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At quite a few RfAs, I've seen people say something like "be glad to see you in 3 / 6 months" or "will support an RfA with a little bit more experience". Does this actually reflect reality? I had a look at previous successful second RfAs over the past few years - Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Red Phoenix 2, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cwmhiraeth 2, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Enterprisey 2 and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lourdes 2, and the closest gap was the last, of about a year. The rest are all substantial. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:56, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
Most of the opposes in the recent RFA were in the not-now-but-resolve-the-issues-and-I'll-support campAnd several were "you're a fascist criminal and your reputation should be smeared forever because of your irredeemable evil". A lot of the time, RfA doom and gloom is overreacting, but you can't seriously talk as though you expect a second run after resolved issues here. If the project wants and needs people wielding a mop, maybe it can avoid painting them as embodiments of evil? Vaticidal prophet 22:43, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
{{
reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 00:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)I'm wondering where this "debrief" idea came from. Where did it start? What is the goal? Who should be doing this? ... Note: I'm not complaining - I'm just curious how this came about. I wouldn't even mind typing something up myself if it's requested - but considering that it's been 10+ years for me, I'm not sure what the value would be. Is there a link to a discussion, or is it something that just grew naturally bit by bit? — Ched ( talk) 03:17, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
As I promised, here comes my debriefing. I found earlier debriefings useful to read before going through my RfA and they answered lots of the questions about how it can be to go through the process. This will probably not be the most exciting debriefing of all time, my RfA wasn't either, but the more data points the better.
It is important to note that this is just my experience and cannot be taken as true of other candidates, which should be abundantly clear given the horribly stressful RfA with lots of poor behavior which started along side mine. Almost all other RfAs also have at least a bit of opposition which I assume would completely change how the process feels.
Since there isn't too much to say about the RfA itself, it has been called as snooze fest for a reason, I will focus a bit more on how I ended up here and give some of my thoughts on RfA questions.
My first somewhat serious thoughts about adminship were already back in November 2019 when Xeno said some very kind words and joked about Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Trialpears being a red link. While I obviously wasn't ready back then I think that interaction took RfA from something only the best of the best could pass through to something that may become possible in a year or two.
In July 2020 Lee Vilenski said that their email was open in case anyone wanted to talk adminship and I took the opportunity. Instead of the "you are on the right track but still ways to go" answer I expected it was more you don't have much content creation and your (non-automated) mainspace edits are quite few, but other than that it looks good. They even offered to nominate me right then and there if I found a second nom. After politely declining saying that I wanted some recognized content and a few more months of tenure first I went on my way and didn't think much about adminship for a few months.
Then Barkeep contacted me in December saying they've heard my name mentioned as someone who could make a good admin. At this point I was still quite hesitant, especially considering my lower activity in the months prior, but given that I now knew that quite a few editors believed in me and I would have significant use for the tools I thought that it would be for the best to go through with it. I did as Barkeep said and got a few months of higher activity and (slowly) returned to working on List of countries by Human Development Index before contacting Barkeep again in early April saying that I finally wanted to run. I found the next week where my schedule would be quite empty and I could devote mostly to RfA if it got rough which I still thought was somewhat likely.
I contacted Primefac asking them if they wanted to be my second nominator and they accepted. During the two months leading up to the RfA I worried about it a decent amount. This mostly manifested itself as me compulsively reading policy in the middle of the night. In retrospect I see a decent amount of benefits to starting it immediately upon hearing that people want to nominate you if your situation allows for it.
Just over a month ago I learned that Vami too was running and sent them a few discord messages about it. They indirectly convinced me to open up a bit about my RfA and I started to allow myself to talk about it if it came up naturally. Around this time I also spoke with Izno about it and Xaosflux came to my talk page and wondered if I was interested in running. All this made me feel a lot more confident and stopped me from worrying about it. At this point I felt that the likelihood that I would fail was just a few percent with me saying something incredibly stupid being the most likely culprit in that case.
I answered the 3 standard questions, my noms wrote their statements and then it was time to start. I, like I expect every other candidate, started out being incredibly nervous, but after a few hours of seeing tons of support flood in I started to feel a lot better and for the rest of the week I just enjoyed reading all the incredibly kind things that were said.
Given that many people brought up that they thought my answers were really good I guess I'll share a bit of my thoughts around writing them. Just like when closing discussions or performing many admin actions these answers/actions are things you really should be able to stand behind. If there's anything you're uncertain would be appropriate it shouldn't be in the answer or at least be modified to account for that. This principle very naturally leads you to threading carefully when in new waters and very much influenced how I wrote Q7 about the rouge template editor which a lot of people thought was particularly good. Q7 was also the one I was the most uncertain about, it is a situation we don't have procedures for but that needs to be handled quickly. I really couldn't say that I was sure my proposed course of action was appropriate and hence I would have to get more eyes on it which resulted in me suggesting to take it to AN afterwards. Similar things can be said for many of the other answers.
Other things that can't have hurt is that I'm well read on Wikipedia policies, guidelines and essays but that really shouldn't be essential since you will inevitably have picked up the stuff relevant to the areas you work in if you are a suitable admin candidates and have an overreaching understanding of the rest of the project even if you haven't read say WP:ARBPOL or WP:MASTODONS. I also considered how I would have answered some of the questions given in the past few RfAs. Before publishing answers for any of the the more important/difficult questions I took a few minutes to do something else before making sure I thought they were good even after getting a bit of distance from them. This resulted in a few of the answers becoming more clear than they otherwise would be.
If you think you might be interested in adminship (even if it's a year+ away), my email is open, but be warned that I haven't even been an admin for a day at this point and am far from the most competent person on the matter. If you're interested in my non-judgemental thoughts or just a chat I'm happy to provide though. I think I'm far from the only one who underestimate their chances. -- Trialpears ( talk) 22:50, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
Trialpears was as ready for adminship in 2019 as I was in 2008. The difference is, I did my hand-wringing after the RFA, instead of before. Whether that's an indictment of 2008 standards or current standards is an exercise left to the reader =) – xeno talk 14:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, let's see here. It was " A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....", so my memories may be a bit foggy, but here's my recollections of my RfA. Remember it was back at the end of the 2nd/3rd generation of RfAs, (2009 - back when I was a young man still in my 50s) but here ya go ...
I'd done a fair amount of typo fixing for a couple years before registering an account, but after eventually becoming aware of what it takes to make the sausage, I registered. I was a bit nonplussed when some of my early article work was reverted ( truth vs verifiability) leading me to my first AN/I question. Then I tried to add an article about an episode of Stargate SG1 which dealt with sexism. (not enough real world coverage, but I still consider SG1 the poor red-headed stepchild of Star Trek). At this point I didn't see Wikipedia as being a long term project for myself - AND then, my wiki lord and savior (no disrespect to my real world one), Huntster magically appeared to me, took me under his wing, and encouraged me to work through it. After a few months months he mentioned that I should edit with a future eye on Adminship, and always take the high road (no comment on my success of that). Then Royalbroil showed up and helped me create my first article, then helped walk me through a DYK. Several months later, Pedro provided me with some very valuable insight and guidance, and eventually offered to nom me. (Pedro always had an amazing track record at picking good admins). I decided to try, but I was still going to edit even if it didn't succeed.
In the beginning I did have some anxity, but figured I could edit just fine without the tools as well, so the "stress" part of it wasn't major. Shortly before my RfA went public, my daugher called crying that her company's web-site had been hi-jacked, and needed help (I was an IT tech at the time). The "real world" stress suddenly made wiki stress-free for the most part. That's not to suggest that it was carefree, it wasn't, and there were some butterflies throughout the week. The questions didn't really bother me because I figured it was my chance to showcase who I was as a person. However, there were 3 major opposes that concerned me, mainly because they all had validity, and weight, behind them.
I did have supporters, Steven Crossin (who really should be an Admin) stands out in my mind as one of the staunchest supporters and defenders. Some rebuttals escalated a bit in response to one editors comments, and even though I disagreed with the oppose #1 assessment, I did eventually defended his right to oppose without being harassed, and asked that my supporters stand down.
At this point I was resigned to the idea that the RfA could very well tank, and I'd need to ask others for help when faced with vandaals who needed blocked, page protections/deletions and such. I'd seen other RfAs that slowly eroded when a couple well know editors posted some well timed opposes. I also got an email from an admin. asking if this was my website. (it was). A bit disconcerting that someone would do that amount of research, but it wasn't anything I was embarassed about either. Then the opposes seemed to slow up in the middle of "the week", and I had some fantastic supports from some of the big guns: ϢereSpielChequers, SoWhy, Dank, Keegan, Juliancolton, Tiptoety, Mazca, Protonk, Useight and others all had some very nice things to say. The last couple days did have a couple opposes trickle in, mostly of the "per userX" varity, so there was a level of uncertainty to it all.
Fast Forward: I survived, but eventually found the extra buttons weren't all they're cracked up to be. It's so easy to get caught in the middle of things/disputes. And I think most good admins often question themselves about whether or not they've done the right thing. The FA writer who opposed on civility issues did help improve some of the articles I worked on, and I'll still exchange an email or two with him once in a while. I now feel perfectly comfortable emailing, visiting and commenting on the third writer's page, and they've said some very complementary things over time. And even though I haven't seen the non-chatty editor around for a while, IIRC I did visit their talk and told them I'd try to be less "chatty." And to be perfectly honest, my RfA was probably a bit sooner than it should have been, but in retrospect, mine wasn't really so bad.
