User:Heimstern/RfA Review Recommend Phase

Welcome to the Recommendation phase of RfA Review. In this phase, you will be asked to offer suggestions and proposals to address specific concerns and problems with the current Requests for Adminship process.

The questions below are taken directly from the 209 responses from the Question phase, each of which offered editors' thoughts and concerns about RfA. Based on those concerns, we identified the most frequently mentioned problems and included them here. These are the elements of RfA that are currently under review.

Please take your time and read through the concerns below. For each item, you are invited to offer a proposal that addresses the concern. Where possible, you are encouraged to provide examples, references, diffs and so on in order to support your viewpoint. There isn't a limit on the scope of your proposals; the sky is the limit, here. The intent of this phase is to get ideas, not necessarily to write policy - recommendations that gain traction and community support will be refined during later phases.

Most importantly, Answer as few or as many questions as you wish. All responses are evaluated, so any information you provide is helpful.

If you prefer, you can submit your responses anonymously by emailing them to User:Ultraexactzz. Anonymous responses will be posted as subpages with the contributor's details removed. If you have any questions, please use the project talk page at Wikipedia talk:RfA Review.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. We stress that editors who didn't participate in the question phase are encouraged to participate now - more responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results.

Once again, thank you for taking part!

Selection and Nomination
A1. Editors note that the RfA process can be daunting to prospective administrators, and that the process itself may discourage otherwise qualified candidates from seeking adminship. How can this "Selection Bias" be countered?
 * Response: I was one of these same candidates, generally daunted by the process. What helped me was getting a strong nomination from a user (namely Durin) who specifically looked for strong candidates who were likely to be missed.

A2. Editors expressed concern over unprepared or unqualified candidates at RfA, noting that their candidacies result in NOTNOW and SNOW closures that can be discouraging. In lieu of minimum requirements for adminship, how can prospective candidates be educated about RfA and the community's expectations of its administrators?
 * Response: I do believe we already make these things pretty clear on the RFA page. Beyond that, I don't know that we can do a whole lot to help. It's an unfortunate hazard of jumping into something without reading clearly.

A3. 44 editors expressed concern over excessive co-nominations. Some of these editors advocated a limit on co-nominations, perhaps capping them at one or two per candidate; others recommended asking prospective co-nominators to post a Strong Support in lieu of an actual nomination statement. How can the concern over Co-nominations be addressed?
 * Response: I don't view this as a problem. If several people are enthusiastic enough about a candidate to nominate, that's completely fine by me, and I don't see why others object so.

The RfA Debate (Questions, Election, Canvassing)
B1. 60 editors expressed concern over the number of questions asked of candidates, and indicated that questions should be limited in number. How can this be accomplished? What limits could be fairly imposed? Are there alternative means for the candidate to provide information about themselves without the prompting of questions?
 * Response: ...

B2. Editors expressed concern over the content of questions, with 43 editors disapproving of "Trick questions", 8 disapproving of questions that require only a quotation from policy to answer, and 54 favoring questions that relate directly to the candidate and their experiences, contributions, conflicts, etc. How should the scope of possible questions be determined? Conversely, how would the decision to remove bad-faith or problematic questions be made, and by whom? What subjects should be specifically off-limits, and why?
 * Response: All of this would be irrelevant if the community would start viewing optional questions as actually optional. It's rather silly the way we call them optional and then suddenly in come oppose !votes for users who don't answer them. As for who could remove bad-faith questions: I think it would be reasonable for bureaucrats to exercise their discretion in this respect.

B3. Editors note that RfA is seen as a negative process, with issues such as badgering of opposes, personal attacks, and a general lack of civility being prominent concerns. How can the RfA process be changed to address these concerns?
 * Response: This question approaches the situation backward. We have a fragmented, bitter community using a certain process, and the result is inevitably going to have the aforementioned problems. Changing the system is not going to help. We have to change the community to fix these problems.

B4. The very nature of the RfA process was disputed. Some editors desire rationales with every vote, and favor a more discussion and consensus-based process similar to other processes on the English wikipedia. Other editors desire a more vote-based election, where the raw numbers of supports and opposes are the critical factor. Is there one of these methods that would provide a clearer consensus on the community's view of a candidate? Or, alternatively, is a hybrid of the two preferable, and how should that be structured?
 * Response: Ideally, I would prefer to see a more consensus- and discussion-based approach to RFA. In practice, I'm skeptical of such a thing working. Some of Durin's boldest experiments attempted to do this: they were worthwhile experiments, but not too terribly successful ones. I consider RfA as it stands to be a hybrid of vote and discussion, and at present I don't envision a better solution than it.


 * Numbers alone cannot determine consensus, but nor can they be completely divorced from it. Magnitude of support and opposition can tell a great deal about how the community views a candidate.

