User:Majorly/RfA

A miscellaneous jumble of thoughts on RFA.


 * Standards moved to User:Majorly/RfA/standards

Nominations
Please note this section is out of date, and I don't intend to update it.

I have nominated several people:

English Wikipedia

 * 1) JD UK, closed 18 July 2006 by Voice of All at 3/17/2 (failed)
 * 2) J Di, closed 4 November 2006 by Taxman at 54/0/2 (passed) (Renamed user above)
 * 3) Hello32020, closed 19 November 2006 (candidate withdrew) at 14/18/4 (failed)
 * 4) Cbrown1023, closed 18 December 2006 by Redux at 48/1/0 (passed)
 * 5) MatthewFenton, closed 9 January 2007 (candidate withdrew) at 5/24/5 (failed)
 * 6) FisherQueen, closed 23 January 2007 (candidate withdrew) at 12/16/6 (failed)
 * 7) AnemoneProjectors, closed 10 February 2007 by Danny at 46/0/1 (passed)
 * 8) Heligoland, closed 20 February 2007 by Taxman at 90/3/5 (passed)
 * 9) Irishguy, closed 24 February 2007 by Taxman at 79/0/1 (passed)
 * 10) James086, closed 25 February 2007 by Essjay at 47/0/0 (co-nom with Riana dzasta) (passed)
 * 11) Ryanpostlethwaite, closed 10 March 2007 by Warofdreams at 80/8/3 (passed)
 * 12) JuJube, closed 1 April 2007 (candidate withdrew) at 45/17/7 (failed)
 * 13) DGG, closed 9 May 2007 by Rdsmith4 at 111/1/1 (passed)
 * 14) PeaceNT, closed 25 May 2007 by Cecropia at 71/1/0 (passed)
 * 15) Reedy Boy, closed 3 June 2007 by Cecropia at 47/0/0 (passed)
 * 16) Jmlk17, closed 8 June 2007 by Warofdreams at 41/2/0 (passed)
 * 17) Cometstyles, closed 10 July 2007 by Raul654 at 64/32/1 (failed)
 * 18) Mitchazenia, closed 2 January 2008 by Warofdreams at 55/6/2 (passed)
 * 19) Aqwis, closed 5 January 2008 by Warofdreams at 49/3/4 (passed)
 * 20) Master of Puppets, closed 10 February 2008 by WJBscribe at 148/1/5 (passed)
 * 21) Icestorm815, closed 22 February 2008 by WJBscribe at 40/13/4 (passed)

Simple English Wikipedia

 * FrancoGG, closed 24 April 2007 by Archer7 at 14/0/0 (passed)
 * Browne34, closed 8 May 2007 by Vector at 9/0/0 (passed)

Meta Wiki

 * Thogo, closed 18 May 2007 by MaxSem at 22/0/0 (passed)
 * FrancoGG, closed 30 September 2007 by .anaconda at 19/0/0 (passed)
 * Spacebirdy, closed 13 October 2007 by .anaconda at 21/0/0 (passed)
 * Anonymous Dissident, closed 16 October 2007 by myself at 13/2/0 (passed)
 * Cometstyles, closed 6 January 2008 by Herbythyme at 33/0/0 (passed)
 * Adambro, closed 27 January 2008 by .anaconda at 9/6/1 (failed)

Commons

 * WJBscribe, closed 8 June 2007 by Jusjih at 13/2/0 (passed)
 * Anonymous Dissident, closed 9 January 2008 by EugeneZelenko at 29/0/0 (passed)
 * Monobi, closed 27 January 2008 by Lar at 16/11/1 (failed)
 * N, closed 30 January 2008 by Lar at a really bad tally :( (failed)

Mine

 * 1) Enwiki RfA 1, nominated by MatthewFenton, closed 28 October 2006 by Redux at 54/8/6 (passed)
 * 2) Metawiki RfA, self nomination, closed 12 February 2007 by M7 at 19/1/2 (passed)
 * 3) Enwiki RfB 1, self nomination, closed 5 April 2007 (withdrew) at 55/28/7 (failed)
 * Simplewiki RfA, self nomination, closed 21 May 2007 by Vector at 12/0/1 (passed)
 * Commons RfA, nominated by White Cat, closed 11 June 2007 by Bastique at 17/0/0 (passed)
 * 1) Enwiki RfB 2, self nomination, closed 4 July 2007 (withdrew) at 35/15/2 (failed)
 * Metawiki RfB, self nomination, closed 18 July 2007 by M7 at 26/0/0 (passed)
 * 1) Enwiki RfA 2, nominated by Ryan Postlethwaite, closed 8 November 2007 (withdrew) at 143/26/20 (void)
 * Commons RfB, self nomination, closed 17 November 2007 (withdrew) at 3/3/2 (failed)

Total: 32 nominations, excluding self nominations (6 self nominations). 20 enwiki, 2 simplewiki, 6 metawiki and 4 commons.