At the end of the day, my beliefs are this: RfA can range from very easy, to incredibly difficult. A lot will depend on your integrity, and the people you cross paths with. Read through our policies and guidelines, they will come up, and even if you don't memorize them word for word, you'll at least know where to look. Read through the Admin's reading list as well, it's stuff you will need if you get the tools. Have a look at the MOS guidelines as well, at least the top level ones. It's important to know how to write. Write in complete sentences. Be yourself, but avoid the "I kin pwn sum vandals" type of responses.
I think the best RfAs are when an editor is open, honest, trustworthy, humble, willing to learn, and consistent in what they say and do. It's also very important that you have a history of treating your fellow editors with respect. However, if your self-worth is going to be dependent on your RfA, if you think you'll quit editing if it fails, then IMO, it's not for you. It's fine to take a break, chill out, decompress afterwards - but it should never be a determining factor in your decision to edit. Yes, it is nice to have the extra tools, very nice, but it's not the be-all-end-all of wiki. Being an editor is what actually drives the wiki-train. I've resigned my tools twice to take a break, and that can be very refreshing as well.
Regarding this section:
I've BRD removed this new section from the main RFA page. Having a permanent list of selected usernames there is too prominent for something so opt-in. I do think these could be useful, and would suggest that they are put in to a category (maybe Wikipedia RfA debriefings or the like), and perhaps a link to the category can be included in the prose of the About RfA and its process section. (Courtesy ping to User:Valereee.) — xaosflux Talk 21:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
I'll try and write one for this too. Moneytrees🏝️ Talk/ CCI guide 21:00, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
( Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji/ Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji/Bureaucrat chat) I had one of the closest successful RFAs and have been sitting on my thoughts for a while. I think doing a reflection on it is a good idea, and I hope talking about my awful experience will fix something or make someone reconsider how they act. I have been wanting to get this all off my chest, so here's my whole story with RFA:
I only really started getting the idea to run near the end of 2019, because I couldn't see deleted stuff at
CCI and I was constantly removing copyright violations and would sometimes have to wait weeks for them to be revdeled. I barely knew anything about the community and didn't read much, only once and a while making some dumb comment at AN or asking an admin for help with something. The only people I regularly interacted with were the handful of other users who edited in the copyright area, and the majority of the work I did involved looking through article's histories, removing/rewording copyright violations, analyzing provided diffs (what sources the user I was investigating liked citing, whether or not that source could be found easily, whether it was reliable, if the content was even encyclopedic, could it be kept and re worded if it was, etc.), and sometimes explaining to a user why I reverted their edit/ removed all the content. When I submitted my request to become an arbclerk and filed
my ORCP at the very end of 2019 I was not planning on running for admin within the next two months. In fact I thought I still had a year or so to go if I was serious about it. But then I got accepted as a trainee clerk, people at the ORCP told me that I could run now and pass, and then I got an email about adminship from
Ritchie333 on January 14 2020, where it was suggested that
TonyBallioni might also be interested in nominating me. At the time I politely declined, saying I wanted to get some stuff done before I ran, ... My afd needs work, there’s an article I’m working on that I want to fix up first, and I want to get a few thousand more edits...
, and backed away.
But then I started reading stuff over and I started thinking that I really could pass with no real issues. After all, I was told in my ORCP that ...there will be things you can improve on, etc. but you'd easily pass...
by Tony, I just became an arb clerk, the
Dr. Blofeld CCI cleanup ended up going well, and people know we need copyright admins, right? Being a stupid 17 year old also probably played into it too. So I went back to the noms and picked February 11th as the start date, since the next week's Monday and Tuesday were off and that could give me more time to focus on the run. So the page gets created, I answer the first three questions, I'm even confident to
transclude my own request. I accept the nomination and then the RFA opens.
Before a neutral the first 37 votes are supports. Of those voters I had truly only interacted with ~5 of them. I get asked a question about whether I had a previous account, I really should've just said I edited as some ips for a bit instead of the rambling explanation I give. In wanting to be honest I way overshared, and I think that ended up reflecting poorly on the run in the bigger picture. I get asked about my bad AFDs nominations and I admit I tried to stop nominating things because I was afraid I would miss something. I chalk one particularly stupid one to me being tired at the time. That was true, but I should've expanded that I also wanted the article deleted as I thought it was a copyright violation. Maybe if I had said that in the AFD statement or just listed the article at copyright problems things would have gone differently but I hadn't.
That is one of the first lessons I learned as a result of the RFA: communicating your thought process in full will usually make things easier.
Then things start getting difficult. Near the end of the first day my phone is destroyed, and it had been the only way I was able to talk to my nominators through email for the majority of the day. I could only talk to them for brief periods of time, and I started making some dumb choices. I responded to not just one, but three opposes, which is a massive no-no... about three different people emailed me after saying not to do that! Another lesson: read about RFA before you go through it.
Now there were a few opposes, and the main issues being raised were about an apparent lack of content creation, low edit count (under 10000), and low tenure (I had started this account in March 2018. I made my first edit from an ip in July 2015). Someone asked me what I thought my weakest area was, and
I said ...I also wish I could be a more consistent content creator; I've had fun writing the articles that I have, but my work at copyright often intrudes on it and I'm not able to write as much as I'd like to.
There's the implication that I didn't know anything about article space or about what it's like to work "in the trenches" because I didn't have that much creation, but that wasn't true, because content was massively important to all of my work at CCI. Out of the thousand or so edits I had made to CCI at the time, each one had been made after I spent time looking at the context of the edit and the article's history. From that and all the removal and rewordings I did, I knew how to cite, how to tell if a source was reliable, how pesky the google books algorithm could be, how close something could be phrased to a source, and whether something was too poorly written to be included, whether the text could be simply ignored because some things are too plainly stated to be a violation of copyright- all important things to writing that I knew, but I never brought up in my RFA! And why didn't I? Because I was afraid and I thought that everyone who opposed me over it was right, and that I had no idea about anything content related.
I could have brought up the work I put into Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and how I put it up for a GA nomination and then I took it down because I was too discouraged with Wikipedia at the time to keep the nom up. I didn't talk about how when I started editing I just wanted to do some anti vandalism and write, and how if you look at my earliest contributions that's very clear. I could have brought up how I was too sad to go to my next door neighbor's funeral and instead spent a few hours trying cleanup at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Halo: Combat Evolved/archive1, but that it didn't matter and was demoted anyways. I did bring up the time that I actually put in some work some into promoting a GA, but then I had to stop editing at the time because my grandfather was going to die from cancer and I had to fly out to see him one last time. About a month later the GA had failed and he had died. And I was 16 when this all happened! I know the pain of failure and feeling like no one cares about what you do as well as anyone could. I know what its like to spend all your time writing something, only for it to not be acknowledged in any way. So why would I want to even edit when no one cares about me and it's not fun?
Which leads to the then 18 month old retirement message I put up, which I had actually completely forgotten about when I had run. Having something that deeply embarrassing pulled up for hundreds to see truly hurts, and it hurts even more when it didn't matter what I said- it was still held against me. Maybe, if I had provided examples of how I had moved past that and saw Wikipedia in such a much more positive light, then the incoming dump of opposes citing the retirement message wouldn't have happened. Maybe that would've prevented some users from switching their supports to opposes, maybe that would've prevented the seemingly endless speculation that I was not "mature" enough for adminship. I don't think a single person in that RFA read my response to Barkeep49 about the opposes here, even though I felt like it would make people understand how I had changed for sure. There were a lot of opposes now, even one of my noms said that they didn't think it would pass.
Then, I'm not going to say any names, because I don't want to get back into issues with people who I hope have changed their mind on me (and I know there are those who have and I am so thankful you have), but people started saying all sorts of things, like maybe I was some sort of sock, or that I was just running as an ego boost and had no actual accomplishments, or that I was a liar. And I kept seeing the Pizzagate GA brought up over and over again, because Ritchie mentioned it in his nomination statement as an example of content creation from me despite me not creating it or having added much text to it. It's kind of funny, because I fucking hate that article now. All I did was copyedit it, wait on it for a few months to be reviewed, addressed the review, and then added that little green circle to the top of my userage. I did that with another article too, John B. Magruder, which had been nominated for GA by another user who was then blocked, and I help keep the nomination going for them. Of course I didn't know anything about community standards on what "Counts" as a GA so when I see it mentioned in the nomination statement... well Ritchie thought it was good enough, so it must be, right?
But that's not fair. I don't want the situation to ever be seen as "Ritchie messes up... again". I should have had the foresight to say "hey I didn't actually write very much on that, could you mention something else?" And of course I can't say this all because at this point in the RFA it's heading to a crat chat, and no one would have believed me. If they didn't believe having three people close to you die would fuck you up a little, then why would they believe that? Again, I'm not going to say any names here, but it got to this point where there was this one person who was saying I lied, and I thought we were on good terms and I didn't want it to look like I was ignoring people saying I lied, so I emailed them right around when the crat chat opened because I was still idealistic and stupid enough to think that I could just talk the whole situation though and that they would understand. Here's the text of the email, minus me addressing who I sent it to:
I just want to clear some things up about the mention of the Pizzagate GA in the nom statement. The result of it being mentioned is less of a malicious intent to puff my record up and more the result of my naiveté.
I remember seeing the article mentioned in Ritchie's nomination statement and thinking "Hmm, I mostly just fixed some minor issues on that and wrote little of the actual content on it, but if he thinks that it's an example of content, whatever." He must have AGF'd and just went off of the topicon on my user page, and thought that I did more work on it then I actually did. Which makes sense, since we had quite a few positive interactions before hand.
