Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

RfA candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report RfB candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report No RfXs since 00:50, 23 June 2024 (UTC).—cyberbot ITalk to my owner:Online

Recently closed RfAs and RfBs ()

Candidate	Type	Result	Date of close	Tally
				S	O	N	%
HouseBlaster	RfA	Successful	23 Jun 2024	153	27	8	85
Pickersgill-Cunliffe	RfA	Successful	15 Jun 2024	201	0	0	100
Elli	RfA	Successful	7 Jun 2024	207	6	3	97
DreamRimmer	RfA	Withdrawn by candidate	31 May 2024	45	43	14	51
Numberguy6	RfA	Closed per WP:SNOW	27 May 2024	5	23	2	18
ToadetteEdit	RfA	Closed per WP:NOTNOW	30 Apr 2024	0	0	0	0

Current time: 10:59:04, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:STiki/leaderboard

I've seen RfA's fail 'cause the nominee was accused of using Wikipedia as a computer game. I guess this would make it official. Dlohcierekim 13:57, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure I understand what you are referring to with 'official'. The only thing that gives me pause is that a couple of the Stiki userboxes may enourage a MMORPG mentality. Do we have such 'leaderboards' for other vandal fighting software/scripts? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:18, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Questionable opposes

In the current RFA for Rcsprinter here multiple users have suggested that editors should be here for years before acquiring the tools. This to me seems like an invalid argument. I understand that some people have their own criteria for voting to support or oppose, but I recommend setting up some sort of a process where votes like this aren't counted or aren't allowed. There are no requirements in the Admin rules that say you have to have X edits, have been here for X months or whatever so we need to limit what can be a valid oppose. The tricky part is, while I believe we need to limit what is counted as a valid oppose reason, we still giving the editors some latitude to say why they are opposing. Kumioko (talk) 14:32, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Then we should limit supports as well. "Why not?" shouldn't be considered a valid support, IMO. Intothatdarkness 14:42, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I recommend setting up some sort of process where poorly thought out suggestions like this aren't counted or aren't allowed. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:53, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Bureaucrats are not stupid, and don't merely count votes. They're quite allowed to ignore votes (either support or oppose) that they find unhelpful in addressing consensus. There's no need to ban, modify, or disallow anyone from making any kind of vote or comment after their vote since idiotic votes don't count anyways. Let the bureaucrats do their job. --Jayron32 14:59, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Its too bad you think its a bad suggestion but this is partly brought about by the beating I got when I opposed someone getting the tools for checkuser. I was told by multiple editors in no uncertain terms that Opposes should be justified. I believe it was even mentioned on my RFA a couple days ago. One user said "I think it's reasonable to request more evidence when you accuse a user of negative behavior". So if that is the case and Opposes need to have some reasonable justification, then we should implement that as a rule, rather than just say that when we don't like the candidate or when we feel like being argumentative. I mean if that is how people feel, that opposes need to be justified, then we should state that don't you think? Other than that, they can assume good faith and support, they can vote neutral or they can not vote at all and live with the result. One of the big factors in the RFA process is how nasty it is, mine is a good example, so if we want it to be not as nasty we need to implement some ground rules and follow them fairly and consistently. Other wise its just a free for all as it has been. I'm also not saying the Beauracrats are stupid, but they have limited latitude as to what they can waive. The vote has to be close in order for them to use their judgement and they generally err on the side of caution and do not give the tools. So its really has nothing to do with beauracrat discretion. Their tied to the process as much as we all are. But I do tend to agree that whether the vote is support or oppose if the justification isn't in line with the discussion "Support because its snowing here", "Oppose for no reason in particular" then they shouldn't count. And before someone starts in about my RFA I think we all know there are plenty of diffs that can be provided to justify an oppose on mine, so this has nothing to do with mine. We can put those arguments to bed. Kumioko (talk) 15:09, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

In the case of some users, I think it's perfectly appropriate to oppose on the grounds of maturity and to do this without needing to offer a treatise on cognitive psychology. People take time to develop adult skills. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:34, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

A perception of lack of maturity is, IMO, a perfectly valid reason to oppose. Stating the user hasn't been here for a year is not. Kumioko (talk) 16:06, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

