there would be with legitimacy; RfA doesn't seem so broken that its results could be described as illegitimate, and certainly this draft doesn't contain anything that would make me doubt the legitimacy of the results. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• I find myself in complete agreement with Durin here. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 06:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

totally disagree. The system is working somewhat fine as it is.

The above would only allow bad admin to engage the system. The idea is to keep vandalism down to a minimum, a vandal with Admin abilities is a bad idea. Masssiveego 18:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

If you want this to work, you'd better sell it better

It's all well and good if a number of you have been working behind the scenes coming up with a new process to replace the current mechanism used at RfA. It's entirely possible you came up with an amazingly perfect method for evaluating RfA candidates (though I doubt that; see my comments in the prior section to this). But, suspending RfA (21:27 4 February 2006) and then telling all the people at RfA about it via the talk page (21:36 4 February 2006) isn't the way to sell this to the community.

If you want the community to back the reform proposal, then in the very least offer some time for public commentary on the plan that you come up with. What you have done is, in legislative terms, come up with a bill to be passed, discussed it in committee without public input, and attempted to pass it into law without the public even knowing it was about to happen. And you're surprised people are in opposition? You guys need a public relations officer :) --Durin 15:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

If you want this to work, you'd better do it right

The only way to prevent sheep voting (the reason why DFA is being proposed) is to have votes be emailed to a bureaucrat for counting. People are not going to bother to discuss when they can simply vote. Voters could put Support/Oppose in the subject line, allowing for easy sorting by bureaucrats. This is probably the best solution, though I doubt it will ever become a reality. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-02-7 01:46

I hope you're not serious. Nothing (realistic) can prevent sheep voting altogether, but we can hope to deter it. — Ilyanep (Talk) 02:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The Bruning-brenneman method^TM

I'd propose that we change the template as follows. It's clearly more work, and would for the more contentious candidates dictate some very careful editing, but would hopefully result in a nice balanced picture. Could we get a volounteer to let us just do this section on them, regardless of taking it to RfA? Yes, Lar, we see your hand poking up... - brenneman^(t)(c) 05:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Narrative structure

The following section is intended to allow editors unfamiliar with the nominee to make an informed decision regarding promotion. Any editor is welcome to make additions, make changes, or remove items, as long as they it is unbiased and verifiabile. Harmonious editing is essential, and use of the talk page highly recomended. Please do not sign any comments in this section. Diffs are strongly encouraged, and presentation of items in chronological order is preffered.

Actions of nominee

AdminWannabe started editing on January of this year [1]. In his first month, AdminWannabe spent a lot of time on Article, which was subsequently promoted to featured article status. [2], [3], [4]

In Feb, AdminWannabe engaged in personal attacks against User:IdiotMoronicTroll[5] , as well as being involved in dispute with User:AnnoyingPerson on and responded in a calm and civil manner.

AdminWannabe hav frequently engaged in POC pushing on Cheese-related articles.

• If we're going to change the system but keep the basic 80%/counting framework, this suggestion is much more interesting than the current draft, at least. Much more potential to genuinely cause changes, but for the good or bad I don't know. It would be interesting to see a few of these done (I'd volunteer myself, though I have no interest in adminship). Christopher Parham (talk) 06:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

joining the discussion

Just a quick note, as I haven't been following the thread. I think it's great to have a small period of discussion previous to "vote". I mean, if someone has waited a few months, can he not wait for 1 week more? I don't see what's wrong with having a previous discussion period before poll to enable us to make informed decissions. So I wonder, can anyone point me briefly what are the man concerns about (what I think is) this great idea? -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 19:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• The main concern seems to be whether there's any purpose to it, i.e. not so much what's wrong with it as why do it. Also, people are haggling over various specifics of the proposal. My sense (feel free to disagree) is that the proposal isn't generating particularly strong support or opposition, probably because it is not much of a divergence from our existing system, and is thus unlikely to do much harm but also unlikely to solve any of the problems to which it is a response. Brenneman and Bruning have proposed a bit more radical change directly above. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, if an idea is for good (and not-voting-out of the blue and putting the crads on the table I think are) why ask for more reason? Indeed, the RFA disabling may have left some people at unease, I'm just hoping that people isn't opposing it just on the basis how was it attempted to be done. Thanks for your reply. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 21:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Test case

