User:SandyGeorgia/Former delegate FAQ on FA RFC

Under construction, draft

On 7 July 2013, an RFC on governance of the FA forums was launched after limited responses to a query about the FA director's role in obtaining access to sources on JSTOR led to personalized and incorrect allegations about the FA director and process, followed by several admins edit warring to remove the position of director at Template:FAC-instructions while discussion had barely commenced (of course, resulting in the wrong version being protected). An independent observer, Nil Einne, noted the lack of urgency to remove Raul654's name from the page, and the importance of launching a well-formulated RFC. In an already convoluted discussion replete with unnecessary personalization (sometimes coming from admins or senior editors), this FAQ attempts to provide information that might be considered in another more carefully deliberative discussion. Recognizing Tony1's long-standing involvement in and concern for the FA process, and his good intentions in launching an RFC to prevent damage to the FA process, with respect I point out several issues and problems with the framing of the July 7 RFC and issues that might be considered in another RFC.

How did the position of FA director evolve?
To address numerous misstatements throughout the new (2013) RFC, a history of the FA process was developed in collaboration at the talk FAC page and presented in the older (2012) RFC: and   The closing summary of the widely announced 2012 RFC found   To update the 2012 history, following the resignation of SandyGeorgia, GrahamColm and Ian Rose were appointed FAC delegates in February 2012, and Gimmetrow and Bencherlite were appointed TFA/R delegates in November 2012 (see here and here). In July 2013, Dabomb87 resigned.

Is there a job description for the FA director?
The director's role was well defined, and he has not been uninvolved for several years. The director's role was defined in the very widely endorsed 2012 RFC:  That RFC closed with strong consensus, despite the participation of several now banned or indeffed sockmasters or users returning under new accounts to revisit old grudges at FAC or with Raul654 (who earned detractors while he served as an arb).

What has been the activity level of the FA director?
Regarding "little or no activity for some years", some feedback from a very involved delegate:
 * 1) Until I was appointed the first FAC delegate at the end of 2007 (effectively beginning work in January 2008), Raul654 was single-handedly responsible for all promotions and archivals of Featured Article Candidates (FAC),  and all scheduling of Today's Featured Article (TFA), while also overseeing the Featured Article Review process (until the appointment of Marskell and Joelr31 as delegates).
 * 2) Once I was appointed delegate, Raul654 appropriately and as promised as a result of criticism that his role was too large assumed a lesser role, which allowed him the independence and distance to intervene when recusal was needed on a particular FAC, or intractable disputes arose, or when re-direction of effort or discussion was needed.  When I was unable to promote for any reason (real-life or Wikipedia-related), Raul was available to take over the FAC duties.  Once Karanacs was appointed, Raul took on the role of only promoting/archiving when both delegates were recused (which happened more than once).  Raul's "management" style was to largely let the community discuss and come to consensus on disputes, and only intervene when absolutely necessary – which in my view was an entirely appropriate and useful approach.  The delegates always face the problem that, if they weigh in on disputes, they can be accused of bias or conflict or interest:  having an uninvolved party who can arbitrate intractable issues or weigh in impartially is crucial for the delegates to be able to work effectively.  During my tenure, off the top of my head I know of at least two situations in which all delegates were recused and Raul had to close difficult FAC nominations (Samuel Johnson and the multiple and extremely combative Catholic Church nominations).  To this extent, I disagree with those who say Raul was uninvolved as of 2008; in my view he was appropriately involved, and responding to the community requests that he take a lesser role and spread the work among other editors.
 * 3) Raul continued scheduling Today's Featured Article until the June 2011 appointment of TFAR delegate Dabomb87.  If anyone thinks that daily scheduling of the TFA requires only a small effort or commitment, I invite them to ask Bencherlite's opinion on the matter.  It is, IMO, the hardest and least-appreciated job in the process, and one where personalities must be dealt with along with scheduling issues, and WP:ERRORS and Jimbo's talk page always loom for everyone who takes issue with any TFA, be it the "oh my god, not another hurricane or video game article", "why didn't you pick me!!!!", "the blurb contains one extra s", or "how dare you run that offensive/promotional article on the mainpage" (even after scores of editors Supported it at TFAR, where few editors supporting bother to read articles and assess quality).  Scheduling TFA requires not only a significant time commitment, but a thick skin. It is entirely inaccurate to say that Raul had little activity, and such statements can only be made by those who are unaware of the hours put in daily by the delegates, or the demands of the job.