(ec) If we start to legislate about what are and are not permitted grounds for supports and opposes, it will be a time and energy sink and will solve little. I trust the crats. Have there been cases where they didn't have enough leeway? If there are such cases, just give them more leeway. --Stfg (talk) 15:37, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Or people will figure out that its not an anything goes bloodbath anymore and they need to leave comments that are justified. Kumioko (talk) 16:06, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I know WP:FREESPEECH applies here, but I don't see any need to remove comments that aren't obvious trolling. Doing so would likely provoke an unnecessary negative reaction from the user who left the comment, and attempting to act as a "moderator" on an RFA would be a waste of time better spent doing something else. Besides, the standards that bureaucrats are expected to uphold are quite a bit higher than those of admins, so I trust them to weigh in comments appropriately. Additionally, opposing because a candidate has only 500 edits is a perfectly valid reason, in my opinion, and the amount of time that someone has been around can be a reasonable indicator of general experience, combined with other factors. — SamX‧☎‧✎‧S 16:39, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I see no real harm in badgering a voter (whether support or oppose) provided it is done objectively, and above all, pol:itely. It is quite clear that many !votes are made without research or serious reflection, and badgering in the past has certainly convinced some !voters to change their minds. There is a vast difference between badgering and 'moderating' and any moderating is usually limited to the surpression of socks, and blatant trolling or vandalism. Anyone who exercises poor judgement in their voting should realise that they are just making themselves look silly. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:22, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I used to be a crat. And I, and prob other crats, gave all comments what consideration they were due. If stupid, I ignored them. PumpkinSky talk 01:37, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I think this adds yet more weight to the argument that we should have RfA clerks who can take care of problems like this. I have complete faith in the 'crats to come to the right decision and ignore silly votes, but the problem is that RfA isn't like other discussions on wikipedia where the number of people supporting a particular viewpoint is irrelevant - there are absolute numerical conditions set for RfAs to pass or fail. If a number of editors jump on the bandwagon of a superficially attractive but logically bankrupt argument (such as the nonsense about needing years of experience) it can drag the support percentage below the critical 70% mark, and then the 'crats have little leeway to exercise their discretion. There are examples of 'crats ignoring the numbers in RfAs in the past, and it rarely ended well. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 12:46, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, exactly right. Kumioko (talk) 12:49, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

'Following the leader' can often wreak havoc with an RfA. The problem is that because they are drive-by votes, the pile-oners don't come back and see what happened even if the 'leader's' vote is exposed as disingenuous. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:26, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I suggested extending the range to give the crats more discretion. Also, I agree with what you said about "badgering" above. Actually "badgering" really means pestering; fair, objective comment on a !vote, either on the RFA page or on the !voter's talk page, doesn't seem to me to be badgering at all. And it seems quite fair, if for example somebody accuses a candidate of something and it's later disproved, to automatically disregard any "per Fred" drive-bys that don't get corrected. Or so it seems to me. --Stfg (talk) 18:43, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't even need to be a disingenuous vote. Sometimes people who have cause a pile-on simply move from Oppose to Support (or Neutral) leaving a wake of destruction behind them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:56, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that, to invalidate "per Fred" !votes, Fred's original oppose has to be unsound in some sense. If Fred spots that a candidate got into edit warring for a week or two six months ago, he might oppose, but later see that the candidate has come clean and improved his behaviour. Then Fred may move to neutral or support, but other !votes based on the edit warring may still be valid. Whereas, if the alleged edit warring is completely disproved, then !votes based on it cannot be valid. (For six months, read whatever time you'd consider borderline.) There's scope for judgement, so I prefer extending the crats' discretion over any form of automatic discounting. --Stfg (talk) 20:48, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem with doing that though is, giving the crats' more discretion also means opening them up to take a lot of heat. Using myself as an example I think its fair to say I have ruffled a lot of feathers here and more editors would like to see me gone from the project than to stay and if I ever pass RFA its going to be a narrow margin, so the crats may need to decide. If they decide in my favor, they would unleash a hailstorm of comments and undoubtedly a long and heated debate would ensue. So, knowing that, I think anything we do needs to be grounded in policy, written and clear. Regardless of that or how much leeway we give them, its very unlikely they would give someone the tools based on their discretion if the community vote couldn't reach a consensus. More than likely they would siple rule no consensus and ask the editor to try again later. Kumioko (talk) 21:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, part of the difficulty here is that we're talking about tweaking the current system, whereas I believe in unbundling (and if I remember rightly, I think you do too -- forgive me if I've misremembered). But while we're talking about tweaking the current system, the crats already have discretion, so my suggestion is only one of degree. And if they decide they are faced with a no-consensus and decline to give the tools for that reason, then that seems right to me, especially while the tools include the block and unblock buttons. I do agree with you that "anything we do needs to be grounded in policy, written and clear". I wouldn't say that such a policy could be written that would exclude the need for judgement. But if that's accepted, and if the scope is limited to the handling of unrevised pile-on !votes based on refuted arguments, then to me it seems feasible, and better by a street than blue-pencilling anything (which would also require judgement, in any case). --Stfg (talk) 21:13, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with that and your right I do favor unbundling but I also think there are a variety of things that could/should be done to make the system better. Kumioko (talk) 13:14, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Pile-ons probably rarely revisit the RfA to follow what is going on. I think it would be perfectly legitimate to send a message to a voter's talk page such as:

Hi. Thank you for your participation at Requests for adminship/User:Foo. It appears you voted 'as per' User:Baz. That user has since changed their vote; perhaps you would also wish to reconsider your vote. Thanks. ~~~~

To keep it neutral a template could be made for the message.

'Throw-in' votes are more difficult to address without it sounding like a rebuke. Very extensive research has shown that such votes are often made for reasons such as, for example:

• One good turn done by a candidate
• One warning made by a candidate.
• Very new users: No specific reason other than wanting to jump in at the deep end and be part of the process.

The only ways to handle such votes are: ask the user if xhe did significant research before voting; ask the user if xhe considers they are fully aware of what adminship is; do nothing. IMO, to avoid drama such comments should best be made on the voter's talk page rather than on the RfA. One solution would be to introduce a threshold for eligibility to vote such as is practiced on other Wikipedias; however, the the threshold for voting at Arbcom elections is already very low and it would therefore be inappropriate to have a higher one for RfA.

Unbundling the tools is a very realistic suggestion, but multiple attempts to do this have failed mainly due to two concerns: more hats to collect (although we are well aware that Kumioko is not a hat collector), and the added bureaucracy in managing the granting (or withdrawing) them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:09, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

• One thing that does not happen, which I believe should, is that a closing crat has never, as far as I am aware, indented a !vote which they theoretically may have discounted. I think if a crat does decide to discount a !vote it should be indented, which would affect the tally, and leave a record of the kinds of !votes that tend to carry little or no weight.—John Cline (talk) 20:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a very good idea. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:29, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. GiantSnowman 11:19, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Sounds useful in a vote but less important in a !vote/discussion Jebus989^✰ 11:23, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

All interesting and valid, but nothing will change. This argument has been going on over 10 years. PumpkinSky talk 23:17, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Attrition

Two more users with admin tool sets have retired in the last couple of days. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:01, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Who? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention there are 14 more scheduled for October. Kumioko (talk) 13:31, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Inactive administrators—I think this is what they mean, Cas. Chris857 (talk) 18:44, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Aaah ok. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Could also mean User:Ched and User:WilliamH who have seemingly retired. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 23:13, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Is anyone surprised? With the complete dysfunctional anarchy we have, I'm shocked wiki limps along at all. Arbcom is so inept it needs abolished and I no longer recognize the validity of anything they do. RFA reform has been argued about for over 7 years with ZERO changes, abusive admins run amok and no one will do anything about them. We all know I could go on and on but I'll stop for now. PumpkinSky talk 15:54, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I was idly looking back yesterday and found that two editors who became admins in the same month as did I ceased to be active within six weeks of their gaining of the tools. To be sure, they did no harm to the project, and were not abusive. Would it work, and do we have the manpower to implement, if all admins were assessed by a responsible panel -'crats, Jimbo or whoever - and their continuing admin status decided on the basis of their initial record? I know it's controversial, but if we are arguing from the starting point of RfA being broken clearly something needs to be done; better suggestions, anyone?--Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 21:05, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Admins vary hugely in their level of activity after RFA and in their use of the tools. In a volunteer community we are of course all free to go at any time, and admin retirements would only be a problem if either we had a pattern of losing too many admins or were running short of admins. I'm pretty sure the former is not a problem, if anything people who become admins generally stay a long time, longer I suspect than other editors. Running short of admins definitely would be a problem, and our number of admins is falling as RFA is unable to recruit enough to replace those we lose. But I don't know how low numbers have to fall to before we are actually short of admins, or at least so short that we have problems in an important area. Which is a long winded way of saying that I'm not greatly worried about people who don't use the mop, I'm more worried about those who misuse the mop. Misuse is not in my experience a problem of new admins, new admins may make mistakes, you only have to look at the amazing number who managed to accidentally block themselves to appreciate that. But I think we handle new admin mistakes quite well. The peak year for desysopping was the fourth year of adminship last time I looked, long enough to get over confident and maybe a little arrogant, certainly long enough to drift away from current community standards. So I would make a counter suggestion. For those who don't use the tools after a few months I would suggest a friendly email or three asking if they can help out with particular admin backlogs. As for the responsible panel who can review admins, formally we have Arbcom. But maybe we could ask the crats to set up a panel or two and systematically start reviewing the activities of the longest serving active admins? ϢereSpielChequers 18:48, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