I think I'm more at fault for just going along with it. I should have acted on my feelings of "Are you sure you want to say that?" I'm telling you this in email because I feel like saying this publicly would be like throwing Ritchie under the bus. He's a good guy and gets more crap then he deserves. I won't put the blame on others when I deserve it.
I signed that shit with my real name too! Now for any RFA hopefuls, don't do this because it's very stupid, especially if you don't tell your nominators. It didn't even matter in this case anyways, since I found out back in February 2021 that they continued to believe that I had lied in the RFA, even though they gave a response to my email indicating that they "understood" the situation I was in. I don't know if this person will see this, if they do they know who they are, and I don't want to be enemies or whatever with them, the last thing I want to do is start shit with people who I know care about processes, I just wish they hadn't told me one thing and then said another thing not long after.
The RFA was about over now, and it was in Crat Chat territory. At that point I was so exhausted and unhappy with the process that I wanted them to quickly close it as no consensus. I was convinced there was no hope for it now. And at first, with two no consensus votes, it looked like I would get that wish... but then Worm That Turned comes in and says
consensus... Just about
. When I saw that I knew what was going to happen after and I wanted to withdraw. I could barely take the suspense anymore. I had to painstakingly wait for the crats to slowly vote, with them totally divided and the vote a back and forth. When people switch from support to oppose and the nonchalant opposes start rolling in, it feels like your stomach is in perpetual somersault. But when the crats take half a week to read everything over and vote and people won't stop constantly talking about YOU on the talk then thats when you start sweating when you look at your watchlist.
Eventually, the "promote" side prevailed and I was promoted after a 107 hour long crat chat.
It was the longest successful RFA, and of course I was happy to finally make it through. Were the 275 hours worth it? I guess. Even though
my close RFA has been used against me as a negative point
...Some advice: Your RFA was close. Don't blow it by doing things you shouldn't be doing
. I don't care. I survived. The fact that I made it through should be enough evidence that I was ready for the tools. You may notice this is called Money emoji's Rfa, not "Moneytrees' Rfa". That is because I have evolved past how I was as Money emoji and am a much better person and more responsible as Moneytrees. The stigma of the Rfa doesn't haunt me.
If you are considering voting, think about some things before you do so. Do you need to clarify your vote was a "weak support"? Do you need to talk about completely unrelated things and project your view of the "maintainers vs. writers dispute" on to the candidate? Do you need to crack unrelated jokes despite opposing the candidate? Do you need to push your criteria so much? Do you need to incessantly nit pick over personal preference?
And will it really matter? Because for all those opposes and all the drama and pushback, I think it is fair to say that I am a good and well respected admin. It was all unfounded, wasn't it? What does that say about the legitimacy of so many RFA opposes?
If you are considering running, do not let my horror story deter you. There is no way yours can fuck up as badly as mine did. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and defend yourself, but admit when you've made a mistake in the past. Avoid the mistakes I made in the rfa, and communicate to your nominators. That's the thing most important to being an admin, communication. If you're able to concisely explain your actions and look at them objectively, then you will be a good admin. There are a lot of advantages to being an admin and we need more users from varied backgrounds running. Everyday we are getting more and more editors from different backgrounds, who aren't entrenched in the old internet values so many admins believe in, and they are/will becom(ing) great admins. Don't let some bullshit prevent you from running, because if you're a serious candidate you're better than you think.
---
Ritchie and Tony, if you have read this far, I am so sorry. Ritchie, I truly feel like I failed you and you've had to say things that don't align with your beliefs to defend me. It's really no ones fault, and I hope that you don't feel like I lied to you in some way, I would never do that. The same for you Tony, because you stuck up for me for so long and had my back during the RFA, and I feel like we're not friends any more or something after ACE2020 and that makes me want to cry. I can't describe how much I appreciate how you guys stuck up for me when things got so rough and how much I love this place and how much of a better person I've become. Moneytrees🏝️ Talk/ CCI guide 03:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
as a Barkeep won't always come along with a freebie question at the right moment.I mean there are two of us so I don't have to do it all myself... Joke aside the corrective, I think for the breakdown of AGF, is a general bias among crats towards finding consensus to close as successful as here. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 10:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
We don't know if the extreme faux-pas at the RfAs is typical of their behaviour were they to have the tools, because we never got the chance to find out. By which token, we might as well pass everyone however they performed because we could be missing out on a good admin anyway, and passing em would be the only way to find out 🤔🤪 —— Serial 09:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
RfA is, and should always be, an open-book test, then all the more reason for keeping a nom's involvement with their candidate on-wiki in the spirit of an open process. And as you say,
getting advice from a more experienced colleagueis an excellent thing—if a visible thing. —— Serial 10:33, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Stupid opposes are easily fixed, crats can ignore them.I don't think they dare to do that unless the RfA falls into the "discretionary zone". — Kusma ( talk) 14:18, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I appreciate that going back to the inactivity of Wikipedia:Admin coaching, there is a desire for candidates to be genuine in their interactions with the community, and not just echoing what someone has told them to say. Asking for advice, though, is a useful and even desirable action for any editor, including administrators. There's not many scenarios where action has to be taken immediately without access to any other admins with which to discuss matters (vandalism during English Wikipedia's lowest point of activity is all I can think of), and so being an expert in all areas isn't necessary. I do think it is important for the candidate to be well-versed in some areas, so if they become an administrator, they will be able to reduce the overall workload. isaacl ( talk) 23:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't really follow WT:RFA. At one point I thought RfA was seriously broken, but honestly, I don't anymore. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I've had enough conversations about this with people that I doubt there will be new arguments brought up. People don't like processes that open them up to negative feedback. Even if you get a near perfect RfA or review in the real world, the one negative thing is going to stick out. Professors getting class evaluations say that. Many people I know getting performance evaluations say that, and I believe the fact that we don't have many people running for RfA suggests that is true on the internet as well. Opening oneself up to feedback is hard, and there's certainly no perfect way to go about it. I think RfA could likely be improved upon, but I'm not sure if those improvements are structural or not. Regardless of the structural changes, the difficult part of people opening themselves up is going to remain.
All that being said, my snarky but serious question is this: instead of having continual discussions about what is broken with RfA for years, would anyone care to put forth a proposal to fix it?
I'm normally a huge advocate of the "build consensus for change over time and then launch an RfC you know will pass" method, but it's been 6 years since the last serious RfA reform RfC, we have continual threads about how something isn't working, and there are no serious proposals to make changes. If there are ways to improve upon the current process, propose them. The statements from various people making proposals method might work best for this (see WP:RESYSOP 2019 for a recentish example), but lets stop complaining without proposing solutions to the community in a way that can actually accomplish change. TonyBallioni ( talk) 23:11, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
This is my idea, as an ex-admin. If an admin thinks that an editor would make a good admin, they ask a couple of other admins whether they agree. If they agree (and the editor agrees), the proposal is put up on a page for say two weeks for discussion. At the end of two weeks, the three decide whether the objections, if any, are strong enough to deny the appointment, otherwise the person is appointed. Stress discussion not voting. This might work. -- Bduke ( talk) 23:35, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
This is a hot take in that I have not thought about it for longer than it took to type up this comment. At the very least, these outlandish ideas might kickstart something sane.
These sound insane because they probably are, but I think Tony makes a good point that we're spinning our wheels. The ideas we have either don't work or have been shot down so many times that positions are entrenched. We should think outside the box, and that means suggesting things that seem unthinkable. Don't get me wrong, calling the proposals half-baked is too generous, but hopefully it helps us get out of the intellectual rut we've found ourselves in. — Wug· a·po·des 03:05, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
quantitative, 0/10. RfA is bad when it gets quantitative. RfA is bad when people look at "you need two years to be an admin" and take them seriously. RfA as PERM? PERM is a checklist. Hell, we should replace PERM with qualitative !votes. Vaticidal prophet 01:01, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
These are clearly just quick thoughts (feel free to shoot me down), but felt I ought to put something down by way of a contribution before I head off for a week. Nick Moyes ( talk) 22:47, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
It has been asked of me that I do a debrief of my RfA. I understand this sentiment, and think I now have some excellent advice to offer to potential candidates. I cannot at this time write a debrief, however, because my RfA has left me with knots in my stomach and quite hurt. The nicest things ever said about me were said in the Support column, but some of the worst things ever said about me were said in the General comments and on the talk page. It has been expressed to me by several people, supporters and opposers, that this RfA was "brutal" and a disaster. It certainly has been in the short-term for my emotional state. I have a lot to say, but at the moment, very little confidence in myself.
So, please, do not ask me for a debrief just yet. I need time to recover, reread the RfA, its talk, and the bloodbaths surrounding it, and to parse. If I do produce a debrief, it will likely be an essay. – ♠Vami _IV†♠ 07:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
In order to make sure we don't lose debriefings which aren't put on their own page (and thus can't be added to the category) I have started Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Debriefs. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:27, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Although I discovered Wikipedia around 2003 and started editing with an account in 2005, I didn't discover the "back end" of the site until 2011. I never particularly wanted to be an administrator; indeed in January 2012 I wrote I'd "no desire to be an Administrator and thinks good work here is done for the good of the community, rather than an attempt to brag about barnstars". I think part of that was a reaction to people getting barnstars for reverting vandalism and blocking sockpuppets, rather than doing lots of good writing, and I'd been a moderator on various internet forums since the mid 90s at that point anyway, and had been there, done that, and thought I was too old to go through it again. In the summer of 2012, having had lots of spare time on my hands (maybe I should have watched the Olympics), I got involved in "serious" writing and started working out exactly what was required to get an article to GA status, which led to more and more people noticing what I was doing.
