requests For Adminship/Archive 238

Avi (talk) 14:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it fair to say we have a consensus that RfA, as it is currently implemented has much room for improvement. There is a lot of passion and energy that it engenders, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, much of this energy is wasted (like friction) and there is no question that it is very hard on the candidate. What I would like to see now is for people to channel that energy and passion into listing what they like about the current process—what they would want to see continued in some form in any evolution of the process(the "Good"); what they do not like about the current process—what they would want to see removed some form in any evolution of the process(the "Bad"); and what is currently not done and should be done in any evolution of the process (the Future). I'd request that people add items to the list, and preface them with at most a few-words description for ease of parsing. Long discussions would preferably be placed in the fourth section. I would like that this be used as a way for us to identify distinct ways to change RfA, be it officially through an RfC, or unofficially, through self-improvement or how bureaucrats (or any editor for that matter) approaches it. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The Good

• Discussion, not vote: I think the fact that we do not treat RfX as a vote, but as a discussion allowing for back-and-forths and the ability to try and explain different points of view as persuasively as possible is a feature. -- Avi (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Since RfA is such a high traffic place, anyone who gets a clear pass has obviously got a very solid consensus to be one. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• As the process has remained static, it is easy to find advice of how to get through an RfA unscathed via numerous essays. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• No firm criteria: people are free to support or oppose based on all kinds of different (and valid) forms of "evidence" about the user's behaviour, weighing up the pros and cons from situation to situation, rather than applying an inflexible rule that can't adapt to unique circumstances. On the flip side, this means people can make poor !votes based on grudges and other bad reasons. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 20:08, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

• comment Ha! I just posited this exact thing as a 'Bad.'  :) valereee (talk) 20:15, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• The community wants it: Numerous efforts over the years to "reform" RFA have failed, and somehow the project has survived, thanks largely to the fact so many admin tasks are now automated. Last year a couple of us tried to get the community to close RFA and thus have no admin-appointment process for a while so something would have to take its place. But the community voted to keep the current process. And that's fine. Townlake (talk) 03:33, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Discussion is good. At one time I thought RfA would be improved if the servers silently swallowed any post containing the word 'badgering'. Robust discussion is now common. Avi is right, this is good, even if stressful for the candidate. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:14, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Testing under real-world conditions. Driving tests take place on the road, not on closed courses, even though it increases the risk; sometimes, there is no substitute for testing in the field. Most people are poor judges of their own character, and the stressful environment of RFA provides a real-world test in a controlled environment of how a candidate will actually react under pressure, rather than how they say they'll react. If an RFA candidate lashes out when someone questions their judgement in the "oppose" column, they're also likely to behave poorly when hauled before AN/I on what they consider spurious grounds. – iridescent 07:44, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. I have been a casual observer of the RFA process for a while and I must say that while it is often unpleasant, it is an accurate reflection of the atmosphere that administrators must operate in once they get promoted. If anything is broken it is the Wikipedia environment in general, what happens in RFA is just a manifestation of that. Vrac (talk) 13:50, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
I've always disagreed with this stance. It's simply cruel and unfair to put a person through stressful and unpleasant conditions using the excuse that "they'll experience this if they get the bit". Although it might be a somewhat extreme analogy, here's an example: Police officers sometimes have to deal with violent and dangerous criminals that won't hesitate to physically harm them. They of course must know how to deal with this, but does this mean that we should actually put them through this severely dangerous experience when they're training? Of course not. My point here is that, as I stated above, we shouldn't make people go through unpleasant conditions for the sake of "showing them how it is". --Biblioworm 18:29, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Forgive the statement of the obvious, but that is exactly how they train police officers (and soldiers etc), although they're now moving towards immersive interactive systems rather than live-action exercises. Wikipedia unfortunately doesn't have the facility at present to have "virtual assholes" who deliberately behave obnoxiously to a prospective admin in a closed test environment to see how they'll react; the alternative would be some kind of admin probation but that suggestion has always (rightly) been shot down, since failing probation would cause significantly more ill-feeling than failing an RFA. – iridescent 19:47, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
It would be surreal if everyone pretended to be nice and civil at RFA while continuing to bash elsewhere. Am I the only one who thinks these problems are not limited to RFA? Vrac (talk) 19:56, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Apologies, as I'm not at all familiar with the details of police officer training. I did guess that they might put them in a simulated environment, but I'm quite certain they don't actually put the trainee at the risk of severe injury or death, as might happen in actual practice. And in any case I still stand by my position that we shouldn't make candidates suffer simply to "teach them how it is"; it's illogical and contrary to our policies. --Biblioworm 20:00, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Emphasis on deletion knowledge. Overzealous deletions, A7s of non-eligible subjects, and not doing due diligence at AfD are some of the problems behind how editors treat deletion. This erroneous treatment has caused many newbies to leave, thinking that they are not welcome here. Such problems are even more problematic when done as admins. RfA's current heavy scrutiny on deletion matters has at least somewhat prevented this problem from growing, as editors must have a good knowledge of deletion before they are trusted by RfA to, well, delete. Esquivalience ^t 17:43, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
  • I counter that although sufficient knowledge of deletion processes are required, this can sometimes become much too overzealous to the point where any mistakes become unacceptable. For instance, I think one of the most ridiculous opposition rationales is the "win/loss" ratio at AfD (i.e., editor has only a 65% "hit rate" at AfD!), which implies that editors !vote at AfD to "win" rather than state their case based upon policy. I also have to ask how not getting a high hit rate at AfD (which can be volatile and occasionally deliver unexpected results) would affect their ability to judge consensus. And, finally, should we fail candidates over a few CSD mistakes? --Biblioworm 18:22, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Yes we should fail candidates if they have a few CSD mistakes, provided those mistakes are recent (I'm happy if recent edits show that tagging has now improved). However RFA has not got to the point where any mistakes have become unacceptable. A few serious and recent mistakes at CSD can and should derail an RFA, but a single isolated mistake is not sufficient to evidence the sort of pattern that can derail an RFA. A candidate who hasn't yet worked out the difference between vandalism and goodfaith edits would also fail RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 21:09, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
• It stays at RFA I've certainly had discussions and the occasional disagreements about certain support/opposes with other editors but rarely have I run into a situation where what's happened at RFA has been held against me or cited against me in other places on the project. Perhaps I'm totally out of touch or my experiences differ from the majority, but people seem to understand that RFA is a bit of a battleground and once we leave the field its business as usual. Mkdw^talk 02:02, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

The Bad

• Incivility: I think people get too caught up in the discussions which results in too many personal attacks, adding tension and affecting the tone of the discussion. -- Avi (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Improper Intensity: I think that the candidate is subject to too intense scrutiny. Serious concerns need to be raised, but not enough good faith is applied. -- Avi (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• No AGF: There is no effort to discourage and/or discount !votes that assume bad faith (especially those that pull quotes out of context to make it seem like the candidate has an agenda). --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 15:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Agreed. I've seen too many recent RfA's where the reverse was true: assume bad faith. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:05, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• High standards. I concur with the issues raised above, but I think the single worst problem with RfA is the unreasonably high standards, which are impossible to pass except for almost-perfect candidates. The declining number of promotions is clear evidence of this. --Biblioworm 15:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Standards also often conflict with each other. That would not be a problem if voters did not oppose candidates who "fail" these standards instead of simply not supporting them. —Kusma (t·c) 18:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Discussion, not vote. Throwing this out as a talking point. This definitely also belongs in the good column, but it has its downsides. Requiring users to justify their positions, especially opposes, leads to quite hurtful feedback for candidates. Even if delivered in a civil manner, editors explaining why they don't trust the candidate with extra tools is going to make hard reading. The more we encourage opposers to give detailed rationales, supported by diffs, the more we may unintentionally magnify this aspect of RfA. Whilst it would not allow the same discretion in determining the outcome, a pure vote might be easier on the candidates. WJBscribe (talk) 18:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Rationales attached to votes often are like campaigning right at the ballot box, which is forbidden in most democracies. —Kusma (t·c) 18:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Low participation. Typically less than 200 votes on a project with 585 "active" administrators shows that RfA has little participation from the wider community. —Kusma (t·c) 18:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• No ability to defend oneself. Candidates who attempt to point out incorrect or otherwise misleading information presented by those opposing are often accused bludgeoning the process and have that held against them by subsequent voters. The same problem exists if others attempt to correct the misinformation. Calidum T|C 18:47, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Not only that, but I've seen candidates opposed because other people disagreed with previous oppose votes. It's the most boneheadedly stupid rationale I've seen at RfA since the "primo hungry power-face" guy. Reyk _YO! 18:55, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Editcountitis in various guises. Besides unreasonable expectations on number and distribution of edits, some voters seem to rely on automated statistics (e.g. AfD stats) instead of trying to answer the question whether the candidate will make a good administrator. —Kusma (t·c) 18:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Fully agree. I'm rather disturbed and amused at the same time when I see people comment that only several thousand edits is not enough. For the average person who edits as a hobby and doesn't want (or have the ability to) spend all their time here (there, I've really done it now...), getting even a few thousand edits isn't as cheap as some seem to think it is. --Biblioworm 19:53, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Yeah, but the flip side of that is that (IMO) somebody can't just "walk in off the street" and "be an Admin". I'm not sure how true that was (or not) in 2004, but it's definitely not true in 2015 – in order to understand this place (and how to run it) takes time and experience... But this gets back to the point that being an Admin is too big a job for >99% of our editors, and that's probably why "smaller bites at the apple" (i.e. smaller, unbundled toolsets) makes sense as, you're right – most editors probably don't have the time to give to do what it takes to make it through an RfA and be an Admin. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 00:54, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
      • No, the flip side of that is alienating people who do good work and have the right skill set to be an administrator because they've failed to meet some arbitrary expectations that are not evidence-based. There is no evidence that having featured content under one's belt makes one a better admin; there was a point in time where everyone built a featured portal to meet that 'qualification' - hilarious given the fact that even back in those days nobody actually used portals. There is no evidence that people with no contributions to template space are going to be problem admins. There is no willingness to consider that different editing styles will directly affect total number of edits; people tend not to "save" nearly as often when using VE as they do with wikitext, for example, even if they are editing a page more extensively. Risker (talk) 05:21, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
        • None of which are arguments I've made. I'm not talking about "GA" or content creation experience – I'm talking about the breadth of policy knowledge (not to mention knowledge of the various areas like WP:AIV, WP:RfPP, etc.) required for Adminship. There are a lot of different, moving parts to the toolset. I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't want someone who isn't well-versed in much of that getting Adminship, and I don't think you can get that in just 6 months here. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 06:26, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
          • I've done quite a few edits here and on commons, some of the things I do differ in edits per hour by not just a hundred times but if we include Catalot edits on commons, my fastest editing rate is a thousand times my slowest. But I probably learn more when I'm spending an hour doing something complex. Of course there are editors with less than a tenth my edit count who have put in more time than me and know more about this place. So I'm living proof that editcountitis is a distraction from RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 18:05, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
• Hard to tell how much research has gone into a !vote: this might be an unsolvable problem. But imagine two people, both of whom have written "Oppose per User X". The first person who supported was just blindly accepting X's judgement; they looked at very little themselves but thought "I'm sure X did their research". This rationale should get less weight. The second person spent hours researching, then came to the !voting section and thought "User X has said exactly what I want to", and just wrote "per User X" to avoid wasting words (X said it better anyway) and avoid hurting the candidate's feelings any further. This !vote should get as much weight as User X's original message. But there's no way to tell these two people apart. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 18:53, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Axes to grind. There is no expectation that editors should recuse themselves from participating in an RFA when they may have an ax to grind with the candidate; said participants aren't even required to note any potential previous interaction with the candidate. There is a reason why admins are forbidden from acting when involved and arbitrators have to recuse themselves from time to time. Interestingly enough, this is often one of the issues that is brought up in nearly every discussion about a community based method of removing the administrative privileges. Edit to add: I also think there may be instances where a participant votes for or against a candidate based on a grudge he/she holds against someone who voted the opposite way previously. Calidum T|C 22:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  • On that note, it appears to me that a number of !votes are about promoting particular wiki-ideologies as opposed to assessing the suitability of the candidate. Arguments should be framed strictly around the suitability of the candidate, since we are at RfA here not VPP. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:42, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Too many questions and comments. We treat candidates as though they're already experienced admins. There are too many questions, often asking about hypothetical situations that would be hard for anyone to address, and there's too much threaded discussion. I'd like to see a maximum of two comments per person, unless the candidate responds, in which case responses to that reply would be okay. Sarah ^(talk) 00:21, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  • This is an excellent idea, Sarah. Risker (talk) 05:21, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Evidence-free criteria. The crat chat for Liz included a discussion of 'substantiating diffs'. Several people objected to this, thinking it devalued holistic evaluation and made picky, hypercritical oppose votes more likely. But nobody ever seems to suggest 'downweighting' votes that simply state that a candidate hasn't reached some arbitrary numerical threshold. User has only been here for two years, Can't support under 10,000 edits, AfD hit rate isn't even 75%, Wants to work at AIV but only has 20 reports, I really prefer to see article+talk edits at least 50%, and on and on. None of these thresholds have been validated at all. We shouldn't encourage pseudostatistics. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:20, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Some voter criteria induce candidates to refrain from activities that would improve the encyclopedia. I think of this in particular with relation to the statistics and expectations surrounding deletion. Woe betide the admin hopeful who proposes too many articles (even spammy articles) for deletion and gets turned down (often because there are so few AfD votes nowadays and the article gets kept by default), or votes to delete too many articles, or sends too many redirects (even implausible ones) to RfD. This also applies to potential candidates keeping their heads down and not participating in discussions that may have any potential to be contentious. And perhaps most harmfully, it discourages potential candidates from working on content in "contentious" areas, or to simply walk away from poor quality content rather than argue with another editor who's got WP:OWN issues. Risker (talk) 05:21, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Trick questions - Trying to trick candidates is a bad faith tactic. - MrX 20:37, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Soapboxing in the guise of authority. The general discussion area should only be used for neutral discussion about the RfA, not as a platform for dredging up past issues. This is particularly harmful when done by current and former Arbcom members. - MrX 20:37, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Popularity: As a candidate's popularity grows, the amount of research voters actually do approaches zero. And this is equally true for candidates that are liked or disliked. Esquivalience ^t 17:49, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
• Incredibly detailed critieria I have been to user pages where the editor has parsed their critieria to the point of torture. If it's so important that you need a thirty-cell table to decide if someone is qualified, how can you call it no big deal? The criteria need to be set in policy, and IMO they need to be: 1. Is this person likely to intentionally misuse tools? and 2. Is this person so green they're likely to, net, cause more work than they accomplish? If the answer to both is no, then under WP:NOBIGDEAL they should be trusted with the tools. valereee (talk) 20:08, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
• Single metric voting Using a single metric/criteria to support or oppose a candidate such as AFD participation, editcountitis, article creation, or featured content to name a few. Especially when the candidate hasn't expressed an interest in working in that particular area and has shown a long and good standing track record of working in the area they have expressed an interest. Mkdw^talk 01:49, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
• Inverse relationship between experience and success There is the occasional exception but it would seem that there is a threshold where by individuals reach a point where they have too many enemies, have become involved in too many controversies, and have made too many citable mistakes to have a successful RFA -- even if those number of mistakes, enemies, and controversies are proportionate in scale to those who have run a successful RFAs. Mkdw^talk 01:55, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

The Future

• Improved tone: I would want more emphatic implementation of civility mandates in the discussion. If one cannot say something without ad hominem attacks, don't say it. If it is said, it can be removed by an uninvolved editor/admin/crat (to be determined). -- Avi (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Lower the standards. !Voters must understand that candidates will not be perfectly well-rounded. If a candidate is acting in good faith, shows decent competency with policy, and is reasonably civil, they should be admins. Humans are not incapable of learning new things as they go along. --Biblioworm 15:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• It is essential to have a more deliberate effort to recruit more admins with a wide variety of backgrounds, interests, skills, and experience (both on and off Wiki English.) Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 22:07, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Steady as she goes: Don't change a process that the community wants and that gets the "right result" almost every time. I realize some users are getting their feelings hurt, but oh well, honesty hurts sometimes. Townlake (talk) 03:37, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Delete everyone's "RfA criteria" subpages. Only half joking. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:22, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Delete everyone's "RfA criteria" subpages. Or more precisely, any vote with comments like "doesn't meet my [wikilinked] criteria #5" or similar should be immediately discounted, perhaps even to the point of indenting. Same for deprecating votes that refer to essays about RFA including the frequently misused WP:NOTNOW, which is intended to dissuade users with obviously insufficient experience from a candidacy, but I've seen it being used on people with more than 5000 edits who've been editing for more than a year. Risker (talk) 06:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• Lower the threshold for consensus. Most other large projects have their RFA success threshold at closer to 2/3, and that's the threshold that's been used for genuinely major changes to our project in many cases. Risker (talk) 06:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  I strongly concur. I've often wondered why the bar is set so high.- MrX 20:40, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  70-75% does seem high. It may also be too high for bureaucrats. People are having a hard enough time passing RFA -- it's no wonder we haven't had a bureaucrat nomination in over a year. Coming up on two years in January if I'm not mistaken. Mkdw^talk 02:06, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
• More active management of RFA by bureaucrats. There are more bureaucrats now than there were back in 2005-2009 when there were frequently 5 or more RFAs occurring at once; 'crats didn't have time to keep an eye on the RFAs. That's changed. I'd like to see bureaucrats take a more active role in the flow of RFAs to improve the tone, to prevent candidate abuse (and in some cases voter abuse). This could take the form of one or two 'crats taking on a "supervisory" role for a particular RFA, while leaving that RFA to be closed by a colleague; if there is a 'crat chat, the supervising 'crats would not vote. Risker (talk) 06:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

That's a very old, and one of the most perennial suggestions, Risker. You know as well as I do that the bureaucras are loathe to take on any tasks that are not firmly written into their job description already, and that if the community as much as dared to reach a consensus for it, the crats woud simply still not feel compelled to do it. So where you've pretty well said as much elsewhere, I'd like to know just which camp you are really in. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:16, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
I assume, Risker, you are saying they should have more effectively managed the crat chat talk page, and deleted comments like accusing another administrator of misrepresentation, and "There's definitely a bias here; whether it's male vs female, or "long time admin" vs. upstart, or something else, or "let's put as many obstacles in the way of any new admins" or something else, I'm not sure." Sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. Are you proposing, Risker, a standard that allows comments like that one you made in the crat chat talk, or something stricter?--Wehwalt (talk) 08:55, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Wehwalt, I was entirely and completely able to show that there was misrepresentation, simply by directly and fully quoting the exact words of the candidate. I don't know that it was *intentional* misrepresentation, but it was misrepresentation. I have no problem with that being the standard.

