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We really out rename Requests for Adminship to Requests to be Nitpicked. When exactly did the RfA environment become so toxic that the smallest details about the user gets nitpicked and exaggerated?— CYBERPOWER ( Message) 00:43, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Cyberpower678: around 2012.

And if you are referring to the gaming issue, I will have to oppose you. What if the candidate is a 16 years of age kid? What if he deletes each and every article of games except the ones that he love? Or what if he becomes an admin and ignores the wikipedia completely? —usernamekiran (talk) 00:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

What absurdity is this? Who tossed assuming good faith out the window? Acalamari 01:02, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Seriously. I game, and I love to watch Pokemon. Guess what? I'm also an adult. Just because I still have some childhood obsessions, doesn't mean I can't think professionally and rationally in other areas. By your logic, I would delete the entire Black and White series on Wikipedia, because I feel that to be the worst series of Pokemon out there.— CYBERPOWER ( Message) 01:39, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

( edit conflict)@ Acalamari: In last few RfA, most if the editors who voted support, neutral, and oppose; except them most of the users assumed good faith. Also, I am not sure if you are serious or not. Cyberpower678 was definitely talking sarcastically, and so was I. But I cant be sure about you.

@ Cyberpower678: Not my logic. I supported him with no doubts. I am the guy who talks to bots, and thanks them as a hobby (did you forget our conversation? You thought I dont know what a bot is lol). Yet, these weird interests never created a conflict/issue in my wikipedia editing. ;) —usernamekiran (talk) 01:45, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I've learned that the best way to deal with such votes is to move on. An hour of time wasted countering RfA opposes is an hour that could have gone into improving the articles. Let the bureaucrats sort it out. Esquivalience ( talk) 02:31, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Usernamekiran, oh, okay - ha ha! That's what I get for trying to interpret sarcarsm past midnight. :P Acalamari 09:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia has had a good number of teenage administrators, none of whom went on a mass deletion rampage, and many of whom are still active today. Mz7 ( talk) 17:43, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

No, but they've done plenty of other childish things. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 05:53, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Examples? What about all the adult admins/former admins that act like children? They never get brought up here, it's always the mystical teenager admins, but nobody can ever say who they are or what they've done. Aiken D 06:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, in Kudpung's early days of Wikipedia editing, a group of teenage administrators nearly drove him out of the project due to inappropriate conduct. Maturity should be a serious consideration at RfA (regardless of your age), and if I gave the impression that teenage administrators have never been a problem on Wikipedia, I take it back. Mz7 ( talk) 01:04, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

A handful of immature teenage admins pales in comparison to all the drama and immaturity that adults generate and engage in on a daily basis, both on Wikipedia and in the real world. Given the low rate of admin creation these past few years, I'd hazard a guess that the proportion of teenage admins is at one of its lowest ever. Acalamari 02:09, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Nitpicking has long been a part of RfA - I've just seen someone oppose for not having more than 3 years' experience! Not even joking. We have been at an all-time low for a while now, and until that kind of thing can be eradicated then we have no hope as hardly anyone would dare to run. Aiken D 16:39, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Hey M!

My response was supposed to be sarcastic. I was referring to an oppose vote, where the opposing party casted doubt on Anarchyte's would be admin abilities because he has an interest in video games.

@ Acalamari: Contrastingly, thats the time (past [my] midnight) when my work shines.

—usernamekiran (talk) 19:05, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

After every successful RFA, someone posts the image of a T-Shirt with printed message I became an administrator and all I get is this crappy T-Shirt on the talk page of the new administrator. Is it some old RFA tradition? -- Marvellous Spider-Man 18:18, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes. But not that old - only about a decade. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:23, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Frankly, it's completely dumbass. Someone's just gone through a world of shit (for seven days), and a bunch of kids all want to be the first one to plant the flag. Great. IMHO, of course. — fortuna velut luna 19:28, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I've got an " I survived a GA review by Eric Corbett" T-shirt, much more rewarding :-) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:31, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Ritchie333: Mmmm... bet you'd need a good smoke after that! ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi ( talk • contribs) 19:42, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

The repetition has got really boring. There is no variety, no surprises, nothing. So predictable.—usernamekiran (talk) 19:38, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

It was one started by Extraordinary Machine ten years ago on my talk page (yes, check the original upload logs in the image description for verification). I'm actually quite happy it's still being posted to new admins after all this time. Acalamari 02:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

• I've got a 'Survived 5 years of personal attacks from Eric Corbett' T-shirt. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 10:57, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

I have strong opinions on the current rfB. I'd like to vote in it. -- Genius (42nd power) ( talk) 02:00, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

You certainly may, but I don't recommend you to do so (see single-purpose account). But if your argument is compelling, the community is bound to assume good faith. Regards, Alex Shih ^Talk 02:05, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I have strong opinions on Trump being allowed to tweet without thinking. Doesn't mean I'll get a vote on it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:14, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Assuming your a US citizen, your next opportunity to vote on Mr. Trump is scheduled for Tuesday November 3, 2020. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 15:20, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I didn't know anyone tweeted while thinking. Ritchie is a Brit. Also, you're assuming Trump will be running in 2020.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 15:32, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I am from India, Ritchie is Brit. Alex might be American. I dont know Bbb23, and Ad Orientem's nick name. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:29, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Requests for bureaucratship/SoWhy 2

@ Enterprisey: I noticed your report uses the wrong coloring for your percentage charts for RfBs. Since the discretionary zone for RfBs is 80%-90%, and anything below that is usually a failed candidacy, would it be difficult to adopt the color patterns of RfBs as my RfX reporter uses?— CYBERPOWER ( Message) 01:04, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Where is that discretionary zone documented? I tried to find this earlier and failed. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 02:40, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

No clue, I just picked up on it, and it was like that since I first joined.— CYBERPOWER ( Message) 02:42, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Hmm. There wasn't an RfB from the time I joined until Xaosflux, so I missed the boat on that I guess. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 02:43, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

There were quite a few since I joined. Like 5 or so. I think 2 of them passed.— CYBERPOWER ( Message) 02:50, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#About_RfB, The process for bureaucrats is similar to that for adminship above; however the expectation for promotion to bureaucratship is significantly higher than for admin, requiring a clearer consensus. In general, the threshold for consensus is somewhere around 85%.. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:55, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Also this has nothing to do with this RfB - if this will be a long discussion let's move it to WT:RFA. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:55, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

• Xaosflux, I guess Rob is enquiring about the discretionary zone and not the actual threshold. Rob, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Requests for bureaucratship threshold mentions that based on recent policy or practice, the success range is 85~90%; the discussion closed with a consensus to lower the success threshold; but no threshold was decided (although 80% seemed the choice of the majority). No concrete closing statement was evident about the discretionary range too. The same happened in a subsequent Rfc. I couldn't find any concrete detail on the discretionary zone any which way. But I'm guessing precedent and past practice would suggest that 80-85% remains the discretionary zone. (and yes, this can be moved to WT:RFA)... Lourdes 03:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oh yeah. Ooops. Gimme a sec. Enterprisey ( talk!) 07:04, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

  Fixed - let me know how the new color scheme looks. Enterprisey ( talk!) 07:05, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

  We should really smooth out the coloring a bit for the both the RfX Reporter and the your tool. It looks a little weird to have it just jump colors like that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberpower678 ( talk • contribs) 13:03, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

In the case of Cullen238's RFA it doesn't make a meaningful difference, but I think we need to establish the principle of whether it is acceptable or not. A !vote by a sockpupet was struck out and the count adjusted after the RFA was closed. Some time later the closer reverted the strikeout and count adjustment. (See the last few edits of WP:Requests for adminship/Cullen328) This creates the impression that socks or other disqualified !voters are actually accepted at an RFA, or is it a case of the close being final and inviolate, thus any problems discovered afterwards may not be remedied. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 17:23, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

I suppose, once the sock's !vote had been struck out, the closer would take that into account when closing, and discount it? If that's so, then whatever impression it leaves (amongst those viewing the closed RfA later), at the time, it has, in effect, never been a !vote (in so far as one that has any imapct or consequence) at all. Just my take. — fortuna velut luna 17:35, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Looking back to my first RfB, the socked contribution there was never stricken either. That said, I can see the argument: we don't want to give the impression that a sock CAN contribute to RfA as long as they can get it in "under the wire", so to speak. Acalamari may wish to comment here, in fact, someone may wish to put a pointer from WP:BN to this discussion. – xeno ^talk 17:50, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you to Xeno for notifying me of this discussion.

It is the latter, of course, Dodger67; there is no precedent that I'm aware of (besides what happened last night) for votes to be struck out post-closure. While striking it out made no difference for this particular RfA, modifying votes post-closure could be more complicated in a close nomination. Suppose someone's RfA narrowly sunk due to a small sockfarm and would have been a clear pass without it but that sockfarm wasn't discovered until much later, or the reverse in which a sockfarm pushed someone's RfA over the finishing line. Would we grant adminship to the former and remove it from the latter, months or even years after the fact? Likely not in either case but regardless, as far as I'm concerned, socks and the like should be dealt with during an RfA, not afterwards; as far as I was aware at the time I closed the RfA, said sock appeared to be a user in good standing and I closed with that in mind. Acalamari 18:23, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Good point Acalamari, in something like a marginal AFD there is a review and appeal mechanism, but an RFA decision is effectively irreversible. Perhaps we need to consider a more formal clerking for RFAs where two or three experienced admins will specifically take onthe task of "policing" illegitimate !votes (and other problems) before the close. The clerks would then actually give the go-ahead for the close only when they are happy that there are no socks etc. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 18:48, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

• The problem is that nobody bothers to check up on the voters unless it looks like an obvious troll. I usually go down all the unfamiliar signatures and look at te popups to see their edit count and tenure, but not much else. I think 'crats should check out the validity of the votes before closing. A lot of work though if there have been 400 participants. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 08:10, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

This edit request to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

oracle Justin J. Worthey ( talk) 11:18, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

• You have not made a requested edit and so can receive no positive answer. Thank you. — fortuna velut luna 11:22, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

I've been doing some flashbacks ( User:Alex Shih/Jimbo Wales) from 10 years ago. I wonder how Jimbo's profile as a RFA hopeful would be scrutinized (humorously) by today's standards. Alex Shih ^Talk 08:18, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Ten years ago? I doubt there's a large percentage of admins who passed in 2007 who would pass nowadays  :) — fortuna velut luna 08:25, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Ouch. But yeah, it was the embodiment of "not a big deal" back then. Alex Shih ^Talk 08:35, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Couldn't resist that, sorry! — fortuna velut luna 08:51, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• 4/10 Your AfD stats are okay, though you haven't participated in any debates since 2015, and even that one Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/June Swann closed as "snow keep" which will probably lead people to suspect you aren't familiar with WP:BEFORE and oppose accordingly. I think you'll probably pass the content bar with your work on improving and sourcing British peers, though it would be worth checking articles you've contributed to such as Alan Campbell, Baron Campbell of Alloway and making sure it's all sourced properly. I think your big problem though is you spend too much time chit-chatting on your user talk page, with only two article space edits since 24 May, and I think that's going to be a deal breaker for most of the RfA crowd who prefer to see candidates that understand Wikipedia isn't a social network. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:05, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
• 0.98/1 Well, that's the correlation I got when I compared the number of edits you've made annually since 2011 to the total number of Rfas since the same year till date. While your edit count is significantly low, I believe editors would still support your nomination for the effort you've taken till date to assist the project in whichever way you can; although I can see the naysayers pointing to your reducing time on the project due to other valid business interests. Lourdes 14:37, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
• Clearly WP:NOTHERE: per [1]... — fortuna velut luna 16:47, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
• I've always been suspicious this Jimbo Wales is just another Pastor Theo sock. I hear people have seen him in person ... but then he vanishes, off to see Tony Blair (!) or something else unlikely. Are we sure it's not some guy in disguise?-- Wehwalt ( talk) 17:02, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose thinks an Amazon sales page is a reliable source. TonyBallioni ( talk) 02:39, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