I've just added User:Lar as a test case, just to see how it might work. He'd indicated that he was willing elsewhere, but I'm re-pinging him now. And I know I haven't changed the template, I wanted it to be easier to back out if we hate it.- brenneman^(t)(c) 11:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• What, specifically, are you testing? See my notes above. You're taking shots in the dark. About the only thing you're going to be able to draw valid conclusions about is whether people can type. :/ --Durin 14:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
• This isn't anything like the DFA proposal Ilyanep and Linuxbeak set up, on the basis of their previous public discussion on the subject, and of which they were presumably prepared to honor the results, as bureaucrats. This is an idea floated without support; without an undertaking by bureaucrats that they will promote as a result of a particular kind of discussion, it really is just a shot in the dark. I reiterate that no one has yet expressed any support for this idea as proposed on this talk page, so I hardly see how moving to a next step makes sense. Demi ^T/_C 19:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Combined response below. - brenneman^(t)(c) 22:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

More concerns

I honestly don't see what this "test" is trying to discern. I note that the "In a nutshell" contains suffrage requirements that are unsupported by consensus (see [6] which showed only 66% support), and contains requirements that nominees must have at least 500 edits (which has no consensus and no poll asserting such). The entire proposal centers around more discussion, which suffers from even less support at 59% ([7]). Put that aside, and you're running a test run with Lar as the subject. Can people discuss someone before voting? Certainly. You can 'prove' that with this test, but you don't really need this test to ascertain that. Is this 'test' going to prove that this new process can prevent potentially bad admins from getting through? Impossible, especially with just one test subject, and especially without any understanding of how RfA is or is not failing in this regard.

I'd also like to note that page is poorly written and needs a lot of editing. For example, it's nonsensical to have "see also Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts" at the top of the section of nomination standards. Another example; "Any user in good standing..." with no accompanying description of what "good standing" means. I.e., it's meaningless. On the template, you have "The poll isn't open yet. Please wait a couple of days, and join the discussion above." So, I can start voting two days after it opens? Not according to the instructions at the top which says three days. Oh wait, no, it's four days according to "Discussion will last for four days after that" at the top of the template. Bottom line, this is poorly organized, and is wanting for a great deal of copy editing.

The "discussion" period (is it three or four days? I don't know, neither do the editors of this proposal) isn't a discussion period. That implies dialogue going on. That's not what is proposed here. What is proposed is a group effort to develop a summary of the nominee. That's not discussion.

This proposal sets the stage for revert wars. Why? One, because of this easily contended statement: "Overly lengthy comments or discussions can be moved to the talk page". I'm wordy when I type. Thus, there's a far better chance my comments will be moved to the talk page, favoring less wordy editors. For two, the fact that people can edit others comments during the "discussion" period means a higher likelihood for people making reverts of each other to characterize/recharacterize different pieces of evidence regarding the nominee. And you think RfA is contentious? I shudder to think how bad DfA would be in comparison. People revert war over biographies of people they've never met. I think they're considerably more likely to revert war over people they care about or strongly dislike. --Durin 15:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'd also like to note that it was way out of line for an attempt to made to jam this proposal down the neck of RfA. Noting the problems I wrote about above, it's obvious this proposal has yet to be properly thought out, discussed, and reasonably edited. If this had somehow managed to have gone through, RfA would have been badly disrupted. Furthermore, there was no discussion or attempt to gain consensus on this proposal prior to attempting to implment it. This is decidedly anti-wiki. To have gone ahead with implementation of this proposal in this manner shows a singular failure of reasonable judgement on the part of the bureaucrats who attempted this. It should hardly be surprising that people who otherwise might have been at least somewhat accepting of this proposal now find it considerably less acceptable given these events. --Durin 15:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

  Err, ouch. I'm certainly suprised by the vehemence of these responses. To me this all looks like good appliation of "be bold, be reverted, discuss". There are problems with consistancy? Then {{sofixit}} as opposed to complaining about it. The whole "psedu-article" idea stinks? No better way to find that out than by trying it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The worst outcome would be four days (or three!) wasted when we see that the "Larticle" doesn't help us decide if he should be an admin.