By 2015, established editors were starting to enquire about adminship, and in March, I said, "What's stopping me from being an admin? Well, I have a few skellies (I believe I told an admin to fuck off once), a lot of my experiences aren't logged (it would be interested to capture AFD / CSD "saves" though) and I need extra work and responsibility like a hole in the head." I had a general sense that being an admin was kind of a "consolation prize" for not getting an article through FAC single-handedly (something which I still haven't done). I also had a strong sense of "being right over being popular" which occasionally upsets people, and said things like "I silently cheer from the sidelines when Wikipediocracy fires both barrels at an admin doing silly things." which isn't exactly the greatest thing you can say when looking at a potential adminship.
In the event, the RfA was pretty stress-free, I think partly because I wasn't particularly bothered if I got the tools or not, and I expected about 25-30 opposes like "civility is an important pillar and giving Eric Corbett a free pass is not acceptable" and only got a handful. What was far more stressful was the GA review of West Pier which by complete co-incidence ran for pretty much the same duration as the RfA, and featured some disruption from a long-term abuse case (cf. "There appears to be a sockpuppet persistently changing the lede, but that's not a serious issue, since the article can be semi-protected if the socking persists.", also see Talk:West Pier#Lead) which spilled over to the RfA. I wonder if my relatively calm and disinterested handling of that (I didn't answer Q15) is what gave confidence to people who were unsure whether I could do the job or not.
In summary, I wouldn't take anything from my RfA as best practice or advice, it's a bit of a wild card. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:31, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
I had a general sense that being an admin was kind of a "consolation prize" for not getting an article through FAC single-handedlyis darkly hilarious, and ties in with a lot you can say about the broader tendency of Wikipedia-as-community to sometimes forget it's an appendix to an encyclopedia.) Vaticidal prophet 11:37, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
There was a discussion a while ago about tweaking {{ User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report}} to expand the abbreviations. It seemingly came to the conclusion that one way to resolve the issue would be to switch to using {{ RFX report}}, and add the expanded abbreviations in there. I've made the relevant tweaks to a sandbox version of the module & template (with apologies to Trialpears for using their RfA in my testing, I do hope you won't mind!) - {{ RFX_report/sandbox}}.
Thoughts? firefly ( t · c ) 13:12, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
<abbr>
element is convenient for those who can hover over the headings. For those on devices that don't support hovering, and readers who have difficulty with fine motor control, it's still desirable to have a legend. (On an implementation note, rather than use frame:expandTemplate
, I believe it would be more efficient to use the
mw.html
Lua API.)
isaacl (
talk) 16:46, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
Just FYI to all, I've swapped the CyberBot table here, on the WP:RFA header and at WP:BN to {{ RFX report}}, as CyberBot I doesn't seem to be updating. I realise it still needs the key, but it's better than a table that's not being updated(!). If anyone at all disagrees, revert and serve seafood as appropriate. firefly ( t · c ) 18:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
At Special:PermanentLink/1031861313, editors GeneralNotability and User:Sdrqaz came to a conclusion that RfA candidates were "required" to disclose alternate accounts (if any) and whether or not they have edited for pay and that "both disclosures are required by our policies on administrators and on sockpuppetry". I find this to be an odd reading of these policies because clean starts exist and wp:clean start explicitly allows runs for adminship after a clean start. What is then the consensus policy when it comes to an unpopular editor taking up a clean start, passing RfA a few months later, and then publicly rehabilitating their old username, perhaps to the extent of requesting that the admin bit be flipped for the old username instead of the current one? 209.166.108.205 ( talk) 03:44, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
I have started a 2021 RfA review and accompanying RfC to identify what issues, if any, there are with RfA. Interested editors are invited to participate. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 01:40, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks so much for participating in Phase 1 of the RfA 2021 review. 8 out of the 21 issues discussed were found to have consensus. Thanks to our closers of Phase 1, Primefac and Wugapodes.
The following had consensus support of participating editors:
The following issues had a rough consensus of support from editors:
Please consider joining the brainstorming which will last for the next 1-2 weeks. This will be followed by Phase 2, a 30 day discussion to consider solutions to the problems identified in Phase 1.
There are 2 future mailings planned. One when Phase 2 opens and one with the results of Phase 2. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Best, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:09, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
It's a wee bit concerning how close a globally banned editor came to passing an RFA with Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Eostrix looking like it was going to pass with flying colors in a couple of days. Are admin candidates checkusered as a matter of due diligence or is that just not on the table here? nableezy - 03:41, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
(unless necessary for the role, e.g. working with kids), which is kinda true for all of your examples except blood drives (which, locally for me anyway, do not include background checks). Most volunteering roles do not include background checks. On top of that, Wikipedia is a pseudonymous community, whereas most volunteer roles you do in your real name. People expect a higher level of privacy here, as generally the only information available about you is what you give out yourself. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 11:27, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
I won't say how per WP:BEANS, but this won't work. It is trivial to dodge a CU check if you know when it will occur well in advance. Anyone this crafty will know this. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 13:14, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
quite some time, although it obviously acquired a sense of urgency when the account ran for adminship.Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
'I have not registered any additional accounts on Wikipedia', and at least Arbcom seems to think so. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 13:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe ( talk · contribs) has removed a clause saying that RfAs without a hope of passing can be speedy deleted per WP:G6. This reverts an edit added by Esquivalience ( talk · contribs) here. Can anyone remember why this clause was added in 2015? I disagree it's "admin abuse", in my view it's more Don't remind others of past misdeeds, but I'd be interested to hear wider thoughts and get a consensus one way or the other. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
RfAs that are closed before any !votes are cast may be deleted per such and such criteria.
Back to the original topic. I don't think for a second it has anything to do with admin abuse, not sure what that is about other than being a red herring. I do however agree that if it should fall under CSD then it should be defined on the CSD policy page not here. G6 makes no sense to me, that seems like a misuse of the criteria for a purpose it was never intended for. If the applicant wants it deleted and there were no significant contributions from other editors then G7 would apply. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 11:05, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
What happens if a user is nominated for an RFA and declines? Are those pages deleted under G6 or are they kept, with MfD the only option to get rid of them? A malformatted RFA which is never formally accepted like the recent one that sparked this discussion should probably be dealt with the same way. – filelakeshoe ( t / c) 🐱 14:42, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
My recollection matches that of Anarchyte. I recall there being a discussion regarding new editors who volunteer for administrative work without understanding the community expectations for becoming an administrator, and that courtesy deletion to save the editors future embarrassment was desirable. At present I haven't formed a view on whether or not this warrants a speedy deletion, nor if or how this practice should be documented. (Note the edit in question left a sentence fragment, which should be removed as well if there is agreement to reverse the original change.) isaacl ( talk) 15:26, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Following a discussion with over 100 editors, 8 issues were identified with Requests for Adminship (RfA). Phase 2 has begun and will use the following timeline:
All interested editors are invited to participate in Phase 2. Thanks and best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:55, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
There was a recent change to Advice for RfA candidates that replaced four items with one labeled "Avoid responding to !votes." I have started a discussion on this edit. Feedback is welcome. isaacl ( talk) 15:32, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Sockstrike
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I feel like a climate scientist in the 1980s having to point this out, but if you look at the RfA stats, Wikipedia is heading for a disaster if it doesn't start shoveling warm bodies through RfA at warp speed. It's crazy nobody is stepping up, not least since it's so easy now. No pass rate less than 95% this year. Probable seat on ArbCom in under two years. Posting this as an alt, since obviously I don't want to ruin my own chances! Trunk Master ( talk) 02:36, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
|
Hatted. Primefac ( talk) 16:39, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm going to launch an RFA at 0000GMT tomorrow. The (non-sockpuppet) person who creates the page for me gets to be the nominator. If nobody does it by then, I'll nominate myself. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:00, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 2 now exists (though it possibly should be Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力停 or Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 (2)). I would recommend future applicants adjust the "or I will nominate myself in X hours" clause if they try this -- specifically, it should be an "I will accept any nominations for X hours" clause. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 05:20, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I have been considering two options for an RFA.
If you have opinions, vote now. As a technicality, I must point out these votes are purely advisory (as site policy forbids me from forswearing my right to transfer community-elected adminship between any single account I control), but I will take them into account. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:00, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Now I'm back at a keyboard (Christmas RfAs, man...), it seems worth noting Primefac's page move to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 2 and redirect of the original title to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Power~enwiki inadvertently(?) changed (created?) the precedent for post-rename RfAs. There are multiple cases in both recent and distant RfA history of people running under multiple names, and most of them prior have reset the numbering (e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cabayi, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/The Rambling Man); the only exception I know of is Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Enterprisey, which was redirected to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/APerson. The tricky thing is that this also holds for a lot of higher-order RfAs, which have similarly been treated as resetting at the rename; most notably, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ironholds 5 was that subject's seventh RfA. For consistency, there should be one pattern or another, although it's not very clear what pattern that should be. Vaticidal prophet 06:07, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
This had nothing to do with my oppose of the most recent nomination, but a valid point was otherwise brought up about this. That being, that if the alphabet or symbols of an English Wikipedia admin's name is not on the English keyboard, then in most cases, the admin cannot be pinged except via copy and paste, at best. And if a user has any issue with an admin whose name is not composed of the English keyboard letters, numbers or symbols, then a user cannot adequately open a talk thread about that admin - not at Arbcom, any of the notice boards, or general talk pages. And what that means, is that it would be difficult to hold an admin accountable for anything, if the average user cannot input their name. Perhaps it would be best to address this issue now, and have it in writing somewhere. — Maile ( talk) 01:28, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 255 | ← | Archive 258 | Archive 259 | Archive 260 | Archive 261 | Archive 262 | → | Archive 265 |
At quite a few RfAs, I've seen people say something like "be glad to see you in 3 / 6 months" or "will support an RfA with a little bit more experience". Does this actually reflect reality? I had a look at previous successful second RfAs over the past few years - Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Red Phoenix 2, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cwmhiraeth 2, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Enterprisey 2 and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lourdes 2, and the closest gap was the last, of about a year. The rest are all substantial. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:56, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
Most of the opposes in the recent RFA were in the not-now-but-resolve-the-issues-and-I'll-support campAnd several were "you're a fascist criminal and your reputation should be smeared forever because of your irredeemable evil". A lot of the time, RfA doom and gloom is overreacting, but you can't seriously talk as though you expect a second run after resolved issues here. If the project wants and needs people wielding a mop, maybe it can avoid painting them as embodiments of evil? Vaticidal prophet 22:43, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
{{
reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 00:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)I'm wondering where this "debrief" idea came from. Where did it start? What is the goal? Who should be doing this? ... Note: I'm not complaining - I'm just curious how this came about. I wouldn't even mind typing something up myself if it's requested - but considering that it's been 10+ years for me, I'm not sure what the value would be. Is there a link to a discussion, or is it something that just grew naturally bit by bit? — Ched ( talk) 03:17, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
As I promised, here comes my debriefing. I found earlier debriefings useful to read before going through my RfA and they answered lots of the questions about how it can be to go through the process. This will probably not be the most exciting debriefing of all time, my RfA wasn't either, but the more data points the better.