 Comment: Thanks guys, I've updated the tally. Alex Shih ^Talk 16:14, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose: big talk, small work. Always discusses huge things on talkpages, or edit summaries, but contributions are contrary. Tries to show himself as an intellectual i think. —usernamekiran (talk) 12:42, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
• 100? User has exactly 100 centijimbos? Suspicious. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 12:47, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

After a healthy start to the year, I see we're back to the trickle of RfAs that has sadly become customary. I know that there are a good number of contributors who are actively involved in attempting to identify candidates and encourage them to run. I'd be interested to hear (without naming names of candidates) what obstacles are currently being encountered. For instance, is it a shortage of qualified candidates out there, or a reluctance on the part of those approached to run? What sort of reasons are usually being given by those declining to be nominated - e.g. is it about not wanting to be an admin, or about not wanting to go through an RfA? Any specific issues that come up regularly about being an admin and/or the RfA process? I'd like if possible to avoid speculating about the reasons for people not wanting to submit RfAs, and focus instead on actual reasons that have been given for not wanting to run. WJBscribe (talk) 13:46, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm looking at 5-6 candidates, and discussing them with various people off-wiki and getting feedback. The following are all reasons why I am not putting any of them forward for RfA right now :

• Doesn't want to run as admin / can't stand RfA (by far the biggest blocker)
• Hasn't been here for two years
• Hasn't had six months non-stop activity
• Hasn't got [n] edits
• AfD score below 70% matching consensus
• Is busy with another project and may run after that
• Got into an edit-war two weeks ago
• Bit a newbie at AfD recently

I don't think any of those issues are personally things I'd object to, but other people would. See the parallel ORCP on NE Ent, where I suggested he'd probably be alright as an admin, but just about everybody else can't stand the idea. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:53, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Same as Ritchie333. There are a few I'm looking at who are of the right calibre who would be prepared to run in a year or so but they are not ready yet. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 14:26, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Having observed RFA for many years now, I believe it's because of the character assassination of the candidates that really drives people away. Would you really voluntarily ask people to turn up at court? That's what RfA feels like sometimes. Just replace the Support and Oppose with Not Guilty and Guilty. Having seen various attempts at reform fail though, I'm not sure what can be done about it so I mainly stay silent on it and stay focused on the positive outcomes such as GoldenRing. -=Troop=- ( talk) 14:39, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I forgot, one of my discussions was on-wiki : User talk:S Marshall#Administrative rights Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:58, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Please, someone, delete Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mark0880 before this creates more un-needed drama. Chris Troutman ( talk) 19:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm talking to him now, but Chris, that comment on his talk page was unnecessary, and creates more un-needed drama. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 19:46, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi, it's been a while since I posted here regularly. While Robert McClenon's RfA is still going, it's safe to say it won't succeed. So my question is... how can we avoid this situation in the future, where a well-meaning editor, with vast experience, comes to the RfA arena and is told yes/no, but mostly no, by anyone who happens to pass by, for mostly any reason? What I'm saying is, I think we need a tighter vetting process initially, but a much less harsh environment to be evaluated in. I self nominated years back and some of the remarks made there still don't sit well with me to this day.

It should be almost impossible to go to RfA and fail, if you have been through a tighter vetting process. I know there's the optional poll process but it, or something similar should be mandatory before the real thing. Has any consideration been given to securepoll for RfA? That way it wouldn't be such a hellish process for candidates. Works for ArbCom, why not RfA?

Anyway, I don't expect anything to change but I had to get my thoughts down somewhere, agree or disagree. Bye for now. Aiken D 23:21, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I've seen that sometimes (infrequently though) the optional poll too has harsh comments from experienced editors; which may actually not reflect the community's view on the candidate's contributions. I wouldn't like to point out the particular editor(s) who faced this; but I've also noticed recently that experienced editors might not prefer to go through such processes twice (once at ORCP and then at Rfa) and might simply wish to directly go for the Rfa. That's just my opinion though; I could be wrong on this. Lourdes 02:43, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

It's been a while since anyone posted on this talk page - possible the longest hiatus in its history - such is the interest in RfA nowadays, and becoming an admin. This year got off to a good start, but time flies, and we're again in the end run with no indication that this year will be a bumper crop. But it's not just Adminship,

Secure poll systems have been mentioned in the past but didn't gain any traction. It's difficult to think of a system to replace the current one where the scrutiny can sometimes come up with legitimate reasons for an RfA fail. The only thing thing we have to strive for is that even if a RfA looks as if it's going to tank, that at least the participants keep a civil tongue in their heads. I'm impressed that slowly but surely people are taking the initiative to strike troll and nonsense votes, and that's the way it's going to have to develop as long as en.Wiki remains the only one that has no rules for voters. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 05:29, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Just a thought, but could we devise a stringent, yet equatably-applied set of criteria with which to assess candidates? At the moment various experienced editors have their own criteria (pace Kudpung, who I hope knows is not getting singled out! -but there's others, are not necessarily 'wrong', but perhaps might emphasise different aspects and may be further form policy, more idiosyncratic, than they should be)- but could we merge them together so it becomes absolutely crystal clear both what is expected annd what will be judged. This wouldn't affect 'delving' into contributions (which probably would anyway be a criterion), but this would level the playing field and might prevent some of the more wild opposes (or supports, for that matter). It would also mean that less-experienced editors would be assessing a candidate on much the same grounds as the more consummate. — fortuna velut luna 08:20, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

In spite of the threefold increase in turnout since the 'reform' of Dec 2015 - which in principle hasn't changed anything at all - the amount of trolling and silly votes and questions has not got worse, nor have voters with stupid criteria become more frequent. What we need is more determination to make them unwelcome (in the nicest possible way of course...). The users who still make up the regular core of voters generally stick to reasonable criteria.

The essay at User:Kudpung/RfA criteria has had thousands of hits since it was written and although I only wrote to show how I vote, and as a personal aide-mémoire, it's become one of the most often cited sets of conditions. I compiled them by simply throwing everyone else's into a pot, giving it a good stir and seeing what came out. Well, it turned out that the brew was what I had already generally been doing, and it still works for me today, and nobody has ever told me I'm wrong or too soft or too strict. What I do know is, however, after sticking with RfA issues for many years, is that the community is not going to agree to a consensus for a clear set of criteria. What they might agree to is a set of rules for voters. Such rules would only affect those who come to disrupt the process and wouldn't bother the regulars at all. We have so many 500/30 areas now, one more wouldn't harm. Why not just simply protect it with 'Extended confirmed' and have done with it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 09:05, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I'd support that on principle. Although it does intimate that trolling only comes from 'new' edtors; would that were only the case! — fortuna velut luna 09:21, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Well. yes, you're right of course. There are sadly some who make it their business to be disruptive. I wonder how many people still remember Keepscases for example. There are one or two users user who have been around for years doing excellent content or outreach work but who reveal a completely different side to their character when at RfA - and it's not necessarily restricted to those who hide behind the anonymity of their user names. Then there are those who just can't resist Wikilawyering at every opportunity. And then there are simply the persistent chatterboxes whose new trend is to turn the footer of every RfA into a general forum. Ironically maybe that's why people don't come here to WT:RfA much these days! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 11:45, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I remember Keepscases; with enduring fondness, and I miss his presence at RFA. I do not concur that he is an example of "someone who made it his business to be disruptive [at RFA]". Know by these presents that I do not give such an allegation the benefit of my assent which silence would otherwise imply.-- John Cline ( talk) 20:58, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I'd back extended confirmed for RFA, as much to stop the occasional Snow candidate as to make it clear to potential participants that yes they are welcome to !vote, or will be in a few edits time. I see the difficulty of the recent RFA as that it triggered at least two of the community's faultlines. Did the candidate have sufficient content contributions and was their deletion tagging overly heavy handed? Trigger either and you can expect an interesting RFA. Meet both tests and it can look like an inauguration. In the past I've been a supporter of setting an admin criteria, but these are two of the areas where that would be most difficult; the issues are subjective and the community is divided over them. Ϣere SpielChequers 16:06, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

As you probably know, I've made a point of trying to get more RfA candidates this year, and had some success. Against that, I would say there are about 5-6 more that I personally would support in an RfA but I don't think would necessarily pass (or at least not with high percentage and drama-free discussion). I think it's just a question of judging what the general mood of RfA is and pragmatically adjusting to it. For example, I recently failed to persuade a candidate to stand because while I thought they could do the job and would be good at it, their AfD score only reads about 68% matching consensus, and they've seen enough RfAs to know it can be a bloodbath.

People can't be bothered to invest the time and effort to evaluate a candidate fully and just go for a few simple stats. I've got no idea how you can enforce a "sensible and well thought opinions only please" policy at RfA; indeed I suspect that's impossible. It's kind of like putting an IQ test on being able to register to vote - people would be up in arms about it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:56, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

It would certainly shrink the electorate :) — fortuna velut luna 12:00, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I dont know when it happened, or if it has been always like that: the expectations/standard bar for RfA candidates are too high. Way too high. Also, sometimes the process follows a particular majority. Even if it is not done consciously, previous votes do make subliminal impact. —usernamekiran (talk) 13:04, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

It's too high because the difficulty of a desysop for middling but not serious admin abuse has led enough people to think "better safe than sorry". And voters follow the herd because it's easier than critically analysing the evidence and drawing your own conclusions. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:24, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Complaints that RfA is too hard are almost as old as the process but considering that 4 out of the last 5 RfAs succeeded, it does not seem too hard. What Ritchie says might very well be a reason why it's harder now than it was say in 2008 (when I became an admin) but I also think for an RfA to fail, the concerns have to be quite severe. Of the 13 failed candidacies this year, four were NOTNOW/SNOW cases. Of the rest, three were withdrawn while in the discretionary range (and might have succeeded otherwise). That means only 6 were clearly heading for failure and in each case there were major concerns, not just nit-picking. Regards So Why 13:45, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I fully agree with Ritchie's explanation, and it's the best possible rationale for community-based desysopping procedures. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 15:19, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

An option for RfA reform that I've been kicking around in my head for a bit would be to hold elections (in the sense of ArbCom elections; via Secure Poll) every six months rather than having anyone throw themselves up for RfA at any time. This would force the community to view candidates in comparison with each other, which would hopefully result in some editors thinking "Hey, wait a minute, I'm demanding a combination of experience that is non-existent in the candidate pool". The challenge is that such a system would necessarily lose some of the discretion we give bureaucrats currently ... but is that a bad thing? I'm not so sure after some of the recent crat chats. I've invested no time in developing the idea because I'm sure it would go nowhere, just like most attempts at RfA reform. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 15:17, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Except that ot's not a nw idea Rob. It's been suggested many times. And like most reasonable suggestions, it either never gained traction, or nobody was bold enough to put it to RfC to find out just what the community thinks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 21:01, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are fixed because there are term limits; admins don't have them. So fixed times don't make sense. Having multiple RFAs at the same time does make some sense though for the reasons you mention. The best way to do it would probably to have multiple experienced nominators coordinating their candidates in a way that they all run roughly at the same time without forcing any candidate to adhere to such strict windows of time. I think Ritchie actually mentioned trying to do so in the next months although I don't know what the status is. Regards So Why 15:31, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I think that elections make sense for bodies like Arbcom because you are electing a set number of people. If you are electing 7 you elect the best 7 who stand, and someone who doesn't get in isn't necessarily being told that they aren't suitable for the job, just that we thought they were the >=8th most suitable in an election for 7 places. It wouldn't work for RFA because some of us want as many good admins as we can get, and the rest won't be able to agree how many admins to elect. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:43, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@ SoWhy and WereSpielChequers: There's no reason to hold elections only for fixed terms or fixed quantities of candidates. If you agree that multiple candidates running at once makes sense, then it makes sense to hold elections at fixed times, full stop. Why leave it to all nominators to coordinate when we could just coordinate it centrally? As for "number of admins elected", what we'd need to do is establish an absolute bar for passing RfA (or, if we want to go more complicated, an absolute bar as well as a discretionary zone which would allow bureaucrats to look at the discussion page for each candidate and use their discretion, more similar to what we have now). The number elected varies based on how many pass the absolute bar (or are promoted based on discussions after landing in the discretionary zone). The big pros to this type of thing would be that SecurePoll reduces pile-ons, "hiding" live results prevents any bias (e.g. watchlist voters with few convictions oppose if they see others opposing, etc), and nit-pickers will be forced to allocate their time to nit-pick truly bad candidates instead of ones who are good but made some small mistake 12 years ago. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 18:27, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