RFC on a new user right for trusted template coders

An RFC is under way to determine whether or not to create a new user right that would allow trusted template coders to edit fully protected templates: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Template editor user right. equazcion ^(talk) 21:15, 11 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Do I stand a chance?

Hi. Do I stand a chance in passing the RFA? I have been around since mid 2008, and has been an admin at Commons since late 2010. I have been a very active content writer until about a year ago when I changed my job (and had to cut down on wikitime). Since then, I was only able work at deletions, and attend any email/talkpage inquiries that came up my watchlist, as this was the quickest to work on. During the past few months, my local edits was largely low, but I was quite active globally right throughout since my joining in '08.

I have written, created, or improved a lot of articles and templates and I'm very familiar with policies across en.wiki and wikicommons (I was also behind the creation of a handful of policy pages at Commons including COM:CSD, etc). My global contribs exceed 19k (including a fair chunk of deleted edits due working with deletions).

I was identified by the WMF in early 2011, and known personally by handful of editors and admins. In addition to other tasks, I believe I can make significant contributions at the en.wiki pending deletions with the time I have, along with added value as there seems to be fewer admins in my timezone. I thought of looking back at the RFA after I recently came across a fairly large bunch of local files needing admin action (which I believe I could easily help in).

At present, a large proportion of admin actions I do at wikicommons include deletions (page and files), protections, history merging, and history splitting. I used to tag a lot of files here at en.wiki for deletion (over CSD F8) after transferring, but that largely seems to be a waste of time, considering that I could have easily deleted them myself if I had the necessary rights.

Please take your time to review my activity, and see if I am trustworthy enough to lend a hand here. My past RFAs (which are all many years old), might be a good place to begin with. With regards, Rehman 02:50, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• From the kind of things I check: (good) has a user page, had some extra bits that show previous trust has been granted, has email enabled, used move, and looked a bit at article feedback, no blocks, articles created, content written. (bad) secret subpage barnstar - though I admit I had something like this too, has not used the page curation tool, has not done new page patrol. I do see some talk that was not handled well, eg in your response to a complaint about renaming House centipede, — administrators should rename calm and assume good faith. Note have you addressed the concerns raised in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rehman? I can see no trouble from two of your other accounts User:Rehman Abubakr and User:G4BR0HMV68. But I think you would have a good chance of success. I would support. Editor review is the real way to go. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:32, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Basically, you're asking for us to evaluate you without a formal RFA ... really doing the RFA process without the paperwork. Now, in my modified RFA process, that's awesome ... but typically many in the community don't like this being done in this manner - and it most certainly is not the intent of this talkpage. Just asking this could actually torpedo your future chances ES&L 11:41, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies, Graeme and ES&L. I've posted this to get a simple opinion (from a handful of admins watching this talkpage) on what my chances are. No big thought went into this. Thing is I really do want to pitch in here, but the way things turned out years ago really put me in an anti-RFA phobia. I would really like to hear any constructive criticism before I take any step towards another RFA. (WP:ER is a good idea!)

@Graeme: That house centipede discussions (now at Scutigera coleoptrata) was really really old, like almost 5 years old! Gave me a weird smile looking at that again :] All I can say is that no one's the same after 5 years. The other accounts were as a result of WP:CHU, and were never used. Rehman 14:04, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi all. I have opened up a new Editor Review. If you have the time, please take a few moments to share your thoughts. It is greatly appreciated! Regards, Rehman 15:54, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Honestly I wouldn't bother with it unless you are just looking to be insulted and told how you can't be trusted for some reason. The process is far too political and tragic to even waste your time on. When the community gets to a point when they need active admins more than hat collectors (which in my opinion is long past) then they will fix the process. If I were you I would just keep submitting the stuff for them and let them deal with it since they don't want any new mambers of the club. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 18:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)