Wikipedia:RfA reform 2011/Coordination redirects here. This talk page exists to give the coordinators of this project (and anyone else) a centralized forum for discussing project coordination-related matters only |
I'm thinking of sending this (see below) out now that we're getting somewhere. The distribution list includes task force members and everyone who has contributed to the project's talk pages:
RfA reform: Progress, and what you can do now.
|
---|
(You are receiving this message because you are either a task force member, or you have contributed to recent discussions on any of these pages.) The number of nominations continues to nosedive seriously, according to these monthly figures. We know why this is, and if the trend continues our reserve of active admins will soon be underwater. Wikipedia now needs suitable editors to come forward. This can only be achieved either through changes to the current system, a radical alternative, or by fiat from elsewhere. A lot of work is constantly being done behind the scenes by the coordinators and task force members, such as monitoring the talk pages, discussing new ideas, organising the project pages, researching statistics and keeping them up to date. You'll also see for example that we have recently made tables to compare how other Wikipedias choose their sysops, and some tools have been developed to more closely examine !voters' habits. The purpose of WP:RFA2011 is to focus attention on specific issues of our admin selection process and to develop RfC proposals for solutions to improve them. For this, we have organised the project into dedicated sections each with their own discussion pages. It is important to understand that all Wikipedia policy changes take a long time to implement whether or not the discussions appear to be active - getting the proposals right before offering them for discussion by the broader community is crucial to the success of any RfC. Consider keeping the pages and their talk pages on your watchlist; do check out older threads before starting a new one on topics that have been discussed already, and if you start a new thread, please revisit it regularly to follow up on new comments. The object of WP:RFA2011 is not to make it either easier or harder to become an admin - those criteria are set by those who !vote at each RfA. By providing a unique venue for developing ideas for change independent of the general discussion at WT:RFA, the project has two clearly defined goals:
The fastest way is through improvement to the current system. Workspace is however also available within the project pages to suggest and discuss ideas that are not strictly within the remit of this project. Users are invited to make use of these pages where they will offer maximum exposure to the broader community, rather than individual projects in user space. We already know what's wrong with RfA - let's not clutter the project with perennial chat. RFA2011 is now ready to propose some of the elements of reform, and all the task force needs to do now is to pre-draft those proposals in the project's workspace, agree on the wording, and then offer them for central discussion where the entire Wikipedia community will be more than welcome to express their opinions in order to build consensus. New tool Check your RfA !voting history! Since the editors' RfA !vote counter at X!-Tools has been down for a long while, we now have a new RfA Vote Counter to replace it. A significant improvement on the former tool, it provides a a complete breakdown of an editor's RfA votes, together with an analysis of the participant's voting pattern. Are you ready to help? Although the main engine of RFA2011 is its task force, constructive comments from any editors are always welcome on the project's various talk pages. The main reasons why WT:RfA was never successful in getting anything done are that threads on different aspects of RfA are all mixed together, and are then archived where nobody remembers them and where they are hard to find - the same is true of ad hoc threads on the founder's talk page. |
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:46, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Message bot is a bit slow. It's probaby an exception - maybe the bot handler was on vacation, but it's worth bearing in mind. The message has produced some trolling which has been deleted, and a characteristic comment by one user who does exactly what the message asks editors not to. The message has also produced an interesting new task force member. Things seem to be slow again at the moment, but RfA is extremely slow at the moment, in fact it's the worst it's ever been and it's almost ground to a standstill., and so has WT:RfA. I was probably wrong a few weeks ago when I suggested that drama mongering on RfA had taken a break though - there's a new kid on the block who has been warned by many editors that his question and voting are inappropriate. There is probably nothing to be gained by releasing an RfC for the minimum qualification at the moment - the best time to get max participation is when RfA is very active, and if possible, highly controversial. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 05:06, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I think it's probably time to reopen our discussion about the value of keeping Keepscases' name on the task force list. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:20, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
-- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
We've known how Jimbo feels personally for a long time, although he's never technically endorsed our particular project.
As you guys (probably should) know, Philippe has recently made it clear that not only is the WMF supportive of our efforts (i.e. this project), but they're actually willing to allocate working hours to support us where they can. I'm sure you'll all agree that this is hugely significant, and that we should fully utilize the support that's being offered here. So let's try to answer Philippe's question: how can the WMF help? While this doesn't mean the board will suddenly implement all of our proposals, it definitely opens new doors for us and I think we should discuss what to ask of the Foundation. So, thoughts? Swarm 21:20, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
That's basically what I meant. We could begin with the Clerks proposal, since that's already quite advanced. — Oli OR Pyfan! 06:58, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm just going to point this out because I wouldn't be surprised if our members don't realize this, and I think this data should be included in our next newsletter/announcement.