If you agree that multiple candidates running at once makes sense, then it makes sense to hold elections at fixed times, full stop. That is a massive logical leap that doesn't really make sense. ansh 666 21:16, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@ Ansh666: There is no better way to get candidates to run at the same time than to say "All candidates must run at these times." That's patently obvious. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 00:22, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13, if you aren't fixing the number of places then I'm not sure I'd call it an election. However if you are proposing moving from !voting to voting then I do have a very different concern, this could degenerate into some sort of popularity contest. Currently one of the problems is that in reality very few people actually assess the candidate's edits and the RFA is often a peanut gallery of everyone else responding to those who have researched the candidate's edits and reported their findings. Losing that process would undoubtedly get more candidates through, but in some cases people who currently would be rejected. Much as I'd like more admins appointed I don't want us to lower our guard to that extent. Another issue is practical, RFA is an intense process that should be scheduled at the candidate's convenience. Restricting running to some set slots does not strike me as an improvement to the system. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:56, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@ WereSpielChequers: It's already voting with a hard threshold of 75% to get out of the discretionary zone, if we're being real here. I'm proposing less transparency (edgy, I know). Part of the problem with our current system is that you can see the "current" results when you go to vote. I'm currently doing academic research into this problem, actually. Knowing the current results may influence how one votes, and it can seriously bias the results. I like SecurePoll (which more-or-less requires a more overt switch to voting rather than !voting - not too different than what we have now at RfA) because it removes that problem of bias from seeing the live results. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 00:22, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Interesting comments, thanks everyone. One of the many things wrong with RfA is that one person's outstanding candidate is another's SNOW-way. As someone said above, each individual has their own personal criteria, which is all very well and good, but these criteria conflict with other people's and essentially, it's technically possible to pass RfA without writing any articles on one day, but on another, it's the main sticking point. It's also interesting how some RfAs have hundreds of commenters, whereas others barely have one hundred in total. I don't know what the solution is, if there even is one, but for all the "toughness" that RfA has become, it simply is not serious enough. As I said, any old editor can nominate themselves, any old editor can vote (pretty much), and more or less any reason can be given. Why is it we don't comment on our votes for ArbCom, but we do for RfA? It's a mess. Aiken D 16:23, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

The multiple RfA comment is very interesting, but I don't think it is the problem. I looked up the old RfA tally for when I passed back on January 26, 2008. There were 17 concurrent RfAs (!!) and most were doing well. Only four days later, there were three sections on WT:RFA complaining about too high of RfA standards. So even when we had many concurrent RfAs, there were still worries about rising standards. As much as I am a fan of explaining phenomena as the result of institutional artifacts, my belief is that the increased rigor is caused by technological and cultural changes. First, we now have the technology to isolate an analyze each deletion tagging without much cost. It is now extremely cheap to nit-pick. (My RfA in 2008 was one of the first to have a deletion track record compiled and this was compiled by hand). It is also extremely cheap to edit with automated tools, which inflates average edit counts and changes expectations of RfA participants. Second, the community has abandoned the cultural standards of WP:NBD and WP:WTHN. I see the cultural change as a result of the technological change. None of the opposes we complain about today is actually invalid, they are legitimate mistakes that should give pause when we choose administrators; however, it is likely that many of these mistakes were made by previous administrator candidates and never turned up at RfA. So even if we wanted to change the culture back to WP:WTHN, would we want to sacrifice the quality we have gained in the current evaluation process? My guess is yes, but it is not as cut and dry as one would think.
This is where a vetting or training process could help. Maybe in an early stage it is identified that a candidate has some bad deletion calls. Then some current administrators could provide feedback, the editor could spend a month demonstrating the feedback has been received, and then the RfA itself commences. Malinaccier ( talk) 17:22, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I look through one of the discussions : "A recent example that comes to mind is Archtransit. Mistakes? Yes. Desysopped? No. Nor should he be, IMO.". Never heard of Archtransit, but they seem to have been indefinitely banned. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:29, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

... it looks like their reign of glory lasted all of five weeks ;) — fortuna velut luna 17:52, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

• I agree with much of what has been said by Fortuna, Kudpung and Ritchie.I will happily support some sort of execution of some sort of EC/P protection--which would do wonders. But sometimes, comments from some experienced-editors shall also be shown the door.(There shall be always a minimum expected level of civility). Winged Blades of Godric ^{On leave} 18:10, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I would certainly support a minimum critera for !voters. I would certainly support a 30/500 proposal. I am certainly sick to death of Why not and WP is short of admins supports, but that appears to be the main extent of the problem. From other comments I am seeing no compelling evidence that new editors are seriously disrupting the RfA process. We do not need additional barriers to newbies, especially in the RfA process, which can teach new editors a lot about how WP functions. I voted as I did in the last RfA due to strong behavioural concerns that I felt about the candidate. Some (to me) strange comments made on the candidates T/P about not changing who he was and the bizarre comment on their user page about colleague's emails not being guaranteed exposure and ridicule caused me to vote as I did. I should have voiced these concerns in my statement, but I chose to concentrate on the NPP deletions issues. Also the labelling as "crud" of salvagable articles. I sensed some worrying vibes but I chose not to explore these issues. I noted later that others did. To me patterns of behaviour are the main focus in my RfA !votes. Those voters who are blind to such subtle indicators are problematic in themselves. To me behavioural patterns of RfA candidates is what I look at first. Lack of GA's etc, are not necessarily issues with me. This is why I supported Goldenring so fervently in his RfA. A great attitude was palpable. The rest can be fixed. This attitude should be more widespread in RfA !voters. Stats can blind a newbie voter. I look at a hardly mentioned stat. The number of thanks given. To me it it is a good indicator of the candidates r/l personality. Its the personality of candidates that counts. Do they have the integrety, emotional intelligence, humanity and ability to gauge human nature? That is critical for the onerous task of adminship imo. This should also be more evident in !voter comments. At the moment it is not. Emotional intelligence and the quality to recognise empathy should be equally evident in !voters as it should be in RfA candidates. This is under discussed at the moment in RfA improvement discussions I feel. Irondome ( talk) 02:11, 5 September 2017 (UTC). Irondome ( talk) 22:45, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have opened the thread here or at WP:VPR, I wonder if it's too late to do that. I've opened a RfC a while back at Wikipedia talk:Editor review#Revisiting Editor Review, and I was wondering if anyone would like to share any thoughts. Alex Shih ^Talk 03:16, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll comment there, but since this is the RfA talk page, I'd like to say something here too... with the exception of some of the failed RfAs, the big issue isn't that people don't know if they would be successful at an RfA - they know that they won't be, or they might not be, and so they don't go through it. I'd argue that the requirements for adminship are actually pretty clear. It just happens that they are also inflated and often irrelevant to the skills needed to use the tools appropriately. The problem isn't a lack of candidate vetting, it's a lack of reasonable standards for candidates. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 03:37, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

IMO, today's standards are reasonable and appropriate. The problem is that some people use as an excuse the occasional ridiculous standards called for at RfA by voters who don't understand what adminship and RfA is all about. The bottom line is that having seen the crap admins have to put up with, users of the right calibre are just not interested. With all the advice pages that abound today, serious contenders should know if they stand a chance for the bit or not; they just have to read them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 03:53, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I've just reviewed all of the RFAs so far in 2017, and I have to say I think the community was probably close to 100% right in the outcomes (not that they all agreed with me, but even where I supported an unsuccessful candidate I think the outcome was probably correct). I haven't reviewed any further back than that, but for the past few years I've generaly felt that RFA has been producing appropriate results. And that all makes me feel that current standards are probably about right. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 22:45, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

No matter the standards, there will always be RfAs that fail and RfAs that pass. People who meet the current 10000 edits / 1-2 years active editing / ~20 articles created arbitrary standards could be good or bad admins even if they meet that standard, and RfA still does a generally good job of failing candidates with major issues that are uncovered partway through. I'm not suggesting that the problem with RfA is entirely the people who have failed in the 2010-2017 period, because a lot of those people wouldn't have passed under 2005-2008 standards either. What you don't see at RfA are the (potentially) hundreds of people who have been active between 2010 and now that would have passed an RfA in 2007 or 2008, but have self-selected out of the process entirely because - as Ritchie333 says in the section above - it wouldn't be a sure thing. Who would want to volunteer for extra responsibility when there's a good chance you'll be turned away based on some arbitrary metric? As a little thought exercise, take a read down the list of page movers. This right recommends 3000 edits and 6 months active editing - basically what the RfA numerical standards were back in 2008. Would most of those people be able to use the sysop tools per policy? Would they be a net positive? That's 187 people right there, most of which probably would be admins right now if they did the exact same thing but in 2006 instead of 2014. If they all went to a 2008 RfA, there's a good chance that half of them would fail for various reasons - past conflicts, inability to maintain cool under pressure, etc etc. But people are smart. They see the standards being demanded of RfA candidates, and they either stay away entirely, or spend 1-2 years building up their resume before trying.

I'm amazed that more people don't see what a fundamental disconnect is being reinforced here. Statement 1, what people supporting the current standards are saying: "Admins are trusted community leaders who need to be put through a rigorous vetting process, and if we lower the RfA standards then we'll be left with admins that don't know policy well enough to implement it!" Statement 2, a reflection of the simple objective reality of the situation: "The vast majority of admins were admitted under lower standards, and they are able to interpret and implement policy to the same standard as those admitted after 2010." To be fair, it seems like a majority of the people here do see this contradiction. The biggest group that I see perpetuating the myth that we need to demand such higher numerical standards of admins are the admins appointed under those standards. I can understand why the current system would seem legitimate to both of you since both of you went through it, but from an external perspective this really isn't a sustainable or good system at the moment. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 23:04, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Ajraddatz, quite clearly you haven't read this, or you wouldn't be posting these assumptions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 11:50, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Actually I have! Numerically, I would say that it's still about 2-3x above what the 2007 standard would be. You suggest 6000 edits or 12 months experience, while 2000-3000 edits and 4-6 months experience seems to be the norm at the time. And, to beat a dead horse, those are the standards that the vast majority of the admins here were elected under. I will give you credit for having numerically lower standards than some RfA commenters these days, and a criteria that is largely focused on the important stuff - good interpersonal interactions and a good ability to find/understand/implement policy. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 18:28, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Just to note that after observing WP:ORCP today, there doesn't seem to be a suitable place right now for experienced editors that are not presently built for adminship to solicit constructive opinions from the community. Alex Shih ^Talk 04:01, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

As suggested on that page, the best available approach is to ask a friendly, experienced editor for feedback, or a recommendation of someone who can help. isaacl ( talk) 04:45, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

ORCP was designed among other things to cut down on the senseless time wasting RfAs, and it does that quite well. As I previously mentioned, serious candidates who really want to be admins for all the right reasons should know already what chances they have. All they need to do, as Isaacl says, is ask a experienced editor or admin for advice. They can do that by email. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 06:43, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