Has the FA director "abandoned ship in wartime"?
There is an unfortunate statement in the RFC discussions to the effect that a leader would be shot in wartime for abandoning the troops. The "wartime" analogy is unfortunate, but in my view, if it must be used, a more appropriate analogy would be that while the crew slept, a small group of interlopers who had personal grudges against the person ousted the ship's officer, and the crew had become so complacent that they didn't even notice. Regarding Raul654's participation levels, after the June 2011 appointment of Dabomb87 as TFA/R delegate, in the fall of 2011, the FA pages began to be subjected to enduring acrimony that was furthered by multiple and prolific then unidentified but now banned and indeffed sockmasters, as well as several users returning to revisit old grudges (either with FAC or with Raul's previous actions as an arb). Taunting and unnecessary personalization of discussion, rather than dialogue and constructive criticism aimed at improving processes, became characteristic of the talk pages. This culminated in the 2012 RFC, but did not end there; in spite of previous arb findings, Arbcom did not effectively if at all deal with the known sockmasters or returning users revisiting old grudges, the disruption continued from FAC to TFAR even after the RFC broadly endorsed Raul's leadership, and the final insult came following what looked like a breaching issue occurred at TFA/R and in an ANI where newcomers with little knowledge of the history of the FA process (but along with socks) accused Raul of abuse of his tools. That was followed shortly by a similar incident, involving some of the same editors, that resulted in the loss of the newly appointed TFAR delegate, Gimmetrow, when unnecessary personal preferences were imposed upon the articlehistory template, making Gimmebot's job harder.  As of January 31, 2013, Gimmetrow stopped operating Gimmebot and understandably left. Raul654 has not edited since February. That the protection of the mainpage TFA blurb against edit warring was once considered "part of his job" by the community that empowered him to do that job, and no longer is, is understandable; Wikipedia is a dynamic environment, and consensus changes. What is less understandable is that, at the same time that Raul654 is accused of "abuse" for doing what was once considered "his job", other admins in related FA discussions are engaging in personal attacks, edit warring, and battleground conduct, socking is defended and accepted even when taunting and battleground conduct is involved, and admins make involved retaliatory blocks. What a strange place this Wikipedia is. Following on those two incidents, it appeared that an extremely small but vocal group (including several now-disclosed socks) had finally succeeded in disrupting the FA process in spite of the widely endorsed RFC, largely because the rest of the community that had benefitted from Raul's years of service to the FA process was silent when all of this was happening. The director and the person who closed every content review process on Wikipedia were lost, and the work they did has not been replaced to this day. Raul654 did not "abandon ship"; he was aggressively chased off, after years of service, by editors with axes to grind, and his departure was facilitated by a silent community who for years benefitted from his work, and by inaction from Arbcom. Each time this was brought to the arbs attention, we were silenced with the statement that one account at a time was allowed, or reminded that these socks weren't as important in the grand scheme of things as they think they are: well, if socks are allowed to diminish the work of the FA processes, how unimportant is that? How is a director to continue to donate selfless hours to such a venture? To the extent that many were silent as this happened and the FA processes are no longer producing the quality they once did, the diminished value of the bronze star in an era of declining editorship and declining reviews is everyone's responsibility.