B5. The amount of discretion held by Bureaucrats to remove or discount problem votes was also discussed, with some editors favoring increased discretion for Bureaucrats. 25 editors also favored a detailed closing rationale from Bureaucrats, detailing the specific factors that resulted in the candidate being successful (or not successful). What changes to the RfA process or format could clarify community consensus on this issue? Should Bureaucrats take a more active role in managing (or clerking) ongoing RfAs?
 * Response: Bureaucrat discretion is a problematic issue, as it has the theoretical possibility of wresting the decision from the community into the hands of bureaucrats. On the other hand, without bureaucrat discretion, we would risk sockpuppet problems, as well as old feuds preventing fine candidates from gaining adminship. Thus bureaucrat discretion is needed, but must be used carefully. In cases where it's not clear, a detailed rationale is a very good idea (though it would typically be rather unnecessary in an RfA that passed with overwhelming support). The rationale should address why the bureaucrat interpreted the community as he or she did. As a counterexample: this rationale addresses only the bureaucrat's own thoughts on the candidate, with no address of the fairly significant opposition: numerically speaking, over 30%. And yes, of course the numbers aren't everything, but high numbers of opposition should at least be addressed if the RFA is closed successfully.

B6. 68 editors noted that a limited form of Canvassing or advertising would be acceptable, if such canvassing was done on-site and in a neutral fashion. How could a candidate advertise the fact that he or she is a candidate for adminship, while being completely neutral in the audience to which he or she advertises?
 * Response: ...

Training and Education
C1. Though 73 editors responded favorably to the Admin Coaching programme, 39 were critical of the process for "Teaching for the test", or for being an RfA preparation programme rather than an Adminship preparation programme. In what ways could Admin Coaching be improved to focus more on adminship itself?
 * Response: I found my admin coaching helpful. I had a chance to practice the sort of thing admins actually do, such as responding to speedy deletion requests. That sort of thing seems reasonable. Maybe focus on that sort of thing. (Incidentally, if indeed it's a prep for RFA rather than adminship, I don't think we can be surprised, not should we lay blame; the increasing difficulty of RfA makes it completely understandable for people to want to learn how to pass it.)

C2. In evaluating New Admin School, some editors noted that a Mentorship element would be of great benefit to newly minted administrators - something that Admin Coaching provides in a direct one-on-one coach-coachee team. Similarly, 15 editors characterized Admin Coaching, a primarily pre-adminship process, as being invaluable after the RfA, which is traditionally when New Admin School is used for training. Are there areas where the two processes overlap, and can be made more complimentary? Are there common themes or elements that could be shared between the two processes, in order to improve the effectiveness of both?
 * Response: ...

Adminship (Removal of)
D1. Editors noted that the current voluntary Admins open to Recall process is redundant to Dispute Resolution process such as Requests for Comment and Arbitration. In the absence of Recall (i.e. if it were removed altogether), how could existing processes be adapted to more effectively deal with issues of administrator abuse?
 * Response: ...

D2. Editors cited the voluntary nature of the Admins open to Recall process as problematic, and 40 went as far as to recommend a mandatory process for all administrators, either as a mandatory form of Admins open to Recall, or a more formal version of the process administered by Bureaucrats. As a separate process from WP:DR, how could the current recall process be standardized for use as a mandatory process? Who would be responsible for such a process?
 * Response: ...

D3. 44 editors criticized the recall process for being too open to abuse, both through spurious or bad-faith calls for an admin to be recalled, or through administrators who fail to follow through on a commitment to stand for recall. How can the recall process be amended to address these concerns?
 * Response: It's largely for this reason that I removed myself from the "open to recall" category. No one had ever attempted to recall me at the time, nor was I afraid anyone would: rather, I just began to find the category meaningless. Under the right circumstances, I probably would consider myself recalled and resign. Because I cannot anticipate what those circumstances would be, I have not set out conditions for my recall. That's how I handle recall, personally: I know in my mind that I can be recalled, but I don't have a set-out procedure that might be abused.

D4. Some editors recommended that administrators be required to stand for some form of reconfirmation after a given period of time. How would such reconfirmation be structured? How long would an admin have before such reconfirmation would be required? Could such reconfirmation be triggered by an effort to recall an admin, and how would that be handled? What form would such reconfirmation take (RfA, Straw Poll, etc)?
 * Response: ...

Overall Process
E1. The earliest version of the RfA policy states that adminship is granted to "anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community." Current policy leaves the definition of a "trusted editor" to the community. Editors offered a wide range of basic characteristics desirable of administrators, including Trustworthiness, competence, and communication skills. How could the RfA process be amended to either A) more fully ensure that editors selected as admins do indeed have the full trust of the community, or B) more fully fit the community's expectations for administrators?
 * Response: ...

E2. Editors expressed concern over the format of the Requests for Adminship process. Some suggested that RfA has become a form of high-impact editor review, while others expressed concern over the view of Adminship itself as a goal or "trophy" that all editors should attain after a certain period of time. In taking the RfA process as a whole, what elements work well? What elements should be removed or amended?
 * Response: See, I think we're barking up the wrong tree here. The process is not the problem: the people are. We're human beings. We like trophies, status symbols, things like that. Telling people "Adminship is not a trophy" will not teach them that if they're not already mature enough to learn it. Even those who are mature enough may not really understand the truth behind it until they themselves are admins. I think (I hope!) I had a reasonable view of adminship when I acquired it, and yet it didn't prepare me for the annoyance of having people comment on my decisions as being "complete and utter bullshit", for being accused of supporting Nazis, whatever else comes with making admin decisions. (Especially when I tend the freakin' 3RR board.) Anyway, the point is that we need better people more than we need a better process.

Once you're finished...
Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process.

Your responses will be added to Category:Wikipedian Recommendations to RfA Review, which will be used to review the responses after this phase is concluded.

Footnote
This question page was generated by RFAReview at 04:42 on 23 September 2008.