User:Just Step Sideways/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: ... Now that's a good question.

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: ... The guide to RFA states very plainly that inexperienced editors have a very low chance of success. If they don't even read the guide before applying, they shouldn't be administrators. I've never nom'ed anyone, but there should be a strongly worded warning to read the guide built into the nomination process if there isn't already.

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: ... It's kind of annoying, but I don't see what the big deal is and we don't need more rules.

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: ... It is really obnoxious that so many RFA regulars have been adding the same questions to every RFA without considering whether they apply to the particular candidates chosen area of Wikipedia activity. It says to me that these editors can't be bothered to actually check out the candidate's history and think their one question will somehow be a substitute for doing their homework before voting. Unfortunately, I don't see any way to craft a policy on this one. What if the limit is 10, and the same 10 users post their same 10 questions every time? My thinking is that candidates should be encouraged to ignore "boilerplate" questions, and a list of such questions and who posts them should be maintained to discourage this kind of lazy RFA participation.

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: ... If you mean Kurt's famous "cool down block" question with no right answer,or rather no answer that wouldn't result in at least one person opposing you, I never had any problem with that. It also doesn't bother me if policy knowledge questions are asked, as long as they are not deliberately obscure. Users should be strongly advised to personalize their questions in some way, but other than that, I don't think most questions should be censored. Nevertheless, I don't approve of any question requiring personal information such as age or psychological issues. If such issues are a problem, they should be evident by the candidates contributions. Most RFA's have at least one admin participating in them almost from the start, they should be allowed to remove or strike out questions that ask for personal information. As for the "open to recall" question, candidates are free to ignore it if they don't want to answer it.

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: ... The rules involving personal attacks are by necessity more relaxed at RFA. You can't very well comment on a candidate without critically reviewing their edits. WP:CIVIL covers the anything beyond that, and persons who are needlessly rude can be blocked the same as they can be blocked for disrupting any other process. Badgering oppose voters is often self-defeating so I don't see any need to "do" anything about that, and any conversations that wander off-topic should be removed to the talk page

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: ... Consensus is everything at Wikipedia, and RFA should not be an exception to that. As long as consensus is that Wikipedia is not a democracy, discussion-based decision making should be the norm.

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: ... There aren't enough 'crats as it is, I don't think we should foist more work on them, but a detailed closing rationale is appropriate in marginal cases where the discussion is not very clearly leaning one way or the other. As for discounting problem votes, I guess I thought/hoped they were already doing that.

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: ... It does bother me that there are so many "regulars" that participate in nearly every single RFA, some to the point where they don't do much else, and it also bothers me that, not being one of those regulars, I sometimes miss out on RFAs of editors I've had interactions with. However, we could be moving into dangerous territory if we start letting people spam all over Wikipedia that they are at RFA. A tag on their own talk page along with their listing at RFA seems enough.

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: ... You mean the "No user left behind" school? It does seem to me that it "teaches to the test", but RFA participants are supposed to review the candidates edit history, looking beyond the answers to the standard questions and asking their own questions if they need more clarification.

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: ... dunno

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: ... I admit I've never quite understood this issue, even though I've seen enough people argue about it. Admins who voluntarily make themselves open to recall are (probably) less likely to abuse the tools, and others can be desysoped through other channels.

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: ... I don't think it can. Bad-faith recalls should be speedily closed by a bureaucrat, and Admins who fail to follow through can be removed through other channels should it become necessary.

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: ... They should only have to put up with that if there is credible evidence that they have abused their position. I think a "reverse RFA" process would work just fine.

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: ... Again, it comes down to consensus, and what constitutes being a "trusted member" seems to change on an hourly basis. If we come up with some fancy new set of qualifications, it will just lead to more drama. My personal RFA standars are quite simple: Is the editor experienced, not just a lot of Huggling, but actual editing? Is the editor civil when interacting with others? Does the editor respect consensus whether they agree with it or not? They get past those three, and they have my unconditional support no matter what "Wiki-Philosophy" they might be said to represent

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: ... Some editors are ready for adminship after just a few months, and some will never be, so no way no day should it be automatic. It absolutely should be an intense editor review, but closers should feel free to discount votes with no merit. Support is the default position, and I agree that, unlike at AFD or elsewhere, it does not really require explanation, although I usually do briefly explain my reasons. Oppose votes based on ridiculous criteria such as usernames should be ignored. Neutral votes that say something like "I think you would be great but you don't meet one of my personal 9,000 criteria for an admin" should be considered a weak support vote.

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 06:08 on 23 September 2008.