What is meant by "delegate" and how does it differ from "coordinator"?
There are statements throughout the RFC suggesting that the MilHist "coordinator" model be adopted instead of the "delegate" model of governance that has been used for almost six years in the FA process, but there has been little discussion in the way of defining the differences in the models. Kirill and Roger Davies were exemplary early models of excellent MilHist coordinators, but regardless, the MilHist coordinators are not responsible for putting content on the mainpage and making sure that the process leading up to Today's Featured Article remains stable; that is, their decisions are less subject to the taint of elections. Unlike the MilHist coordinator position, it is important that FA decisions be untainted by popularity contests and elections, which could lead to subpar mainpage featured articles. The FA director and delegate should not be constrained when promoting or archiving articles by election concerns. But there is a more important distinction between "delegate" and "coordinator"; an FA delegate is accountable to more authority than a MilHist coordinator: MilHist coordinators are elected by the community, while delegates are endorsed (or not) by the community, but are also accountable above and beyond the consensus model to an individual (The FA director, where "the buck stops".) An FA delegate serves at the discretion of the director and (even though it has never happened) should the community bring legitimate complaints to the director about a delegate's actions, the director can remove the delegate without the need for and drama/delay associated with new elections. Removing that distinction has real potential, IMO, to damage the FA process. Although Raul654 only removed delegates for inactivity or when they resigned, the possibility of needing to remove a delegate for other undisclosed and serious reasons relating to significant real-life changes should not be discounted, as we came quite close to that situation once (and I will say no more on that matter – arbs can confirm the accuracy). Opening up the position to the possibility of ongoing elections would, IMO, damage the quality of reviews in the FA process and increase drama, as would removing this distinction between delegates who are additionally accountable to a person where the buck stops, and coordinators.

What pages are part of the FA process?
There are references to the "FA community" in the RFC launched on 7 July 2013. Although the use of the term was subsequently clarified, the response is potentially misleading: This is inaccurate. It is unclear what is intended by the word official, but discussion/endorsement of the director's recommendations occurred in the approporiate fora and community opinion was always a factor in the appointment of delegates. I am not aware of any instance where a delegate was appointed over community objections or without community endorsement or without the community having the opportunity to opine. Neither am I aware of any delegate having served in spite of community objections or having been removed because of community dissatisfaction with the job performed. (Rereading old threads, this post has just come to my attention. I find it to be harshly worded and believe a more kindly worded post more effectively placed for community discussion would have been more helpful-- delegates' jobs are hard enough without "friendly fire".) Indeed, the director had the ability to remove any delegate should the community express concern over job performance. From the 2012 RFC: For the purpose of discussing overall functioning of the FA processes, the following pages are also involved:
 * Former featured articles (FFA, which should have been listed above, along with the list of Featured articles, FA)
 * Archives
 * Featured article candidates/Featured log
 * Featured article candidates/Archived nominations
 * Featured article review/archive
 * Statistics
 * Featured article statistics

It should be (although apparently was not) clear that consultation with the FA community refers to notification on the relevant FA-related talk pages, which has historically been the case.

On the other hand, Wikipedians by featured article nomination has never been regarded as a page within the process (in fact, several prominent FA writers hold that page in disdain for reasons that should be apparent).