  This is actually only a very slight tweak on the proposal, that comments are written without signatures. There was some small support expressed for doing it in this manner, and no objections. More generally, it was suggested by a b'cat that someone be the test case, albiet not for this form. Lar doesn't want to be an admin, so he's a good candidate as nothing is gained or lost for him. The possible harm in giving writing a pseduo-article to see what it would look like is what again?

  And what's the problem with a "shot in the dark" anyway? Evolution seems to get from slime-molds to J. Wales by virtue of lots of random changes, and at least we've put some thought into this. The "aint broke don't fix it" points have been made again and again, and people are clearly not swayed by them. Eventually it becomes time to let it go. I cannot help but note that we are no longer setting the sysop flag based upon mailing list... times change, things change. Roll with, work on improving it, see what happens.

  brenneman^(t)(c) 23:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• Quite frankly, I agree with Durin and Demi above that this nomination is premature. Not only has the community not expressed widespread support for implementing or testing DfA, but discussions are still ongoing regarding these reforms. In addition, note that bureaucrats are trusted to interpret community consensus; if there's no consensus to run this trial, there probably won't be a consensus to promote, either. Personally, I'm also against this trial; as Durin points out above, what exactly are you trying to test? We're changing several elements at once, using an extremely small sample size (1), which was done by volunteer. I don't think we'll get conclusive results about how this will work. Thus, I urge both the nominator and nominee to consider holding off until community consensus has been reached and more discussions have proceeded. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'm the "nominee". I think I'm a good test case because I'm borderline qualified editwise (just under 2000 but not too far under), timewise (around 3 months of serious editing), broadness of edit activitywise (articlespace, projectspace, templatespace, imagespace, userspace, all have some action from me) civilitywise (I'm fairly civil but no angel, I've been in some scuffles I'm not proud of) and a number of other ways. So just the sort of candidate that is neither a slam dunk 100/1/0, nor a clearly not qualified easy early WP:SNOW exit. If the entire community thinks it's a waste of time then perhaps Aaron misjudged where this proposal was at done-ness-wise. But note the scare quotes around nominee please!!!! I agreed to this because I think Aaron's on to something interesting, and because I personally want the feedback, NOT because I want the job. When you're running the test, evaluate me as if I actually wanted the job. please. But if you're talking meta, like here, remember this: I don't. I probably won't ever want it. SO (and I appreciate the concern, Flcelloguy!!!), it doesn't matter if doing this "spoils my chances" at the "real" process. Durin, who I respect highly, said this is nothing more than a typing test. I sincerely hope not. What *I* am getting out of it, or hoped to, other than doing it for the good of the project, is honest feedback. Those of you critiquing the process, have you tried to contribute? Maybe you should try first. I'm starting to think the requirement for all diffs is a hard one. Certianly when I wrote the starting summary I didn't take the time to do diffs, I just sketched out the stuff I knew I had been in on. I didn't put it in timeline order either. That's all pretty hard work! Now, on the other hand if you're saying that more proposal refinement should occur and then the test should be restarted, that's fine with me, I'm willing to be the guinea pig a bit later instead of now. ++Lar: t/c 02:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's take this in a new direction