Kudpung, it seems that the bureaucrats as a group are more receptive to reconsidering what their jobs actually entail right now; in fact, a 'crat has joined you in a proposal that would significantly alter their responsibilities. This discussion was initiated by bureaucrats, and I assume good faith that they are genuinely concerned about the mess that RFA has become. I don't have a "camp", Kudpung. I'm a working admin who knows darn well that we're already very short of working admins, that we need more, that we're training potential admins not to do a lot of things that the encyclopedia needs to have done because it will adversely affect their chance of success at RFA, that perfectly reasonable candidates have been rejected for reasons that are not relevant to whether or not they'd do the job properly, and that very good potential admins routinely take one look at *RFA as it exists today* and say "no thanks". Risker (talk) 12:19, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

This would be a very good move. ϢereSpielChequers 20:21, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• Don't allow threaded discussions. Supports comment in their section, opposes in theirs, neutral in theirs, and discussion/debate is limited to the talk page. GregJackP Boomer! 08:31, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

That's a useful suggestion. I too often see, going down the list of opposes, one or two prime supporters of the candidate trying to answer every point. It's tedious and repetitive. Do it like an ArbCom request, keep all your comments together. I bet if someone has to dilute their comment with 20 replies, they won't do so.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:55, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
The threaded discussions are one of the few bits of RFA that works reasonably well. People with untrue assertions or who try to shift consensus as to what the criteria for adminship will be will usually get their position challenged, often that results in people correcting their !votes. ϢereSpielChequers 19:45, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Discussion works well; the multi-branching threading that occurs in most English Wikipedia discussions means that an interested party may need to monitor tens of conversations. This approach prioritizes the convenience of the person who made the initial comment over everyone else, which makes it harder to keep people engaged in the conversation and so makes reaching a group decision harder. isaacl (talk) 20:27, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• Admin incubator - Let's have a venue where users interested in becoming admins can get advice and be directed to areas where they can hone their skills under supervision (AfD, NPP, SCV, AN/RFC, etc.). I envisage it being something like the WP:ADOPTION with a little more structure and formal mentoring. Users who WP:HATCH (graduate) from the program should be a shoo-in for adminship.- MrX 20:54, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

This sounds like Wiki: Admin coaching to me. Besides, I doubt that graduating from this program would actually make the editor an adminship shoo-in, because they would likely be opposed due to the fact that they "desperately want adminship" and are "power hungry". --Biblioworm 20:59, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Sad. The ones who are actually power hungry are likely clever enough to disguise it.- MrX 21:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
There's no evidence that newbie admins systematically make more errors of judgment in basic tasks. Despite some of the comments in these threads that being an admin is Very Serious Business, the overwhelming majority of admin tasks are really not difficult. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:30, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• Set standards in policy Clarify what we're looking for rather than letting every editor decide for theirself what's the criteria. The things some editors are looking for are insupportable w/re: WP:NOBIGDEAL. If it takes a table to lay out your criteria, you are treating it as a very big deal indeed. valereee (talk) 20:12, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Something like WP:FAC, maybe? That is, in a RfA a candidate is evaluated against expectations and a bureaucrat then assesses if they meet the expectations, based on the discussion? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:29, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't know...do we need a bureaucrat to answer that question? Can't editors answer them? I guess what I was going for is more that if you oppose, you do so for a SET reason. That is, the reason(s) for the oppose has to fall within one or more of a set number of categories, such as "Likely to misuse tools" or "Unwillingness to learn even after having been pointed in the right direction" or "Tends to foment drama" or "Difficult to work with" or whatever. Things that actually mean a person is already a problem and likely to be more of a problem if given admin tools. Rather than "Hasn't learned EVERYTHING" or "Hasn't done enough (whatever the editor's hobbyhorse)" or "Only interested in X when I personally think Y is more important." valereee (talk) 21:50, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Have a discussion phase before any support or oppose opinions are given: for the first three days, have editors comment on the relative advantages and disadvantages of a candidate's qualities regarding suitability for the administrator role. Then open up the registration of opinions for or against the assignment of administrative privileges. This will present a more complete view to everyone before they start weighing in, and hopefully result in more effective opinions, particularly amongst those who tend to only visit a given request for adminship page a small number of times. isaacl (talk) 02:35, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
  • I think someone tested that, aside from making the whole thing longer it added emphasis to the question section. Also a three day phase rather discriminates against regulars who only only edit one evening a week. ϢereSpielChequers 19:18, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
    • "Three" is of course a number pulled out of thin air; the length of each phase can be determined by consensus. Naturally if there is a desire to cater to those who edit once a week, the process would have to be extended to a minimum of two weeks (maybe a fixed day of the week for starting requests for adminship should be designated?). Yes, having an initial discussion phase would, by design, increase the importance of learning about the candidate via responses to questions, as well as provide a set period during which interested parties could report the results of their analyses of the candidate's abilities. The end goal is to improve the quality of the expressed opinions of participants, by reserving time for discussion and analysis to take place first. isaacl (talk) 21:28, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion (GBF)

I think that the intensity is something at every admin needs to be okay with going through. That being said I think we should come to a consensus as a community what our criteria for being an admin is.

One of the reasons too many candidates fail is a combination of allowing any criteria and allowing a minority to fail an admin. Just like at AfD you will not be given much consideration if you vote "keep I like kittens", votes that have no basis in policy or criteria should be given little weight. Until we agree on that criteria we cannot do this.

The current situation allows 10% to oppose for lack of content contributions, 10% to oppose for too much experience with drama, 10% to oppose for not enough experience with drama and so on. It all adds up to a fail even though no specific objection favours consensus. By making clear what our criteria are we at least make a reasonable target for candidates to aim for.

If our admin to vandal ratio falls too low you will see grumpy admins who are overworked and jumping at shadows. The less admins there are the more the power and burden will be concentrated in the few remaining admins. Many seek to improve our desysop process, but if we cannot first get RfA passing people at a reasonable rate first we will end up with a ship with nobody at the wheel. Chillum 15:00, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Chillum, why do you think the intensity is something every admin needs to be okay with going through? I would imagine there are admin jobs that have very little drama associated with them. So little that very likely many intensity-tolerant admins would be bored by doing them. Protecting pages that get short-term casual vandalism, for instance. Wouldn't it be good to have some admins out there who are happy to do those jobs? And if it would, and those are the very people turned off by the high-intensity of the current RfA process... valereee (talk) 21:59, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Admins will experience intense people, it is important that they can keep their cool in such situations. While I imagine it is possible for an admin to focus solely on routine non-controversial decisions that never upset anyone, what we need is admins willing to take on the difficult tasks. Chillum 06:13, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
@Chillum: -- I think we need both. valereee (talk) 02:32, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
Can you show me a single admin that has done their job for more than 6 months that has never had to deal with a stressful situation? Chillum 03:42, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
I am not sure that setting strict criteria for an admin is a good idea. There are many kinds of admins: the more content focused ones, the more janitorial ones, and the more judicial/enforcement ones. Each helps the project, and each has different skills. I'd rather we each individually decide about each candidate. Should enough people agree that the skills brought by the candidate are accpetable, that person gets the mop. -- Avi (talk) 15:05, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Specifically I think that we should define what is not acceptable in an admin. If it is not acceptable for a candidate to have never written a featured article for example, then that should be shown by the consensus of the community. If the community does not agree this is a requirement then it should not be given much weight as the only reason for an oppose.

I also do not think the criteria should be strict or exhaustive. We can still employ common sense while describing best practices like we do in many other policies. Chillum 15:08, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think you may have an entry for the future section, good sir (or ma'am or howsoever you wish to be addressed)  . -- Avi (talk) 15:11, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

• Well obviously the administrators who focus on janitorial skills rather than content are flippin' incompetent when it comes to content, and shouldn't be trusted with the tools. Maybe we should have three classes of admins; janitors, content managers, and enforcement. Hummm...Hummm.... --Hammersoft (talk) 15:10, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  • If that is what you want to see in the future, please place it there. It's much easier to parse a list of sentences than reams of paragraphs (Having done so for the past 37 or so hours, please have mercy  ). -- Avi (talk) 15:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm reminded of what ThatPeskyCommoner said back in 2011 on this very talk page: "yes, we need people to build wonderful new roads - but if we're building wonderful new roads, we also need people who are happy to make sure the signposts are easy to read, people to create new maps, people to make sure that potholes are filled in, people who pick up the litter so road-users don't break their necks in it, people who make sure that bandits aren't lurking in ambush along the sides of our wonderful new roads, people who clear the road quickly when there's a crash ... we're all important." archived here -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 06:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• We should compile a list of reasonably experienced editors and choose randomly choose 5-10 to be admins, and see how it turns out. I don't think anything catastrophic would happen. --Biblioworm 15:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  Hhuhuhuhh he said CHOOSE. And there's the rub. How do you choose? Send them to RfA. Oh wait... --Hammersoft (talk) 15:43, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  Ehhh heh hehh, you said "rub" hehh heh eh heh Anyway, that might be a fun experiment, but the baseline criteria would have to be pretty high.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:37, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  We might as well do it now before we're forced to do it when (yes, I said when, not if) RfA becomes impossible to pass and we have an admin shortage crisis. --Biblioworm 16:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• I honestly think the biggest problem with RFA is that currently AGF and NPA don't apply, which both lead to incivility. If we sanctioned editors who made post attacking the candidates personally and not their edits, and if we discounted !votes that assume bad faith (especially those that pull quotes out of context to make it seem like the candidate has an agenda), I think RFA would be a much nicer place. I honestly found it ironic that the most recent RFA candidate was opposed because she spent too much time on the "Drama Boards", but RFA has become the biggest drama board of them all. At least AGF and NPA exist at AN/I. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 15:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  Could you please post some diffs about attacking the candidate personally? Saying that I don't like her hair or he is too fat, or has unpleasant habits? Commenting on the positions a candidate has taken or where the candidate has spent his time while participating at Wikipedia aren't personal attacks, because those are, by long practice, some of the criteria. Mentioning them in an oppose is only a personal attack if you are emotionally committed to the success of the candidate. If we are going down that road, then something should be done about "Support. no problems" votes. Go on, give us some diffs then to show us why you think the candidate should be an admin. Show us the candidate being thoughtful, or intervening helpfully in a dispute, or other evidence of qualification. But don't seek to use a contentious case to impose standards on only some, and thereby shift the burden from the candidate to opposers.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:44, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  Wehwalt, it's not possible to provide "diffs" of no problems. The entire point is that the voter has reviewed the candidate and has not found anything that is concerning. There is no way to demonstrate the absence of concern by diffs. Risker (talk) 12:24, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  But I think it's possible to provide diffs of excellent or even good behavior. "He reacted in a positive fashion in X dispute[1]" or "he displayed a good understanding of the MOS with this edit[2]", and so forth. These two rationales ("found no problems" and "found good behavior") may differ (possibly substantially), but such diffs could generate the same kind of discussion that diffs off problematic edits ("is this actually an example of a good/bad thing?") and so forth. --Izno (talk) 12:47, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  Just so. We like to see participation at AFD; difs might be of particularly thoughtful interventions there that were not duplicates of what people had said previously, or that calm down the situation. In other words examples of what we want to see in an administrator. Otherwise it's just "Support. I like kittens."--Wehwalt (talk) 13:11, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  I disagree very much with this, and believe that your comments are rooted in the assumption that all users are inherently *unqualified* to be administrators and must demonstrate some special, secret qualities in order to be granted this amazing gift. It's a mop, Wehwalt and Izno, not a sceptre. This presumption that someone must be exceptional in order to pitch in on cleaning up CSD or AIV is a very major part of the problem with RFA. It's only really taken root in the last couple of years. It is exactly what I believe is wrong with RFA. You're basing your ideas on the assumption that nobody's qualified unless proven otherwise, which is a dramatic change from the basis on which the idea of RFA consensus was developed. Risker (talk) 13:24, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  rooted Not consciously! My thought isn't that this would be used to show an absence of unqualification, but to show that these editors really are just normal people who want some extra buttons, by providing counter-evidence to an opposer's diffs. It's the idea that "this user isn't perfect, but just as you [an opposer] can show that this user may have times at which he has displayed negative traits, I also can show that he has displayed positive traits, and think that because of this he's trustworthy enough/[insert phrase of choice]". Really, it's sharing the analysis a more expert support !voter at RFA has done. --Izno (talk) 13:35, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  Again, I agree with Inzo. As for adminship, it is what the community says it is. Yes standards have increased. Rightly so. They've increased for all sorts of things on Wikipedia from articles to editors. Perhaps 11 years ago the mop was handed out with the rations at the time when articles without a single citation in them were featured. The community's collective wisdom is determining how many administrators we should have. The practice seems to be that there's no desire to add too many administrators, and the candidates must meet a high standard. Until the number of voters who think that drops significantly, I doubt if there will be any change. Really that's not Wikipedia works. The community does things its way and sometimes we think we know better. --Wehwalt (talk) 14:00, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you're not consciously doing it, Izno, but others definitely are (one only has to look at some of the lists of "criteria" to know that), and I think you are probably one of the, Wehwalt, based on what you are writing here. The reality is that 98% of people who have *ever* passed RFA, including a significant percentage from back in the day where all it took was "can I haz tools" and [almost] nobody said no, have caused no harm with those tools. (Some of them never did very much with them, but that's a different story.) We could take a random group of 100 editors with 5000 edits (at least 30% in mainspace) and 2 years of editing experience, give them the tools without any kind of vetting process, and the odds are strongly in favour of them doing absolutely no worse with having those tools than the admins who went through RFAs of varying degrees of nastiness. What I'm saying is that the tools should go to people who are operating normally within our community's behavioural and editing quality expectations, and that there is no way to give diffs for "acts just like a normal editor" because it's, well, normal. Of course, we have a problem in that anyone who puts their head above the parapet nowadays has it handed to them on a platter if they subsequently run for RFA, and the social networks that helped people to develop useful skills are significantly eroded, but my point remains. Until around 2009-2010, unless someone did something unusually problematic (either specific incidents or a pattern of behaviour), they were likely to get the tools, and they were likely never to create a problem as a result of having those tools. That has changed, and now there seems to be on the part of many the belief that candidates need to be much more than useful contributors who are likely to help out in areas where these tools are useful. They must be significantly above-average editors (the GA/FA issue) or have reflected the voter's particular views at deletion discussions (the inclusionist/deletionist dichotomy), or met some other abstract expectation. The starting point used to be "will be okay" and opposers had to prove otherwise. What you're suggesting is the starting point should be "isn't qualified" and supporters must prove otherwise. That is an inherent assumption of bad faith, there is no evidence that there is even a trust angle involved let alone any real problems with the candidate having the tools, and it is having a very significantly negative effect on the ability of the project to cope with workloads. Risker (talk) 14:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Wiki has changed. It's not what it was in 2004, four 2009, or even 2013. And it's less intimate, there's been a major turn over in the community, and we are getting respect from outside. What suited us then may not suit us now. Being here for six months or year and being relatively inoffensive is no longer a qualification. People want the best administrators they can get because we have seen what's the worst can do. And turning back the clock to the way things were in the good old days which really weren't isn't practical anymore. It is sad in a way. The community is cautious when it comes to these candidates, and whether the trend changed in 2005 or 2009 or 2013 and is really a matter for the historians of Wikipedia in the unlikely event we ever have any. What is expected are attributes that would show that the candidate would make a good administrator, not that it is her turn.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:01, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
We aren't getting the best possible administrators, Wehwalt, because we've warped the notion of what makes someone a 'topflight' administrator to the point that their actual likely activity as an administrator is irrelevant. The result of this is that we are barely getting any administrators, and certainly not enough to carry out the necessary tasks. And one of the main reasons that Wikipedia isn't what it used to be is this concept that "assume good faith" is a quaint and passé notion that has outlived its usefulness. We have lots of good evidence (years of experience, in fact) that candidates with the RFA equivalent of a 3.0 grade point average not only are acceptable, but that they are probably the lifeblood of the active admin corps. We have no evidence to support escalating the requirements to the RFA equivalent of Rhodes scholar, yet that is what we have done. There is no evidence to support this absurd escalation in expectations, and lots of evidence to discount it. In other words, we have replaced a system that actually worked with one that doesn't, without any reasonable basis for the change. I do trace this change back to the point where people were (completely incorrectly) going around saying that it was impossible to get bad admins desysopped. It's always been possible, and it became much more possible from 2009 on, when Arbcom increasingly took into consideration the activities of administrators that weren't specifically dependent on the use of admin tools. It has never been that hard to get problem admins desysopped. "We have seen what's the worst can do" - what we see are individuals affecting usually a small number of articles or pursuing a dispute with a small group of editors, as often as not without using admin tools. The number of "bad apples" in the admin corps (and bear in mind, the overwhelming majority of current administrators passed RFA more than 5 years ago) is minuscule; you can dispute that statement until the cows come home, but it it brutally unfair to the encyclopedia to be taking out that personal belief on the back of editors who'd do a perfectly good job just because you think that Admin A isn't very good but you won't do anything about it. Risker (talk) 16:34, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
You may believe things were better in the old days. Possibly so. (And I should add I can think of some administrators, fortunately no longer active, who did serious thing and never faced the wrath of ArbCom) But the system exists by the collective will of the participants and trying to impose a change strikes me as futile. Whatever you may think about it, a sizable group of people, judging by the RfA just completed, feel that some content contribution is necessary. I agree with them. I do not think that requirement should be severe, not everyone's talent is in writing, but enough to point to and say "I helped do that, that the public will see and be informed by." I don't ask for a FA, FAs are labor-intensive enterprises that don't scale well on a community basis. Possibly you can get your way, but can you really change how people feel and how they will vote? I suspect the vote may not say the same thing, but it will be for the same reasons. Will anything actually change? With that, I have a watchlist full of things I must do.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:20, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
← For as long as I've been voting in RfAs, I've held that the process should default to granting the tools unless the candidate is proven inexperienced, untrustworthy, or generally at risk of chronically misusing the tools. It has always been my opinion that the onus is on the opposition to demonstrate why a candidate is unfit for the role, and I don't see why that should ever change; if an established editor in good standing volunteers to contribute in an expanded capacity, it would be nothing short of an insult to say "no, unless enough people can satisfactorily prove that you're a super-editor". *'''Support''', seen him around, does good work. ~~~~ is as valid a rationale as any. In fact, I don't have a problem with simply slapping your signature below the ===Support=== header. As Wehwalt notes, all of Wikipedia's vetting channels are constantly evolving to become more rigorous, and that's natural. For all the things that have changed, though, adminship itself is no more a big deal now than it ever was. Until someone shows me some evidence to suggest that we have too many admins overall, or not enough good ones, I think I'll continue to treat RfA as I did in 2008. I don't think I've ever seen an admin fail in his duties because he hasn't written enough GAs, made enough menial clerking edits at RFPP, or searched for a dispute to meddle in—requiring all those things of our admin candidates suggests strongly that we view a successful RfA as a reward for being the perfect editor, and not, more correctly, as a means of appointing a trusted custodian. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:18, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I see that several bureaucrats and other editors still say that RfA is not a vote. I respectfully disagree. RfAs with 80%+ support pass, while those with less than 70% fail. (I suppose that someone might dispute these cut-off values.) In the middle ground, the closing bureaucrat makes a deciding vote. On rare occasions when an individual bureaucrat decides that the deciding vote is tricky to make, such as in Liz's RfA recently, the bureaucrat invites his colleagues to collaborate for the deciding vote.