August 2011 saw the lowest number of unsuccessful candidacies (4) since August 2004. Last month, September, saw the lowest number of unsuccessful candidacies (1) since we began recording them (in April 2004). As of now, we're two weeks into October and there's only been one unsuccessful RfA so far. One current one is quickly approaching a successful closure, and the other current one (which incidentally happens to be mine ;P) is looking good so far (fingers crossed).
August 2011 saw only one promotion, a low that has only been reached one other time in RfA history ( December 2010). Also, the number of candidacies in general is reaching a near all time low. August and September saw only 5 RfAs in total, apparently the lowest level since February 2003.
Hopefully the former is indicative of a pattern while the latter is simply an outlier; only time will tell, though. Swarm 08:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Unbundling sometimes gets brought up on this project. Just in case anyone is arguing for the right to view deleted pages, refer them to this: (
WP:PEREN) - both the current and former Wikimedia legal counsel are on record as opposing these proposals due to legal concerns (see
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Persistent proposals/Straw poll for view-deleted. Another new proposal for it at the VP was closed today as inoperable.
--
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (
talk)
05:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 06:14, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Phillipe has asked someone at the WMF to make a logarithmic line graph prognosis for us. I'll give her a ping and see how she's getting on with it. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 05:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure if it is within the mandate of this project, but perhaps there is something we can do to combat this dearth. Based on WereSpielChequers' August 2010 Signpost article, I'm considering writing a new one, but I would prefer to have some help with it. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 10:07, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
An interesting theory. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 09:55, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
It's possible that my RfA criteria page is among the most visited (1,531 hits, 80 backlinks). Anyone else who has a stats page might like to do the same exercise.
Wikipedia:Advice for RfA candidates
Wikipedia:Request an RfA nomination
-- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 03:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Page views Jan 2010 - Oct 2011 of
Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship.
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (
talk)
05:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Is anyone aware that someone went ahead and took the liberty of starting an RfC on the clerks proposal? Yawn. Swarm X11|11|11 13:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Worm and I had a very long conversation last night on possible approacahes to RfA reform and and the worsening drought of noms. We need to get together on this and perhaps temporarily change our focus, but we need to do this with as little background noise as possible to avoid the intermittent trolling on this project. We need to reinforce the notion that task force is for experienced users, and after having slept on the discussion with Worm, I have come up with a unique idea that might just put an end to the trolling on RfA. Some people don't like the use of off-Wiki communications. I particularly dislike the Wiki IRC channels and avoid them like the plague, but recent Skype conferences I have had on various projects have convinced me that it's an excellent way to get some honest work done without the background noise. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:38, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
I've been considering how one could best use the WMF's offer of help, and I think that one useful area would be to get some research commissioned. One of the problems I've had in convincing people that we have a problem is that while I can measure how many active editors we have who have the admin bit, that includes editors who edit regularly but only use the admin tools once in a blue moon. It would be useful to know how many active admins we have and the hours of the day or week when we are thinnest on the ground. In particular the gaps at AIV are apocryphal, measuring them and the trend for the last few years would either confirm that we have a problem in ways that no reasonable person could deny, or reassure us that we had more of a safety margin than we thought. Some of our differences at RFA are rooted in genuine disagreements as to the facts of the situation, getting an independent professional researcher to settle those issues would I believe make it easier to get agreement as to how things should change. Ϣere SpielChequers 14:01, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Conclusions we can draw from empirical study are:
Stats show that we fare very badly compared with other Wikis. Every en.Wiki admin has to cope with far more articles and far more editors than for example the German Wiki. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 16:44, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Not a lot here [1] that we didn't already know, but it's incredibly vindicating to hear it right from the mouth of a recent RfA candidate. If any of you haven't read it yet, by all means do. "My first ten "Oppose" votes were from editors with a combined 26 blocks." is something I find incredibly telling about our current system's flaws. Trusilver 19:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
At User:Moe Epsilon/RFA. I can't understand why he declined to do it with the support of this project, but I sincerely wish him luck with this. It's nothing that we haven't suggested here already, and it's probably one of the perens, but it will be interesting to see the community's response. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 12:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