After a healthy start to the year, I see we're back to the trickle of RfAs that has sadly become customary. I know that there are a good number of contributors who are actively involved in attempting to identify candidates and encourage them to run. I'd be interested to hear (without naming names of candidates) what obstacles are currently being encountered. For instance, is it a shortage of qualified candidates out there, or a reluctance on the part of those approached to run? What sort of reasons are usually being given by those declining to be nominated - e.g. is it about not wanting to be an admin, or about not wanting to go through an RfA? Any specific issues that come up regularly about being an admin and/or the RfA process? I'd like if possible to avoid speculating about the reasons for people not wanting to submit RfAs, and focus instead on actual reasons that have been given for not wanting to run. WJBscribe (talk) 13:46, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm looking at 5-6 candidates, and discussing them with various people off-wiki and getting feedback. The following are all reasons why I am not putting any of them forward for RfA right now :

• Doesn't want to run as admin / can't stand RfA (by far the biggest blocker)
• Hasn't been here for two years
• Hasn't had six months non-stop activity
• Hasn't got [n] edits
• AfD score below 70% matching consensus
• Is busy with another project and may run after that
• Got into an edit-war two weeks ago
• Bit a newbie at AfD recently

I don't think any of those issues are personally things I'd object to, but other people would. See the parallel ORCP on NE Ent, where I suggested he'd probably be alright as an admin, but just about everybody else can't stand the idea. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:53, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Same as Ritchie333. There are a few I'm looking at who are of the right calibre who would be prepared to run in a year or so but they are not ready yet. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 14:26, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Having observed RFA for many years now, I believe it's because of the character assassination of the candidates that really drives people away. Would you really voluntarily ask people to turn up at court? That's what RfA feels like sometimes. Just replace the Support and Oppose with Not Guilty and Guilty. Having seen various attempts at reform fail though, I'm not sure what can be done about it so I mainly stay silent on it and stay focused on the positive outcomes such as GoldenRing. -=Troop=- ( talk) 14:39, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I forgot, one of my discussions was on-wiki : User talk:S Marshall#Administrative rights Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:58, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

That probably sums it up: we're volunteers, and occasionally we ask people to volunteer to do work they didn't join up to do, but are only able to do the work they didn't join up to do if they volunteer to go through a week of absolute shite. I think the morass of !voters at RfA have forgotten that, in light of our backlogs and shortages, with a few (normally well intentioned noob) exceptions, those that present themselves to the Wicker Man community are probably doing is a favour. — fortuna velut luna 16:12, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

.... and I think it's public knowledge already that I would create Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi right here and now if I had any inclination that he was interested .... which I haven't. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:14, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

The problem isn't just that it's a week of shite. It also requires a few years of at least semi-regular contributions, and at least a full year of non-stop, no other hobbies, quit your day job level editing in all areas of the project for you to pass through that week of nonsense. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 00:26, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

• I continue to blame WP:ORCP, which is the most broken part of the RfA process. It can only hurt a candidate to go through it, and it has essentially become people pleading their pet causes for what they want in adminship candidates. I actively discourage anyone who asks my opinion on their becoming an admin from going through it. The advice that all the people seeking out candidates give is to try at ORCP first. Well if that is the advice, it makes sense why we have no one putting their hat in the ring. TonyBallioni ( talk) 16:42, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
• I really want to see the return of Wikipedia:Editor review. Back in the days, that was the process to discover so many potential great editors. I agree that WP:ORCP is the far more broken process. Alex Shih ^Talk 16:53, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Request an RfA nomination is still around. I've been disappointed with the last couple of ORCPs (which I admit I have commented on), which have been extremely negative and unhelpful, in my view. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:01, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

The issue with ORCP, which I have expressed in the past is that it attracts two types of individuals: drive by voters who give random numbers, and vested contributors with an axe to grind. Neither is actually helpful in encouraging people to run. RfA is less brutal because people have to deal with the fact that if you oppose, the community might call you out on being ridiculous. You get the pile-ons, sure, but the initial barrier to being rude is actually higher at first as compared to ORCP. TonyBallioni ( talk) 17:08, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

• I've suggested to some editors that they ought to apply for admin status as it seemed that they were worthy and the tools would be useful to them. These include:

1. BlueMoonset who does lots of work keeping the DYK production line organised and moving. Because DYK involves the main page, it would help if he could edit through protection rather than having to ask an admin. I've pressed him about this more than once but he's quite definite that he doesn't want it. My impression is that he doesn't want to get sucked into doing more chores but I'm not sure that's it.
2. MassiveEartha who's a regular trainer and organiser of editathons. Admin status would help in sorting out issues with new accounts and articles which often arise at such events. She's quite a strong, extrovert personality but is quite tentative about putting herself forward. My impression is that she is unfamiliar with the internal politics of Wikipedia – the sort of stuff that happens at ANI and Arbcom - and so is unsure what she might be getting into.
3. Edwardx who's another regular at editathons and who has created thousands of articles. He'd find admin status useful at events too and would probably help out with deletions as he's so familiar with new page activity. He's not keen and my impression is that it's because his prodigious content creation has caused him to get involved in some conflicts over the years. Nothing much, in my opinion, but enough to make him think twice.

In all such cases, my impression is that these editors would sail through RfA with little additional preparation required because they are clearly good-natured, hard working and quite unlikely to abuse the privilege. But I suppose they don't feel this because they are focussed on their current niche, don't follow the RfA excitement and so are mainly just not that bothered about it. Andrew D. ( talk) 17:06, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I think that biggest obstacle is one of RFA criteria. The RFA process has created a de-facto set of poorly-documented standards that often have little to do with the actual tools deployed by admins. Witness the frequent opposes at ORCP and in RFA's over lack of article creation. The only administrative tool that has a direct connection to article creation is overriding the title blacklist, and how much training does that really need? The tools to which admins have access and provoke community anxiety are article protection and deletion and user blocking. Having the judgment and maturity to use those tools has little to do with accumulating GA and FA icons and there are many other ways an editor could demonstrate those qualities. @ Cyberpower678:'s RFA's are excellent examples of this (and I apologize in advance for using them as an example in a discussion to which they are not yet a party). His first foundered on accusations of inexperience and poor judgment but the evidence cited, such as it was, was mostly pointing to article content and mainspace contributions and even his second successful one has some very experienced editors calling his mainspace participation "completely unacceptable." In order to pass RFA, editors have to fit these criteria whether they have any interest in their arbitrary demands or not. My own experience at ORCP clearly demonstrated I would have to become a very different type of editor to pass, a fact about which I had honestly already been fairly certain. Whether I am a good example of and editor of the "right caliber" who was unfairly dissuaded I leave to others to decide (obviously, some here think the answer is certainly "no") but the ORCP archives shows any number of good, accomplished, experienced editors being told "you have no chance of passing RFA" due to rote application of these arbitrary standards. Whether those standards reflect any activity they have any interest in, either as a normal editor or as an administrator, is a question that is simply not asked. The bottom line is this: the NBD ethos has been thoroughly forgotten and as long as users continue to invent demands for granting admin status, the number of RFA's and admins will continue to attrit. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:36, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

All the admin tools relate to content creation. That's what they are there for. If you are not a content creator, then you should not be working on admin tasks. We are here to build an encyclopaedia, not a bureaucracy. Judgement and maturity is shown by writing articles. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:56, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

All of the admin tools relate to content protection, not creation. That's what they're there for. -- Izno ( talk) 00:21, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Not so; and there was a good example of this just a couple of hours ago. [3] Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:43, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

"Judgement and maturity is shown by writing articles" is a dogmatic statement without evidence. The sheer number of counter-examples shown by any sampling of the new page feed is powerful evidence of the contrary. Indeed, many of those rebuked for poor judgment by ArbCom have been prolific article-creators. Recent example: @ Magioladitis: had a fast and easy RfA with many compliments on their mainspace contributions, has many new articles and nearly a million total contributions but was (sadly) just desysopped "for consistent poor judgement". Only blind faith substantiates the connection between article creation and judgment. A record of article creation may give RfA commentators a record to evaluate judgment and maturity but that's a different hypothesis and such a record can be created in other ways. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:15, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

That is exactly my contention. Whether such a record can be established in other ways is problematic. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:43, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

In my case the "poor judgment" accusation is limited in a sigle topic which has been the center of a debate for years anyway. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 09:24, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't know who was complimentary about Magioladitis' mainspace contributions, but it wasn't me - anyway, my favourite admins (including Drmies, Floquenbeam, Iridescent, MelanieN and Dennis Brown) have all made major mainspace contributions, while the admins who I dislike the most (not naming names but search for arguments on my talk page and you'll find one or two) spend most of their time hitting the Twinkle button. In any case, writing lots of articles is just a convenient way of proving good communication and diplomacy skills, and as Cyberpower678 and GoldenRing's RfAs (both of which I enthusiastically supported) show, it is possible to prove this by other means. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:29, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

@ Ritchie333: Just to correct an error about me before it spreads; unlike the other admins you mention, I have almost no mainspace content contributions (unless you count vandalism reversion in articles), and have never claimed to. Whether I'm an exception to the rule, or a textbook example of it, depends on who you talk to; I know at least 2 people active in this discussion think I suck. Anyway, not here to discuss whether a history of content creation should be a criterion or not, just clarifying that I've never marketed myself as a content creator. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 15:56, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I'll put you alongside Cyberpower678 and GoldenRing with the "admins who have shown clue by other means" Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:00, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

"writing lots of articles is just a convenient way of proving good communication and diplomacy skills, and as Cyberpower678 and GoldenRing's RfAs (both of which I enthusiastically supported) show, it is possible to prove this by other means." Well said. -- Begoon 10:11, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

What does an even better job of evaluating a candidate on their communication and diplomacy is specifically evaluating them on communication and diplomacy. Looking back at RfAs from 2007/2008, instead of being bombarded with opposes because they didn't have a featured article under their belt, candidates were asked to provide an example of a difficult situation that they remained level-headed in and were able to resolve. Which sounds more useful - actually evaluating those competencies, or using some proxy with a questionable connection to the topic at best? Almost all of the serial non-admins - you know, the ones who have hundreds of thousands of edits and have been here for years but would never pass an RfA - are heavy content contributors. And good on them! But that doesn't necessarily mean that they have the interpersonal skills required to be an admin. One easy way of fixing the RfA standards is to move back to evaluating candidates on what matters to the actual role of being an admin. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 01:28, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't believe the standards have changed at all very much since around 2010. What you are basing your idea on are the occasional trolls who demand GA and FA or ridiculous high edit counts. The essay at User:Kudpung/RfA criteria has had thousands of hits since it was written and although I only wrote to show how I vote, and as a personal aide-mémoire, it's become one of the most often cited sets of conditions. I compiled them by simply throwing everyone else's into a pot, giving it a good stir and seeing what came out. Well, it turned out that the brew was what I had already generally been doing, and it still works for me today, and nobody has ever told me I'm wrong or too soft or too strict. What I do know is, however, after sticking with RfA issues for many years, is that the community is not going to agree to a consensus for a clear set of criteria. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 23:43, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

In actuality, @ Kudpung:, what I am basing my idea on is that the standards are not officially documented. For you to be both, as you say, the author of a widely-cited set of informal standards and positing that a clear set of standards is not going to be acceptable is, well, confusing. Your standards, which have such acceptance and are the result of surveying other standards, seem like a good place to at least start a policy on minimum administrator qualifications. At least there is some clarity for potential administrators in knowing those. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:23, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

It's not confusing, Eggishorn, my standards as I clearly explained, like a lot of other things I have written over the years, have been widely cited but were construed for my personal use. Of course I won't deny a certain pride if my work is widely recognised but that was never my intention. What I do is try to think from the other end of the box, i.e, from the pragmatic and useful angle. Remember, I went through one of the most disgusting scathing RfA on record (and came out of it with a healthy consensus) with even lies told about me by admins (fortunately now desysoped), and that is why I spend so much time on these issues. That said, experience as a regular RfA voter, and the 2nd top contributor to this talk page for many years leaves me with the clear impression that the community would never want to lay down any hard and fast criteria for adminship, and I don't think it would be an advantage either. We have had some rare exceptions where the candidates did not meet a lot of those conditions, but passed anyway and they have not become problematic admins. On the other hand there have been plenty of users with an agenda who have passed with flying colours but who have later been caught out doing some nasty things and been desysoped (and I don't mean simple wheelwarring or the occasional unreflected block). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 04:25, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Pinging others that I know have been involved in this: Anna Frodesiak and Samwalton9 ansh 666 18:24, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