It is important to note that this is just my experience and cannot be taken as true of other candidates, which should be abundantly clear given the horribly stressful RfA with lots of poor behavior which started along side mine. Almost all other RfAs also have at least a bit of opposition which I assume would completely change how the process feels.
Since there isn't too much to say about the RfA itself, it has been called as snooze fest for a reason, I will focus a bit more on how I ended up here and give some of my thoughts on RfA questions.
My first somewhat serious thoughts about adminship were already back in November 2019 when Xeno said some very kind words and joked about Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Trialpears being a red link. While I obviously wasn't ready back then I think that interaction took RfA from something only the best of the best could pass through to something that may become possible in a year or two.
In July 2020 Lee Vilenski said that their email was open in case anyone wanted to talk adminship and I took the opportunity. Instead of the "you are on the right track but still ways to go" answer I expected it was more you don't have much content creation and your (non-automated) mainspace edits are quite few, but other than that it looks good. They even offered to nominate me right then and there if I found a second nom. After politely declining saying that I wanted some recognized content and a few more months of tenure first I went on my way and didn't think much about adminship for a few months.
Then Barkeep contacted me in December saying they've heard my name mentioned as someone who could make a good admin. At this point I was still quite hesitant, especially considering my lower activity in the months prior, but given that I now knew that quite a few editors believed in me and I would have significant use for the tools I thought that it would be for the best to go through with it. I did as Barkeep said and got a few months of higher activity and (slowly) returned to working on List of countries by Human Development Index before contacting Barkeep again in early April saying that I finally wanted to run. I found the next week where my schedule would be quite empty and I could devote mostly to RfA if it got rough which I still thought was somewhat likely.
I contacted Primefac asking them if they wanted to be my second nominator and they accepted. During the two months leading up to the RfA I worried about it a decent amount. This mostly manifested itself as me compulsively reading policy in the middle of the night. In retrospect I see a decent amount of benefits to starting it immediately upon hearing that people want to nominate you if your situation allows for it.
Just over a month ago I learned that Vami too was running and sent them a few discord messages about it. They indirectly convinced me to open up a bit about my RfA and I started to allow myself to talk about it if it came up naturally. Around this time I also spoke with Izno about it and Xaosflux came to my talk page and wondered if I was interested in running. All this made me feel a lot more confident and stopped me from worrying about it. At this point I felt that the likelihood that I would fail was just a few percent with me saying something incredibly stupid being the most likely culprit in that case.
I answered the 3 standard questions, my noms wrote their statements and then it was time to start. I, like I expect every other candidate, started out being incredibly nervous, but after a few hours of seeing tons of support flood in I started to feel a lot better and for the rest of the week I just enjoyed reading all the incredibly kind things that were said.
Given that many people brought up that they thought my answers were really good I guess I'll share a bit of my thoughts around writing them. Just like when closing discussions or performing many admin actions these answers/actions are things you really should be able to stand behind. If there's anything you're uncertain would be appropriate it shouldn't be in the answer or at least be modified to account for that. This principle very naturally leads you to threading carefully when in new waters and very much influenced how I wrote Q7 about the rouge template editor which a lot of people thought was particularly good. Q7 was also the one I was the most uncertain about, it is a situation we don't have procedures for but that needs to be handled quickly. I really couldn't say that I was sure my proposed course of action was appropriate and hence I would have to get more eyes on it which resulted in me suggesting to take it to AN afterwards. Similar things can be said for many of the other answers.
Other things that can't have hurt is that I'm well read on Wikipedia policies, guidelines and essays but that really shouldn't be essential since you will inevitably have picked up the stuff relevant to the areas you work in if you are a suitable admin candidates and have an overreaching understanding of the rest of the project even if you haven't read say WP:ARBPOL or WP:MASTODONS. I also considered how I would have answered some of the questions given in the past few RfAs. Before publishing answers for any of the the more important/difficult questions I took a few minutes to do something else before making sure I thought they were good even after getting a bit of distance from them. This resulted in a few of the answers becoming more clear than they otherwise would be.
If you think you might be interested in adminship (even if it's a year+ away), my email is open, but be warned that I haven't even been an admin for a day at this point and am far from the most competent person on the matter. If you're interested in my non-judgemental thoughts or just a chat I'm happy to provide though. I think I'm far from the only one who underestimate their chances. -- Trialpears ( talk) 22:50, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
Trialpears was as ready for adminship in 2019 as I was in 2008. The difference is, I did my hand-wringing after the RFA, instead of before. Whether that's an indictment of 2008 standards or current standards is an exercise left to the reader =) – xeno talk 14:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, let's see here. It was " A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....", so my memories may be a bit foggy, but here's my recollections of my RfA. Remember it was back at the end of the 2nd/3rd generation of RfAs, (2009 - back when I was a young man still in my 50s) but here ya go ...
I'd done a fair amount of typo fixing for a couple years before registering an account, but after eventually becoming aware of what it takes to make the sausage, I registered. I was a bit nonplussed when some of my early article work was reverted ( truth vs verifiability) leading me to my first AN/I question. Then I tried to add an article about an episode of Stargate SG1 which dealt with sexism. (not enough real world coverage, but I still consider SG1 the poor red-headed stepchild of Star Trek). At this point I didn't see Wikipedia as being a long term project for myself - AND then, my wiki lord and savior (no disrespect to my real world one), Huntster magically appeared to me, took me under his wing, and encouraged me to work through it. After a few months months he mentioned that I should edit with a future eye on Adminship, and always take the high road (no comment on my success of that). Then Royalbroil showed up and helped me create my first article, then helped walk me through a DYK. Several months later, Pedro provided me with some very valuable insight and guidance, and eventually offered to nom me. (Pedro always had an amazing track record at picking good admins). I decided to try, but I was still going to edit even if it didn't succeed.
In the beginning I did have some anxity, but figured I could edit just fine without the tools as well, so the "stress" part of it wasn't major. Shortly before my RfA went public, my daugher called crying that her company's web-site had been hi-jacked, and needed help (I was an IT tech at the time). The "real world" stress suddenly made wiki stress-free for the most part. That's not to suggest that it was carefree, it wasn't, and there were some butterflies throughout the week. The questions didn't really bother me because I figured it was my chance to showcase who I was as a person. However, there were 3 major opposes that concerned me, mainly because they all had validity, and weight, behind them.
I did have supporters, Steven Crossin (who really should be an Admin) stands out in my mind as one of the staunchest supporters and defenders. Some rebuttals escalated a bit in response to one editors comments, and even though I disagreed with the oppose #1 assessment, I did eventually defended his right to oppose without being harassed, and asked that my supporters stand down.
At this point I was resigned to the idea that the RfA could very well tank, and I'd need to ask others for help when faced with vandaals who needed blocked, page protections/deletions and such. I'd seen other RfAs that slowly eroded when a couple well know editors posted some well timed opposes. I also got an email from an admin. asking if this was my website. (it was). A bit disconcerting that someone would do that amount of research, but it wasn't anything I was embarassed about either. Then the opposes seemed to slow up in the middle of "the week", and I had some fantastic supports from some of the big guns: ϢereSpielChequers, SoWhy, Dank, Keegan, Juliancolton, Tiptoety, Mazca, Protonk, Useight and others all had some very nice things to say. The last couple days did have a couple opposes trickle in, mostly of the "per userX" varity, so there was a level of uncertainty to it all.
Fast Forward: I survived, but eventually found the extra buttons weren't all they're cracked up to be. It's so easy to get caught in the middle of things/disputes. And I think most good admins often question themselves about whether or not they've done the right thing. The FA writer who opposed on civility issues did help improve some of the articles I worked on, and I'll still exchange an email or two with him once in a while. I now feel perfectly comfortable emailing, visiting and commenting on the third writer's page, and they've said some very complementary things over time. And even though I haven't seen the non-chatty editor around for a while, IIRC I did visit their talk and told them I'd try to be less "chatty." And to be perfectly honest, my RfA was probably a bit sooner than it should have been, but in retrospect, mine wasn't really so bad.