I'd like to try the article idea, but only after we've got it discussed and hammered out. As for the page being badly written, I simply took WP:RFA and rewrote most of it. If something doesn't make sense, please fix it. Any other suggestions (not criticisms) you can float? — Ilyanep (Talk) 00:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not keen on contributing to something that I think is fundamentally flawed. If you want to start from scratch with some effort to identify what is wrong with RfA is some reasoned format, then we can talk. This proposal is poorly formed, poorly thought out, and lacking in basis. The idea that would should try this because that's how we evolve is poor logic. "It's dead, Jim". And, responding to Brenneman above, you bet I have vehemance when a proposal like this is jammed down the throat of RfA. Thankfully User:Splash had the guts to revert the suspension of RfA. This thing was hardly ready to go live. A casual review of it would have shown that. There's not even a "discuss here" link on the template (replacing the "vote here" link on RfAs). This proposal had no business seeing the light of day because it was not ready by any means and because it was not discussed at WT:RFA prior to it's application to WP:RFA. Simply because two bureaucrats are behind it does not mean it has the blessing of the community, and bureaucrats do not trump community. I will state again since it seems I'm being misunderstood; I'm not opposed to change. I don't think WP:RFA is perfect. I'm opposed to change that is not rationally based. This change is clearly not rationally based. That's not to say the editors in question are irrational, just the process under which it was developed has been irrational and fatally flawed. --Durin 00:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• All right. What are your ideas then? Pretend we're starting from scratch. — Ilyanep (Talk) 00:48, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• Short on time right now; more tomorrow perhaps. You can cull some of my ideas from my comments above. --Durin 01:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• I've replaced the "AdminWannabe" section so we can compare. My opinon has been that we had all seen what the existing template looked like, and that the best way to find any possible problems with the alternate idea was a dry run, and Lar doesn't want to be an admin. For example, looking at the progress so far, not much work has gotten done on the actual article section, but instead all the effort has gone into the questions. Would this be how it would work for an actual nomination? Because if so, we wouldn't have gained much... but there's no way to know that if all we do is talk about it. I was really just being bold, and apologise for any harm that it's beleived that this has done.
  brenneman^(t)(c) 00:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

We could also have a retired admin up for comparison :-) There's only two of us at the moment though. (I hope other folks will start retiring soon too, it's kinda lonely out here :-/)

Kim Bruning 01:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

There's a bit more than two, there are 25 listed at WP:LA. Dmcdevit·t 01:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

There's several people there, but only two still actively maintaining the wiki. The point being to show that adminship is no big deal :-) Kim Bruning 01:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

No, I think that non-admins are a better choice for test subjects. Of coure, any method will work for the clear no-hopers and the uncontroversial candidates. If only there were someone involved in this process who wasn't an admin but whose record was controversial enough to make it interesting...
brenneman^(t)(c) 02:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Do people with a long admin history count as "no hope" or just as "controversial", I wonder?

We could try Jimbo Wales, who would have no hope in the current system, ironically. Kim Bruning 10:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Well I was PRETTY sure we'd have "someone involved in this process who wasn't an admin but whose record was controversial enough to make it interesting" soon, but then Brennerman's RfA passed! So much for THAT idea. :) ++Lar: t/c 12:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Good proposal -- now fight inertia and move forward

I'd like to express, essentially, the opposite opinion to Durin's, who seems to say that this proposal shouldn't even be worked on until it has community consensus. I think that the community consensus can't happen unless the proposal is worked on first. Following Durin's suggestion would put us in essentially the same situation as deletion reform was before WP:PROD: months and months of discussion where everyone says "I kinda like foo, but I think bar would be better", with the community at large quickly losing interest. Fake RfAs (er, DfAs) for people who don't actually want to be admins yet is a great idea, too. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:17, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• There are a couple of reasons why that is a poor analogy. First, the fact that the months of discussion, which you seem to think were not useful, did exactly what they were intended to do -- bring in a lot of ideas, give them some exposure, and see what people thought. WP:PROD is the direct result of those discussions (cf. Uncontested Deletion, which is more-or-less identical). Second, the belief that AFD is fundamentally flawed/too controversial/unable to scale is far more widespread than the belief that RFA has similar flaws (see for instance the mailing list lately). The pressure to reform RfA is far lower, so the resistance to change is higher. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:57, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
• I'd also like to add that I am not saying this shouldn't be worked on until there is community consensus. I have said and will continue to say that it should not be implemented until there is community consensus. --Durin 13:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• I TOTALLY agree with that. This trial run (featuring me) is, I believe, a part of working on it, not implementing it. ++Lar: t/c 14:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• Concur with Christopher Parham and Durin; also note that deletion is a reversable process, whereas de-sysoppings are not (well, at least not easily). These kinds of major changes need lots of discussion first and community consensus. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
• Actually I think PROD has its roots in Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion. I don't see the harm in letting discussion continue, however, since obviously PD was not completely refined to the level of simplicity PROD has. Johnleemk | Talk 09:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

line

I added a line between nominations as at RFA. There, the line is magically added automatically as the result of something within the template that produces the nomination. I've never understood how that works, but there ought to be something similar here, yes? I really should understand templates better. . . Chick Bowen 20:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Huh?