On canvassing
Canvassing was invented around October 2006 to prevent vote stacking on AfDs and such, which will change the consensus. However, people now associate it with RfAs. In the past, users would have banners on their userpage, a special userbox saying they were on RfA, link in the signature, asking users to come and support. And you know what, nobody gave a damn about it. Because adminship is NO BIG DEAL. These are the kind of users that make RfA broken, coming up with silly reasoning "he told a friend, cannot possibly be trusted to delete a page". These opposers don't realise that not following a silly guideline doesn't make a bad admin. I totally agree with canvassing - does that make me so terrible? I look at RfA history a lot, and I see a lot of canvassing. These users go on to become some of the greatest users this site has ever had. Now all these users are preventing someone from doing what really is a dull horrible slave job, just because they advertised they wanted to do it. I say encourage it. The backlogs are still high, people still complain RfA is broken, and people still keep opposing for reasons nothing to do with being an admin.

On !votes/votes
I had been of the opinion RFA is supposed to be a discussion. I still think RFAs should have some sort of discussion, but I've finally come to my senses: it's a vote. The extremely few occasions where RFAs did not follow the 75% mark are always controversial, and having read all the RFBs from 2004 to 2006, every bureaucrat is of the opinion it's a vote. Since we promoted them to close it as a vote, that's how it should be. None of this consensus business. Of course, sockpuppet and disruptive-only votes should be discounted, but the rest, they should be counted. Consensus is better for XFDs, where there is not just a two way decision. As it happens, admins who close AFDs have a tougher time than bureaucrats: the comments aren't numbered, there's merge, delete, keep, rewrite, split as well as all those important adjectives strong, weak, leaning... there's also a ton of policies/guidelines/essays thrown around which you must be familiar with in order to make a decision. RFAs have none of that. They are numbered votes, and there's one decision to make: promote or not promote. And it isn't even a decision. It simply involves a calculator. Why RFB is nearly impossible to pass, I don't know: the bureaucrat has it easier than the admin. Also, RFB should be 75% like RFA. How can "consensus" be two different percentages?! From now on, I'll be treating RFA/B as a vote. Well, I'll see how it goes.

RfA ideology
One of the many, many reasons RfA sucks is the ideology many people have. These are editors who, instead of coming to the request to look for reasons to support, will look for reasons to oppose. This is the complete wrong way to go about things. When RfA was created, it was not so much as a poll, more of an "OK then", perhaps like rollback. If people had an objection, it was done in reluctance, and normally with a good reason (not "he forgot to sign his self nomination acceptance" or "doesn't have enough edits to WP:AIV", but more like "he's only been here a week, maybe after a month's experience"). Some people actually set out to find a reason to oppose. I find this crazy. Why the negativity? Is it some sort of power thing, where it makes people feel better by opposing someone? I can't think why people seem to feel it necessary to look for reasons to oppose someone, instead of support. This is why supports tend to be more "votey" than opposes. Supports should be automatic, and the editor should be promoted bar any significant objection. Those who mass oppose who complain when someone questions their oppose, will sometimes say "Why don't you question the supports without a rationale?" The answer is, it should be up to the opposers to show a proper argument, and not the supporters. Adminship should be given unless there's a significant opposition, and it should be up to the opposers to prove that the user is unsuitable.

RfA memes

 * badgering - this is used when somebody disagrees with a vote, and says so. The response by the voter is "Stop badgering me!" Instead of simply engaging in discussion and accepting that someone disagrees like any reasonable person, the "badgering" ploy is used to simply get out of anything like that and instead make the reasonable request look like harrassment or something ridiculously out of proportion.


 * !vote - this codeword means "not vote", even though it's completely obvious the whole thing is a vote. Why people still insist on adding the exclamation mark is beyond me. The funny thing is, it is normally such people who kick up a fuss when a bureaucrat dares to promote someone at 74.9% or lower.


 * beat the nom - an attention seeking way of saying that you avidly watchlist RFA and you were first to vote on the request, so quick you "beat the nom". Go you!

Why oppose votes need a rationale
It is assumed supports are agreeing with what the nomination says. Why would such a support need to fluff out their comment just repeating what the nom says? It's pointless. On the other hand, an opposer is disagreeing with the nomination, but no reasoning has been given, anywhere. So it's reasonable to ask opposers to give more of a rationale.

On vote quality
It can be assumed that the more frequently somebody opposes RfA candidates, the weaker the rationales will be. Why? It is clear that their standards for admins are much too strict for what is reasonable. It can also be assumed that if a person manages to oppose most people they are likely to look at things that no other person will care about, and therefore will be looking for reasons to say no. As I've reiterated elsewhere, a negative outlook on Wikipedia is what we do not need.