Discussion during the RfA occurs too of course, and may sway some editors' votes. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:50, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• (ec) I've been thinking it might be a good idea to require an administrator's endorsement before throwing your hat into the ring. This would eliminate most (all?) of the NOTNOW-type nominations, which often serve only to demoralize the candidate. An "endorsement" would by no means equal a "support", but instead indicate that the endorsing admin believes the candidacy has the potential to be constructive. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:50, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• Can't say I'm thrilled with that suggestion, as it would force all candidates to have to begging and pestering their Favorite Admin!(tm) just in order to run in an RfA (and failed "endorsements" would still surely be held against the Admin in question...), and worse give even more power to the current Admin class (as Admins would now have 100% "control" over who could even join their ranks). So I'd oppose that idea... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:59, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) It could probably be any auto-confirmed editor. It's possible an individual might resort to sock puppetry to accomplish meeting this criteria but I feel like the majority of NOTNOW candidates simply haven't bothered to read the requirements -- and don't have the intention to willfully disrupt the system. Mkdw^talk 17:59, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• Now that's a more interesting suggestion, that's worth pondering... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:03, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• Again, though, an "endorsement" doesn't mean you think the candidate will pass, only that they're at a position where the comments won't just be self-repeating Opposes per NOTNOW. I'm not married to the idea of it being restricted to admins, but when was the last time somebody passed RfA without the support of at least one admin? I guess maybe it could be a bureaucrat thing, as they can probably be trusted to endorse or deny candidates fairly and with impartiality. Just thinking aloud... – Juliancolton | ^Talk 18:14, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• If 'crats wanted to do it, that's great. If only admins can do it, okay. (I don't feel it really gives them any more power because they're a diverse group of over a thousand people, not a collection of zombies who all think alike. They have no combined intention to destroy non-sysops and even if some would refuse to nominate serious candidates, there'd be plenty that would.) I'm not sure it would work with autoconfirmed; you might still get SNOWs with people who happen to have a real life friend with an old autoconfirmed account lying around, or from people who are beyond the level of complete newbies (and therefore able to get an autoconfirmed to nominate them), but still far short of the community's requirements. I suppose it would be a help to cut out most NOTNOWs, but it would also be a burden (albeit a small one) to anyone who wants to self-nominate. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 18:30, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I hope you do not mind but I moved this to its own section. It is an interesting idea that deserves discussion, but it is a bit off topic in the above thread. Chillum 18:20, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion there may be some merit in requiring a nominator. I do not however think we should require this nominator hold special status, even auto-confirm. While not requiring auto-confirm invites gaming, if someone wants to game their way into a "Not now" situation then they can have it. If a new user noms another new user we can still tell them not now, but there is a very solid chance they will learn that when seeking a nominator. Chillum 18:22, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

My first RFA was a self nom, I admire those who self nom and wouldn't want to rule that out. It would be good to fix a "NotNow" criteria, and set an edit filter on RFA such that only editors who met that could transclude. I suspect we can all agree that editors with <2,000 edits and 6 months tenure don't currently stand a chance at RFA; as a pragmatic suggestion, how about anyone with less than 12 months tenure or less than 6,000 edits can only run if an admin nominates them? That would still have allowed all of the recent successful self noms to run, and if we get an exceptional candidate who is ready with less than that they can still run if an admin nominates them. ϢereSpielChequers 18:41, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

You make a good point about the value of allowing self noms. Though I am not sure that we should put hard limits on the edit count or tenure. While my self nom with a mere 734 edits did not turn out well, I think I would have been even more insulted if an automated process told me I was not ready. Perhaps there is value in a future admin tried to get the mop too early to experience the resulting advice from the community. While the whole thing was unpleasant I was given very solid advice and don't feel anyone acting in a mean spirit. I think it was productive and helped me recognize when the correct time for me to run was. Chillum 18:46, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• We have repeatedly shot down any attempt to add criteria to who can and can not run at RfA. Most recently, this was shot down in February of this year. See Wiki_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_233#Proposal_to_add_text_to_.22nomination_standards.22_section. This is a non-starter. Sorry. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:50, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• There is already the scary template that I placed on WP:RfA/SN a few months ago. It was effective enough to deter every newbie save for the trolls (e.g. Nrwairport) from running. No need for this. Esquivalience ^t 21:00, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Successful self-noms since 2011

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:22, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• I would be against giving admin more power than they (we) already have. I'm for making RFA easier to do and easier to pass, not harder, so I think this would not only make it harder, but would give the impression that admins are a "special" group...even more than it seems now. Admins aren't and shouldn't be the gatekeepers for RFA, the community is and so far, seems to be doing a fine job of filtering the wheat from the chaff. We just need more wheat to apply for the job. Self-noms, by themselves, have not been shown to be a problem that needs "fixing", so not sure of the purpose of the proposal. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:37, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• The table above shows that out of 150 passes, 33 were self noms. That's 22%. I think that's a significant number. It also probably means that around a quarter of successful candidates are not so scared of the process that they need a friend to hold their hand.

Like Dennis, I believe expecting admins to 'authorise' RfAs would probably not be a viable solution. It would also be to play into the hands of the users who complain that admins have too much power already. Full circle, back to the drawing board: it's not the candidates or the system that are the problem, it's the voters. Fix the voters and RfA will fix itself. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:25, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• I'd disagree. I suspect a portion of the discussion will go into the administrators themselves and how they know the nominee. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:58, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I would like to propose a simple change to our current RfA format. I suggest that for the first 2 days we only have discussion. Then after the 2 days have passed the "voting" or as we call them "!voting" sections are put up for the remaining 5 days. Discussion would of course be allowed to continue.

This would accomplish a few things:

• Instead of debate happening in between votes it will be more likely to happen out of the way.
• Instead of people voting in the absence of information there will be an existing discussion that can be referred to.
• It will re-enforce the ideal that RfA is supposed to be a discussion and not a vote.
• It will give everyone time to get their concerns out and for those concerns to be audited by the community before people start making up their minds.

In my opinion 5 days is plenty long for voting, particularly if we spent 2 days before that doing our homework. I am looking forward to hearing suggestions, comments, criticisms, and any better ideas. Chillum 15:27, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't be adverse to this. As it is, I've come to think that 7 days of voting is too long. So 2 days of "discussion", followed by 5 days of voting, would be an improvement, to my mind. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:50, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I suggested a two-phase approach a couple of weeks ago. A concern was raised regarding the length of the phases, but regardless of the time devoted to each, I agree that giving interested parties more background information should improve the quality of the discussion. isaacl (talk) 16:34, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• I think this is worth considering. (At the moment, pretty much any idea to improve the process and reduce drama is worth considering.) But what sort of discussion is likely to arise other than "I will oppose this user because they don't meet my criteria", and "I will support because I trust this user"? I'm not sure what will actually change, other than in the first two days the comments will be in one place, and the next five days the comments will be spread across the RfA page. The process will be the same, and during the 5 day period there will still be interjections. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:10, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• How about when a vote is to be discussed a link to a sub-section in the discussion area(=== Discussion of Chillum's !vote ===) is put below their vote? That way it is evident from a scan of the votes that discussion of the vote has taken place, however it can happen in a sub-section linked below. Chillum 17:16, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• I would be willing to support a 3 month trial period to see if it works. A community RFC at the end of the trial period to determine proceeding or reverting back. Mkdw^talk 17:19, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• I was thinking we could do trials with volunteer candidates. Chillum 17:45, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• This has been tried before on occasion, though I forget who or when. The advantage of the seven-day period is that people with a variety of different schedules can participate. This is one of a number of proposed "reforms" recently that are obviously devised by people who are on wikipedia on a daily basis, and probably are available regularly throughout the day. If anything, we should move toward models of community decision-making that are more inclusive of casual participation, rather than introducing "reforms" that privilege the active and available. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• I did say the discussion did not stop, so there is still 7 days of discussion. This in no way effects someone who shows up into an RfA 2 or more days in. Right now you show up on day 3 and you can discuss and vote, same thing under my proposed idea. You would only miss the delay in voting. Chillum 17:45, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• I think the duration of each phase can be discussed. As I mentioned above, if the intent is to accommodate those who edit once a week, then each phase can be a week in length, and it may be helpful to start all RfAs on say Friday, so everyone can plan exactly when they will be able to spend time on the current week's requests. isaacl (talk) 18:31, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• I'm not going to express an opinion on this just yet, but I have a question: would RfAs be able to be closed as NOTNOW and/or SNOW before the end of the 2 day discussion period? I suppose it might be fairly obvious in most cases when to close NOTNOW, assuming people are allowed to before the voting. The idea of SNOW closed RfAs, at least in my eyes, is "you've been getting loads of opposes and few supports, so there's no need to let another hundred people pile on". If no-one has opposed yet, who decides when to SNOW close and what if somebody objects? — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 17:45, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• Good question. I think the discussion would quickly reveal if a candidate is not yet ready. It would spare them a pile of bolded Opposes comments and they would instead get a discussion that will hopefully be full of good advice. I can tell you from experience that a long vertical stripe of Oppose prior to a "Not now" is a bit unpleasant, even if they are followed by kind words. Chillum 17:48, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• Ouch. To be quite honest, I'd rather get an Oppose than a "Sympathy Support" (at least "Moral support" doesn't sound as condescending). But back to the topic at hand, I think that's a good answer and can see it working quite well. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 18:10, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

@SilkTork, the way I envision it is that interested parties would list the results of their analyses of the pros and cons of the candidate. To make it easy for others to review, there could be one consolidated list of pros, one consolidated list of cons, and then an analysis section where each commenter can list an analysis. Discussion can ensue under each item so they can be challenged, broken down, affirmed, and so forth. By having a consolidated list, any newcomers to the page can easily come up to speed on all of the discussion related to one point, rather than having to read through dozens of threads from each commenter and mentally combining the information. At the end of the first phase, a new section would be opened where each person can list their support or opposition to the candidate, and they can describe it in terms of the relative weight they place on the various pros and cons. With this, closers of the discussion can actually weigh the consensus view of the interested parties on the qualities of the candidate, rather than looking for reasons to discount votes, which is not truly consensus at all. isaacl (talk) 18:16, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• As an FYI, this was tried with Ironholds 2. It didn't go over very well. You can come to other conclusions yourself. --Izno (talk) 19:50, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
  • The format of that request for adminship, though, is different that what I have proposed. isaacl (talk) 20:07, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• To be clear I don't think 4 days of question asking is any substitute for 2 days of discussion. For this reason I think my proposal is substantially different than the experiment done at Wiki: Requests_for_adminship/Ironholds_2. The problem with just asking a question and getting an answer is that it is a 2 person, 2 comment discussion. A proper discussion should involved several people and have as many comments as needed to explore the position presented. Chillum 22:07, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

This has come up before. And unlike most proposals, this is an easy implementation. As I recall it usually gets "stuck" over whether it should be 2/5; 3/4; 3/5; 1/6; etc. I prefer the 3/4 model personally. It gives everyone a fair amount of time to discuss, and yet 4 days for everyone to "vote". And the latter is another sticking point, those who say the whole thing should be a discussion, not a vote, and so the splitting legitimises "voting"... - jc37 18:40, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I would not be adverse to 3/4. I think if this is tested it will likely be by a volunteer candidate, this will mean that they can decide on the fiddly details. If it goes well and is ever adopted then the community can decide then based off of real data. Chillum 18:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I suggest calling the first phase a vetting phase, where participants are determining the abilities and characteristics of the candidate, and the second phase an analysis phase, where participants can weigh in on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the candidate. In theory, there is no inherent need for any voting in the second phase, as long as everyone expresses the relative weights they place on different candidate traits. isaacl (talk) 19:10, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
a vetting/evidence phase and an analysis/workshop phase... now what does that remind me of?... - jc37 00:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
With arbitration cases, the start of the phases tend to be flexible (people can start posting analyses right away) and the end fixed, whereas in this proposal, the start times would be fixed and the end flexible. People can continue to submit information about a candidate's abilities throughout the process; having a specific start time for the second phase is to allow for some minimal amount of data to be available to improve the quality of the expressed opinions. Submissions to an arbitration case tend to be very diverse, due to the lack of an specified scope for most of them (an improvement I suggested once was for arbitrators to delineate the case's scope when it is opened), whereas with requests for adminship, there is a definitive goal for all contributions: evaluating the candidate's suitability to perform administrative tasks. The proposed analysis phase would provide insight into the relative weight the community places on different characteristics of the candidate, so that the discussion can be closed based on the community's consensus view. The workshop phase of an arbitration case is not a process for determining consensus; it is more of a brainstorming session of ideas to feed into the final decision. So no, I don't see much similarity between this proposal and arbitration cases. isaacl (talk) 03:52, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• As proposed, this would mean that someone who edits only on a particular day of the week might be unable to 'vote" if the initial discussion phase fell on that day. The "voting" phase should not be less than a full week, if this is to be implemented. In any case, i suspect that most comments in the 'discussion" phase will effectively be supports or opposes, so this won't actually have much efect, but I could be wrong about that. DES ^(talk) 12:39, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
  • As I mentioned, if the desire is to include those who edit once a week, then both phases should be at least a week long. It's up to those who are seeking a change to set the tone: if you want the initial phase to focus on discussing the pros and cons of a candidate without expressing an opinion on the relative balance amongst them, then set an example for everyone else to follow in your comments. (Some gentle reminders from a moderator may be helpful, too.) isaacl (talk) 15:24, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

So far 2015 has gone by and we haven't had any new bureaucrats. Every other year for the past 10 or so we've had a few new crats. May I take this opportunity to encourage any admins with policy and discussion-closing experience to throw their hats into the ring. Andrevan@ 03:39, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you have to be an admin to run? I've always wondered about that. Townlake (talk) 04:03, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Realistically, I think the short answer is "yes", since bureaucrats have the ability to add and remove admins. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 04:11, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure it really is required. I suspect a non-Admin who showed that they were really good at discussion closures (e.g. RfC, AfD, RM, etc.) and parsing consensus could get promoted directly to Bureaucrat without being an Admin first. But, practically, I'm not sure there are all that many "awesome" closers who aren't already Admins... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
It's not required per se but I think a non-admin bureaucrat would be significantly hobbled by the inability to view deleted revisions. Some years ago I tried to get view-deleted added to the bureaucrat package so that I could resign my adminship but continue 'cratting but was unsuccessful. Since then, however, I've found that bureaucrat tasks occasionally lean on other administrative permissions like un/protection and un/blocking as well. –xeno^talk 09:19, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I second Andrevan's call; additional bureaucrats - especially ones willing to work at improving RFA from the ground up - would be great. –xeno^talk 09:19, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Technically, admin status is not required to apply for bureaucrat status. Indeed there was such an application a few years ago. While the applicant did garner some support, many editors opposed because they were unable to adequately assess the applicant's decision-making skills without AfD closures and other admin activities. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:33, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

It seems like a good place to recruit for 'Crats would be among the semi-active (i.e. relatively inactive) Admins corps. I see a lot of these around these days, and I would think the low-impact workload of the Bureaucrat position might be appealing to some of them. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:50, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

More Crats means more opinions, which is always useful.