• Has anyone ever proposed putting RfAs through a SecurePoll, like the ArbCom elections? The candidate/nominator presents his statement, is asked questions (as before), there can be a discussion, but overall, the !votes are not known to the candidate, and the views which go with the vote are ultimately unknown. ^{My name is}not^dave ( talk/ contribs) 20:06, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

• Currently being discussed a few sections up, I believe. ansh 666 20:13, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Been discussed dozens of times. Community does not want it, apparently. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:31, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I think you're all missing a couple of very important points and, I believe with a little self reflection, you'll see it too. First, being an admin isn't as relevant as it used to be. In order to do things like moving files, rollback, editing protected templates, etc. you had to be an admin, so, it was more important to have the whole toolset. Now, most of the low hanging fruit has been split off leaving only blocking/unblocking, protection/unprotection and seeing deleted content, none of which is all that important to most editors. Secondly and just as importantly being an admin on Wikipedia, for a variety of reasons, has become undesirable. This is partly due to some bad actors that aren't dealt with, the inability to remove their access when they screw up and the tendency for them to be outed on the critic sites and harassed offline. The last thing I see and this can be argued if you really want too, is a steady collapse of the editing culture. Less people are editing, less edits are being done, less new people are joining and those who do don't stay, more people are leaving, less people are participating in things like WikiProjects, newsletters, DYK's, portals and other non article content production, etc. In short, this community is collapsing. Now, some of this can be addressed and fixed and some of it can't but either way it will take time to move the needle. If you want more admins, then make it easier to get rid of bad ones and make the process easier to become one. Unless you are willing to make hard choices and do both, then there is literally nothing to talk about because you're clearly not serious about fixing the problem. When you are, you will find away. Frankly, my fear is the only way for this process to be improved is if it is allowed to collapse so something else can replace it. Let it die like Obamacare in America, when it does, then you can fix it. 2601:5CC:101:5DEB:8E4:F9C4:9F16:8576 ( talk) 00:35, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

What do you know about it? If it were within the rules (and I respect the rules to the letter), I would simply block your IP right now as a ban evading user. It's just too obvious. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:48, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:EVADE would seem to support a block within the rules (since indeed it's obvious). -- Izno ( talk) 01:58, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:IPHUMAN is also within the rules. Unbelievable isn't it :) — fortuna velut luna 04:20, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Summer is almost over.....more will pop up soon. Normal summer downturn.-- Moxy ( talk) 03:47, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I also know WP:IPHUMAN, that's why I also know to within 99.9% certainty who 2601:5CC:101:5DEB:8E4:F9C4:9F16:8576 is. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 04:31, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Uh uh, it's probably wassisname Reguyla or so, but all I'm saying is that that was a pretty positive contribution to the discussion, regardless of who made it. I mean positive as in not disruptive, s'all. — fortuna velut luna 04:51, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

"Uh uh, it's probably wassisname Reguyla or so" - his grammar and style has improved tremendously if so. Perhaps we should consider an unblock? -- Begoon 08:46, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

That's not out of the pattern for him. -- Izno ( talk) 12:42, 7 September 2017 (UTC)]

Yeah, maybe I was fooled by the correct apostrophe in you're, and didn't look to deep. -- Begoon 20:34, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

See, that's the patterns of behavior from admins, and editors quit frankly, that has made people not want to edit here or to be admins. If you make a comment and someone disagrees, all they have to do is accuse you directly or indirectly of being some blocked or banned editor and shazaam, you're discredited. I am familiar with the editor you are referring too and I certainly can't do anything about it if you choose to block me but I have seen a lot of people make statements that "insert pattern here" matches the pattern for Reguyla, which frankly shows me and everyone that they really don't have a pattern and you're just choosing to use that as the excuse of the day because it works. I left what I thought was a considerate and constructive comment. If you disagree that's fine, if you decide to block me that's fine, but that is EXACTLY the sort of things that makes people NOT want to be admins or even be around them. If an editor/admin can't treat people with respect or consistently make wild accusations against comments and editors merely because they say something they don't like, why would anyone want to participate in that? There is a term for that in real life, it's called a hostile work environment and no one wants to work in a hostile environment and especially not as an unpaid volunteer. Most editors want to improve the content, they want to be respectful to each other and they want to cooperate to improve things, when some don't, particularly admins, it makes people not want to be around them it's as simple as that. It's not an accusation or a judgement, it's just human nature. And, for the record, I do not recall Reguyla being as verbose as I. They were much more concise, often too much so, which led to some of the problems. You might remember they were a good editor once and probably still would be had they not been hounded and harassed off the project to the point that they snapped...but that's just my opinion. :-) 2601:5CC:101:5DEB:792A:DB5:F36C:37E ( talk) 22:50, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

2601, if you want a friendlier place to chat, my talk page is open. I've never interacted with Reguyla (to the best of my knowledge), but he must have tried to pee in Jimbo Wales' coffee or something given the way people are talking about him. :-/ Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:00, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

@ Ritchie333: Reguyla is also known as Kumioko, perhaps you've heard of the latter. ansh 666 00:19, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@ Ritchie333 and Ansh666:, FWIW, I met Kumioko in RL once. I was the only one who knew about his socking at the time and I didn't mention it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:49, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Seriously Kudpung! Of all people he is the person whom I least expect to ABF and issue a ban threat on a constructive comment. On a destructive note I would like to ask what other people think of unbundling the right to edit cascade protected articles.(As everyone will have understood I am a regular editor who wishes not to reveal his identity) 110.227.110.49 ( talk) 11:06, 7 September 2017 (UTC) Request withdrawn 122.163.95.12 ( talk) 08:54, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

110.49, unlike access (which we don't have) to edit over protections - editing of cascade protected includes the ability to actually protect pages, so that factor would also have to be considered. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:19, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

His knowledge of policy is certainly better than yours. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 13:15, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

• Going back to basics, as I see it the only really important standard is having the confidence of the community, as determined by sufficient participation in the RfA. Arbitrary numerical standards are as unrealistic here as everywhere else in WP. The only organizations that really needs them ares overly large bureaucracies DGG ( talk ) 05:27, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Its actually sad/ironic how editors are judged by their AfD stats. What if an editor intentionally becomes part of a herd in all the discussions he participates in? He will have like 98% score (given there was a plot twist in 2% of discussion after his vote). And yet his understanding of the policy will be extremely questionable.
  I skimmed through few AfD discussions in which S Marshall participated. Most of these (from the few that i saw) were not "herd-y". So his votes actually deserve respect, and have earned mine. I will definitely support him in his RfA. And me too waiting for Fortuna's RfA. the gentleman should do it soon. Also, can I nominate a worthy editor for RfA, or only sys-ops can do that? I know the policy says anybody can do it, but i dont think i have seen a non-admin nominating someone. —usernamekiran (talk)

I think that is the reason why good editors have a low score on AfD stats. And as discussed in this conversation above, low score is an obstacle for RfA. And wow, 150+ socks. @ Kudpung: is it okay if I ask what would be Kumioko's estimated age today? Like in 20s, 30s, 40s or so on. —usernamekiran (talk) 02:46, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• @ Usernamekiran: anyone may nominate, a candidate can even nominate themselves. For the most part you should ask someone if they want to be nominated first. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:08, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, anyone can achieve perfect afd stats by only commenting on the utterly obvious. DGG ( talk ) 03:41, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Maybe the AFD stats tool should not only weigh whether the !vote matches the result but also the length of the comment left by the !voter (assuming that drive-by !voters only leave short comments)? Not sure whether this is achievable though... Regards So Why 09:26, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Why would you want to add another misleading and meaningless statistic to a misleading and meaningless statistic? If you want to improve the effect the AfD stats tool has on RfAs, the best option is to disable the AfD stats tool. (The only thing it is useful for is to determine how editors behave in the face of opposition). — Kusma ( t· c) 09:52, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I find the AfD stats tool useful so I can remind myself which debates I've participated in, and which are still open and might have new comments. It's easier than watchlisting all of them. Furthermore, a "red" entry in the stats tool (ie: where consensus didn't match) is a great way to see what sort of arguments somebody can come up with - people tend to go into more depth when they're disagreeing.

The basic problem, that several people are describing here, is that there is no qualification level for RfA voters - everyone is allowed a say. It's far easier to say "oppose, only been around 27 years and 250,000 edits is too inexperienced" than to actually go and research a candidate properly and confirm they can be trusted with the tools. It's the same effect for people who write "Oppose, this guy looks dodgy, but somebody's put a really long oppose !vote three above this one, so per them" (well, they don't actually write that, but it's a more honest description...) And there are enough of these people (I'm loathe to call them "idiots" because that's kind of a personal attack, but still....) bouncing around that can torpedo an RfA for no real sensible reason. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:01, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I know the AfD tool is useful, just I see it misused so often that I now think its existence is a net negative.

The problem of people using others' dodgy oppose reasons, which leads to single edit mistakes turning into dozens of pile-on opposes is the main reason why I believe RfA should be a vote, or at least that comments and voting should be separated. Our current system basically allows campaigning right at the ballot box, which is rightly prohibited in democratic countries. Also, the terrible principle that opposes need "reasons" has lead to people giving silly justifications ("only 87% AfD accuracy") that for some strange reason then influence others. We should have never let this type of metrics (remember 1FA?) become as prominent. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:03, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Wot's 1FA, Kusma? — fortuna velut luna 11:09, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

It means "Oppose - Candidate has only taken 1 article to FA status". Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:54, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Ah! Got you. "Sensible policies for a happier Britain" ;) — fortuna velut luna 12:01, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• Keep calm and RfA on. :) -- Hammersoft ( talk) 12:41, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

It was actually originally going both ways (at least that is how the inventor used it), both "Support, has written a FA" and "Oppose, has not written a FA". It was in fashion for a while 10 years ago and got replaced by equally irrelevant but less transparent criteria. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:03, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I think a new RfC should be started on whether or not RfA should be just a vote, with extensive commentary being restricted to a separate section. This would make so much more sense especially if we are frequently employing the metric system to such incredible extent. By the way, I remember 10 years ago with 1FA and all the "irrelevant" criteria. The only difference, in my opinion, is that not as many otherwise perfectly qualified candidates sank back then because of one lengthy oppose that invokes such criteria. Alex Shih ^Talk 16:12, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• The only way for straight voting to work at RfA is for their to be suffrage requirements. We just shut that down above for the umpteenth time. -- Hammersoft ( talk) 17:43, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• sank back then because of one lengthy oppose that invokes such criteria... Can you point to a single example of an RfA failing because of a single lengthy oppose that invoked criteria like "has to have 1 FA"? Regards So Why 17:51, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• Edit summary percentage sinking a RFA: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/FT2. Actually, ten year old RFAs make for interesting reading. — Kusma ( t· c) 19:50, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• Not really a good example for what Alex was saying. FT2 withdrew at a time at which it probably would have succeeded because of something people cared about (for good reason) and he understood that it was a problem. It's actually a good example for how it should go: Candidate gets constructive feedback, works on their issues, passes a few months later. Regards So Why 20:03, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• I don't think that the fact anyone can vote is the only issue. Many experienced, long-term editors, including admins, have made appallingly inappropriate comments on RfAs. There have also been nominations of editors that had no chance of passing, meaning another editor potentially driven away by the resulting blood-bath. We not only need qualified voters, we need qualified candidates and qualified comments. It should not be down to opinion, or the way the wind is blowing on that particular day. I know it's been suggested before, but we need a jury-type system, where a group of up to, say, 12 long-term editors decide if a candidate should become an admin. The jury would consist of RfA regulars who not only have the experience of researching candidates and voting in a fair way without an agenda or bias, but also have experience in a wide range of places elsewhere: FAs, DYK, AFD, technical etc. They would vote between themselves and decide. We would have to work a system to elect this "jury", but this would certainly be an improvement to now, where anyone can vote for any person for any reason whatsoever. Aiken D 18:40, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
  • For all the complaints about RfA being horribly broken; here's something to consider. To date, there have been 2081 successful RfAs run since WP:RFA began. To date, approximately (some variance may be due to desysopped admins having been appointed before RfA began) 63 administrators have had their bits removed for cause (other than death). I.e. RfA has had a 97% success rate in appointing administrators who haven't screwed up enough to lose their privileges for cause. Any process that we can imagine to 'improve' this rate is, at best, going to have vanishingly small benefit, and at worst make that success rate significantly worse. The problem isn't RfA selecting bad candidates. Our community of contributors to RfA seem to be doing a fantastic job of selection. Of course, there might be a flip side to that; great candidates going up in flames and the project not getting the benefit of them being an administrator. That can't be quantified, unfortunately. -- Hammersoft ( talk) 19:14, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