Alright where'd you all go? Ought I do something insane again just to create a firestorm so that this will be discussed?

I'm not a proponent of discussing to death, but I think that not many of you will like it if I take this silence as a signal of acceptance *wink* — Ilyanep (Talk) 21:44, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm still here! The "Lar" hasn't shown what I was looking for: he's too good a candidate, plus I'm realising that very few people are going to have the drive to do the extra work that this takes from contributors when there is nothing at stake. Voting is too easy, but for anything excpet for the worst and best candidates, this is too hard. I'm still thinking and listening. - brenneman^{T}{L} 03:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps find a candidate who wants to be an Admin now/nowish, and get them to agree to be run through this process, then through RfA? The RfA intro could point here and everyone who supported/opposed here could just say in their support/oppose there "see Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/MumbleGuy" and give no other reason. That would leverage the work done here as well as increase publicity. I know a few people thinking of being admins that might be willing to do that (not sure, it IS a fair bit more work/delay)... As for me, someone asked more questions on my list just now, so I answered more. But it's well past when people were supposed to be pretend voting so... OR maybe I could do some rash/disruptive things to make me less good a candidate? Anything for the good of the project.... Aaron Brenneman, your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries! (how was that?) ++Lar: t/c 04:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Hehehe, I'd volunteer to be desysoped and then go through this process again. :p It'd be a lot cooler to say (when adminship is the discussion topic), "Oh, I was the first guy to go through DfA and pass, with a hundred supports!" than "Oh, I got sysoped in 2004 with 14 supports, 2 opposes, and 1 neutral". ^_^ Johnleemk | Talk 04:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Try this ... I was one of the last to be sysopped before RfA was created; on the mailing list with a decision just (basically) from Angela :P — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Re. Hamsters: It needs to be untrue before it's slander, you know. I think that's a bloody good idea, and even the nominations could be the MumbleGuy link. But as my recent example shows people charge at the gate and start voting post haste. *kicks Lar* It would probably take working on the pseudo-article before it was linked to an RfA to avoid that. The person would also ideally have at least one or two people who had the knives out activly opposed them to make it a good trial, so Johnleemk would clearly be a good candidate. :P
brenneman^{T}{L} 04:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I could try being a "candidate". Right now, I don't quite have the time to become an admin, and (sadly) I probably don't have the edit count either. But I'd like to see how I'm doing. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:30, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Edit counts aren't a factor in RfA's, mostly it's what you've done. Tawker 05:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Besides, you have 2106 edits! — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm being pessimistic, but extrapolating from other RfAs: "Only 2000+ edits in two years. Candidate should be more active." I'd love to be wrong, though. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

And I've decided that I do have the time, and the best way to find out if RfA really works like I think it does is to try it. I'm going to go nominate myself now. I'm not trying to solicit votes, just pointing out that I may not be available for a test run anymore. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of pessimism, I think this proposal is fizzling out. Reading its project page, it's not even clear what the proposal is - the two examples show very different things - and I think that's why it's having a hard time getting support. I'd support a reincarnation of this proposal, but first it needs a lot of discussion on what it's supposed to accomplish and exactly how it will do so. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

No way

So what...we have a few admins that got promoted that ended up not being the right choices and now we are going to think that this less than 1% means that the current method is broken? There is no way I could support most of the changes proposed by this suggested policy. Someone needs to show me that our margin of error with the current system is sufficiently flawed that we can justify even minor alterations to our current promotion process.--MONGO 05:18, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