I know we agreed that the climate is not right yet to launch any proposals for change, but since then we've suddenly had a couple of highly contentious RfAs that have embodied all the elements that have contributed to turning the process into a snake pit. There's been an AN/I about one voter that ended without consensus (or was closed before one could be reached), and which is now continued at RfC/U. Looking back over much older RfAs than I have in the past, I've noticed that sanctioning voters has not been altogether uncommon. I also think that Steve's RfA whether we have supported or opposed it, is getting out of hand and that at least one voter has probably said more than enough to support their vote but won't let up. I think we should make some serious moves now to coordinate the task force into some action on the voting issues, and do something to get some more nominations. I have come up with this idea but I'm not going to make any unilateral decision on it: We send a message to all the good admins and users we know who have not voted for a while but generally demonstrated clean, intelligent voting whether they support or oppose: Hi {{BASEPAGENAME}}. I notice you haven't participated at RfA recently. The quality of voting has deteriorated to the point that potential candidates no longer want to come forward, and RfA has reached stagnation point. Please consider keeping a lookout for nominations at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship on your watchlist and supporting, opposing, or leaving a neutral comment as need be. Thanks. We can put the Signpost article on hold until the IEP issue has blown over, and the Badger Drink RfC/U has concluded, and TrueSilver has come up with his promised stats. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 02:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
WT:RfA - I wouldn't want to see all our hard work, especially all the gathering of stats, wasted. especially where we're getting so close to a couple of solutions. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 06:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I see that the project page is now getting it's format changed in what I think is not a particularly helpful way. I have reverted the diff. If anyone thinks it should have been kept, feel free to revert again. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Some recent RfAs have again clearly demonstrated how the system has been progressively broken by the behaviour of the voters. The most recent one incurred a mass delrev and oversighting of over 20 diffs. Whether or not the mission of this project is to find an answer to the diminishing flow of nominations (the current spate of RfS doesn't change the overall trend), something clearly has to be done. According to a current discussion on the Bureaucrats' noticeboard, there appears to be some consensus that it's not forcibly their role to intervene. An open RfC/U on the behaviour of one editor is also being side-tracked and mocked in the same way as many RfAs. One independent discussion for reform is taking place under a euphemism for unbundling the tools. It is a meritorious attempt to do something, but it does not appear to address any specific issues, and may well simply create more bureaucracy, add more flags to the maze of user rights., and be seen by some as a short cut to adminship. perhaps we should be looking seriously at the possibility of clerks. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 05:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:RfA reform 2011/Coordination redirects here. This talk page exists to give the coordinators of this project (and anyone else) a centralized forum for discussing project coordination-related matters only |
I'm thinking of sending this (see below) out now that we're getting somewhere. The distribution list includes task force members and everyone who has contributed to the project's talk pages:
RfA reform: Progress, and what you can do now.
|
---|
(You are receiving this message because you are either a task force member, or you have contributed to recent discussions on any of these pages.) The number of nominations continues to nosedive seriously, according to these monthly figures. We know why this is, and if the trend continues our reserve of active admins will soon be underwater. Wikipedia now needs suitable editors to come forward. This can only be achieved either through changes to the current system, a radical alternative, or by fiat from elsewhere. A lot of work is constantly being done behind the scenes by the coordinators and task force members, such as monitoring the talk pages, discussing new ideas, organising the project pages, researching statistics and keeping them up to date. You'll also see for example that we have recently made tables to compare how other Wikipedias choose their sysops, and some tools have been developed to more closely examine !voters' habits. The purpose of WP:RFA2011 is to focus attention on specific issues of our admin selection process and to develop RfC proposals for solutions to improve them. For this, we have organised the project into dedicated sections each with their own discussion pages. It is important to understand that all Wikipedia policy changes take a long time to implement whether or not the discussions appear to be active - getting the proposals right before offering them for discussion by the broader community is crucial to the success of any RfC. Consider keeping the pages and their talk pages on your watchlist; do check out older threads before starting a new one on topics that have been discussed already, and if you start a new thread, please revisit it regularly to follow up on new comments. The object of WP:RFA2011 is not to make it either easier or harder to become an admin - those criteria are set by those who !vote at each RfA. By providing a unique venue for developing ideas for change independent of the general discussion at WT:RFA, the project has two clearly defined goals:
The fastest way is through improvement to the current system. Workspace is however also available within the project pages to suggest and discuss ideas that are not strictly within the remit of this project. Users are invited to make use of these pages where they will offer maximum exposure to the broader community, rather than individual projects in user space. We already know what's wrong with RfA - let's not clutter the project with perennial chat. RFA2011 is now ready to propose some of the elements of reform, and all the task force needs to do now is to pre-draft those proposals in the project's workspace, agree on the wording, and then offer them for central discussion where the entire Wikipedia community will be more than welcome to express their opinions in order to build consensus. New tool Check your RfA !voting history! Since the editors' RfA !vote counter at X!-Tools has been down for a long while, we now have a new RfA Vote Counter to replace it. A significant improvement on the former tool, it provides a a complete breakdown of an editor's RfA votes, together with an analysis of the participant's voting pattern. Are you ready to help? Although the main engine of RFA2011 is its task force, constructive comments from any editors are always welcome on the project's various talk pages. The main reasons why WT:RfA was never successful in getting anything done are that threads on different aspects of RfA are all mixed together, and are then archived where nobody remembers them and where they are hard to find - the same is true of ad hoc threads on the founder's talk page. |
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:46, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Message bot is a bit slow. It's probaby an exception - maybe the bot handler was on vacation, but it's worth bearing in mind. The message has produced some trolling which has been deleted, and a characteristic comment by one user who does exactly what the message asks editors not to. The message has also produced an interesting new task force member. Things seem to be slow again at the moment, but RfA is extremely slow at the moment, in fact it's the worst it's ever been and it's almost ground to a standstill., and so has WT:RfA. I was probably wrong a few weeks ago when I suggested that drama mongering on RfA had taken a break though - there's a new kid on the block who has been warned by many editors that his question and voting are inappropriate. There is probably nothing to be gained by releasing an RfC for the minimum qualification at the moment - the best time to get max participation is when RfA is very active, and if possible, highly controversial. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 05:06, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I think it's probably time to reopen our discussion about the value of keeping Keepscases' name on the task force list. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:20, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
-- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
We've known how Jimbo feels personally for a long time, although he's never technically endorsed our particular project.
As you guys (probably should) know, Philippe has recently made it clear that not only is the WMF supportive of our efforts (i.e. this project), but they're actually willing to allocate working hours to support us where they can. I'm sure you'll all agree that this is hugely significant, and that we should fully utilize the support that's being offered here. So let's try to answer Philippe's question: how can the WMF help? While this doesn't mean the board will suddenly implement all of our proposals, it definitely opens new doors for us and I think we should discuss what to ask of the Foundation. So, thoughts? Swarm 21:20, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
That's basically what I meant. We could begin with the Clerks proposal, since that's already quite advanced. — Oli OR Pyfan! 06:58, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm just going to point this out because I wouldn't be surprised if our members don't realize this, and I think this data should be included in our next newsletter/announcement.
August 2011 saw the lowest number of unsuccessful candidacies (4) since August 2004. Last month, September, saw the lowest number of unsuccessful candidacies (1) since we began recording them (in April 2004). As of now, we're two weeks into October and there's only been one unsuccessful RfA so far. One current one is quickly approaching a successful closure, and the other current one (which incidentally happens to be mine ;P) is looking good so far (fingers crossed).
August 2011 saw only one promotion, a low that has only been reached one other time in RfA history ( December 2010). Also, the number of candidacies in general is reaching a near all time low. August and September saw only 5 RfAs in total, apparently the lowest level since February 2003.
Hopefully the former is indicative of a pattern while the latter is simply an outlier; only time will tell, though. Swarm 08:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Unbundling sometimes gets brought up on this project. Just in case anyone is arguing for the right to view deleted pages, refer them to this: (
WP:PEREN) - both the current and former Wikimedia legal counsel are on record as opposing these proposals due to legal concerns (see
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Persistent proposals/Straw poll for view-deleted. Another new proposal for it at the VP was closed today as inoperable.
--
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (
talk)
05:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 06:14, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Phillipe has asked someone at the WMF to make a logarithmic line graph prognosis for us. I'll give her a ping and see how she's getting on with it. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 05:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure if it is within the mandate of this project, but perhaps there is something we can do to combat this dearth. Based on WereSpielChequers' August 2010 Signpost article, I'm considering writing a new one, but I would prefer to have some help with it. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 10:07, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
An interesting theory. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 09:55, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
It's possible that my RfA criteria page is among the most visited (1,531 hits, 80 backlinks). Anyone else who has a stats page might like to do the same exercise.
Wikipedia:Advice for RfA candidates
Wikipedia:Request an RfA nomination
-- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 03:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Page views Jan 2010 - Oct 2011 of
Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship.