What is meant by "power" ?
There are multiple references to the "power" of the FA director in the RFC discussion: I am curious to know what this perceived "power" is that people want to strip from the position? Having served for four years, I believe I can safely say there is no "power" in spending up to ten hours at a stretch on a weekend reading FAC, dealing with socks, dealing with email that is often inappropriate, dealing quietly with conflict of interest and socking situations in ways that won't disrupt or prejudice the FAC or the article, going out and soliciting reviews, begging people to review, watching out for reviewer and nominator interests alike, balancing nominator and reviewer demands and needs, and after doing all of that work for hours several times a week, wake up the day after you've processed half a dozen FACs to four angry messages on your talk page because you archived unprepared nominations. What is this "power" people perceive in what is only and exclusively hard work in the service of quality and other editors? I don't think anyone who has served in a delegate position would describe it as "powerful", but I'm sure we can all attest to the hours spent in hard and sometimes thankless work. Same for director. Whatever "power" people were concerned that Raul held was divested willingly by him when he listened to those complaints that he held too much control and began appointing delegates. And when he appointed delegates, he never told them how to do their jobs-- he divested the power and left it that way. So, if he steps aside and removes the perception of "power", takes a back seat, he was accused of being uninvolved, but if he stepped up, he was accused of abuse of power. There have also been allegations of favoritism in the selection of delegates. Now, anyone who has paid attention to FAC, FAR and TFA/R would not allege favoritism in asking why Brianboulton is not a delegate (answer: because he declined), but would ask more perceptively why, for example, Ealdgyth is not. Ealdgyth single-handedly for years reviewed sources on every single FAC (work that is no longer being done by anyone, by the way); she is among a small group of reviewers who have carried the lion's share of work at FAC for years, yet no one inquired why she isn't a delegate. Answer: every time an opening arose, I begged that Ealdgyth not be taken away from FAC as a reviewer in spite of being among the most qualified, because her sourcing reviews were so necessary. Not-so-inside secret: effective reviewers hold far more power in the FA process than either director or delegates. This notion that the director or delegates hold some "power" is wrong: the power is held by the reviewers who have well-deserved reputations for thoroughness. It takes experience, consistency, and longevity for delegates to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each reviewer at FAC or FAR, allowing them to assure articles receive thorough review, by both involved (topic experts) and uninvolved (independent) reviewers, and to know the quality of prose, sourcing, copyvio and image reviews from distinct editors. An election model or defined terms will not allow delegates to develop those talents, will open the door to popularity contests (which we already see, by the way, in some nominators who don't review other nominations) and will affect FA quality. Finally, and most importantly, to address these allegations of "favoritism" and "power", I cannot go without saying that Raul appointed me as the first FAC delegate in spite of a significant disagreement that we had during the Featured Article Review of Intelligent Design (an issue that led eventually to a desysoppping for this comment-- when it comes to admin cabal abuse, not my first rodeo, nor likely my last). Simply put, in spite of our previous difference, Raul654 was fair; he values the consensus model, and was hands-off after appointing delegates to the extent he had to be so he could remain impartial, but was always available to the delegates for consultation or as a backup in the event of recusal. He listened, didn't tell people how to do their jobs, didn't intervene unless strictly necessary, and was always willing to put aside differences. Indeed, I often observed how he scheduled TFAs fairly even when under fire from the significant editors of some articles. It is a shame that he is no longer editing, because the FA pages are not the same without a director.

Are the FA-related pages "functioning fine" without a director?
No.

First, some important context for viewing the issues I discuss:
 * 1) Editor participation is down across Wikipedia, not only in quantity but in quality, so some of my statements about the FA process are not specific to that process, but are Wikipedia-wide problems.  FAC and FAR have been impacted by a decline in the quantity, but more importantly the quality of reviews, partly related to the overall decline in editing, but similar issues are apparent in all content review processes.
 * 2) Delegates depend on reviewers.  They are empowered to ignore or discount drive-by commentary from reviewers who don't appear to have engaged the standards, but there is little they can do when a nomination receives rubber-stamped, buddy support and no critical review.  Without knowledgeable, thorough, critical review, subpar articles are promoted at FAC, linger at FAR, or are displayed on the mainpage via the TFA requests page (TFA/R).  Delegates can point out issues they see and ask for more thorough review, but when serious review isn't forthcoming, and buddy supports pile on, the delegates' options are limited.  Subpar review is becoming more the norm at FAC and TFA/R, but subpar promotions are not always the fault of delegates.
 * 3) Delegates are hamstrung in how much they can say when problems arise by the need to remain impartial and independent.  If delegates weigh in on talk page discussions of subpar reviews, they risk being charged as having a COI with respect to nominators, reviewers, articles, or individual nominations.  To that extent, the absence of input or feedback from delegates is sometimes (not always) unavoidable, and independent reviewers should be weighing in more often.

With that context, some issues for discussion as I have observed in the absence of a director (starting small, working to more significant) ...

Recordkeeping
Maintaining the various statistics and recordkeeping pages associated with the FA process was not mentioned in the 2012 RFC job description, but overseeing and assuring that the work was completed was something that Raul654 did, even if that sometimes meant only that he was aware that Maralia, Gimmetrow, Ruhrfisch and I did most of that work, and provided guidance/feedback as needed (for instance, when we built from scratch the Featured article statistics page, correcting numerous historical errors, or built the Articlehistory on talk pages of every Featured article (FA) and Former Featured Article (FFA)). Discussions about how the process is doing depend on stats and accurate records, and those are at risk of falling into disrepair. If the current delegates are unwilling to complete the work that I once did, I hope they will at least assure that someone begins to do it. Here is work that is not being done:
 * Featured article candidates/Featured log is not being kept up: when I've returned to editing after long breaks, I've had to update the page. Same for Featured article candidates/Archived nominations, and updating to Featured article review/archive is often delayed, so that a red link shows at the Featured Article Statistics page (FAS).
 * Ruhrfisch has struggled to keep up with FAS in my absence; it doesn't appear that the delegates are aware of the need to maintain this page. More importantly, there has been no talk page analysis of FAC trends (including the notable uptick in promotions recently, which IMO reflect a decline in the quality of reviews); see examples on the talk page of FAS or in FAC talk archives.
 * Since the departure of Gimmetrow, another bot has partially but not completely replaced the work done by Gimmebot. For example, FAR pages are not being closed, stars removed, or articlehistory updated.  There are numerous other jobs that Gimmebot did and that are no longer being done.