The main reason I like to see new admins is that they bring new ideas, so we're not stuck in an "old boy's club" where nothing changes. And the more admins there are, we'll see less of this "us and them" attitude. There are some RfAs from the past few years that I would like to see try again at some point. And I believe I've given Hammersoft a nudge to give it a go himself. In his case, he has an interest in reversing semi-protection applied 5+ years ago that everyone's forgotten about (is Sarah Palin such a vandalism magnet these days?), which comes back to "new, refreshing ideas". Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:33, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• I never thought of that as a "new" idea, but yeah I think there are some parts of the project that are protected that likely (not always; and sometimes discussion/analysis is needed) shouldn't be. But, that's what a mop is about, right? Cleaning up messes? -- Hammersoft ( talk) 19:39, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Hammersoft explains perfectly that technically, there is nothing wrong with RfA and that it does its job quite well. There's never been any dispute about that (at least not from me). It depends whether the community considers 2.98% of admins desysoped for cause to be too many or too few. There is no guarantee that a different system would do any better. Everyone knows what the problem is with the system and no one wants to admit it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:24, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Why do so few people run RfA these days, and why do so many fail their request? The setup was fine at one time, but no more. Again, the issue is that anyone can request adminship, and anyone can vote, for any reason. Aiken D 14:30, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Not many do fail. Well, not many that come from long time users. Obviously trolls and 500 edit wonders are going to fail if their transclusions were not nipped in the bud and deleted. I don't think there are many RfA that failed that should have passed. I can only think of one in fairly recent times and that was this one where all the opposes bar one or two were unresearched pile ons. IMO all the other failed RfA were aptly voted and closed; one extremely close call way back in 2010 was closed as a pass but probably should have been left to a 'crat chat that might have gone the other way. But that's a matter of opinion of course.

Apart from the toxic environment at RfA, which while it still goes on is no longer so much the playground for the deliberate Personal Attackers, there are no clear reason why fewer and fewer candidates come forward. Most of them tell us off-line that it is due to the sordid commenting including the unpleasant attitude displayed between voters themselves. But there is a clear downturn in interest in all things maintenance across the site, which appear to be concurrent with the decline in new articles of genuine encyclopedic relevance and quality. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 07:19, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

The clear reason, apart from the toxic environment, is the higher standards of the modern RfA compared with 06-08. Take any user who joined after 2010, has at least 5,000 edits, and who is a member of at least two of the "devolved" user groups like rollbacker or page mover - they could have been an admin if they joined in 2004 instead. RfA has gone from a quick "are they competent" check to an in-depth process with dozens of questions and a correspondingly increased level of stress for those going through the process. Less people are putting themselves forward because they know this, and so they self-select out of the process. The only people who pass RfA these days are people who have a year of free time to prepare for it, get all their ducks in a row, and even then need to hope that they don't ever make a mistake in the meantime. Would you sacrifice elements of your real life to put all this time and work into... being able to do janitor-like duties on a website for free?

Now, I say all of this with a caveat. Wikis in general do experience a surge and then decline in people requesting adminship. I've seen it on every wiki that I've volunteered my time on. So the fact that the rate of candidates have dropped since 2007 shouldn't be concerning on its own. Wikidata doesn't make many new admins these days, even with a very easy RfA process, because most of the people who want to be an admin are already. But, the fact that we are basically actively preventing people from taking on these few extra tools and helping out in the janitorial areas is concerning, and worth trying to fix IMO. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 23:53, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree Ajraddatz - I know you mean well. Have you read every word of the project and talk pages at WP:RFA2011 yet? The watershed year was 2007 after which some staggering drops on all kinds of activity graphs occurred. The criteria have in no way increased since at least 2010, and all candidates of the right calibre are well aware that they would pass with ease if they were prepared for a 7 day trial of fire. They are not prepared to do it. In the earlier times you cite, yes it was indeed easier - 20 support votes was all it took, too; and the process was much less toxic. Wikipedia has grown organically, one editor caused a change in Dec 2015 that now attracts 200 or 300 votes on RfAs and the system still does not attract more candidates. Wikipedia's systems and processes have to be updated to match its growth. But the criteria for adminship have not got stricter. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 00:24, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

The criteria for adminship, at least since 2008, has objectively gotten stricter. Let's look at a totally random example from 2007 - Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Camaron1. Details about the candidate: 9 months experience on Wikipedia and 4000 edits. Already, would not pass under current conditions. Had participated in 2 AfD discussions prior to his nomination. Instant fail today. Then we can get into more details - low counter-vandalism experience, little-to-no CSD work, no GAs, little substantial article work. This person who passed RfA 47/3 in 2008 would be laughed out of the process and SNOW-closed today. You're right that the standards have not gotten significantly stricter since 2010, but I'm talking about back when we routinely made people admins on this site (and just after the very early days). -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 00:36, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

There is no WP:AGF in RFA these days that is being NETPOSTIVE with no blocks ,ANI or Arbcom Drama or incivility will not guarantee a successful RFA.Prior to 2010 NETPOSTIVE would normally ensure a successful RFA. Newer editors or editors who started to edit after 2010 are not coming for RFA Less than 44 admins out of 1,247 admins now started to edit after 2010 . Bulk of the editors seeking adminship are editors who started to edit before 2010.None of the crats. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 20:15, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but a lot of people made accounts a long time ago and then only started to really edit recently - someone like GoldenRing comes to mind. Filtering by account creation date can't really account for that. ansh 666 20:45, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Filtering by account creation date may not solve for that, but it sure does reflect how ridiculous the RfA standards of today have become. Pre-2010 saw people with under a year of experience becoming admins. Now 99% of users who registered after 2010 couldn't pass the process. Hammersoft and Kudpung were saying above how excellent RfA has been at selected candidates - I agree. What they fail to mention is that 87% of current and past admins were given the rights before 2010, under the lower standards, and without a significant increase in problems that required desysopping that I can see. RfA is a broken process, because it allows for the standards to become what they are today. From 6 months editing and some demonstration of competence and civility in 2008 to spending all of your time on Wikipedia for years before even being considered a serious candidate now. And yet, the vast majority of our current admins are from the pre-2010 era and they seem to be able to work just fine. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 20:59, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Or put differently, because the admins tend to circle the wagons and ignore admin misconduct, the community has increased their expectations to avoid buyer's remorse. While some of the less-qualified but still competent admins are ok, the community is trying to avoid creating more of the unqualified admins of which that we already have too many. Chris Troutman ( talk) 21:08, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Or may be they just can not agree on what does "unqualified asmin" mean. (2011 account registration here).-- Ymblanter ( talk) 21:13, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

You've highlighted two other parts to the problem - no effective community desysop procedure, and the perception of admins as community leaders rather than people with a few extra janitorial tools who are just as much fallible volunteers as everyone else.There is no reason that admins should be more "special" than anyone without advanced permissions. Their toolset just happens to be a bit bigger than the one we give to rollbackers or reviewers. Decisions should be made by consensus, not by admin fiat. That's all my personal opinion of course, and others would definitely argue that it differs in practice.

I would also like to push back a bit on the buyer's remorse idea. Your experience may well be that the existing admins are awful and most of them should be removed, but I don't think that's a widely held opinion. I think it's more an issue of surplus, and I've seen this elsewhere as well. Around 2010, the number of editors was declining and with it the need for new admins to perform the maintenance tasks. People could then be more selective with who became an admin, since there were still a large potential pool of candidates, but less new admins were perceived to be necessary. Now that the number of editors has increased a bit again (or at least the decline has halted), the standards have been lifting a bit at least. But really, there shouldn't be any reason to so strictly limit the number of admins. They shouldn't be leaders, they should be contributors like everyone else that have a specific toolset that they can use. If we started lowering the standards and making more people admins, I think that this would also help remove the status symbol associated with adminship by making it less of an exclusive club. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 21:22, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

@ Ajraddatz: You might be right about the rest of what you say, but I object to you using quotation marks and misquoting me, only prefacing with "something that you almost literally say in there." That's irresponsible. I choose not to be an admin. What I actually say is "I'm not an accomplished Wikipedian and I'm not an admin. If you have less of an edit count or less time served than I, then I'm going to question what makes you so damn worthy." I think my position is fair. I am the minimum bar of pathetic editors on Wikipedia and you need to be this tall to ride the ride. Please don't mis-characterize me or assign motives to me. Chris Troutman ( talk) 21:30, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

@ Chris troutman: Apologies and fair point. I wasn't trying to specifically pick apart your motivations, but point to a broader problem - the post-2010 crowd largely can't become admins due to the ridiculous current standards, and whenever a group of people is systematically excluded from "power" (I use power totally incorrectly here, but can't think of a better word) a culture evolves around it. That culture here is of editors vs. administrators, a distinction which was not present in the early days of the project and never should have existed in the first place. I would guess that "if I can't be an admin, why should you be one?" is a broad underlying reason for upholding the high standards on RfA today. I wasn't trying to say that it was your motivation in particular, so I've removed that part of my comment. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 21:49, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

RfA standards have grown since the watershed year of 2007 because as Wikipedia has grown organically, so do the parts that run it have to grow. It still wasn't realised in 2007 what a mamoth impact Wikipedia would have on the world and many of those start-up rules and policies are now very out dated. That's why other language Wikipedia took better measures when they were created later. Admins become widely known to the community due to their activities and because they are generally held to higher standards than other editors, it does happen that they become 'leaders' in the sense that they help to create new policies and guidelines and give a facelift to existing ones. Due to the specifics of their work they usually have a broader (but not necessarily better) knowledge of policies and guidelines, and that is one of the things that is tested and examined at RfA along with an assessment of their ability to make responsible judgment calls. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 03:44, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

The standards for RfA have been continually changing. In the early days you just emailed a developer to become an admin. As the project grew and the developers couldn't know everyone personally, the standards had to increase and a public comment period was introduced. As time went on, a number of processes contributed to the higher standards we see today: increasingly-qualified candidates made others look less favourable, buyer's remorse as described above, the perception from admins promoted under the higher standards that those standards are legitimate, and I'm sure a plethora of others. But those higher standards have not necessarily translated into better admins. The transition from emailing a developer to a public request almost certainly did, as did raising the voter base so that people were made sysops with more than 10 supporting votes. But I don't think that the 2010-and-after standard is helping us get better quality admins - namely because 87% of our past and present admins were promoted under the lower, older standards. Those admins still make up the bulk of the admin team today, and they seem to be able to do a good job on the whole despite being judged less strictly than users in the post-2010 era. Admins may be seen as leaders, but again, this was not always the case and does not need to be today. If more users were made admins right now, then the status of the role would decrease significantly with the influx of new blood. Community leaders should be the ones who are able to present the most coherent and sensible arguments, not those who happened to win the "joining Wikipedia before 2010" lottery who are admins because of it. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 04:57, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