I'd especially welcome some candidates who've been here a bit less time than most of us hoary-headed Crats. Each wikigeneration brings its own perspectives. I love to hark back to the good old days when everything was just wikilovely, which never existed, but also sort of did.

Anyway, short version answer to this thread: Yes please. --Dweller (talk) 11:03, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. We are all a bit long in the tooth! And as has been remarked in the past, we are also lacking in gender diversity. Suitably qualified candidates who self-identify as female would be particularly welcome. WJBscribe (talk) 11:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• The job just isn't interesting enough and as long as those who are long in the tooth resist any attempts to make it more attractive nothing will happen. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:25, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Do we really need more 'crats? There can't be enough work to go round the 32 that we have, especially now that local 'crats no longer handle renames. I know on some projects they're expected to take an active role in the leadership of the project, but on enwiki they just stick to the bureaucracy. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:08, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Aaawww I dunno, I think it's good to have a few more voices when discussing tricky promotions. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:38, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I mentioned this earlier. It seems like people are having so much trouble at RFA, and I'm not just talking borderline candidates, but ones that I would have thought a few years ago would have been an easy pass. Therefore it doesn't surprise me that people aren't willing to run for RfB when arguably the expectations and scrutiny are much more emphasized. Mkdw^talk 14:11, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Should we be taking a more proactive role in "shepherding" RfXs, for example, crack down more strongly on civility issues or refactor discussions that go off-tangent? If so, we could probably use more people. -- Avi (talk) 15:56, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
The problem is that without the extra crats to help start these changes, it's almost guaranteed that any RfB will only become an even hotter trainwreck than most RfAs. Kind of a vicious cycle, really. Parabolist (talk) 16:37, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
I would also caution against giving the impression that adding 'crats is part of some other effort. Samsara 00:40, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

There is one thing that editors overlook: You can withdraw from RfA and RfB at any time when you run. If you believe that you are up to the job, just run. If you decide that you don't like RfA/B, then withdraw. Esquivalience ^t 20:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

That's a bit too simplistic. Having candidates who run and then simply withdraw when the perfectionist attitude becomes too much to bear will not solve the main problem: Wikipedia is losing far more admins than it is gaining, and although most don't seem to realize it now this might become a real problem some day. I'm currently planning to organize data on this. --Biblioworm (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Biblioworm, there is increasing evidence that the downward trend in RfAs has bottomed out. There is no evidence whatsoever that there is not, or will not be enough admins to do the work. This is a conjecture offten suggested by non admins. However, I welcome your data and look forward to it - I actually like being proven wrong. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:31, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I think anyone who has withdrawn will tell you even doing so was an unpleasant experience. It would seem now that many editors expect RFA to be an unpleasant experience. The larger issue is that it's keeping people away from running in the first place; and not necessarily we need solutions to address issues around editors who have run and figured out mid-process they didn't like it and didn't withdraw. Mkdw^talk 21:42, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
RfA withdrawals being demoralizing is a fair point; but they are not permanently demoralizing. There is heavy and occasionally blunt criticism, but one feature of a good admin is their good handling and well-taking of criticism. And of course, there's the WikiBreak, useful for stress. Esquivalience ^t 03:23, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• It seems odd to me that after years of suggesting that bureaucrats take on a more 'pro-active' role in RfA and being met with resistance on the lines that such work is not in their job description, that there is a sudden flurry from them to take an interest. All our Bureaucrats were around (as admins if not 'crats) in 2011 while WP:RFA2011 was going on yet with the exception of Worm who was one of the most active contributors to that project, they chose to do nothing and say nothing although Clerking RfA was the nearest we got to making a firm proposal before we all finally gave up in the face of increasing trolling.

Odder still is a fact that no one seems to have identified (or doesn't want to): among the 'crats, especially those promoted in 2011 and since, their participation on Wikipedia dropped dramatically after being endowed with the 'crat bit - or even retired completely shortly after being elected. Again, the exception is Worm whose Wikipedia work for two years was of a kind that is not reflected in edit counts. Anecdotally it looks as if 'crats think 'I've made it to the top, now I can sit back and watch the others work'.

Someone once said (I believe it's in the archives of this talk page) that one needs to be a pretty boring editor to become bureaucrat. Well, that kind of figures. Any active 'front line' admins would have accumulated too many enemies from just doing their job. RfB would degenerate into a re-confirmation RfA - pitchforks an' all. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:29, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Let's not derail this thread. I'm not proposing RFA reform or that crats take a more active role. I think the RFA/RFB system basically works. I just think I would like to hear more voices in crat chats and empower more folks to find a consensus without them. Andrevan@ 04:37, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
Well, RfA/RfB "works" if your goal is to promote about 2 Admins a month, and about 0 Bureaucrats a year! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:46, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
One year and nearly seven months and counting since. Mkdw^talk 05:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• Let us not derail the efforts of those who are genuinely concerned and who are racking their brains for a solution to something the Bureaucrats themselves can't even find. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:53, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I've already suggested to someone that she undergo RfB, and she demurred for the time being. I'll think over a couple of other people whom I think would provide good analysis and reasoning as regards complicated RfXs, which is our primary (and now probably sole) function. Don't forget, most any of you discussing this issue are more than welcome to volunteer for RfB  . Who knows, maybe now that RfA is more difficult than it was in 2007, once someone vaults that hurdle, RfB will be less traumatic than it was in 2007. -- Avi (talk) 15:10, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I find there to be something generally worrying about bureaucrats selecting both admins and bureaucrats. Samsara 22:12, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Wiki: Requests for adminship/Wbm1058 has been the source of a lot of messing about with the format of RfAs. Context is available at Wiki talk:Requests for adminship/Wbm1058#Location of comments. The current situation is this: comments in response to !votes are made using #: beneath the !vote, as usual; responses to responses get an extra colon etc. When someone deems the discussion to be too long for people to comfortably navigate and/or irrelevant to the user whose RfA it is (e.g. when things descend into personal attacks, questioning motives, meta-discussion), they can hat the comments (everything below the original !vote) and use an li value thing to fix the numbering system below. Look at the page to see how this works. Tangent: we might find a problem when the most recent !vote in a section has a hatted discussion below it, and the next user to come along doesn't understand the li value things, but this can't really be a bigger issue than the one we have at present with people forgetting to use # signs instead of just colons, which was complained about here.

Does everyone agree with this hatting method currently implemented? Does everyone disagree? Anyone have any thoughts, comments, or just want to administer a trout to me or someone else? Here's the place to do it. To minimise disruption to the current RfA, please try to discuss formatting changes someone on this page and/or in this section, rather than at the RfA pages. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 22:07, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Bilorv, you did a great job there. I like the hatting idea, but I just wonder whether there's a simpler way than the # trick. I suspect most editors will find that difficult, and if people indent their votes, don't we need them to go through adjusting all subsequent li values? I can't think of anything right now -- can you? --Stfg (talk) 22:27, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• May I suggest that instead of using collapse templates which traditionally are used to end a discussion that we instead place a link as the only content below a !vote to a sub-section below dedicated to discussing a particular editors !vote? Like:

• Additional discussion at Discussion about Chillum's !vote.

• This would allow for extensive discussion without constantly making sure we don't break the numbering. It will avoid the need for special markup(#) to avoid the hats breaking numbering. And it will give a short clear indication that a particular vote has more discussion without that discussion making it hard to read the votes. At most a !vote will have only 1 extra line if discussed so the length of the discussion will not distort the size of the sections. Chillum 22:31, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• I will also point out that having an active discussion under a hat is no good because you cannot search with the browser "find" function for anything under a hat. This is bloody annoying. Chillum 22:52, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
  I like your idea; I'd suggest that the original !vote is duplicated in the discussion sub-section to save people scrolling back up or using the back arrow. The hatting has caused some issues I didn't think of before I implemented it (but I reckon I wouldn't find it too annoying personally; just view things in the edit window - you'll need to click edit at some point anyway if you're planning to reply). Maybe we should say the conversation should have been dead for x amount of time before it's hatted? (As is standard all around Wikipedia, I think, anyone can still boldly hat stuff where it's clear people are going off-topic, getting worked up, not saying anything constructive etc.) I also wonder which format the closing 'crat would find easier to read through – the standard talk movements only when things get off-topic, the everything-other-than-votes-on-talk idea, the hatting idea, your sub-section idea or something else. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 23:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• Thanks Bilorv for all that work; this was a good idea to sort out this particular RfA. In future cases without so much prior messing around, I agree with Chillum that the "discussion closed" templates should be replaced with something less finger-waggy. Is the idea to continue discussion within the collapsed sections in order to make the page easier to navigate, or to hat threads on the main page in order to shoo people over to the talk page? I find that I dislike both ideas for different reasons - the collapsed sections can't be seen at all in mobile view, so again you have the problem of challenged votes appearing as if no one has commented on them. Moving things to the talk page seems likely to discourage actually reading the follow-up discussions if you have to keep going back and forth. Expecting people to copy votes they're replying to is unlikely to work. Hmmm. I guess this is the sort of pointlessly disagreeable thinking-out-loud that ought to be hatted :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• That hatting method is good. In fact, I would suggest to use that for all cases where long conversation disrupts the RfA flow; this way pertinent info still stays in the listing. Of course, when searching for stuff you need to un-collapse the discussions. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:33, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
• Instead of using Template:Hat, it might perhaps be better to use Template:Cot. The difference is that the former says that there should be no further discussion, whereas the latter allows continuing discussion within the collapsed area. It seems to me that the goal here should be to keep the RfA page navigable, rather than to tell editors who want to discuss something that they must stop discussing it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:43, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Nicely done Bilorv. I was thinking of {{collapse top}} as Tryptofish mentioned (having just used it on an Arbcom evidence case :). -- Avi (talk) 01:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Yep, that's a good idea. I've never seen {{cot}} and {{cob}} before (although I probably should have noticed it listed here), but I was actually considering making my own version of {{hat}} without the "archived" text (and with a less boring color). — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 08:07, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• I think this is the best change to RfA for years. (Have there ever been any chages}.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:31, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• Good change per this. Samsara 02:08, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
• I do not think this is a very good change. RfA doesn't know whether it is a vote or a discussion, and collapsing some parts of discussion just applies a band-aid to the problem instead of solving it. Given how broken WT:RFA is (hint: more broken than WP:RFA), more than a band-aid is probably asking too much though. —Kusma (t·c) 09:08, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
• Bad idea: Have to agree with Kusma. I'd voted on this RfA and came back to it. On seeing the collapsed discussions, it felt to me like discussion was intentionally shut down. I strongly dislike this. If we're to do this, we might as well turn RfAs into a straight up/down vote, and do away with bureaucrats entirely. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• Good faith concerns have been raised about the collapsing, so I've modified the RfA to instead include a '#Replies' section, where the hatted content has been placed with markers from the comment in question. Please double-check my work. With thanks to Wbm1058 for understanding. –xeno^talk 15:46, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• @Xeno: Cyberpower678 edited some of the content to replace some hash signs with colons here—that was probably my fault for leaving the hash signs when hatting the comments in the first place, but (I think) worth noting anyway. And Cyberpower678 messed up some signatures and other things in that edit which I cleaned up here. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 19:18, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
  Whoops. Sorry.—^cyberpower_Chat:Online 19:59, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
• Thanks xeno, that was my original proposal. Here's a template that allows for a bit of shorthand, if desired: {{RfA-replies}}. Now, do we need to place back anchors as well, or do all mobile browsers provide a functional "back" button that works with anchors? Samsara 02:59, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
  • @Opabinia regalis: Since you raised some issues with mobile browsers earlier, maybe you have some insight into this? Thanks. Samsara 20:45, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I have no special insight other than being a user who sometimes catches up on wiki-doings from my phone. Back button works fine on Chrome for Android. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:22, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I was about to post another rant to a currently open RfA that is already on the verge of collapsing under various fundamental discussions that are outside the candidate's power and not connected to the question whether that candidate should be trusted with the tools. So instead I will put some general thoughts here.

I do not like "RfA criteria", and often vote support in order to cancel out a third of such a vote. What I like even less is asking good candidates to change the way they work in order to gain another possible support vote in a future RfA. If a candidate is good in some field, has some clue and treats other people with respect, then it is not a problem that they do not have experience with images, do not have a certain namespace balance, or have not been involved in new page patrol or the Articles for Creation process. What matters is whether they are here to help work and improve Wikipedia, and manage to do so while getting along with other people, helping to solve problems and conflicts rather than creating them.

Now some RfA voters are asking people who are good in some field (may it be copyrights, images, adding inline citations, copyediting or writing brilliant prose) and volunteer their hard work there to additionally take on some other task (say, do new page patrol, work with categories or take photographs or write a Featured Article) before they will consider them as a possible administrator. That is not a good idea. Adminship is not a reward, and we should not encourage people to take on various tasks they do not enjoy just so they can be an administrator some day. Volunteers should do what they enjoy and what they do best, and all those who volunteer for extra duty and that can be trusted (keeping in mind that we aways assume good faith) should be allowed to do that extra duty (adminship). They should be allowed to do so without having to do an internship in the Wikipedia department of some random opposer's choice first. I am more happy to support a failed candidate in a future RfA if they continue to do what they do best in order to improve Wikipedia instead of attempting to look like other people's ideal candidate. So to all people who failed RfA earlier: please continue to work here and do not try to address arbitrary concerns. —Kusma (t·c) 10:10, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Those same people will oppose the second time because the editor "only" did what they suggested they do. You can always vote oppose and if things go wrong, hey not your problem. The default will always, always be the safer option. I'm coming on ten years based on these fools but the key then was "he's lacking experience here" was responded with "...I assume he'd review the relevant policies if he intended to take admin actions outside of his experience" and not an oppose vote. I'm still constantly overturned but we have mountains of processes to fix things (DRV for a wrongly-decided AFD, draftspace for new ideas, bots, templates). The problem is the other extreme in that ARBCOM has given way more discretionary to admins in certain topic areas which is why it's a total guessing game. The truth is you can't know how someone will act with the tools because often they won't know until the situation arises and we don't know what situations are arising. Reminds me, have we even had a recent admin who came here being an admin somewhere else? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:57, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Totally agree. I really wonder if this is one of the main factors scaring people away from RfA. I think a lot of long-time editors think to themselves, "Why bother with an RfA, when I don't care about AfD, and I know that my RfA will fail because so many voters basically demand vast AfD experience?" Or, "Why bother with RfA because I don't have a GA or FA under my belt, really have no idea how to go about that, and really don't have the time to tackle doing one?" Sub in CSD or AIV experience, etc. for either of these examples and the result is the same. There is basically an effective minority in all RfA's that will sink any candidacy unless the candidate has pretty literally "dabbled" in every possible permutation of Admin action. And this is true even for candidates like Wbm1058 who have specifically expressed a desire to only work on one facet of Adminship. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:39, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• I agree; we're not aiming for an archetype with RfA candidates. For example, would it be sane for a company to require their janitors to have bookkeeping experience? Or how about requiring volunteers in the community to learn and use vector calculus? Frankly, the areas that are often demanded of candidates are boring to most: AfD is boring and repetitive to most people (delete, fails WP:N, sign, repeat), content creation (as opposed to discussion) is just Jenga with words, and new pages patrol is really only interesting to people who like to mash buttons. We have many admin backlogs because people who have the skill don't fit into the archetype of the "perfect RfA candidate". The archetype is just getting ridiculous. Esquivalience ^t 18:47, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
  • One issue I can see with candidates that are good at one particular aspect of the wiki administratorship but not at others may make issues in the "other" parts. A statement "I will only work in part X of Wiki requests For Adminship/Archive 238" in the Q/A1 is not a magic spell that binds the person for the future. On the other hand, I am not familiar with such a problem actually occurring - most narrow-scope adminship requests I know of worked out well. And AfD is a sort of prominent administrator workspace. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:03, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
    • More to the point, if a successful Admin candidate "reneges" on a pledge to "go slow" in areas that they aren't familiar with, there are proper forums to deal with that: WP:AN (or WP:ANI), or in really bad cases WP:ArbCom. It's not like there's no recourse for situations like that... But insisting that every Admin candidate know ~100% of the toolset and job before going in is a recipe for passing almost no one out of RfA. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:17, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• The problem with the issues discussed in this thread is that it's perennial talk. I've seen the same comments dozens of times over the last 6 years. People like to talk, but what's stopping them actually doing anything about the problems? Someone could, for example, take the initiative to contact those voters who apply ridiculously high criteria and politely suggest they refrain from disrupting RfA with such such nonsense. Better still, those who post long and loud in this talk page ought to throw their own hats in the ring and find out for themselves what RfA is really like. I did, and frankly I have little sympathy for those who constantly whine but who are scared stiff of the process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
  I am doing something about the problem, I go to RfAs and vote "support" if bad arguments are being made in the oppose section. Also, this thread is in direct response to your vote. Should I have put that on your talk page instead of starting this general discussion? Anyway, I am now asking you politely to refrain from asking people to do an internship in your favourite areas of Wikipedia to gain your possible future support. If you do not think a candidate can't be trusted with the tools, just do not oppose. It is as simple as that. —Kusma (t·c) 05:53, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Kusma, that's a strawman argument and a borderline PA. You are perfectly aware that with 'do something about it' I meant start an RfC with some concrete proposals for reform. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:51, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
I honestly believe that your oppose votes are hurting RfA more than your reform attempts may have been helping it. Reforming RFA by RFC after RFC as you suggest is something that has been tried with a complete lack of success (probably that is because our general governance model is broken), so my current method of improving RFA is to work within the system and support as many candidates as I can and to call out oppose votes that I find unhelpful. (I do find many of your votes unhelpful, but I do not think that is even close to a personal attack). —Kusma (t·c) 08:43, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
YEs, our governance model is far from optimal but we don't have another. I don't believe tactical voting is the cleanest approach but I also don't think you'll curry much favour with the community if you're just going to tell them how they should vote rather than perhaps politely suggesting that their criteria are not only absurd, but in many cases their way of expressing themselves is often beyond the pale. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:59, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