• Err.. what? The one percent figure is based upon a metric that isn't widely accepted as representative of the problem and is sourced from someone who opposes this adjustment with some force. I'm not suggesting that there's any malice in choosing it, but when we get aresult that matches our chosen narrative we tend to stop looking. As far as I can see this "whole change" amounts to a collaborative nomination process, that's it. Rather than one editor saying "Mumbltypeg does a lot of work and is a good guy" a few (or a dozen) editors get together and show that he's a good guy.
• Actually... rather than waffling on about this any more, can we have real candidate and we'll simply do this as a joint nomination? Nothing saying that can't be done in the current framework, we'll write the pseudo-article, provide diffs, hammer it somewhere other than the RfA page... and Bob's your Uncle. Once people have seen six or eight nominations like that, they'll never go back. They'll be voting "oppose, crap nomination" to ones done the old way faster than a rat up a drain pipe.
  

brenneman^{T}{L} 12:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Stuff what Aaron? I haven't the foggiest what the heck you're talking about with this.--MONGO 13:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

What I'm saying that that rather than talking about this anymore we just do one. I'd like to put a notice on the top of the RfA page as follows:

If you'd like assistance in forming your nomination please consider placing your name on the list of prospective nominees at Wikipedia talk:Discussions for adminship. Editors there will co-operate in producing a nomination that gives a complete picture of the good and bad qualities of the nominee and submit it as a joint nominatation.

It's totally withing the current guidleines, we don't need anyone's "permission" to do so, and it might help give this a kick in the pants.

brenneman^{T}{L} 22:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Go for it. Be BOLD! Only quibble is with "gives a complete picture". That's the goal, yes, but it may be overpromsing. Try "gives a better picture" instead? PS I've now had several people suggest I should stand. I'm still saying no, but wavering. ++Lar: t/c 23:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Such a note will look ugly and confuse people. How long is it going hang at the top of WP:RfA? Maybe you could just fined somebody willing to be a guinea pig without posting any note, if possible. And sooner or later there's got to be a poll about the whole thing, say after you try it out with one person. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:54, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

• You can go for it and be bold all you like. This is a less hostile approach than the suspension of RfA that was attempted by this group some time ago. Still, it's likely that the addition will be reverted by somebody. This process is still very half baked and lacking in basis. See all of my earlier comments. If you want to kick this thing in the pants and get it going, then work from the ground up and rebuild it. It needs a kick in the pants because its' been badly formed and poorly thought out. I'm not attacking any person here, just the process (or lack thereof) that was used to develop this. This has a long way to go. --Durin 15:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It still needs testing, to find out which bits exactly are "badly formed and poorly thought out". If no-one else wants be a guinea pig, I guess I could. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 08:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The name has to go.

I'm not prepared to offer an opinion regarding the proposal itself, but I will say that its title is not good. I realize that the idea is to stress the emphasis that would be placed on discussion, but "Discussions for adminship" is linguistically awkward.

I can understand why process reform might be warranted, but I see no reason why the "Requests for adminship" designation should be thrown out with the bath water. It's a perfectly good name, and I believe that it should be retained. —David Levy 02:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Johnleemk | Talk 09:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It was meant to emphasize the difference between the two. But I don't know. — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the name is needlessly clumsy, and as this only changes the methodology, and not actually the consensus/result, a name change shouldn't be needed. The requests remain, the voting is de-emphasized/informed in this version. -- nae'blis _(talk) 02:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for rewrite

I was wondering if anyone wants to rewrite this page and the subpages as well as {{DfA}} to emphasize the difference between the two processes. Also, I like this idea of making it more of a narrative-like thing. — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm wondering if this is still in the works. I would like to start putting it in the field as soon as possible. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 00:51, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Eh? Putting what in what field? — Ilyanep (Talk) 16:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Linked to RfA page