A very large number of those older admins have been desysoped for lack of activity and some have lost their bit 'for cause'. I would hazard a calculated guess and suggest that in fact although we may still have many admins who were appointed under ancient, very easy terms, the vast bulk of today's actual admin work, particularly the most stressful and distasteful is carried out by the 'post-2010 crowd' . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 16:30, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

The post 2010 crowd consists of as many of the 189 admins created since 2010 who are still active as admins. I would be surprised if that was as much as a third of our 529 active admins. Two of our most active admins, RHaworth and Materialscientist are definitely not post 2010, RHaworth has been an admin since 2005. That isn't necessarily a problem, I think that many of the old RFAs were far more focussed on the candidate's suitability than more recent RFAs. I've seen RFAs where so much emphasis was on the stats and the Q&A section you might wonder if anyone was actually checking the candidate's edits. My worry is about RFa !votes based on stats about edit count and tenure, !votes that give more weight to articles created than to content created. Votes that often don't even cite a diff. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:17, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Bulk of active admins,Arb com members ,all the 21 current crats, all belong to the pre 2010 period .Of course bulk of the 936 former administrators belong to pre 2010 but also bulk of the 1247 current admins belong to pre 2010. A candidate who is NETPOSTIVE would became an admin but now it is not the case. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 17:58, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Aye, not that many admins from after 2009. I am the 13th most recent admin signup, as it seems like. 37 admins signed up after 2009, and not all of them are very active seems like. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 18:46, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Have to say that while I personally get on with RHaworth and he's usually right about policy, he does WP:BITE too much for my liking and some discussions on his talk page make me wince. He wouldn't pass RfA now. Then again, I'm not sure I could have passed RfA either before or since when I did - I just picked a good time. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:54, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Ritchie333, I don't think it's wholly appropriate here to be discussing the performance of individual admins in subjective, especially negative, terms. Also, although not a guideline, etiquette demands that we usually ping people when we're back-stabbing them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 22:19, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus Good point - if we look at wikigenerations it is way more extreme as many of our newest admins had been editing for many years before they became admins. I'm hoping that more of the people who started editing in 2011-2014 will start running at RFA, there must be lots of people who started in that era would pass easily if they ran now. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:33, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

N.B. Though more than threequarters of the 189 admins who have passed RFA since Dec 31 2010 had been editors before that date, we should remember that 2011 with 52 RFAs was by far the best year at RFA in the 2011-2017 era, and I doubt if any of those 52 had been editing for less than a year when they passed RFA, so all of those 52 will have created accounts in 2010 or earlier. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:27, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

@ WereSpielChequers: good point regarding the focus of the votes. One of the other potential reasons why the RfA standards have increased is the ease of forcing up the numerical statistics - if there are two candidates, one with 10000 edits / 15 articles created / 85% AfD record and another with 100000 edits / 200 articles created / 99% AfD record then voters will likely look at the second more favourably than the first. But neither candidate is being evaluated on whether they are competent enough to use the tools appropriately. It doesn't matter if the candidate has 5000 edits or 500000, so long as they demonstrate an understanding of policy in the areas they are active in, and show enough clue that they could probably apply that competence to other areas of the project. Changing focus away from the statistics might be the first step towards fixing RfA. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 19:16, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

@Ajraddatz Yes, we've had some candidates pass where their tenure or editcount was the sole reason for opposing, and I think having those admins do well should make the 12 months and 4,000 edits brigade question if that is the best metric to use. Articles created is the latest statistical fad, I'm hoping it passes the way the percentage automated edits craze has gone. No one has ever tried to explain to me why a candidate who rescues lots of articles that others start is an unsuitable candidate because they never create articles from scratch. I'm hoping that having some RFA participants do diff supported rationale's and those rationale's be the ones that turn an RFA, will educate the !voters who just look at questions and stats. But its an uphill struggle. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:26, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I think most people agree that Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GoldenRing was a welcome example of how straightforward aptitude can trump simple statistics like edit count and articles created; the problem is that in order to get more of those, you have to get people prepared to self-nominate with the full knowledge that they might not succeed. I don't think anyone wants to do that. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:48, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but we should also remember that very active editors, those who make over a hundred mainspace edits a month, are mostly not admins. Even if all our "active admins" were so active as to count as "very active", we now have well over two thousand very active editors who are not admins, hundreds of those will fail some of the other de facto criteria. But I'm sure that many would pass if they ran. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:27, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

Actually, on the topic of desysopped admins "for cause", looking at Wikipedia:Former_administrators/reason/for cause shows that out of the 31 admins desysopped, 3 were from post-2010, and another 3 were from late 2009. That means that 90% of desysopped admins were from pre-2010, while only 87% of total admins were from that time. That's hardly a significant drop in quality, especially when you consider the number of "for cause" desysoppings were done on admins appointed under the email-a-developer process or in the very early days of RfA. 63% of admins here were elected between 2005 and 2008, when the standards were more focused on competence than proxies for competence like edit count or tenure. Yet that group only accounts for 56% of desysoppings for cause. The post-2010 crowd is 12% total admins, 10% desysopped by cause. The numbers don't point to a significantly higher quality of admin coming from the higher standards of 2010 and beyond.

Also, even if it were the case that the majority of active admins now were from the post-2010 group, that could be expected since 2010 was 7 years ago. Any volunteer organization has a median expiry time for members (the one I know off-hand is 5 years in the Canadian Forces Reserves). It should be no surprise that people move on after a while. The point I'm making here is that the current RfA standards have transformed adminship from just a bunch of maintenance tools into some fancy status symbol, demanding that candidates put in years of effort to prove they are worthy when there is no measurable benefit to all the extra hoops. All it does is create a very strange power dynamic, and necessitate endless devolution of rights that further puts adminship up on a pedestal. -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 19:45, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I did somewhere on this talkpage a breakdown of "for cause" desysops by RfA-generation. It turned out that while later RfA-generations don't have sufficient sample sizes it seems like each RfA-generation has comparable percentages of desysopped admins. Imma see if I can find it again. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 20:10, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Found it on Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_236, note that WereSpielChequers did raise a caveat:

• 4 (1,7%) 2004 (Guanaco, Geogre, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason and Nichalp)
• 18 (4,7%) 2005 (Karmafist, Henrygb, Freestylefrappe, Craigy144, 172, Shreshth, Sade, NSLE, FeloniousMonk, Alkivar, A Man In Black, Seabhcan, Rich Farmbrough, MONGO, Marudubshinki, Kwamikagami, Ed Poor and Carnildo who also had another resysoping in 2006)
• 9 (2,5%) 2006 (Runcorn, Robdurbar, Betacommand, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Yanksox, William M. Connolley, Husnock and Tango and Rama's Arrow which also had another sysoping in 2007)
• 9 (2,2%) 2007 (Ryulong, Eyrian, Dreadstar, Trusilver, SchuminWeb, Nightscream, EncycloPetey, Kafziel and Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry)
• 5 (2,5%) 2008 (Rodhullandemu, Archtransit, Tanthalas39, ABedford and Cirt)
• 3 (2,5%) 2009 (PastorTheo, Hawkeye7 and Cool3)
• 2 (2,6%) 2010 (Wifione and DangerousPanda)
• 1 (1.9%) 2011 (Ironholds)
• 1 (2,9%) 2013 (Secret)
• Ten unclear (Phil Sandifer, Isis, Stevertigo, Hemanshu, Altenmann, Kils, Malcolm, Will Beback, 168... and Antonio Martin); these might be 2002-2003 age adminships (in this case, 6% over two years).

As mentioned in the original post, there are a few caveats: a) This only covers desysops, not cloudy resignations, b) the numbers from 2008 or so onward become so small that the significance is not large, c) no gradation for the severity is done here and d) I didn't inspect desysops for after 2015. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 20:18, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

The caveat I raised before was "Nice work, but you are also comparing very different time periods. The 2005 rate is for desysoppings within ten years of becoming an admin, the 2010 rate is for desysopping within five years. Some work I did a few years ago showed that the most high risk admins were those who had been admins for at least three years, I should probably repeat the exercise, but it does indicate to me that overconfidence and drifting away from community norms were more likely risks than RFA letting through a dud." I'm pretty sure that still applies, without naming names there are some people who were going to get desysopped when we spotted something we missed at the RFA; some people who just made a really big mistake, and some who progressively developed into someone who was no longer suitable for adminship. I'm pretty sure that all three types exist, that we don't have a big enough sample to work out the ratio between them, and that the ratio between them will change over time as the longer you are an admin the more likely it is that the second or third scenarios will happen. Of the various things that could cause the third scenario; I'm willing to bet a pint that in fifty years time we'll be saying that senility gets us all in the end, but the chance of my being around in 2067 to pay up is negligible. Ϣere SpielChequers 23:34, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I wonder if one can take the conclusion "more recent RfAs do not result in noticeably better admins than old RfAs" from these data. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 14:52, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Probably not. With the non-inclusion of resignations under a cloud, it probably isn't a useful metric of much. I'll need to stick with the "87% of admins were elected under lower numerical standards" thing instead :-P -- Ajraddatz ( talk) 18:11, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

At my RfA, which has been running for less than 24 hours, we've already seen two well-meaning new editors (well relatively; they both have under 500 edits though the accounts were made a while ago) participating. Both indicated that they had little knowledge about RfA and other such project-side matters; one seemed to feel somewhat obligated to because of the watchlist notice, thinking it was a request sent specifically to them instead of a sitewide notice, and I'd guess the other had a similar thought as well given their neutral comment. I was - and remain - generally opposed to extended-confirmed protection at RfA, but would it be possible to limit or reword the watchlist notices somehow to avoid confusing new editors? Dunno, maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill and nobody else cares... ansh 666 01:57, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

It's not the watchlist notices that are the problem, it's the lack of exclusionary criteria for participation. A 500/30 restriction was recently proposed; I'm not sure what has happened with that. But as with real-life elections, there need to be "age" and competency requirements on RfA participation. Softlavender ( talk) 02:08, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I know that is an issue, but that's not the issue I'm trying to solve here; sorry if I wasn't as clear as I should have been. What I'm trying to address here is: some editors, especially new editors, see watchlist notices and then feel obliged to participate in RfA, which obviously wasn't the intention. Is there any way to clear up this confusion so that they aren't sucked into the dramuh cesspools of WP before they're ready? ansh 666 02:15, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

No editor, new or old, "feels obliged" to participate in an RfA, any more than they "feel obliged" to participate in any of the other numerous notifications that pop up at the top of a watch list. This week there have been three simultaneous notices: an RFC on a usergroup thing, an RfC re: ArbCom elections, and an RFA. Softlavender ( talk) 02:23, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

It's great that 10-years-and-65k-edits-you know that, but did you read the comments I'm talking about? Some quotes: the first, a support from Inatan, Who is sending me these requests for participation at the top of my watchlist, and how can I make them stop coming? My vote here stands, but this is a side of the project I am not ready for..., and the second, a neutral from Pagliaccious, I would regret supporting or opposing without sufficient knowledge of how much contribution admins typically make and in what areas. Does this sound like people who want to participate in RfA? ansh 666 02:48, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

The watchlistnotice sends them to RFA, not to a specific RFA. The landing page for it is either the top of the page or, Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#Expressing_opinions - perhaps some additional verbiage here? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:17, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Probably best to think about this when no RfAs are ongoing. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 03:18, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I've looked at one of the editors mentioned by Ansh666, they have less than 300 edits. I can see the argument that it might seem bitey to some if we protected RFAs with extended protection, especially if we are inviting editors there with a watchlist notice. But putting some code in the watchlist notice so we only invite editors to !vote at RFA when they've made 500 edits seems commonsense to me. For newbies such invites are a distraction and they risk getting bitten if they respond. Whereas invites after they have met that threshold seem a natural way to ease new regulars further into the community. Ϣere SpielChequers 06:54, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Now that, WereSpielChequers, sounds like an excellent idea. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 07:34, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, that was my first thought too, but I wasn't sure if it was technically possible. ansh 666 07:37, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Group-extendedconfirmed.css should do the trick. –  Train2104 ( t •  c) 14:55, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was thinking. No reason to actively distract new users with RfA until they have some experience under their belt. It should be technically feasible with some CSS. -- Ahecht ( TALK
PAGE) 15:13, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