• If an RfA fails due to low content contribution, I would expect the candidate to at least give it a shot. Maybe not an FA but something. There is no rule that good vandal fighters cant be good content contributors. Even with nearly 5 million articles, there is still much to be added to the project. I understand that not everyone is a good writer, but we're not always looking for perfect prose on some articles, just an improvement. Obviously an editor can do what he wishes after a failed RFA, but I think he should definitely work on content before reapplying (if that was one of the main reasons for failure). A little AfD participation never hurt anyone, and I dont think it is always boring. Sometimes it can be just as much fun saving an article than writing if from scratch. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 20:16, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
• I concur with you, Kusma, as far as asking people to "jump through hoops", as I've called it in the past, is concerned. Nobody should be asked to jump through hoops, dignity should be respected and retained. We're all volunteers. However, if a candidate has mis-stepped in an area, it's only fair to tell them what kind of experience may give them a better understanding of why their response to a situation was inappropriate - in fact, our discourse culture requires that the reasoning for !votes be laid out (sometimes excessively). Without knowing the details of the particular case that is causing your complaint, I will add that areas of WP may not be as easy to isolate as you suggest. At our core, there is content creation, copyright law and some other issues that are probably impossible to avoid. There is a notion that something may have received "administrator attention", and an expectation that any obvious problem would have been addressed. If a candidate has incomplete experience, and misses something crucial, it can create subsequent drama. Ultimately, I think this all feeds into discussions on further unbundling. Samsara 03:51, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I've started a thread at Wiki talk:Advice for RfA candidates regarding whether that essay should include advice as far as whether it is appropriate to thank participants in a given RfA after the RfA has concluded. I think more participation would be helpful, as I can see arguments either way. If there's no "correct" answer, that's cool too, but it could be argued that the essay should offer some perspective on the question. I would imagine it's come up in the past, but WP:RFAADVICE doesn't currently have anything to say on the matter despite having an "After your RfA" section. Thanks for your input! DonIago (talk) 14:06, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Whether people should be thanked or not is a question of personal discretion - based on common sense. Thanking 200 voters might be a bit OTT, and using the message bot to do it would not be polite. Of course, doing it manually might boost the editcountistis... --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:11, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Considering that the first two opinions I received on the matter were essentially diametrically opposed, it only seemed prudent to seek a wider range of opinions. My personal inclination would be to thank people, but my personal inclinations on such matters have been wrong before. The best course of action appeared to be to ask the question. DonIago (talk) 17:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Most candidates put a "thank you" note on their talk page, or sometimes on the RfX's talkpage or this one. I've seen some candidates individually thanking each !voter, too. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:55, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
I would suggest that it is inappropriate to only be thanking supporters. Additionally, I would suggest to state that you do not need to thank anyone at all. If thanking, the same neutral message should be sent to all, OR if a different message is sent depending on how people !voted, any message sent to non-supporters should be VERY carefully phrased, which is why I would advise against it. But if it's carefully phrased, I could see it being viable, and it's up to the candidate whether they want to pursue such a challenge when doing so is completely optional. Those are my two three cents on the matter. Samsara 20:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
As long as you don't send the thanks out until after the RFA, I see no problem in only thanking supporters. Why do you think it inappropriate? ϢereSpielChequers 21:20, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
It can be seen to suggest that the candidate is unable to gracefully accept criticism and may hold grudges. In an ideal world, nothing relevant should be left unspoken at an RfA, and there should be no reprisals. Anything suggesting otherwise should not be welcome. Samsara 21:32, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Not thanking someone for opposing your RFA is not a reprisal, nor does it imply you don't accept criticism or are holding a grudge. If anything going to the talkpage of someone who just !voted against you and leaving a thank template implies you haven't moved on. ϢereSpielChequers 21:49, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is seriously advocating thanking DURING an RfA. I do think that classification is inherent in treating people differently based on how they !voted, and such classification should be avoided. I cannot find any logic in your argument that treating people the same implies that you think of them differently. A cool-down period between the RfA being closed and sending of any messages is probably sensible, but I'm not sure that needs to be written down. Samsara 22:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
I think it's inappropriate to thank only supporters because it implies the oppose !votes were not appreciated as much as the supports. I imagine most candidates don't appreciate the opposes as much as the supports in reality, but not getting thanked when it's apparent everyone who supported got thanked would serve to send the message that opposers aren't wanted, or that their opinions weren't appreciated, or that the candidate just doesn't like them and bears a grudge. As long as the message isn't phrased in a way that seems sarcastic or disingenuous, I don't see how it implies one hasn't 'moved on', although that's not the phase one should jump to immediately after the end of an RfA anyway—whatever the RfA's outcome, actionable oppose reasons should be kept in mind in the future for personal growth. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 23:15, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Mass mailed everyone? Obviously just a cheap and blatantly dishonest attempt to gain extra popularity and increase edit count! Mass mailed only supporters? Clear arrogance and disregard of completely valid criticism! You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you by the mob. Ok, I exaggerated pretty hard here but you get the point. There is no one universally accepted behavior about thanking people after RfA. Probably nothing bad will happen, but there is always a small risk that someone doesn't like what you did.--Staberinde (talk) 15:11, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Kind of sums up why I raised the issue to begin with. Of course there's also: Didn't thank anyone? Obviously doesn't appreciate the time and effort people put into these things! I'm actually a little surprised that my question has generated as much commentary as it has, but I'm very...well, thankful...for the additional perspectives. Seems I'm probably best off erring on the side of caution and keeping my mouth shut and hoping nobody takes that as a negative indicator. DonIago (talk) 15:27, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree that there is a matter of judgment in not wanting to make editors feel like they are being spammed with talk page messages. I think one option that is less spammy would be to use the "thank this editor for this edit" clickable link on the diffs of the actual RfA comments. I doubt anyone would feel spammed by that, although there would also be a judgment call about whether or not it is appropriate to do so for editors who oppose. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:55, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that there's nothing "wrong" with thanking voters after an RfA, and also agree that there's nothing "wrong" with thanking just the 'Support' voters (or even just the 'Support' (or 'Neutral') voters that said something particularly complimentary about, or supportive of, the candidate). But probably the most "politic" answer is the one suggested by Jo-Jo Eumerus: simply leaving a generic "Thank you" message on the candidate's own Talk page (post-RfA, 'natch) thanking "everyone who voted in [my] RfA" – that is probably the "smartest" play, and shouldn't tick anyone off... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I find this discussion a bit silly. There's nothing inappropriate about thanking people if the sentiment is genuine and the thanks are given in good faith. There is also no obligation to thank anyone for participation in an RFA. In short, people should feel free to thank or not thank any subset of people involved in their RFA, as their consciences and mood dictate. I don't think this is something that needs a rule (written or unwritten.) --Ashenai (talk) 16:11, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

^ That. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:23, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Ashenai's sentiments here. Any instruction on this at all would be instruction creep. People can do it or not, in the way they see fit. There's no serious harm in it that calls for us having a rule or even guideline. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:RFAADVICE is an essay and was the point of concern; I most certainly wasn't looking to implement (or even suggest) a policy or guideline on such matters. Mandating a thank-you would render the gesture meaningless. I was just wondering whether the essay, given that its point is to offer advice to individuals going through RfA, should offer any counsel on the matter. Though speaking of creep, I had intended to keep discussion at the link I provided in my original post. Oh well. DonIago (talk) 16:37, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
If you'd just given the link rather than a separate exposition, it probaby would have worked. Samsara 20:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Those are two separate issues. Is "thanking" always acceptable, no matter what form it takes? Obviously not. Does it need to be written into law? Completely separate issue. Samsara 20:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
I would suggest leaving it to each candidate, whether successful or not, to deal with and avoid instruction creep. For successful candidates, we're trusting admins to do significant things. Let them handle this initial decision in their own style. For unsuccessful candidates, it's probably best to keep it to responses to the sympathetic notes on their talk, but again, if someone has potential to pass an RfA, they likely have enough clue to handle it in an adult manner.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:02, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I am working on an analysis of RFAs from this year so far in my userspace here. I am done with getting the data but I still need to finish formatting the table. Help would be appreciated. Everymorning (talk) 16:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• Update: formatting is done. Everymorning (talk) 17:29, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Made it sortable, mostly because I wanted to see if I beat Ceradon for the lowest edit count :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:34, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
Hehe --ceradon (talk • edits) 17:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• Added wikilinks to the rfas being referenced. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:48, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
• Hey, it might be beneficial to add data since 2011 (since that was when the most recent data was compiled) I'll start working on that. --ceradon (talk • edits) 17:59, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• Be aware that portions of this data are already present at Wiki: Unsuccessful adminship candidacies (Chronological) and Wiki: Successful requests for adminship. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• May I suggest that months since last block would be a more useful variable than self nom, and manual edits a more useful statistic than the one you are using which I think is raw live edit count, (not counting deleted edits). There was at least one editor who opposed all self noms a few years back, but he is long gone, and while I doubt we can agree how much one should discount automated edits, and thankfully people have stopped opposing for the percentage of automated edits, there is an argument that five hours spend doing a thousand edits don't necessarily teach you more about this site than fiven hours doing fifty manual edits. ϢereSpielChequers 18:10, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
• I have the set of RfAs since 2008 scraped from the tables in the successful/unsuccessful lists and reassembled into one big chronological list. I never did get around to putting together those tables for the previous years, but there's a pretty straightforward, albeit tedious, script job if anyone wants it. Other suggestions:

• Keep track of as many features as you think might be interesting rather than trying to guess a priori which plausible features will matter most.
• Keep the table entries formatted in a script-readable and -writable way; i.e. have a consistent set of responses for each column and format all free-text type comments the same way.
• Keep the "time editing" list in months instead of fractions of a year, which will get very confusing if you go back far enough. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:33, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
• With respect to the time editing being in months not years, I think you're probably right. When I was working on this in Excel earlier today, I thought at one point that I should change it but I didn't know how to multiply everything in one column by 12. Everymorning (talk) 19:42, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
The element that seems more obvious than I imagined is how difficult it is to have a successful RfA if you've ever been blocked unless it was somehow an accident or mistake. Do editors who had a block or two during their early years just decide not to become a candidate? I would have thought that editors would be forgiving but it's hard to ignore how most successful candidates (and even some unsuccessful candidates) have clear block logs. It's not a requirement but it is definitely an obstacle that a candidate has to overcome. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:54, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
It shouldn't be Liz. Admins who are blocked do not necessarily lose adminship status, so blocks pre and post RfA should be treated equally. Moriori (talk) 01:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Most unsuccessful candidates have clean block logs, but that's also true of most core editors, there was a study a while back of the top 1000 editors and only 30% had ever been blocked, and the vast majority of those would be treated as clean at RFA - for starters a quarter of those 30% were accidental blocked by people who followed their block with a very quick unblock and apologys. It used to be that RFA candidates needed to be 12 months block free, now you might get some opposes for events even older especially if you don't explain why you've learned from the incident and it won't recur. ϢereSpielChequers 06:47, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

ONLY 30% have been blocked???!!!! - that’s a huge number. Unfortunately being blocked is still a stigma at other areas of Wikipedia, for example blocked users cannot be listed at wp:Missing Wikipedians. Ottawahitech (talk) 12:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Very few of the 30% had a block that would have been seen as a problem at RFA, I think the third most common reason was edit warring, and I would be surprised if anyone opposed over that unless the block was less than a year ago. As for missing Wikipedians, I thought the policy there was not to list editors who were currently blocked, but I see exceptions are made even to that. ϢereSpielChequers 20:12, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have a column that contains the month of the year of the RfA? It would provide an indication of whether there were several RfAs going on during the same period of time, if it had been a long time since a successful RfA and if the time of the year has any influence. I don't think it does but data is more revealing than ones personal impression. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• Another trend that I have only noticed recently is interest in content work. Many editors want to know if the candidate has enough content work/article creation experience. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:51, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
  • It's been around a while actually. It seems to me (at least from the cases I've seen) that it tends to be more persuasive as a "support" argument than as an "oppose" argument going by outcomes. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• For some reason in the 2014 section on the page in my userspace, the edit count sort at the top of the column is not working. It would be great if someone could fix it--I thought it was the commas but apparently that's not it. Everymorning (talk) 02:06, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Stats

Scottywong used to be our data magician for admin stuff but he has sadly retired along with a few other good admins from the 2011-12 harvest. With her renewed interest in this dark area of Wikipedia Opabinia regalis seems to be a whizz kid at producing charts and tables. I'm sure she would help if asked for anything but she would need to be convinced that the stats are really needed and will be used. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I made some suggestions above, but the enthusiasm of willing manual curators is a scarcer resource than the ability to fill in any gaps they might leave :) What surprises me here is that apparently there's nobody in San Francisco who wants to show off some data science chops on this. Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:23, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
A lot of work has also been done by NoSeptember (see his subpages here) and WereSpielChequers (see here for subpages). A lot of data has been collected over time but it hasn't been consistent over the past 14 years. When the admin corps were doubling in size (2005-2007) there was a great interest in collecting data and charting the increase. This also makes sense as many editors are just active for a few years and collecting longitudinal data is an investment of time. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:39, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
This is one of those areas where a "Bot author" is needed. (Other places where Bot authors are needed is to find potential "Autopatrolled" candidates, and to count GA authors...) I really wish I knew code so I could write Bots, because I'd love to come up with a Bot for all of these jobs, including RfA analysis. But, alas - I'm not a "coder"; I'm just a schlub.   --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:38, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
I have analyzed the data in my userspace regarding edit counts and adminship. The results can be found at User:Everymorning/RFA study#Edit counts. Basically, looking at the raw data, unsuccessful RFAs have a higher edit count than successful ones, but removing outliers (Koavf, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, and Rich Farmbrough) reverses the relationship. Everymorning (talk) 22:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, very interesting!
The simplest way to deal with the averaging problem you're seeing is to use the median instead. You could also remove the RfAs closed as WP:NOTNOW or WP:SNOW to get a look at the numbers for established editors. Actually, it'd also be interesting to see the edit counts just for the 'not now' cases. Opabinia regalis (talk) 01:59, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I've left some comments on the talk page (User talk:Everymorning/RFA study#Edit counts) because there are very important considerations to be made when quoting stats to avoid people getting the wrong picture. We must be careful not to let stats fit the opinions of those who only prefer one-sided arguments.
The data we need that would help, is to create a chart of all the criteria of all the regular voters. But again, the community does not want to see this, just as they refuse to believe that about 90% of pleope who vote on RfA are drive-by voters, regular RfAers are very much in the minority. Again, I do think that to get an objective overview, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, we should be looking at and updating some of the very valuable tables and extrapolations at WP:RFA2011. I also think that those of you who have gone to the trouble of producung tables and charts might wish to consider copying them or transcludung the to WP:RFA2011 so that it still serves as a central repository for all the RfA data. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, people "refuse to believe" that most voters are drive-bys because it isn't true. Maybe it used to be true, but it is not currently true.
That's distinct from the question of whether voters should be "regular RfAers". IMO the process would benefit from more people who are actually familiar with a specific candidate, and fewer people who have general points to make about adminship in the abstract, have long laundry lists of personal criteria, are using their vote as a soapbox, or just find the process discussions interesting. (Yes, yes, pots and kettles and all.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 15:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
You need both – "drive-by" voters who are familiar with a specific candidate's work would definitely cut through some of the "clutter" in the process by pointing up a candidate's pluses (and may also be familiar with the details of a few of their mistakes). But regular RfA voters who are much more familiar with what Adminiship actually entails are key as well. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:28, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
The data at Wiki: RfA_reform_(continued)/Voter_profiles is now a few years old and I'm sure many of the people involved have changed. But I'd bet the pattern remains, most voters across a period of time were indeed "drive by" in the sense of only voting once or twice in the study period. But the thirteen most frequent voters cast more !votes than the 880 least frequent, so a typical RFA then as now would be dominated by people who had voted in multiple other RFAs in the previous year. As IJBall has pointed out this could be the right combination, though I'd personally like to see more editors piping up that they have worked with the candidate and trust/distrust/would be grateful for the community appointing them an admin so they move onto other things. ϢereSpielChequers 20:11, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I'm almost sure that the pattern would indeed be the same. I'm almost just as sure that a closer scrutinty would reveal that the majority of those 'needed' drive-by voters are clueless newbies who just discovered 'Cool, here's something else I can vote on'. What would help here are some facts rather than hastily drawn consensus conclusions but I'm also confident that IJBall is not going to lend a hand and update that table. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:17, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
A healthy RFA electorate would contain most if not all the ingredients that I've seen, including in each RFA a small minority of editors who are new to the process. We occasionally get newbies who seek to make their mark by having stricter arbitrary standards than anyone else, but every process needs its newbies, and needs to be tolerant of newbie mistakes. I would prefer if we had a higher conversion rate from one of voter to regular voter or even candidate. If anyone ever repeats that survey I would suggest a longer time basis and to watch for patterns that include a candidacy. My hypothesis is that a large proportion of serious candidates will vote at least once in the run up to their RFA, then rarely after it passes. ϢereSpielChequers 20:33, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Wouldn't surprise me if that were true. I think I've voted at RfA less often since I passed RfA a few years ago and, in general, I now only vote on people who I've had interactions with or occasionally if an RfA is in the discretionary range. I definitely find it much harder to oppose candidates since I passed RfA. Jenks24 (talk) 05:02, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