At the end of the day, my beliefs are this: RfA can range from very easy, to incredibly difficult. A lot will depend on your integrity, and the people you cross paths with. Read through our policies and guidelines, they will come up, and even if you don't memorize them word for word, you'll at least know where to look. Read through the Admin's reading list as well, it's stuff you will need if you get the tools. Have a look at the MOS guidelines as well, at least the top level ones. It's important to know how to write. Write in complete sentences. Be yourself, but avoid the "I kin pwn sum vandals" type of responses.
I think the best RfAs are when an editor is open, honest, trustworthy, humble, willing to learn, and consistent in what they say and do. It's also very important that you have a history of treating your fellow editors with respect. However, if your self-worth is going to be dependent on your RfA, if you think you'll quit editing if it fails, then IMO, it's not for you. It's fine to take a break, chill out, decompress afterwards - but it should never be a determining factor in your decision to edit. Yes, it is nice to have the extra tools, very nice, but it's not the be-all-end-all of wiki. Being an editor is what actually drives the wiki-train. I've resigned my tools twice to take a break, and that can be very refreshing as well.
Regarding this section:
I've BRD removed this new section from the main RFA page. Having a permanent list of selected usernames there is too prominent for something so opt-in. I do think these could be useful, and would suggest that they are put in to a category (maybe Wikipedia RfA debriefings or the like), and perhaps a link to the category can be included in the prose of the About RfA and its process section. (Courtesy ping to User:Valereee.) — xaosflux Talk 21:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
I'll try and write one for this too. Moneytrees🏝️ Talk/ CCI guide 21:00, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
( Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji/ Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji/Bureaucrat chat) I had one of the closest successful RFAs and have been sitting on my thoughts for a while. I think doing a reflection on it is a good idea, and I hope talking about my awful experience will fix something or make someone reconsider how they act. I have been wanting to get this all off my chest, so here's my whole story with RFA:
I only really started getting the idea to run near the end of 2019, because I couldn't see deleted stuff at
CCI and I was constantly removing copyright violations and would sometimes have to wait weeks for them to be revdeled. I barely knew anything about the community and didn't read much, only once and a while making some dumb comment at AN or asking an admin for help with something. The only people I regularly interacted with were the handful of other users who edited in the copyright area, and the majority of the work I did involved looking through article's histories, removing/rewording copyright violations, analyzing provided diffs (what sources the user I was investigating liked citing, whether or not that source could be found easily, whether it was reliable, if the content was even encyclopedic, could it be kept and re worded if it was, etc.), and sometimes explaining to a user why I reverted their edit/ removed all the content. When I submitted my request to become an arbclerk and filed
my ORCP at the very end of 2019 I was not planning on running for admin within the next two months. In fact I thought I still had a year or so to go if I was serious about it. But then I got accepted as a trainee clerk, people at the ORCP told me that I could run now and pass, and then I got an email about adminship from
Ritchie333 on January 14 2020, where it was suggested that
TonyBallioni might also be interested in nominating me. At the time I politely declined, saying I wanted to get some stuff done before I ran, ... My afd needs work, there’s an article I’m working on that I want to fix up first, and I want to get a few thousand more edits...
, and backed away.
But then I started reading stuff over and I started thinking that I really could pass with no real issues. After all, I was told in my ORCP that ...there will be things you can improve on, etc. but you'd easily pass...
by Tony, I just became an arb clerk, the
Dr. Blofeld CCI cleanup ended up going well, and people know we need copyright admins, right? Being a stupid 17 year old also probably played into it too. So I went back to the noms and picked February 11th as the start date, since the next week's Monday and Tuesday were off and that could give me more time to focus on the run. So the page gets created, I answer the first three questions, I'm even confident to
transclude my own request. I accept the nomination and then the RFA opens.
Before a neutral the first 37 votes are supports. Of those voters I had truly only interacted with ~5 of them. I get asked a question about whether I had a previous account, I really should've just said I edited as some ips for a bit instead of the rambling explanation I give. In wanting to be honest I way overshared, and I think that ended up reflecting poorly on the run in the bigger picture. I get asked about my bad AFDs nominations and I admit I tried to stop nominating things because I was afraid I would miss something. I chalk one particularly stupid one to me being tired at the time. That was true, but I should've expanded that I also wanted the article deleted as I thought it was a copyright violation. Maybe if I had said that in the AFD statement or just listed the article at copyright problems things would have gone differently but I hadn't.
That is one of the first lessons I learned as a result of the RFA: communicating your thought process in full will usually make things easier.
Then things start getting difficult. Near the end of the first day my phone is destroyed, and it had been the only way I was able to talk to my nominators through email for the majority of the day. I could only talk to them for brief periods of time, and I started making some dumb choices. I responded to not just one, but three opposes, which is a massive no-no... about three different people emailed me after saying not to do that! Another lesson: read about RFA before you go through it.
Now there were a few opposes, and the main issues being raised were about an apparent lack of content creation, low edit count (under 10000), and low tenure (I had started this account in March 2018. I made my first edit from an ip in July 2015). Someone asked me what I thought my weakest area was, and
I said ...I also wish I could be a more consistent content creator; I've had fun writing the articles that I have, but my work at copyright often intrudes on it and I'm not able to write as much as I'd like to.
There's the implication that I didn't know anything about article space or about what it's like to work "in the trenches" because I didn't have that much creation, but that wasn't true, because content was massively important to all of my work at CCI. Out of the thousand or so edits I had made to CCI at the time, each one had been made after I spent time looking at the context of the edit and the article's history. From that and all the removal and rewordings I did, I knew how to cite, how to tell if a source was reliable, how pesky the google books algorithm could be, how close something could be phrased to a source, and whether something was too poorly written to be included, whether the text could be simply ignored because some things are too plainly stated to be a violation of copyright- all important things to writing that I knew, but I never brought up in my RFA! And why didn't I? Because I was afraid and I thought that everyone who opposed me over it was right, and that I had no idea about anything content related.
I could have brought up the work I put into Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and how I put it up for a GA nomination and then I took it down because I was too discouraged with Wikipedia at the time to keep the nom up. I didn't talk about how when I started editing I just wanted to do some anti vandalism and write, and how if you look at my earliest contributions that's very clear. I could have brought up how I was too sad to go to my next door neighbor's funeral and instead spent a few hours trying cleanup at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Halo: Combat Evolved/archive1, but that it didn't matter and was demoted anyways. I did bring up the time that I actually put in some work some into promoting a GA, but then I had to stop editing at the time because my grandfather was going to die from cancer and I had to fly out to see him one last time. About a month later the GA had failed and he had died. And I was 16 when this all happened! I know the pain of failure and feeling like no one cares about what you do as well as anyone could. I know what its like to spend all your time writing something, only for it to not be acknowledged in any way. So why would I want to even edit when no one cares about me and it's not fun?
Which leads to the then 18 month old retirement message I put up, which I had actually completely forgotten about when I had run. Having something that deeply embarrassing pulled up for hundreds to see truly hurts, and it hurts even more when it didn't matter what I said- it was still held against me. Maybe, if I had provided examples of how I had moved past that and saw Wikipedia in such a much more positive light, then the incoming dump of opposes citing the retirement message wouldn't have happened. Maybe that would've prevented some users from switching their supports to opposes, maybe that would've prevented the seemingly endless speculation that I was not "mature" enough for adminship. I don't think a single person in that RFA read my response to Barkeep49 about the opposes here, even though I felt like it would make people understand how I had changed for sure. There were a lot of opposes now, even one of my noms said that they didn't think it would pass.
Then, I'm not going to say any names, because I don't want to get back into issues with people who I hope have changed their mind on me (and I know there are those who have and I am so thankful you have), but people started saying all sorts of things, like maybe I was some sort of sock, or that I was just running as an ego boost and had no actual accomplishments, or that I was a liar. And I kept seeing the Pizzagate GA brought up over and over again, because Ritchie mentioned it in his nomination statement as an example of content creation from me despite me not creating it or having added much text to it. It's kind of funny, because I fucking hate that article now. All I did was copyedit it, wait on it for a few months to be reviewed, addressed the review, and then added that little green circle to the top of my userage. I did that with another article too, John B. Magruder, which had been nominated for GA by another user who was then blocked, and I help keep the nomination going for them. Of course I didn't know anything about community standards on what "Counts" as a GA so when I see it mentioned in the nomination statement... well Ritchie thought it was good enough, so it must be, right?
But that's not fair. I don't want the situation to ever be seen as "Ritchie messes up... again". I should have had the foresight to say "hey I didn't actually write very much on that, could you mention something else?" And of course I can't say this all because at this point in the RFA it's heading to a crat chat, and no one would have believed me. If they didn't believe having three people close to you die would fuck you up a little, then why would they believe that? Again, I'm not going to say any names here, but it got to this point where there was this one person who was saying I lied, and I thought we were on good terms and I didn't want it to look like I was ignoring people saying I lied, so I emailed them right around when the crat chat opened because I was still idealistic and stupid enough to think that I could just talk the whole situation though and that they would understand. Here's the text of the email, minus me addressing who I sent it to:
I just want to clear some things up about the mention of the Pizzagate GA in the nom statement. The result of it being mentioned is less of a malicious intent to puff my record up and more the result of my naiveté.
I remember seeing the article mentioned in Ritchie's nomination statement and thinking "Hmm, I mostly just fixed some minor issues on that and wrote little of the actual content on it, but if he thinks that it's an example of content, whatever." He must have AGF'd and just went off of the topicon on my user page, and thought that I did more work on it then I actually did. Which makes sense, since we had quite a few positive interactions before hand.