Per the note above I've placed a link to the RfA frontmatter page and created a holding pen for victi... er, volunteers. If anyone who's keen could put Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/Nomination cabal on your watchlist, and anyone who hates it can delete the whole thing and I won't be fussed at all. - brenneman^{T}{L} 05:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• We've got our first monkey! I've created the subpage, transcluded it onto the main page here, knowing full well that the top of the page doesn't match the purpose that I'm using it for right now. I'd suggest that we try to stick to the time frame of the proposed method, four days, to "practice like we'd play". - brenneman^{T}{L} 23:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Ironically, I've just been nominated (twice!) for an RfA. Should I ask the nominators to have a go at working on the DfA nomination, to get it started? smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 10:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Yep. We should probably add a link to this from RfA as well. (Btw, why is the nom so...sparse? I thought Template:DfA should be used to create the nom page?) Johnleemk | Talk 15:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
      • ...No one has yet come up with anything to say? Or the time to say it? I don't know Smurrayinchester so have no input. ++Lar: t/c 15:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
        • I've left notes at the pages of both nominators, so hopefully they should be able to get this started. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 16:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
• I've left a comment regarding this addition here. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm unclear as to the source of the opposition to this, but I've moved it to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nomination cabal and altered the text slightly. This is an ultra-low impact alteration to the process, and the resistance seems out of scale with the change. In fact, there is no proposed change to the process inherent in this, a fact which seems to have escaped notice? - brenneman^{T}{L} 00:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I think a bit of "propaganda" is in order. We need to all make our recommendations on Smurrayinchester's RfA as "Support - see Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/Smurrayinchester" or "Oppose - see Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/Smurrayinchester" assuming Smurray gets enough good feedback to go forward to the rest of the RfA process. (the latter being presumably a rare finding by one of us, but nevertheless possible) Do that for two or three candidacies (we need to "recruit" another candidate or two to go through this before RfA), and then starting voting neutral on people we truly don't know enough about with the comment "should have went through Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/MumbleBoy first so I would have something to base it on, therefore neutral"... Do that a few times and maybe? Note that this won't happen overnight but it's a start. The other area to focus on is to make the whole process (a prenom vetting, as it were) as smooth as possible to encourage people to actually use it, and whenever they have trouble, fix the process docs. This is not disruptive in any way to the existing process but will raise awareness of this augmentation. Thoughts? ++Lar: t/c 01:42, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
      • I like this idea. After all, the voting phase of the process is nothing more than RfA. DfA is just RfA with a momentary prelude where information is gathered and collated so voters have a lot more to base their decision on. Essentially, we could even split RfA into two distinct phases. Johnleemk | Talk 08:39, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
        • This is what I was trying to say with "They'll be voting "oppose, crap nomination" to ones done the old way faster than a rat up a drain pipe." but, um, Lar's version appears to be written in human, so it's better. - brenneman^{T}{L} 04:32, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't think this method of "propoganda" is the way to go here. This whole DfA thing has become tainted by the appearance of being ramrodded through by a few interested parties. The more transparently it's included when asked for (via Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nomination cabal), the better, IMO. If the current incarnation is ONLY to serve as an optional process for improving nominations, that's very different from where we were before. Changing voting styles based on whether or not someone went through DfA is ripe for sour grapes accusations, and possibly rightly so. A clean break may be best; see also Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Nomination cabal for new discussion. -- nae'blis _(talk) 18:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Wait...the current nom that is transcluded on this page only has his name and then talk/contribs links. Shouldn't there be some sort of format to this? — Ilyanep (Talk) 16:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

It's what happens when you use Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship/nominate. It's the fault of Template:DfAsubst, really. Johnleemk | Talk 17:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, whoops. Well like I said, I think we should re-write all the pages associated with Dfa, cause it's currently a really bad imitation of WP:RFA. — Ilyanep (Talk) 23:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Other business: metrics

There have been some highly vocal requests for metrics to define the problem. One suggested was the number of administrative actions that were reversed. This strikes me as a good start, but fiendish to collect. Any thoughts as to how that data might be collected and massaged, or other ways to test the bounds of the perceived problem? - brenneman^{T}{L} 04:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Other possible metrics (but probably useless ones) would be total desysopings, average length between oping and desysoping, and so forth. Johnleemk | Talk 08:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

We're starting to get a few more data points on that but I think it will stay sparse. If you put requests for comment, mediation, and arbitration in that would be interesting. I'd like to see non-certified of rejected ones in that data set as well. - brenneman^{T}{L} 12:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)