What are the odds of getting a search box added to the main RfA page, a la Module:Admin board archives, or something similar? Yes, I know you can click on the links at the top for "alphabetical" or "chronological" RfA's to go looking for a desired RfA. But a search box would make this process faster and simpler... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 06:12, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I think we can fork Module:Admin board archives to work for RfA and RfB; I'll look into it.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:31, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Alrighty, I was not sure on how to work with Modules, but I've assembled something here using the template search box.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:57, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
I've also seen some projects use this though there are many pages. Mkdw^talk 15:12, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Excellent, Jo-Jo Eumerus! Even a link from the main RfA page to a page like your Sandbox example would be capital! If there's no objection, it would be really great if something like this could be implemented... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:15, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
I can move it out of userspace and post it in the appropriate places if folks desire.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:17, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, I, at least, support that. Maybe if there are no objections over the next while, you can be bold with that... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:08, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
If you wait for objections, that's not actually bold ;)   Done, let's see if anyone reverts. NE Ent 16:22, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
@NE Ent: that's kind of messed up the formatting of the main RfA page. I think what Jo-Jo Eumerus was suggesting was to make the search boxes a separate page, with a wikilink to that from the text of the main RfA page – I think that would probably work better... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
So fix it or revert it. NE Ent 16:45, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

These search/navigation functions are usually put in templates and these transcluded on the pages they are supposed to be available from, to my understanding. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:58, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

That's fine. However ya'll do it, if you believe you can improve the Rfa page, just do it. NE Ent 17:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. Given the less tham ideal quality of RFA discussions, do we really want to make it this easy to rummage through the !voting history of commenters one disagrees with? The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 19:43, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
  The RfX tool in xtools already makes it incredibly easy to go through someone's RfX history, so the addition of a search box wouldn't change anything, in my opinion. APerson (talk!) 23:19, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
  I have no idea what "Rfx" and "xtools" mean. NE Ent 00:22, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
  This. - MrX 00:42, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
  Oh, the site that calls mainspace "일반 문서" [1] and seems broken as often as not? Let's keep it simple and on wiki. NE Ent 00:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Nowhere near as good as Scottywong's tool which for some reason in spite of them promising they would port it to Labs, they have taken it off and substituted it with their own. Apparently only because they cann't write Python, but that was only one reason, the other was that Labs is down almost as often as it works (true), but I don't see how that affects writing the programme. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
not invented here NE Ent 16:42, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Thank for pointing that article out, NE Ent, it would probably have saved me from almost bullying some over-enthusiastic users who had bitten off more than they could chew and leaving us now without a lot of tools we had come to rely on. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:48, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I have created a new template for marking discussion moves: use {{subst:RfA discussion moved}} or simply {{subst:Rfadm}} with the first argument being the title of the heading. Esquivalience ^t 00:08, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Isn't {{Rfadm}} something else entirely? I think you meant {{RfAdm}} which you moved to {{RfA-dm}} due to confusion issues. -- Orduin ^Discuss 01:01, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Probably still too close to {{Rfadm}} for comfort IMHO – I'd suggest {{RfA-dismove}} (or {{RfA-discussmove}}(?), or something) for the name of Esquivalience's new template. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:33, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Looking at Montanabw's RfA, I could not help but wonder whether the 310kB of discussion (plus 140kB on the talk page) are some kind of record. I could not find anything in the last two years that exceeded 200k. There has to be a better way of doing this... —Kusma (t·c) 10:05, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

It is certainly an outlier. Wiki: Requests for adminship/Dihydrogen Monoxide 3 was 396kb before blanking and the talkpage peaked at 146kb, that was I think the only RFA to have over 400 participants, there may have been others with fewer votes and more discussion. Now that Montanabw is over I think we need to learn a few lessons, in particular there were editors removing rather than striking !votes and arguments despite them being responded to, and that left some hanging responses that now look like they are responses to the preceding !vote. Clerks/neutral volunteers could resolve this sort of thing. I'd also like to see dates on diffs as I think that would make it more obvious when people have to go back many years to get their ammunition. ϢereSpielChequers 10:45, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
^Fully agree with that: Dates on diffs would be a brilliant requirement, make it a whole lot easier to see what's going on; can we add that to the guidelines/requirements, or is that too bold? And removing !votes (instead of striking) is surely a complete no-no which shouldn't be tolerated at all. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 12:33, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Trouble is, few people would read those guidelines, so it would need a guideline allowing/encouraging other editors to refactor these things. Dates of diffs are visible if you use pop-ups, so that ought to be less of a problem. If a !vote is removed, would it be acceptable for another editor to restore, indent and strike it, and place a note at the end of it stating that they have done so? Refactoring other people's posts can be troublesome, especially somewhere as tense as RfA, so I'd want to be able to put "per " both in the endnote and in the edit summary before doing that. --Stfg (talk) 14:35, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Responding to the original question, if you include the 'crat chat and its talk as part of Liz's RFA, the total is (280 + 109 + 49 + 286) about 720 kB. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 17:30, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mendezes Cousins. This RFA is almost completely blank, and the editor seems to have only a few hundred edits. Should it be transcluded? Everymorning (talk) 20:28, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

No, that editor should be informed that they are too recent to have a chance and the RfA deleted.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:53, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
And multiple recent warning messages on their Talk page, to boot. They should definitely be warned about WP:NOTNOW, and their RfA should be deleted. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:19, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
CSD tagged under WP:CSD#G6.Esquivalience ^t 22:33, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
I've placed a gentle personalized note on the user's talk page with a link to WP:NOTNOW. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  23:17, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
So have I (and deleted the RfA). Didn't see your message, Etamni, because it had already been pushed up the page by a new bunch of CSD notices. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:40, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
I think it better to delete such RFAs than allow them to run, but and this is just an observation to those who make stats about RFA; it does make RFA stats on failed RFAs very skewed that in recent years we have deleted RFAs that once would have been NotNows. Also it would be less bitey if we had a clear criteria for running for RFA rather than the current unwritten rules. ϢereSpielChequers 09:08, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
What's your proposal? NE Ent 10:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
The "clear criteria" stuff sounds like what I proposed here about adding a numerical minimum recommended edit count to the main RFA page. Everymorning (talk) 12:01, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
The whole stinking procedure needs an overhaul, not just with new nominations. Cassianto^Talk 12:11, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
The problem with revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary change is that it is more difficult to get a consensus and discussion usually will get sidetracked or at the least broadened to everyone's favourite hobbyhorses. We have come close to consensus on several occasions for something along the lines of "editors with fewer than 1500 edits or less than 6 months activity can only run if nominated by an admin" (I doubt the safeguard of admins being able to nominate a brilliant newbie would ever be used, but past discussions have shown that we wont get consensus without that clause). I think we could eventually get consensus for that, and it would reduce the number of times that newbies get bitten. Fixing one smallish thing might at least break the logjam and challenge the meme that RFA is impossible to reform, there are several other reforms that I would give greater priority if I was simply granted three wishes to implement reforms of my choice. But this reform is probably my second or third priority if we were simply looking for improvements that might get consensus. ϢereSpielChequers 13:01, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
FTR, I support adding minimum qualifications to running for RfA, but would oppose your specific proposal as long as it's worded "...if nominated by an admin" rather than "...if nominated by another long-term editor". Admins should not given any "extra power" over RfA's, even if marginally so as would be the case with your proposal. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:22, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
And here we hit one of the problems of RFA reform. Of course you are right that we shouldn't give admins any meaningful extra powers at RFA, but the alternatives would be to come up with an elaborate definition of editors in good standing, and generally over complicate a clause that I only put in because some people insist on a way to enable a truly excellent candidate to run before they had the requisite edits and tenure. Defining long-term editor for the purposes of that clause would not be easy, and would lead to some saying that such people should run for admin themselves.... ϢereSpielChequers 19:29, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
• Ok, we're not going to approve having minimum standards for RfAs. If an RfA like the one that started this thread never gets transcluded, then deleting it as was done is perfectly fine. If it does get transcluded, then it should not be deleted but allow to run until a NOTNOW close is put on it. This has the side benefit of not causing statistics to be skewed. Rank newbies posting their RfAs, even if they are able to completely follow instructions, has never brought RfA to its knees. It just isn't a problem. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:03, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

• RfAs have become such a rarity that not deleting attempts by trolls and letting them run until closed per SNOW or NOTNOW would skew the stats worse than simply deleting them. I think we are still the only Wikipedia that doesn't have minimum requirements for candidates, but at the moment our neon caveats seem to work for those who are old enough to read and who are native speakers and we appear to be able to contain the rest. I think we should be more concerned about more urgent reforms - such as trying to quash this ridiculous brand new trend over the last few RfA (certainly since Liz's) to turn the talk page into another Weatherfield, replete with hobnail boots, dust-ups in the back alleys, and a din worse than fifty Mancunian dustbin lids skidding around the cobbled street outside the pub. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:30, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

• Changed my mind. This is likely a bad idea, because drawing a line at x edits and n months will result in a spate of folks filing as soon as they meet those marks, and being looked at suspiciously by the Rfa voting community as hat gatherers. NE Ent 11:21, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

That's true enough per WP:BEANS as any admin knows who has worked extensively at PERM - many editors hover with their mice over their edit count waiting to meet the magical minium of required edits and then make a bee-line for the millinery. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

It would be trivial to just disallow self-nominations, since realistically if you can't find someone willing to nominate you, you have no chance of passing RfA. Making that official seems to me just an acknowledgement of reality. As previously discussed, it's long been standard practice for admins to nuke RfAs if a candidate obviously has no chance of passing, and no one seems to bat an eye. Might as well just require all prospective candidates to pass a sanity check by getting a nomination. To me, the self-nomination option functions mainly as a trap for misguided newbies. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 08:12, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

There have been a few pure gold self-nomination RFA's, but they're rare. I still think it should be OK for a gnome type candidate to come in with a self-nomination, since they could be doing very good work behind the scenes but yet hardly know anyone. THeyd get opposes for low content creation probably, but some candidates seem to be immune to that while others get whole armies of opposes. 3¢soap3¢ 15:25, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Rare? 2 out of the last 3 successful RfAs were self noms. 1/3 of the successful RfAs this year were self noms. The last thing we want to do is shut down self nominations, that will just mean less RfAs, and we hardly have any at the minute. Worm^TT(talk) 08:01, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
We need to differentiate between the self noms by experienced editors with thousands of edits and long experience and the self noms by new editors who haven't spotted that they don't yet come close to meeting the unwritten criteria for adminship. An easy solution to that would be a rule such as if you don't have 2,000 edit and six months tenure then you can't run an RFA without a nomination from someone who meets that criteria. That would protect the newbies and not lose us any of the successful RFAs. The tricky thing is agreeing the threshold, and that some editors either don't care about biting newbies or consider that a mantrap in the nursery is a character forming experience or even evolution in action. ϢereSpielChequers 22:14, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Liz raised this on Wikipediocracy. Does anyone know the answer? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:39, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I think I have raised the issue on Wikipedia as well but it is just an observation as there are too few RfA candidates, much less female RfA candidates, to determine whether this impression is accurate. And knowing how charged the subject of gender is on Wikipedia matters, it's a question likely to bring out those with strong opinions on the matter. If there were a larger number of RfAs being held these days or a study was done that went back, say five years, the evidence would be less anecdotal. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 13:02, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I was hoping there might have been some research. I think it's something worth knowing. Oliver, do you know if this question has been addressed in any research? If not, is there a mechanism for the community to ask the WMF to find out? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:26, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

If so (and I am making no specific assertions), might it be related to the perception (right or wrong) that female editors tend to be more personal in comments in general, while some editors (male and female) appear to be in almost "robot mode" avoiding any hints of having "emotions" in their lives? Certainly a great many of the !votes did seem to invoke "personal emotions" at first glance. I had a run-in with Montanabw in the past, if I recall correctly, but manage to totally avoid having it impact my opinion of her fitness for being an admin to the best of my ability, though some (male and female) seem unwilling or unable to divorce incidents stored in their memories in order to view the RfA in a totally dispassionate manner. Collect (talk) 15:37, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

You know, there could be a correlation (though I'm not sure how it could be studied) that editors who adopt a more "conversational" tone in their contributions (both in their talk page edits and edit summaries), one which reveals their point of view, opinions, perspectives, are likely to be judged based on what these comments reveal about them as much as the content of their edits. Since granting adminship is an act of community trust, this basis for judgement could work for or against a RfA candidate.
Editors who have a more detached, businesslike approach do not reveal much about their personality or personal outlook which can influence a RfA voter so the focus might be more on their editing work than their character. The downside is that I've seen candidates who are more or less unknown and anonymous be told that the community doesn't know enough about them to trust them with the tools. I have rarely (maybe once?) seen that criticism of a female RfA candidate and that was not a typical RfA. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:22, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think there's really an answer, as someone would have to do sufficient research on the topic. Also, because "more heavily scrutinized" is a bit of a qualitative assessment, I don't know how someone could use some mathematical (or, at least, logical) method for determining this. But it would be interesting to know. Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 18:02, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Typically for social issues you wouldn't find quantitative units of measurement for comparison. Anyone conducting any sort of research on the matter would essentially need to do a public opinion poll on the matter. Mkdw^talk 18:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I wonder if one could quantify the relative usage of "code words" such as "temperamental" or "emotional" in RfAs? Although, just guessing, I suspect that it would not turn out to be as blatant as that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:17, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I think doing studies or releasing "findings" of that nature would affect public opinion but to use that to prove any sort of definitive theory, especially from an academic perspective, would be difficult because of barriers and variables involved. The largest problem we have is that the sample size is way too small. Unless there were hundred's of RFAs by female editors to parse, I would attribute the majority of RFA outcomes to the uniqueness of the candidates running (male or female). Mkdw^talk 18:37, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I have noticed this, Tryptofish, in discussions on article talk pages and noticeboards. Take note of who uses terms like "illogical", "unreasonable", "emotional" to describe another editor they believe reacts rather than thinks through their edits carefully. An interesting observation I've made is that sometimes editors who call others unreasonable and emotional are acting out of anger and are hostile even if their language is superficially polite. Retaliation, especially on a volunteer, collaborative project is far from reasonable behavior. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 14:37, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I think that all of those points, from both of you, make good sense. I rather doubt that one could find unambiguous evidence of gender problems in RfA, although one could very possibly find ambiguous evidence. I agree with Liz that the problems are more noticeable elsewhere on-Wiki, and that it's desirable that the community increase the inclusiveness in the editing culture. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