I think I'm more at fault for just going along with it. I should have acted on my feelings of "Are you sure you want to say that?" I'm telling you this in email because I feel like saying this publicly would be like throwing Ritchie under the bus. He's a good guy and gets more crap then he deserves. I won't put the blame on others when I deserve it.
I signed that shit with my real name too! Now for any RFA hopefuls, don't do this because it's very stupid, especially if you don't tell your nominators. It didn't even matter in this case anyways, since I found out back in February 2021 that they continued to believe that I had lied in the RFA, even though they gave a response to my email indicating that they "understood" the situation I was in. I don't know if this person will see this, if they do they know who they are, and I don't want to be enemies or whatever with them, the last thing I want to do is start shit with people who I know care about processes, I just wish they hadn't told me one thing and then said another thing not long after.
The RFA was about over now, and it was in Crat Chat territory. At that point I was so exhausted and unhappy with the process that I wanted them to quickly close it as no consensus. I was convinced there was no hope for it now. And at first, with two no consensus votes, it looked like I would get that wish... but then Worm That Turned comes in and says
consensus... Just about
. When I saw that I knew what was going to happen after and I wanted to withdraw. I could barely take the suspense anymore. I had to painstakingly wait for the crats to slowly vote, with them totally divided and the vote a back and forth. When people switch from support to oppose and the nonchalant opposes start rolling in, it feels like your stomach is in perpetual somersault. But when the crats take half a week to read everything over and vote and people won't stop constantly talking about YOU on the talk then thats when you start sweating when you look at your watchlist.
Eventually, the "promote" side prevailed and I was promoted after a 107 hour long crat chat.
It was the longest successful RFA, and of course I was happy to finally make it through. Were the 275 hours worth it? I guess. Even though
my close RFA has been used against me as a negative point
...Some advice: Your RFA was close. Don't blow it by doing things you shouldn't be doing
. I don't care. I survived. The fact that I made it through should be enough evidence that I was ready for the tools. You may notice this is called Money emoji's Rfa, not "Moneytrees' Rfa". That is because I have evolved past how I was as Money emoji and am a much better person and more responsible as Moneytrees. The stigma of the Rfa doesn't haunt me.
If you are considering voting, think about some things before you do so. Do you need to clarify your vote was a "weak support"? Do you need to talk about completely unrelated things and project your view of the "maintainers vs. writers dispute" on to the candidate? Do you need to crack unrelated jokes despite opposing the candidate? Do you need to push your criteria so much? Do you need to incessantly nit pick over personal preference?
And will it really matter? Because for all those opposes and all the drama and pushback, I think it is fair to say that I am a good and well respected admin. It was all unfounded, wasn't it? What does that say about the legitimacy of so many RFA opposes?
If you are considering running, do not let my horror story deter you. There is no way yours can fuck up as badly as mine did. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and defend yourself, but admit when you've made a mistake in the past. Avoid the mistakes I made in the rfa, and communicate to your nominators. That's the thing most important to being an admin, communication. If you're able to concisely explain your actions and look at them objectively, then you will be a good admin. There are a lot of advantages to being an admin and we need more users from varied backgrounds running. Everyday we are getting more and more editors from different backgrounds, who aren't entrenched in the old internet values so many admins believe in, and they are/will becom(ing) great admins. Don't let some bullshit prevent you from running, because if you're a serious candidate you're better than you think.
---
Ritchie and Tony, if you have read this far, I am so sorry. Ritchie, I truly feel like I failed you and you've had to say things that don't align with your beliefs to defend me. It's really no ones fault, and I hope that you don't feel like I lied to you in some way, I would never do that. The same for you Tony, because you stuck up for me for so long and had my back during the RFA, and I feel like we're not friends any more or something after ACE2020 and that makes me want to cry. I can't describe how much I appreciate how you guys stuck up for me when things got so rough and how much I love this place and how much of a better person I've become. Moneytrees🏝️ Talk/ CCI guide 03:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
as a Barkeep won't always come along with a freebie question at the right moment.I mean there are two of us so I don't have to do it all myself... Joke aside the corrective, I think for the breakdown of AGF, is a general bias among crats towards finding consensus to close as successful as here. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 10:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
We don't know if the extreme faux-pas at the RfAs is typical of their behaviour were they to have the tools, because we never got the chance to find out. By which token, we might as well pass everyone however they performed because we could be missing out on a good admin anyway, and passing em would be the only way to find out 🤔🤪 —— Serial 09:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
RfA is, and should always be, an open-book test, then all the more reason for keeping a nom's involvement with their candidate on-wiki in the spirit of an open process. And as you say,
getting advice from a more experienced colleagueis an excellent thing—if a visible thing. —— Serial 10:33, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Stupid opposes are easily fixed, crats can ignore them.I don't think they dare to do that unless the RfA falls into the "discretionary zone". — Kusma ( talk) 14:18, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I appreciate that going back to the inactivity of Wikipedia:Admin coaching, there is a desire for candidates to be genuine in their interactions with the community, and not just echoing what someone has told them to say. Asking for advice, though, is a useful and even desirable action for any editor, including administrators. There's not many scenarios where action has to be taken immediately without access to any other admins with which to discuss matters (vandalism during English Wikipedia's lowest point of activity is all I can think of), and so being an expert in all areas isn't necessary. I do think it is important for the candidate to be well-versed in some areas, so if they become an administrator, they will be able to reduce the overall workload. isaacl ( talk) 23:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't really follow WT:RFA. At one point I thought RfA was seriously broken, but honestly, I don't anymore. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I've had enough conversations about this with people that I doubt there will be new arguments brought up. People don't like processes that open them up to negative feedback. Even if you get a near perfect RfA or review in the real world, the one negative thing is going to stick out. Professors getting class evaluations say that. Many people I know getting performance evaluations say that, and I believe the fact that we don't have many people running for RfA suggests that is true on the internet as well. Opening oneself up to feedback is hard, and there's certainly no perfect way to go about it. I think RfA could likely be improved upon, but I'm not sure if those improvements are structural or not. Regardless of the structural changes, the difficult part of people opening themselves up is going to remain.
All that being said, my snarky but serious question is this: instead of having continual discussions about what is broken with RfA for years, would anyone care to put forth a proposal to fix it?
I'm normally a huge advocate of the "build consensus for change over time and then launch an RfC you know will pass" method, but it's been 6 years since the last serious RfA reform RfC, we have continual threads about how something isn't working, and there are no serious proposals to make changes. If there are ways to improve upon the current process, propose them. The statements from various people making proposals method might work best for this (see WP:RESYSOP 2019 for a recentish example), but lets stop complaining without proposing solutions to the community in a way that can actually accomplish change. TonyBallioni ( talk) 23:11, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
This is my idea, as an ex-admin. If an admin thinks that an editor would make a good admin, they ask a couple of other admins whether they agree. If they agree (and the editor agrees), the proposal is put up on a page for say two weeks for discussion. At the end of two weeks, the three decide whether the objections, if any, are strong enough to deny the appointment, otherwise the person is appointed. Stress discussion not voting. This might work. -- Bduke ( talk) 23:35, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
This is a hot take in that I have not thought about it for longer than it took to type up this comment. At the very least, these outlandish ideas might kickstart something sane.
These sound insane because they probably are, but I think Tony makes a good point that we're spinning our wheels. The ideas we have either don't work or have been shot down so many times that positions are entrenched. We should think outside the box, and that means suggesting things that seem unthinkable. Don't get me wrong, calling the proposals half-baked is too generous, but hopefully it helps us get out of the intellectual rut we've found ourselves in. — Wug· a·po·des 03:05, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
quantitative, 0/10. RfA is bad when it gets quantitative. RfA is bad when people look at "you need two years to be an admin" and take them seriously. RfA as PERM? PERM is a checklist. Hell, we should replace PERM with qualitative !votes. Vaticidal prophet 01:01, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
These are clearly just quick thoughts (feel free to shoot me down), but felt I ought to put something down by way of a contribution before I head off for a week. Nick Moyes ( talk) 22:47, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
It has been asked of me that I do a debrief of my RfA. I understand this sentiment, and think I now have some excellent advice to offer to potential candidates. I cannot at this time write a debrief, however, because my RfA has left me with knots in my stomach and quite hurt. The nicest things ever said about me were said in the Support column, but some of the worst things ever said about me were said in the General comments and on the talk page. It has been expressed to me by several people, supporters and opposers, that this RfA was "brutal" and a disaster. It certainly has been in the short-term for my emotional state. I have a lot to say, but at the moment, very little confidence in myself.
So, please, do not ask me for a debrief just yet. I need time to recover, reread the RfA, its talk, and the bloodbaths surrounding it, and to parse. If I do produce a debrief, it will likely be an essay. – ♠Vami _IV†♠ 07:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
In order to make sure we don't lose debriefings which aren't put on their own page (and thus can't be added to the category) I have started Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Debriefs. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:27, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Although I discovered Wikipedia around 2003 and started editing with an account in 2005, I didn't discover the "back end" of the site until 2011. I never particularly wanted to be an administrator; indeed in January 2012 I wrote I'd "no desire to be an Administrator and thinks good work here is done for the good of the community, rather than an attempt to brag about barnstars". I think part of that was a reaction to people getting barnstars for reverting vandalism and blocking sockpuppets, rather than doing lots of good writing, and I'd been a moderator on various internet forums since the mid 90s at that point anyway, and had been there, done that, and thought I was too old to go through it again. In the summer of 2012, having had lots of spare time on my hands (maybe I should have watched the Olympics), I got involved in "serious" writing and started working out exactly what was required to get an article to GA status, which led to more and more people noticing what I was doing.