OMG, I was having this exact thought last night. IMO, we need to remove the notice completely, because really only experienced editors should be paying any attention to RfA, and it's impossible to put a number on that. We managed many years without this feature, and many RfAs had high participation. Aiken D 09:42, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't like to see the watchlist notice go, I think it is a good way to reach out to people who haven't previously considered RFA. It has gained extra participation 4 of the 16 highest RFA votes ever have come in the last two years. Some of those people are clearly being asked too early in their wikilives, but most clearly aren't and my hope is that some of those will eventually run. Ϣere SpielChequers 04:19, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• The December 2015 'reforms' which allowed this, have not improved RfA one iota. It's still the same old, same old, but with more people. Not necessarily more trolling, but enough nastiness to put potential candidates off. There are obviously more votes from editors who have very little experience. I think the only good thing that came out of it was to limit the questions to 2 per user and disallow multi-part questions (which still gets flagrantly abused). In a few months those reforms will be two years old already - perhaps it's time for another rethink. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 09:55, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

  The main useful outcome was a change that moved the discretionary zone to slightly saner numbers (we still require a higher supermajority than many other wikis for admin elections). It was significantly more successful than WP:RFA2011. — Kusma ( t· c) 16:32, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Successful, Kusma? WP:RFA2011 was mainly a research project. I don't recall it launching any RfCs for changes. I do remember the efforts being persistently disrupted by trolls. As for the Dec 2015 changes, even lowering the price hasn't attracted more customers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 21:38, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I thought WP:RFA2011 was intended to improve RFA at some point (but it never did). The lowering of the pass percentage gave us GoldenRing's adminship, but hasn't solved the problem. Probably nothing incremental will, as long as the community doesn't change. However, I am not sure that "inexperienced" voters are the problem; many unhelpful oppose votes come from users with high edit count and a couple of extra user rights. (They also know how to play RfA better than newbies). — Kusma ( t· c) 20:16, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Bringing that back to my original point - I'm not trying to protect RfA from inexperienced editors, I'm trying to protect inexperienced editors from RfA. If the community won't change (and I see no indication that it will), the best we can do is try to make sure as few people are harmed by it as possible. ansh 666 20:37, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Limiting the page-top notice about an RfA to users with 500 edits - or better yet, to extended confirmed users (500/30), because they can be very easily identified by user rights - makes sense to me. It doesn't FORBID newer users from commenting but it doesn't draw them in either. What kind of process would it take to implement that? -- MelanieN ( talk) 21:17, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

I do feel that with more participation, it has meant that RFA's are much more difficult to be hijacked than what we saw in 2006-2010. Mkdw ^talk 21:50, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

• Hi MelanieN; it would take a small tweaking of Template:RfA watchlist notice, MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. Lourdes 02:41, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

• I became an administrator about two months age with a very large turnout, so perhaps I am a beneficiary of watchlist notices. I was motivated in recent days to read my own RfA again. My perception is that the vast majority of participants were somewhat experienced, including those who opposed me and those who were neutral. Two were blocked but that is less than 1%. When watchlist notices began, I was supportive and remain so today. I believe that the first time a developing editor participates perceptively in RFA, like the first time they made an incisive, policy based recommendation at AfD, is a key moment in their decision to commit positively to this project for the long haul. We should encourage new editors to engage in our "behind the scenes" discussions, and watchlist notices help with that. I would support a participation threshold such as Autoconfirmed but I think 500 edits is too high. No competent editor thinks that a watchlist notification is an order to participate. Any incompetent recommendation will be disregarded by the bureaucrats. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:31, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• @ Cullen328: You claim No competent editor thinks that a watchlist notification is an order to participate., but yet we have the comments that I quoted above (full diffs from the RfA: [4] [5]). Do you think that the two editors who made those comments aren't competent? It's easy for experienced editors who have been around a long time to think these things are obvious, but from the perspective of new editors who may be overwhelmed and overcautious, even a friendly request may sound like a demand. ansh 666 05:57, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Ansh666, as I said above, it is the responsibilty of the bureaucrats to make the decision whether or not a recommendation is competent, and is based in an understanding of our policies and guidelines. If someone indicates a deep misunderstanding of our community norms in an early comment, then that is both understandable and easily corrected, but it is not a sign of competence, which develops gradually over time. I do not see a stringent numerical edit count threshold as the solution to a problem that does not seem significant. More experienced editors should gently point out the shortcomings of such arguments, steering newer editors in a positive direction. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:14, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about their recommendations at RfA at all, but the simple fact that their comments indicated that they felt that the watchlist notice was at best a request and at worst an order to participate, despite being unwilling to. I'll repeat what you said: No competent editor thinks that a watchlist notification is an order to participate., but there is potentially direct evidence to the contrary. ansh 666 06:20, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Allow me to be more succinct, then, Ansh666: An editor who interprets a watchlist notice as an "order to participate" is not yet a fully competent editor of this encyclopedia. Help teach them what "volunteer" means. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:32, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Misinterpretations all around. That is a thing that we did, yes. ansh 666 06:33, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• I appreciate the notice. I'm not in the habit of frequently visiting any pages to check for updates or active processes where I could provide input, and although a transclusion does make a watchlist entry these are often far down the page on my watchlist. I don't think that the sample size of confused editors here is really indicative of a problem, but if a solution is necessary, why not make the RfA notice more like the CU/OS elections notice, which begins with "Community members are invited to comment ..."? Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 15:56, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• One ironic argument in favour of the watchlist notices is that since RfA have become such a rare occurence, they do serve to remind us when one is actually taking place. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 18:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• In general the watchlist system need to be revisited. It's my feeling that a watchlist alert sometimes works an an alert notice which some people tend to see it as obligation to act. We have two contradicting effects: Some people may miss something of interest because it's not in their watchlist and some others may get more noise due to unneccessary alerts in their watchlists. Customised filters in watchlists could help. Or something like hastags used by twitter and Facebook recently. Still I think this is a more general problem and not just about the RfA notices. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 10:52, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
• I, too, definitely appreciate the notice. I often take breaks from Wikipedia to deal with real life, and would otherwise miss seeing an RFA. I don't want to watchlist this page, as it gets too much traffic. Furthermore, I do think it will, at least in some cases, improve the climate at RFA: my own request, for instance, faced substantial opposition from a small set of folks who had ideological issues with me; but I passed because the larger community saw no merit in these, and I suggest that there would have been fewer people from the larger community without this notice. In short, for a person who has made Wiki-enemies, the notice invites uninvolved comments, and as such is a good thing. I would support restricting the notice to users with the EC flag. Vanamonde ( talk) 04:40, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@ Ansh666:from the perspective of new editors who may be overwhelmed and overcautious, even a friendly request may sound like a demand This is an important point to consider. The notice does come equipped with a dismiss option which removes it from the watchlist, so hypothetically the pressure to participate can be mitigated. However, the notice ocassionally returns even after dismissal, which may seemingly reinforce, for some, the same pressure to participate you mentioned. Perhaps this could be changed. —Spintendo ^talk 14:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I have found that when you click "dismiss", the notice disappears in that particular device. If you later log on from a different device, the notice shows up again. Perhaps the dismissal can be linked to the account, rather than the device? – FlyingAce ^✈hello 16:48, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

For RFAs, the notice will also reappear when there is a new RFA that is not the one you previously dismissed. -- RL0919 ( talk) 16:51, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

• We should be inviting editors to participate in the RFA process. The only way you become familiar with a process is to be introduced to it and participate. Every one of us started as a newbie at RFA. Removing the notice will do little to serve the project in the long term for the reasons mentioned above. Mkdw ^talk 19:11, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
• The notices are a good idea. RfA is a place I rarely think to visit because often nothing happens here, but I do agree with Ansh666's concern and think WereSpielChequers proposed solution sensible per their arguments above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ClubOranje ( talk • contribs) 23:27, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Somebody might like to transclude this, otherwise it could be sitting there a while. Cheers, — fortuna velut luna(Currently not receiving pings, sorry) 12:33, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

• The RfA isn't ready. Let the nominee complete it and transclude it. Yes, I know they already transcluded it once [6]. But, it was a bit malformed and was taken down. That said, I've given them advice not to move forward with the RfA. Their nominator is an account that was registered 2 days ago. That doesn't bode well. -- Hammersoft ( talk) 13:21, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes thank you Hammersoft that is perfectly clear to me. Havig said that, if they want it, they should be assisted in doing it. Although it's odd to go around telling people what to do. Cheers, — fortuna velut luna(Currently not receiving pings, sorry) 13:23, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

• He's getting help on his talk page. It's not really about telling him what to do, but rather helping him avoid disaster. -- Hammersoft ( talk) 13:26, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Great! Thanks, — fortuna velut luna(Currently not receiving pings, sorry) 13:29, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

That was a cool intervention Hammersoft. You helped avoid a potentially morale-sapping failed RfA and gave excellent practical advice. Actually looks a good candidate if they work on the areas you pointed out. 6 months+ should see a successful outcome, with a good nom. Irondome ( talk) 13:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I disagree; this person is not admin material at all, and six months isn't going to change that. Sloppy work, sloppy edits, sloppy article creations, zero edit summaries, no experience in areas related to adminship. Just all around lack of clue. Softlavender ( talk) 13:55, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Hey all, As nominator, I recognize that a 2 day old nominator doesn't bode well, and the candidate has asked me to not go through with the request, so I will not be, but let's stop discussion about whether he/ she would pass seeing as the request isn't going to happen. Let's get an admin to close it. Regards, Sr M e I 14:05, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

(E/C) Well Softlavender, they had the clue to at least remove the absurd I wanna be an admin someday user box. You make some valid points. I would suggest you drop them a line with areas for improvement, as they appear to be WP:HERE. Irondome ( talk) 14:10, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

As I mentioned, in my opinion this person is not admin material, and time isn't going to change that, no matter how much advice they get. Cluefulness doesn't really change drastically over time. Admins are more or less born, not made, in that the capacity for adminship (temperament, intelligence, carefulness, conscienciousness, circumspection, awareness, etc.) is more or less innate in my opinion and can generally be spotted in an editor within their first 5,000 to 9,000 edits. The vast majority of Wikipedians are WP:HERE, but only a tiny percentage are admin material. Softlavender ( talk) 14:31, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Uh uh, for the record, the nominator has now been checkuser-blocked :D — fortuna velut luna(Currently not receiving (most) pings, sorry) 14:37, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Quelle surprise. Softlavender ( talk) 14:40, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Should it have been deleted though? — fortuna velut luna(Currently not receiving (most) pings, sorry) 15:15, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

@ Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: I thought it was common practice to delete nomination pages that have been declined by the nominee. I have left a note for the editor as I was deleting the page, noting that I would provide a copy at their request if the e-mail is enabled. There seems to an alternative method ( like this submission of mine from years ago) to preserve nominations that did not happen, but I cannot seem to find other examples. I also didn't think it would be wise to preserve a nomination page that was created by a sockpuppet user, despite of the candidate themselves being perfectly valid. Alex Shih ^Talk 15:40, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

@ Alex Shih: In any case the socking makes it a dead cert so no worries; I just wondered because, I too can recall them getting deleted, but I seem to remember that was usually if they were so badly transcluded as to make them illegible, whereas, you know, this was only a "little bit wrongly" transcluded and had the answers to the questions laid out already. In any case, like I said, it doesn't really matter. Thanks for everything, you do good work here. Cheers! — fortuna velut luna(Currently not receiving (most) pings, sorry) 16:23, 14 October 2017 (UTC)