There are simply too many variables to perform any valid research on this topic. Like Johanna said, "more heavily scrutinized" is too broad a term. Are we counting scrutinization by byte count? Do we just count oppose !votes? Do we count 'crat chats? Do we count the talk pages? How exact do we weigh scrutiny? If you are asking for a flat mathematical comparison that is not hard to do. I could throw together a simple script that goes through past RfAs and pulls byte data. If you are asking for more of a psychological examination that would be far more difficult to put together. There is the potential to perform a study but there has to be a much more concrete question being asked. --Stabila711 (talk) 18:19, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree. Per Tryptofish, although code words are a good idea, it still doesn't give any sense about the context of the word's usage. It might have nothing to do with the participant's personality but rather some something else. A study done by any one person would most likely represent some sort of bias, especially given the lack of ability to provide some sort of logical proof. Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 18:43, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the level of scrutiny people get over their personalities has far more to do with what type of personality they have than what type of gender. HighInBC ^{(was Chillum)} 15:33, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with HighInBC (to a point). Montana had extra scrutiny because her personality has rubbed people the wrong way over a long period. The majority of Liz's scrutiny was due to her lack of content work. Neither are related to gender unless you start from a position women are more likely to be abrasive and do less content work. Which would be ridiculous. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:36, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Wiki: Requests for adminship/MelanieN was pretty low on drama, from what I recall. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:54, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Well exactly, and that was because Melanie had little/no contentious issues to warrent scrutiny. Those small bits of drama were due to highly specific complaints by single editors, as opposed to the more significant complaints that affected lots of editors that Liz and Montana had to deal with. I had a brief look at other (obviously) female candidates in the archives and any wider/deeper/more discussion was usually due to a significant issue rather than anything remotely gender related. However this was also the case for the male editors, those that had significant opposing arguments tended to attract a deeper look at the candidate - mostly because people feel the need at RFA to defend their candidate and argue oppose votes. If anything, there is a greater argument that scrutiny is related to the strident-ness of 'support' voters in their badgering of opposes than gender. Those candidates with strong support get stronger counter-opposes. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:22, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
That's a good point. It seems to have more to do with editors who have had major contentions in the past rather than gender. I've certainly thought more about and seen discussion about the personalities of male RfA candidates if they've had an ArbCom case, a shaky block record, etc. Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 17:28, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
This is entirely my personal opinion, but I would probably disqualify MelanieN as a comparison case (if left to me). MelanieN has a very good reputation on this project and has a well above average resume of accomplishments and involvement in several key areas of the project. If someone asked me to provide a list of editors who represent "typical" editors, it would be people like MelanieN, Yunshui, and Doc James that I would intentionally exclude and for very good reason. This is not to say they're without fault, but they're clearly not typical editors. Therefore, I would only include MelanieN in a comparison of other female RFA candidates who share the same level of reputation and involvement in the project rather than with every female RFA candidate. Again, it's the problem with there being so many variables and too few case studies to see a trend that can handle a number of outlying cases without greatly affecting the final result. Mkdw^talk 18:50, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
That approach is basically how gender-warriors get results that support their (foregone) conclusions. By eliminating statistics that provide alternative possible causes, the gender-warrior ends up with 'well it must be because of their sex', as opposed to in (this case) a collaborative environment 'its because they have conflict with people'. Melanie had a low-contentious RFA like every other low-contentious RFA because she is a low-impact editor who collaborates well with others. Taking Opabinia's points below. 1)correct, low controversy cases are the same regardless of gender because the editors are *low controversy*. 2)Not well expressed - as a base number male contentious RFA candidates will outnumber the female. As a % of the RFA gender candidates, due to the significant gender imbalance its likely the % is higher for female RFA candidates, however that is because RFA has become (in the last few years) more combative, and female editors have only significantly increased in the same period. So any % is going to be wildly off just because of the basic imbalance of male-female editors over time. 3)Na. Analysing the text in high-controversy cases will only net you the reasons people object over time and plenty of people have already done that. Its not gender-related, its due to the actions of admins (and arbcom) and what the editing community expect from their admins. Finally the 'people cant help treating men and women differently' is a typical gender-warriors argument - 'It doesnt matter what you think you will treat people differently anyway so there'. On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:52, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Someone who knows what they're doing with sentiment analysis should take a look at this. I'd predict that:

• Low-participation/low-controversy cases look pretty much the same for male, female, and unspecified-gender candidates.
• High-controversy cases are more likely to involve candidates of specified gender.
• Analyzing the text posted in high-controversy cases is highly predictive of whether the candidate is male or female.

Even people who think they're being "totally dispassionate" usually can't help it; people do use different descriptors for men and women, and evaluate them based on different criteria, without any intention to do so or awareness that they're doing it. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd support this. Any editor doing a master's thesis in conversation analysis? Networking theory might also play a role, what sociologists call "social ties" but the factor that causes some people to say that the RfA is a popularity contest. I bet there is an WMF grant that would support that research (like an IEG grant). Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:05, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
There is already several analyses of RFA from a network social analysis perspective; see Google. I'm not sure how much of that is fluff but a few at least probably are not. --Izno (talk) 03:51, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

A quick overview since Jan 2014

Since Jan 2014 (obvious or self-identified) female RFAs and any discussion points.
Liz - Lack of content editing
Opabinia - non-contentious
Melanie - non-contentious
Sarahj - non-contentious
Anne Delong - non-contentious
Cindamuse - non-contentious for the most part - interestingly only gender based objection was from another female.

Unsuccessful
Montana - Interpersonal skills
Solarra - Questions about judgement on CSD/Delation, with opposers stating needs more experience and would support next time.

So from this we have: of the 8 clearly female RFA's in the last couple of years 75% have passed. 37.5% faced increased scrutiny/discussion, and only 12.5% (one incident!) had any reference to gender which was by another female editor and which was successful anyway! Solarra would be highly likely to pass her next RFA given the comments.

32 Successful male (or not-obvious which gender) RFA's Of which those with increased scrutiny:
Cyphoidbomb - concerns with content
Sarekofvulcan - Interpersonal skills
Northamerica1000 - content
Jackmcbarn - questions about IP editing
String theory - AFD judgement
Deor - no one specific sticking point
Hahc21 - Judgement/interpersonal skills

Roughly 70 unsuccessful male (or not-obvious which gender) RFA's, too many different reasons to list individually, none gender-related that I can see and a significant number of them withdrawn. Of the unsuccessfuls roughly 25 had deeper discussion.

So roughly 30% pass rate for male/not-obvious gender candidates, of all the RFA's roughly 31% had increased scrutiny. No gender concerns.

So from a quick 30 min overview of the RFA's since Jan 2014, there are a couple of easy conclusions.

Firstly, you are more likely to pass RFA if you openly identify as female.
Secondly, there is no real difference in the amount of scrutiny male/female editors receive. If anything it is biased in favour of female editors as male editors have a much higher chance of being opposed, which leads to greater discussion/scrutiny.
Thirdly, the only overtly gender-related argument was to a female candidate from another female editor, confirming what modern men know all along, the only enemy of women is other women.

Its pretty clear that gender has almost zero impact on the reasons why editors face increased scrutiny, but that being female would probably help your chances of a successful RFA overall. There could be any number of reasons for this, pro-female bias from other editors, female interpersonal skills being generally better than mens in a collaborative environment (where men prefer a more aggressive leadership role) etc etc

Interestingly the reasons for objections are fairly static and consistent across both genders. Judgement at noticeboards (policy knowledge), Interpersonal skills (conflicts with other editors), Content work (not enough, or the 'wrong sort').

(The reason I have lumped 'non obvious' genders in with males is because if its not obvious or even hinted at, it has no impact on the discussion, and the gendergap findings would indicate that they are highly likely to be male anyway)

Thank you and goodnight! Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:29, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I think the picture is more complex than that, especially when you look at how qualified people were when they first ran - men are much more likely than women to apply for adminship without having checked the process thoroughly and realised they don't come close to having a chance of passing. In other words being female may or may not increase your chances of passing, but it certainly protects you from the overconfidence of starting an RFA that won't get 50%.
Being female, and especially editing under a female name probably does brings extra voters. Of the dozen RFAs with 200 or more supports, only a third were women, but that's a lot more than the proportion of women in the community. More importantly five of the eight men in the WP:200 did so on their second or third RFA (often a sign of a controversial candidacy), of the seven RFAs with more 200 or more supports on people's first run, four were women. ϢereSpielChequers 10:04, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Well I was only taking a brief look. It is Saturday morning after all ;). Still, if I wanted to pass RFA the things I would do in order would be 1. Declare femininity, 2. Make sure editing history includes a mixture of work at various noticeboards (AFD being a popular one) and content work in 'good' (non trivial) areas, 3. Dont get into disputes with people - to the extent of backing off even if in the wrong if they other person wont back down. 4.Collect hat. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:14, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

The questions asked to Liz by Hawkeye7 about Jimmy Wales cannedd..... was not a proper question to ask. I was surprised why most Administrators digested the question as okay. It was purely harassment by gaming the system. By the way montanabw was not highly scrutinized. 112.79.35.136 (talk) 10:12, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Whether or not you personally scrutinised her highly, lightly, or not at all, is something only you can know, just as none of really know how much scrutiny others have done of a candidate. There are indicators, including number of participants, number of diffs and kbs of discussion and most of them indicate that it was a heavily scrutinised RFA. OK there were some editors who admitted only looking at stats and not actually checking the candidate's edits, and back in the days when we used to have multiple concurrent RFAs you did sometimes spot people voting in RFAs only a few minutes apart. But in my experience most voters take RFA seriously. Though I do wonder how much scrutiny anyone has done who votes in the first minutes of an RFA. I can think of an RFA a few years ago where nobody had pointed out during the RFA that the candidate was contributing lots of work with overly close paraphrasing, other than that I struggle to think of admins where we looked back later and said if only someone had posted that diff in the RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 09:41, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
For simplicity sake I generally went with a definition of scrutiny as 'have significant oppose votes with well-articulated reasons' which were almost all (Liz being the exception amongst the women) unsuccessful. While some non-contentious successful RFA's clearly had extra attention (scrutiny) paid to them, they didnt have to. They would have passed if people had just voted 'Support' with no comment. Personally I find the contentious successful male RFA's (listed above) to be the more interesting, if only because thats where you see the sides being picked, the lines drawn etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:37, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Only in death does duty end, you are not taking one factor into consideration. Although I had often thought about trying an RfA, I only seriously considered it and prepared for it when I had three strong nominators who contacted me about launching an RfA. I never would have self-nominated.
I think there is good data about this in the workplace but men are much more likely to seek promotions and advancement than women. It's about risk-taking and being willing to open yourself to scrutiny and judgment. What really helps women advance are having mentors, in the case of Wikipedia, having current admins who encourage an editor that they have the necessary skills and temperament to try being an admin. It makes an enormous difference.
So, while it might seem that women are more likely to pass an RfA than men, it's a self-selected group, I think most women wouldn't try an RfA unless they were reasonably sure they were going to pass. I think if you look at most WP:SNOW or WP:NOTNOW closures for the past few years, you'll see almost all, if not all, of the candidates were male. Fewer women try to become an admin, so fewer of them have unsuccessful RfAs.
But since you are reviewing RfAs for the recent past, I'd be interested if you saw other RfAs as contentious as mine and Montanabw's. And I would measure contentious by going into Page Information and looking at the Page length (in bytes) for the main RfA page AND the RfA talk page combined. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:02, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

There are lots of active administrators who doesn't do any administrative work.

If we put too much pressure on content creation, FA/GA during RFAs; then we won't get administrators as NeilN. Every article related to History, Science, Astronomy, Classic movies, Classic Literature and Geography are already created. We have to look at the mainspace edits which are not semi-automated using any Twinkle, Huggle type tools. If mainspace edits are above 10,000 minus twinkle, huggle, Stiki... edits, then no question should be raised about article creation. Article development is more important than stub article creation. Clean block is very necessary.

Those who are successful volunteers in WP:DRN, has a clean block log; those who correctly tag new pages for speedy deletion, catch sockpuppets and report them at WP:SPI, those who vote properly during WP:AFDs and WP:RFDs, has good knowledge of English language, follows WP:NPOV, reports vandals and trolls to WP:AIV/WP:ANI, follows WP:CIVIL, makes correct report at WP:RPP, doesn't do any canvassing, has 10,000+ non-automated main space edits and the account is minimum 3 years old: they should not face oppose votes for lack of FA/GA and article creation. 112.79.35.136 (talk) 10:46, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the view that all notable articles have been created. I'm also unsure why article creation should be the metric of choice - we have many articles that are in very poor state, some even degrading over time as a result of well-intentioned but poorly informed edits. Also, tagging is one of the worst crimes currently sanctioned by the community in my opinion. Other than {{cn}}, I can't think of any tags that should ever take precedence over actually fixing the problem, and the only reason I'm allowing that exception is because I realise that people don't always have access to the required sources to substantiate a claim. If you have access to sources, you should use them.
The reason, if it needs re-iterating again, why content experience is important in an admin, is that they have to be able to empathise with the passion that editors feel about their subject and how this can boil over into conflict. If we block misbehaving people willy-nilly, we'll soon be out of anybody that knows anything. Obviously, if you think that we're just tending the ashes, then that doesn't matter, but if that's our view, we should fully page-protect every article, and we won't need any new admins. Regards, Samsara 12:30, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
The IP OP mentions a lot of things, but is right in saying people should look beyond the easily-found created articles, GAs and FAs. While it is absolutely critical for an admin to have the relevant empathy with other editors, GAs and FAs (etc) are not the only indicators. General experience in the relevant admin areas, including interaction with other editors, is probably more important than writing engaging or brilliant (or lots of) prose. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:01, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Article creation is of course important, but so are all the other steps in making an article good. I often suspect that article creation is the metric of choice because it is easy to measure. When contributions require a bit of work to dig up they are less likely to be considered by those who want to make a quick decision. HighInBC ^{(was Chillum)} 16:26, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I know there is an opposition group to this view, but I would like the edits of a candidate to be looked at as a whole and not a percentage. Providing rationales like user talk is their second most edited space, or only 30% of their edits are article related, really only tells us what they do with their time when not writing articles. If someone has 10,000 article space edits, it's a body of work, and we should look at the quality of their edits. It seems irrational, to me, that some would pass someone with 10,000 article space edits if that represents 50% of their overall edits, yet would want to oppose someone if the same 10,000 article space edits present 30% of their overall edits -- even if they had identical contributions in quality and numbers. Candidates should only be opposed if their work in non-article space areas raise concerns, not whether how much of their personal time is spent there opposed to "writing". Content creation is certainly a good thing to have, but it's not being proven or disproven by looking at the ratios of their edits. Mkdw^talk 20:10, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I find these number/percentage based arguments deeply worrisome. It's easy to miss problematic patterns in editor behaviour if you look only at numbers, or vice versa read implications into a given percentage/number that are wholly imaginary.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:28, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Just want to point out here that Samsara's post above is by far the smartest thing said on this page, and is probably really the only thing here worth reading. Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:26, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Opabinia regalis No disrespect, but have you seen Samsara blocking confirmed socks in SPI, Protecting pages in WP:RPP, Blocking users in WP:AIV, reviewing unblock request, taking part in ANI_______ WehWalt, Samsara,Shyamal and 200+ administrators have zero interest in vandals and trolls. If Materialscientist,Kuru, NeilN, MusicAnimal, Cambridgebayweather, Anna Frodesiak, SmallJim, Mike V becomes administrator as Samsara then there will be open season for vandalism. Of course content creators and FA/GA creators should be administrators, but lack of FA/GAs should not be a reason for oppose in RFAs if the user has 10,000+ non-automated mainspace edits. Few months ago i reported a vandal to a content creating administrator; he ignored my post and went on making other edits. I reported the same user to Materialscientist-who blocked the user. Content creation don't need administrator's tools. We need knowledge for content creation. A three day old Wikipedia editor, who is a teacher or a scientist in real life can be a good content creator. 112.79.37.47 (talk) 03:40, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Well put, Samsara. Thanks for highlighting it Opabinia regalis. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:22, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• Berean Hunter had a block, I was one of the noms for his RfA. He passed 160-0 if memory serves me right. I think the community is pretty forgiving when it comes to singular mistakes. It is patterns that turn into drama. As for content, I just want to see enough experience to build empathy. I never had a GA until after I got the bit, but I had done a tonne of sourcing, copy editing and cleanup. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:47, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• Bearian's 2 minute block four years before his RfA doesn't count at all. Much to the probable dismay of some of our more recent voters who have taken to systematically harassing 'short-vote' supporters and killing all the progress we made for intelligent participation, , I made one of my briefest supports there. His RfA is a classic example of just how little genuine candidates and their nominators who have both done their homework have to fear, and demonstrates quite clearly that if the the trolls would give it a rest, RfA does exactly what it says on the tin.

BTW: I just want to point out that 112.79.35.136, 112.79.37.47, 112.79.38.89 all edit from static IPs at the same street address and if the comment they left on my talk is anything to go by, they may mean well, but I don't think they are telling us anything new that we didn't already know and/or have already discounted. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:14, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Block logs

Re the "Clean block is necessary" comment above, can I ask where people generally are on that? Obviously I prefer and respect a clean block log, and I'd want a very good explanation of any block in the last twelve months, and for anything in the previous year at least an acknowledgment of why it happened and what the candidate has learned from it, but where do others stand? Would people oblige me by signing whichever of the options below is closest to their views? Appreciate that some people might not like the current cleanstart policy that it is only "strongly recommended that you inform the Arbitration Committee" before running at RFA with an undisclosed former account, but I'd like people's opinions within the policies we now have. ϢereSpielChequers 10:46, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

(1) If the blocking admin apologised for accidentally blocking you that's OK. But otherwise you need a clean block log to become an admin.

(2) Any valid block however old is at least somewhat negative, but there are many other things one should take into account at RFA and I'd support a very well qualified candidate even if they'd recently been blocked for something that wouldn't merit a desysop, such as editwarring.

1. Close enough. Any block is somewhat negative but the older it is, the less of a big deal it is. (Age of the user could also be relevant here: I would be much less likely to care about someone doing something stupid 7 years ago if they were aged 12 at the time than if they were in their 50s.) I wouldn't like supporting someone who's been blocked for 3RR or whatever recently, but it wouldn't ipso facto make me oppose. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 21:08, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
2. I probably fall in between this option and option 3. It's often a relatively minor aspect of the overall evaluation. Applying an arbitrary time frame to improvement is a bit much, but one would assume that a person seeking the mop would know better than to do so soon after a block. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 10:06, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

(3) I expect at least 12 months editing since your last block expired, and longer for badfaith stuff such as outing, vandalism or personal attacks. But if the block is so old that you could have sat it out, cleanstarted after it ended and come to RFA with a clean account then kudos for reforming.