By 2015, established editors were starting to enquire about adminship, and in March, I said, "What's stopping me from being an admin? Well, I have a few skellies (I believe I told an admin to fuck off once), a lot of my experiences aren't logged (it would be interested to capture AFD / CSD "saves" though) and I need extra work and responsibility like a hole in the head." I had a general sense that being an admin was kind of a "consolation prize" for not getting an article through FAC single-handedly (something which I still haven't done). I also had a strong sense of "being right over being popular" which occasionally upsets people, and said things like "I silently cheer from the sidelines when Wikipediocracy fires both barrels at an admin doing silly things." which isn't exactly the greatest thing you can say when looking at a potential adminship.
In the event, the RfA was pretty stress-free, I think partly because I wasn't particularly bothered if I got the tools or not, and I expected about 25-30 opposes like "civility is an important pillar and giving Eric Corbett a free pass is not acceptable" and only got a handful. What was far more stressful was the GA review of West Pier which by complete co-incidence ran for pretty much the same duration as the RfA, and featured some disruption from a long-term abuse case (cf. "There appears to be a sockpuppet persistently changing the lede, but that's not a serious issue, since the article can be semi-protected if the socking persists.", also see Talk:West Pier#Lead) which spilled over to the RfA. I wonder if my relatively calm and disinterested handling of that (I didn't answer Q15) is what gave confidence to people who were unsure whether I could do the job or not.
In summary, I wouldn't take anything from my RfA as best practice or advice, it's a bit of a wild card. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:31, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
I had a general sense that being an admin was kind of a "consolation prize" for not getting an article through FAC single-handedlyis darkly hilarious, and ties in with a lot you can say about the broader tendency of Wikipedia-as-community to sometimes forget it's an appendix to an encyclopedia.) Vaticidal prophet 11:37, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
There was a discussion a while ago about tweaking {{ User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report}} to expand the abbreviations. It seemingly came to the conclusion that one way to resolve the issue would be to switch to using {{ RFX report}}, and add the expanded abbreviations in there. I've made the relevant tweaks to a sandbox version of the module & template (with apologies to Trialpears for using their RfA in my testing, I do hope you won't mind!) - {{ RFX_report/sandbox}}.
Thoughts? firefly ( t · c ) 13:12, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
<abbr>
element is convenient for those who can hover over the headings. For those on devices that don't support hovering, and readers who have difficulty with fine motor control, it's still desirable to have a legend. (On an implementation note, rather than use frame:expandTemplate
, I believe it would be more efficient to use the
mw.html
Lua API.)
isaacl (
talk) 16:46, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
Just FYI to all, I've swapped the CyberBot table here, on the WP:RFA header and at WP:BN to {{ RFX report}}, as CyberBot I doesn't seem to be updating. I realise it still needs the key, but it's better than a table that's not being updated(!). If anyone at all disagrees, revert and serve seafood as appropriate. firefly ( t · c ) 18:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
At Special:PermanentLink/1031861313, editors GeneralNotability and User:Sdrqaz came to a conclusion that RfA candidates were "required" to disclose alternate accounts (if any) and whether or not they have edited for pay and that "both disclosures are required by our policies on administrators and on sockpuppetry". I find this to be an odd reading of these policies because clean starts exist and wp:clean start explicitly allows runs for adminship after a clean start. What is then the consensus policy when it comes to an unpopular editor taking up a clean start, passing RfA a few months later, and then publicly rehabilitating their old username, perhaps to the extent of requesting that the admin bit be flipped for the old username instead of the current one? 209.166.108.205 ( talk) 03:44, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
I have started a 2021 RfA review and accompanying RfC to identify what issues, if any, there are with RfA. Interested editors are invited to participate. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 01:40, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks so much for participating in Phase 1 of the RfA 2021 review. 8 out of the 21 issues discussed were found to have consensus. Thanks to our closers of Phase 1, Primefac and Wugapodes.
The following had consensus support of participating editors:
The following issues had a rough consensus of support from editors:
Please consider joining the brainstorming which will last for the next 1-2 weeks. This will be followed by Phase 2, a 30 day discussion to consider solutions to the problems identified in Phase 1.
There are 2 future mailings planned. One when Phase 2 opens and one with the results of Phase 2. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Best, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:09, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
It's a wee bit concerning how close a globally banned editor came to passing an RFA with Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Eostrix looking like it was going to pass with flying colors in a couple of days. Are admin candidates checkusered as a matter of due diligence or is that just not on the table here? nableezy - 03:41, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
(unless necessary for the role, e.g. working with kids), which is kinda true for all of your examples except blood drives (which, locally for me anyway, do not include background checks). Most volunteering roles do not include background checks. On top of that, Wikipedia is a pseudonymous community, whereas most volunteer roles you do in your real name. People expect a higher level of privacy here, as generally the only information available about you is what you give out yourself. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 11:27, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
I won't say how per WP:BEANS, but this won't work. It is trivial to dodge a CU check if you know when it will occur well in advance. Anyone this crafty will know this. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 13:14, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
quite some time, although it obviously acquired a sense of urgency when the account ran for adminship.Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
'I have not registered any additional accounts on Wikipedia', and at least Arbcom seems to think so. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 13:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe ( talk · contribs) has removed a clause saying that RfAs without a hope of passing can be speedy deleted per WP:G6. This reverts an edit added by Esquivalience ( talk · contribs) here. Can anyone remember why this clause was added in 2015? I disagree it's "admin abuse", in my view it's more Don't remind others of past misdeeds, but I'd be interested to hear wider thoughts and get a consensus one way or the other. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
RfAs that are closed before any !votes are cast may be deleted per such and such criteria.
Back to the original topic. I don't think for a second it has anything to do with admin abuse, not sure what that is about other than being a red herring. I do however agree that if it should fall under CSD then it should be defined on the CSD policy page not here. G6 makes no sense to me, that seems like a misuse of the criteria for a purpose it was never intended for. If the applicant wants it deleted and there were no significant contributions from other editors then G7 would apply. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 11:05, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
What happens if a user is nominated for an RFA and declines? Are those pages deleted under G6 or are they kept, with MfD the only option to get rid of them? A malformatted RFA which is never formally accepted like the recent one that sparked this discussion should probably be dealt with the same way. – filelakeshoe ( t / c) 🐱 14:42, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
My recollection matches that of Anarchyte. I recall there being a discussion regarding new editors who volunteer for administrative work without understanding the community expectations for becoming an administrator, and that courtesy deletion to save the editors future embarrassment was desirable. At present I haven't formed a view on whether or not this warrants a speedy deletion, nor if or how this practice should be documented. (Note the edit in question left a sentence fragment, which should be removed as well if there is agreement to reverse the original change.) isaacl ( talk) 15:26, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Following a discussion with over 100 editors, 8 issues were identified with Requests for Adminship (RfA). Phase 2 has begun and will use the following timeline:
All interested editors are invited to participate in Phase 2. Thanks and best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:55, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
There was a recent change to Advice for RfA candidates that replaced four items with one labeled "Avoid responding to !votes." I have started a discussion on this edit. Feedback is welcome. isaacl ( talk) 15:32, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Sockstrike
|
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I feel like a climate scientist in the 1980s having to point this out, but if you look at the RfA stats, Wikipedia is heading for a disaster if it doesn't start shoveling warm bodies through RfA at warp speed. It's crazy nobody is stepping up, not least since it's so easy now. No pass rate less than 95% this year. Probable seat on ArbCom in under two years. Posting this as an alt, since obviously I don't want to ruin my own chances! Trunk Master ( talk) 02:36, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
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Hatted. Primefac ( talk) 16:39, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm going to launch an RFA at 0000GMT tomorrow. The (non-sockpuppet) person who creates the page for me gets to be the nominator. If nobody does it by then, I'll nominate myself. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:00, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 2 now exists (though it possibly should be Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力停 or Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 (2)). I would recommend future applicants adjust the "or I will nominate myself in X hours" clause if they try this -- specifically, it should be an "I will accept any nominations for X hours" clause. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 05:20, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I have been considering two options for an RFA.
If you have opinions, vote now. As a technicality, I must point out these votes are purely advisory (as site policy forbids me from forswearing my right to transfer community-elected adminship between any single account I control), but I will take them into account. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:00, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Now I'm back at a keyboard (Christmas RfAs, man...), it seems worth noting Primefac's page move to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 2 and redirect of the original title to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Power~enwiki inadvertently(?) changed (created?) the precedent for post-rename RfAs. There are multiple cases in both recent and distant RfA history of people running under multiple names, and most of them prior have reset the numbering (e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cabayi, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/The Rambling Man); the only exception I know of is Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Enterprisey, which was redirected to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/APerson. The tricky thing is that this also holds for a lot of higher-order RfAs, which have similarly been treated as resetting at the rename; most notably, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ironholds 5 was that subject's seventh RfA. For consistency, there should be one pattern or another, although it's not very clear what pattern that should be. Vaticidal prophet 06:07, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
This had nothing to do with my oppose of the most recent nomination, but a valid point was otherwise brought up about this. That being, that if the alphabet or symbols of an English Wikipedia admin's name is not on the English keyboard, then in most cases, the admin cannot be pinged except via copy and paste, at best. And if a user has any issue with an admin whose name is not composed of the English keyboard letters, numbers or symbols, then a user cannot adequately open a talk thread about that admin - not at Arbcom, any of the notice boards, or general talk pages. And what that means, is that it would be difficult to hold an admin accountable for anything, if the average user cannot input their name. Perhaps it would be best to address this issue now, and have it in writing somewhere. — Maile ( talk) 01:28, 28 December 2021 (UTC)