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (
talk)
05:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Is anyone aware that someone went ahead and took the liberty of starting an RfC on the clerks proposal? Yawn. Swarm X11|11|11 13:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Worm and I had a very long conversation last night on possible approacahes to RfA reform and and the worsening drought of noms. We need to get together on this and perhaps temporarily change our focus, but we need to do this with as little background noise as possible to avoid the intermittent trolling on this project. We need to reinforce the notion that task force is for experienced users, and after having slept on the discussion with Worm, I have come up with a unique idea that might just put an end to the trolling on RfA. Some people don't like the use of off-Wiki communications. I particularly dislike the Wiki IRC channels and avoid them like the plague, but recent Skype conferences I have had on various projects have convinced me that it's an excellent way to get some honest work done without the background noise. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:38, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
I've been considering how one could best use the WMF's offer of help, and I think that one useful area would be to get some research commissioned. One of the problems I've had in convincing people that we have a problem is that while I can measure how many active editors we have who have the admin bit, that includes editors who edit regularly but only use the admin tools once in a blue moon. It would be useful to know how many active admins we have and the hours of the day or week when we are thinnest on the ground. In particular the gaps at AIV are apocryphal, measuring them and the trend for the last few years would either confirm that we have a problem in ways that no reasonable person could deny, or reassure us that we had more of a safety margin than we thought. Some of our differences at RFA are rooted in genuine disagreements as to the facts of the situation, getting an independent professional researcher to settle those issues would I believe make it easier to get agreement as to how things should change. Ϣere SpielChequers 14:01, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Conclusions we can draw from empirical study are:
Stats show that we fare very badly compared with other Wikis. Every en.Wiki admin has to cope with far more articles and far more editors than for example the German Wiki. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 16:44, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Not a lot here [1] that we didn't already know, but it's incredibly vindicating to hear it right from the mouth of a recent RfA candidate. If any of you haven't read it yet, by all means do. "My first ten "Oppose" votes were from editors with a combined 26 blocks." is something I find incredibly telling about our current system's flaws. Trusilver 19:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
At User:Moe Epsilon/RFA. I can't understand why he declined to do it with the support of this project, but I sincerely wish him luck with this. It's nothing that we haven't suggested here already, and it's probably one of the perens, but it will be interesting to see the community's response. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 12:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
I know we agreed that the climate is not right yet to launch any proposals for change, but since then we've suddenly had a couple of highly contentious RfAs that have embodied all the elements that have contributed to turning the process into a snake pit. There's been an AN/I about one voter that ended without consensus (or was closed before one could be reached), and which is now continued at RfC/U. Looking back over much older RfAs than I have in the past, I've noticed that sanctioning voters has not been altogether uncommon. I also think that Steve's RfA whether we have supported or opposed it, is getting out of hand and that at least one voter has probably said more than enough to support their vote but won't let up. I think we should make some serious moves now to coordinate the task force into some action on the voting issues, and do something to get some more nominations. I have come up with this idea but I'm not going to make any unilateral decision on it: We send a message to all the good admins and users we know who have not voted for a while but generally demonstrated clean, intelligent voting whether they support or oppose: Hi {{BASEPAGENAME}}. I notice you haven't participated at RfA recently. The quality of voting has deteriorated to the point that potential candidates no longer want to come forward, and RfA has reached stagnation point. Please consider keeping a lookout for nominations at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship on your watchlist and supporting, opposing, or leaving a neutral comment as need be. Thanks. We can put the Signpost article on hold until the IEP issue has blown over, and the Badger Drink RfC/U has concluded, and TrueSilver has come up with his promised stats. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 02:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
WT:RfA - I wouldn't want to see all our hard work, especially all the gathering of stats, wasted. especially where we're getting so close to a couple of solutions. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 06:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I see that the project page is now getting it's format changed in what I think is not a particularly helpful way. I have reverted the diff. If anyone thinks it should have been kept, feel free to revert again. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Some recent RfAs have again clearly demonstrated how the system has been progressively broken by the behaviour of the voters. The most recent one incurred a mass delrev and oversighting of over 20 diffs. Whether or not the mission of this project is to find an answer to the diminishing flow of nominations (the current spate of RfS doesn't change the overall trend), something clearly has to be done. According to a current discussion on the Bureaucrats' noticeboard, there appears to be some consensus that it's not forcibly their role to intervene. An open RfC/U on the behaviour of one editor is also being side-tracked and mocked in the same way as many RfAs. One independent discussion for reform is taking place under a euphemism for unbundling the tools. It is a meritorious attempt to do something, but it does not appear to address any specific issues, and may well simply create more bureaucracy, add more flags to the maze of user rights., and be seen by some as a short cut to adminship. perhaps we should be looking seriously at the possibility of clerks. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 05:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)