1. ϢereSpielChequers 10:46, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
2. User:Kudpung/RfA criteria#My criteria (No.18.): A clean block log of at least 12 months, but this could be longer depending on the severity of the issue and the length of the block(s.) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:13, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
3. Sort of. I would usually expect at least a 12-month clean block log, unless the block appears trivial or invalid. (If it was overturned at ANI, or the blocking admin unblocked and apologized, I would quite probably consider it invalid.) The more serious the block was, the longer I woulds tend to hold it against the candidate. If it is at all serious, I might well expect some explanation of what happened and how the candidate has learned/matured. If the block involved things like multiple apparently intentional copyvios, outing, persistent harassment, or other de-sysop-worthy issues, I would need a good deal of convincing not to oppose, no mater how old it was. DES ^(talk) 22:49, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
4. I don't really have a "12 month minimum" requirement, but this option is the closest to my approach. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:55, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
5. Ditto that this is closest to my opinion/standard. I generally review contribs and talk page from a year before the RfA forward, discounting almost everything over a year old. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 22:47, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

(4) I expect at least 24 months editing since your last block expired, and longer for badfaith stuff such as outing, vandalism or personal attacks. But if the block is so old that you could have sat it out, cleanstarted after it ended and come to RFA with a clean account then kudos for reforming.

1. 3¢soap3¢. Note that the comment below is not a reply directly to me or to any other votes that might apppear here. 3¢soap3¢ 15:31, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Discussion
Blocked for what? Three year old block for edit warring or violating 3 revert rule is not that serious according to me. We all know that Administrators don't support the correct version during edit war. 112.79.36.194 (talk) 10:57, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
IPs can't vote, so is this post just another trolling criticism of administrators from 112.79.35.136, 112.79.37.47, 112.79.38.89, a blocked user or what? Or is life in Kolkata just too boring?Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:13, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
These IP geolocation services don't give any specific location. All IPs from West Bengal are pointed at Kolkata as the main broadband/3G connection comes from there. There are English medium schools in small towns other than Kolkata. Ips from Asansol, Siliguri, Durgapur, Jalpaiguri, Kharagpur, Haldia, Bardhaman will show as Kolkata IP. The Kolkata people get all the credit/blamed for edits from all over Cities and towns in West Bengal. --112.79.38.209 (talk) 05:21, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Except, 112.79.35.136, 112.79.37.47, 112.79.38.89, 112.79.38.209, in this case these are all the same person ;) If they were vandals we would make a rage block - end of story. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:16, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
"rage block" -- was that a Freudian slip? --Stfg (talk) 08:31, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
LOL! Freudian typo! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:34, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Personally, I do usually check the user talk page and its history instead. Blocks are typically announced there, and one can pick up warnings as well.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:15, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
None of the above. I personally don't give blocks too much negative weight, as they exist to prevent damage to the encyclopedia, not to retaliate for damage to the encyclopedia; and assess candidates with block logs by this one simple question: are they likely to repeat the disruptive behavior that caused the block? This can be proven by a successful unblock with terms and complete fulfillment of those terms for a while or simply sitting the block out and making a few thousand constructive edits. Esquivalience ^t 13:14, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
None for me, too, but somewhere around 3 and 4. I go along with IP112 in that it matters a) what the block was for, b) how long it was and c) how long ago it was. A 24 hour block for edit warring that occurred two years ago? It wouldn't faze me. A block five years ago for outing or continued harassment that lasted a year? That would cause me to oppose. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:12, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
I personally would like to think a block log shows character, and how a person learns from those blocks. Just because someone has been blocked, doesn't mean a red flag should be waved saying, "oh we have a disruptive person here, oppose". While a clean block log is good, having at least one block allows me to judge character much better. Mine in particular, containing 2 indefinites and both successfully appealed, though the second one wasn't really a notable block, and that happening several years ago shows that I am capable of acknowledging my mistakes, owning up to it, and taking measures to avoid them in the future. My 2011 block for "oversight issues", ie me cluelessly outing people, was appealed at BASC when I learned about outing and oversighting. I have haven't outed or caused problems since.—^cyberpower_{Chat:Limited Access} 03:05, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Blocks are often a very good indication of age/maturity. Children can grow up; like leopards however, older editors, particularly those who believe that they are exempt from sanctions because of their prolific editing, don't change their spots (some of those might even be in my age group, or not far off it). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:18, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
@Liz, I'm interested in the idea of opposing for something five years ago. What do you think of the argument that the same person could have cleanstarted and come to RFA with a clean block log? ϢereSpielChequers 15:38, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
WereSpielChequers, that's a tough one. I've read a lot of archived RfA and discussions about them and I'm aware of editors who came off a clean start and became admins without disclosing their previous account. I think they should disclose prior accounts but that goes against the RTV philosophy, as I understand it. I know that editors can grow from their bans and that is why I'm resisting having a hard and fast rule.
I'm beginning to think what makes RfA toxic is the informal requirement that Opposers need to justify their stance. This requirement causes them to go into detail about why they believe a candidate is unfit and then those who support the candidate argue against them and bickering ensues. I also think that a few editors simply don't believe a candidate should pass and then they look for reasons to validate their Oppose. They should be able to just vote No. I think there should be a question page, a discussion page where conversation can happen and then editors just cast a vote, like in other kinds Wikipedia elections/promotions, without threaded comments. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:55, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't know. This looks somewhat similar to the German Wikipedia system and that one does seem to have the same battleground issues if what I read there is anything to go by. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:23, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Liz, re RTV Cleanstart, there are some leopards out there who I don't believe can change their spots, and I would be pleasantly surprised if not stunned if they turned over a new leaf and edited less contentiously for a couple of years. Given the circumstances "strongly encouraged to inform arbcom" is the least worst scenario available to us, and if we ever had an RFA where the majority of Arbs opposed "per off wiki correspondence with the candidate" I rather feel that the community would take the hint. As to opposers having to supply or endorse a rationale; I can see where you are coming from but I disagree on a couple of fronts. Firstly to me RFA is more an exam than an election, and candidates need feedback so they have a better chance to pass next time. Secondly we have very few RFA !voters who actually take the time to assess candidates properly by looking at the edits they've contributed; but RFA has a role in stopping the wrong candidates getting through, and a well researched and diff supported oppose demonstrating that the candidate has a pattern of recent mistakes that indicate they should not be an admin is still the most important way to avoid appointing the wrong people. I don't want such opposes buried on a discussion page. Thirdly requiring a rationale and having plenty of examples of people saying "I've checked x and Y", or "despite z I think the candidate is not yet experienced at W" is a way of leading by example, and should encourage !voters to take some time to properly assess a candidate. Fourthly and the flip side of people not properly researching candidates, we do get some truly rubbish opposes. We need the rationales so others can say "yes they created that article and it was nominated for deletion in the last two months, but they created it eight years ago and haven't edited it for six years, what is the possible relevance to this RFA?". Fifthly, to me much of the argument about oppose rationales is not about whether the candidate meets the RFA criteria, instead its about what that criteria should be. I see the lack of an agreed RFA criteria as the root of the RFA problem, and turning the whole thing into an explicit vote as a way of concealing the problem rather than trying to fix it. ϢereSpielChequers 09:19, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
I think it's absolutely essential that oppose votes should be backed by objective rationale, and as politely expressed as possible. It is possible to do. To avoid the bickering and objections raised by supporters, a clerk of some kind should certainly disallow any vote that is of a blatantly impolite or humiliating nature or is found to be based on long expired stuff, lies, innuendo, vengeance, or material delberately taken out of context (we had examples of all of those here). A lot of these trollish votes come from a number of editors who do little else on Wikipedi but turn up to oppose on all RfA. If what they are trying to do is express their disenchantment for our system of management by administrators, then they are doing themselves the greatest disfavour and simply admitting to their gross lack of intelligence. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:52, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
Clerking in RFAs is essential, though only needed in a small minority of RFAs. In a recent RFA we had people saying they'd strike stuff and instead removing it completely, thereby leaving other people's comments disconnected from the issues they'd rebutted and looking like bizarre off topic responses to the previous !vote. More importantly we also had editors post unevidenced personal attacks that anywhere else on wiki could have earned them a well justified indef block. At the very least we need a clerk who can go to someone's talkpage and say "I've redacted this vote, feel free to reinstate it with diffs to support your allegation". ϢereSpielChequers 10:07, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
From what I've observed, it is really easy for editors who are pointing out negative aspects of a candidate's editing history to cross over into personal attack territory, especially when what is being discussed are not judgment calls (incorrect editing decisions) but the character issues (whether a candidate is trustworthy). Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:18, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure where this notion that WP:RTV has something to do with clean start -- (I've seen in a few places recently) -- RTV is explicitly not clean start. If an editor wishes to RTV they should be expected to vanish NE Ent 10:22, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
This is because in practice, people who RTV often come back and post-invoke clean start. (It doesnt work, their vanished user gets reverted.) The expectation is that RTV editors disappear and do not return. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:42, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
I think from the context Liz probably meant Cleanstart and I've struck and clarified that part of my comment. Yes the two get confused and should not be. The real difference is not that great, but they are different. ϢereSpielChequers 16:30, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Clerking, if done at all, WSC, needs to be done systematically untill the voters get the message, potty train themselves, or find a new hobby. Xeno and Worm have stepped in occasionally but recent discussions in various places have revealed that the 'crats have generally rejected any notion that RfA should encompass any tasks for them beyond closures and the occasional 'crat chat. A new intake of 'crats may accept a widening of the 'crat mandate but with so little for 'crats to do, the interest in running at RfB appears to be at its lowest ebb ever - Catch 22...
We made an effort at WP:RFA2011 to interest the community in the idea of clerking, but as Swarm recently reminded us, the RfA trolls and anti-admin brigade put paid to that project. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
Kudpung, could you check your last couple of posts and see if the way you are describing the electorate is really advancing the discussion? Remember, the key words in Dick Tuck's "The people have spoken, the bastards" is "the people".--Wehwalt (talk) 15:05, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
I've checked the grammar and I can't find any glaring errors. I checked back again over a few RfAs and I found a lot of voters who express themselves nicely even if they are opposin; I found a few trolls, some editors who obviously have an axe to grind at admins in general and don't miss an opportunity to take a swipe at them, and add to that some socks and some unfortunate individuals who just don't appear to know what RfA is all about. I also found a lawyer or two but I didn't find any bastards. Thank you so much for your continued concern over the quality of voting at RfA. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:49, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
You are correct, NE Ent, a RTV editor states they are not returning to edit Wikipedia while a clean start is an editor wishing to start over again with a new account. I do think that a few editors invoking RTV do end up returning eventually but that's just an impression from reading noticeboard archives...it's impossible to know how exceptional these cases were. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:18, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I pay very little attention to the block log alone, without actually looking at the situation, because there are plenty of blocks where no one apologized while the block was counterproductive (from the point of view of an encyclopedia). There are also a number of detrimental blocks where not only did no one apologize, but no admin unblocked, because they missed the kerfuffle, because they didn't think it was worth it, because they were wary of being accused of wheel warring, ...
It's just another one of those many binary knock-out criteria (compare with number of edits, self-nomination, multi-editor nomination, presence at a certain WP board, hit/miss ratio in AFDs etc.) which make it easier for a participant to process an RFA and come up with a !vote (particularly an opposing one), but it says nothing about the quality of the decision. Some editors who have done or are doing outstanding work qua adminship have been blocked, and some editors with little to show (myself included) have clean block logs. Everyone gets to conduct their evaluation according to their own standards. I just hope none of these individual knock-out criteria ever become general. That would be a shame. (I even once voted for sysoping someone with less than 100 edits on en.wikipedia (and he passed)). ---Sluzzelin talk 18:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

"a clerk of some kind should certainly disallow any vote that is of a blatantly impolite or humiliating nature or is found to be based on long expired stuff, lies, innuendo, vengeance, or material delberately taken out of context." – Kudpung. We already have such clerks: they are called bureaucrats. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:40, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, Axl, but they are not, and they don't. Please follow the discussions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:43, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Sorry I sounded a bit blunt above. It's actually been hotly debated for several months in a multitude of venues. Worm That Turned and Xeno have made some very rare bits of clerking recently but it's nothing systematic. Here's one of the many on the topic:...many bureaucrats are steadfastly opposed to any additional tasks to their now very comfortable mandate; in fact many of them hardy ever log in, let alone edit anything. Understandable really, because the vast majority of them have been around for well over 10 years and it's quite natural that some users will have lost interest in working on Wikipedia over such a long time. What we need is a new influx of keen, enthusiastic nerw 'crats, but how do we encoiurage people to step forward? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:54, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
[Ack, edit conflict] "they are not." Well, they are not called clerks. A rose by any other name.... "they don't." Indeed they don't. However they have the endorsement of the community to do so if they wished. If you want to see them use that power, you should approach them. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:01, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Following on from your clarification, I suppose that a cleaner solution for you would be to have bureaucrats who are prepared to undertake these activities. If the current cohort are reluctant to do this, perhaps there should be appointments of new 'crats who would. As bureaucrats already have this power, I see no need to create a new class for this purpose. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Hold on a moment. You're looking for a group of people to "disallow" votes? As a crat, I already weigh votes at the end of an RfA, but you believe that someone should come in and decide during the RfA, what is or isn't a "good" vote? Fundamentally, I'm against that, without a strong consensus that it's the right way to go. I'm not happy with someone vetoing votes during the RfA, and I'd really like to hear some examples of votes that should be vetoed.
  The only example I can think of is "votes that are unrelated to the candidate" (eg "we have too many admins"). But rude, or impolite votes should not be disallowed, nor should votes on expired stuff, unless we fundamentally redesign RfA. Where do you draw the line between lies and opinion? Vengeance and opposition?
  What I'd like to see is a system to deal with such votes. Perhaps that they get flagged as "contested" and are temporarily blanked (but remain in place) until either the voter addresses the issue, or a crat rules on it? Would need to make up a template. Worm^TT(talk) 12:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• And even if it was a good idea, I don't think the community has actually handed bureaucrats a mandate to be moderators of ongoing RFAs. See comments here. Unless there is a clear consensus that bureaucrats have this mandate, any 'crat who steps in to delete or comment on votes is at risk of being seen as Involved. –xeno^talk 13:16, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• As I've advocated, I think there is a consensus for having one uninvolved, non-voting Crat who isn't closing that particular RfA to clerk the RfA, which would rotate through the Crats like closing. Moving threads, hatting at needed. Not removing votes (unless NPA/sock/obvious troll/indent IP), just clerking without regard to each opinion, based on policy for any public discussion. Then let the closing Crat do the weighing. I've tried to do this a couple years ago as admin, and it backfired. Only the Crats can do this and since RFA is their domain, simple clerking seems to be well within the scope of responsibility. Really, if a Crat would do it, and we didn't let anyone else do it, things would run more smoothly. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:28, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Yes, lies, blatant vengeance, diffs taken deliberately out of context to discredit the candidate. Lies are easily exposed, for example, but it just needs someone to do it. What we need to take into account Worm, is that such votes cause pile-ons. Even if the original voter can be persuaded to retract, the piler-ons never come back and retract theirs and their votes are counted as legitimate parts of the tally.

Unless we introduce some rules for voters such as they have on all the other Wikipedias, the only solution is systematic checking (even CU if need be) for veracity on all oppose votes by users that arouse doubts about their integrity - taking RfA as a whole, that's actually quite a few. Nearly every RfA has at least one sock in the drawer, for example. Let's not take my comments out of context with someone should come in and decide during the RfA, what is or isn't a "good" vote - what we're talking about is 'reasonable' vs downright obnoxious and disingenuous. Start a systematic clean up of RfA like that for long enough and we'll soon have the place squeaky clean. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Dennis, with the exception of some very rare and recent efforts by Worm and Xeno, the 'crats have pretty clearly given us to understand that they are not prepared to extend their mandate beyond closing RfA and the occasional 'crat chat. The consensus you mention was weak and it came from the non-'crat community, but they can't force the crats to do anything they don't want to. One crat said he'd retire before he were pressured into more activity. What we need is a new influx of dynamic 'crats who are not afraid of a tiny bit of extra work and a challenge to do something for RfA that has been all but wrecked over the years by the permissive attitude that it's one place where editors - even admins - can be as downright nasty and silly as they like with total impunity. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:48, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
I'd say that's generally unfair Kudpung. The 'crats appear to have been rather engaged on the subject of RfA reform over the past few months, and given a clear community consensus, I am sure they'd step up. Worm^TT(talk) 14:09, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps we've not been looking at all the same discussions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:17, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
No admin or crat can be compelled to do anything at all. If they don't want to, fine. If we don't have enough Crats to do the job, more can run. We are talking pretty basic clerking here, one person, some RfAs wouldn't need anything, so I think that most would be fine with that. To me, that is within the boundaries of the job and it doesn't require policy change. They decide RfA, to say they can't clerk it would be crazy. If they can't clerk it now, then the inmates are truly in control of the asylum. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:49, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Back to what constitutes good vs bad votes, I'd like to get some opinions on this:

(Candidate is Australian and lives and works as an expat in Nepal. Based on a true vote)
Oppose - His situation in Nepal but writing about Australia indicates to me that he'll have a tendency to uphold systemic bias
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:24, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
It's one of these "house of cards" arguments that are based on unreliable inference and are non-germane to the RfA process anyway since fixing systemic bias is not a sysop's job. I suspect it would be contested in a RfA anyway.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:29, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
In this thread that started as a question of whether year-old blocks should matter, let's discuss a (variation on a) neutral vote from 2011? Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:31, 1 October 2015 (UTC)