Whether these are tasks the delegates want to take on, it is and was in the director's remit to at least initiate discussion about how things are going, to make sure these kinds of tasks are being done by someone and to oversee that correct records are being kept. Since my resignation, I have tried to correct errors and complete statistics as I find omissions, but this is an example of where the absence of a director is noticed. It is also an example of ways the community can help the delegates better do their job, but it is my opinion that the delegates have been lax in drumming up people who can help with this type of work and making sure someone does it (but then, maybe there is no one willing to do these minor tasks, which is ironic since there seem to be many folks who want the "power" of a delegate/director position without engaging the low-level work that is needed and that has always been done by those who were eventually appointed as delegates).

Today's Featured Article Requests page (TFA/R)
Bencherlite has demonstrated sustained commitment and effective leadership in what is, IMO, the hardest job in the process, but there remain significant problems at the Today's Featured Article requests page that could be/should be/would be addressed by an acting director. It is hard for a delegate to raise concerns without being accused of bias or COI: a director less involved in the day-to-day scheduling can make talk page suggestions and initiate discussion to deal with problems. The Requests page exists to help in mainpage scheduling, but it is failing to do so because of inadequate or unhelpful community participation on that page.
 * 1) Blurbs put forward by the community are frequently too long, too short, poorly written, don't follow formatting instructions, and more.  What this means is that the delegate ends up writing the blurbs anyway.  If the page serves only as a rubber-stamping popularity contest, it's not much help to the delegate who has to construct a blurb every day of the year.  It can be hard for the delegate to raise these concerns:  that would be a role for the director.
 * 2) Supports at the TFA/R page are frequently made as buddy-style, ILIKEIT, pile-on votes with no regard for or effort to examine the article to assure it is mainpage ready, or to correct issues in the blurbs.  Yet when the blurb hits the mainpage, it's the delegate who gets slammed.  The community demands a role in mainpage scheduling, but frequently (not always) has shown no willingness to assure articles are up to snuff.  An example of this was (find diffs and example ... ) ...
 * 3) Delegates have a hard time intervening when personal attacks are made on nomination pages: doing so would open them to charges of COI.  In such instances, independent admins or a director can deal with disputes.  An example of this is that I once pointed out an incorrect caption in a TFA nomination (well-known public figures were clearly misidentified in an image, and I don't understand why that went by FAC except that thoroughness in review is diminishing-- this was an error of the type that should jump out at any casual reader, yet was missed at FAC) along with some long-standing but minor prose problems that had been abundantly discussed in prior reviews.  I was attacked at TFA/R for pointing out these deficiencies.  Admins take no actions in these cases:  a director could play a role, at minimum initiating a talk page discussion about problems in the process, if nothing else.  However, if the delegate had taken a position, he would open himself to the same acrimony I was subjected to for raising an issue that was as clear as a sore thumb.
 * 4) to be continued ...

What issues need to be decided in a well-defined RFC ?
A whole ton of them ... how to move forward with important decisions ... to be continued ...
 * Elections or not
 * Director or not
 * Naming of positions
 * Tenure
 * Appointment process
 * Recognition of Raul654 (defer decisions, no change, emeritus, remove entirely, etc)

Other issues:
 * How to get admins to stop using the pages as personal battleground, and to get uninvolved admins to engage the ongoing personalization
 * How to reinvigorate the pages

... to be continued

Why an FAQ from SandyGeorgia?
Because the RFC has already seen an influx of editors rarely seen on FA pages (and perhaps unfamiliar with the pages and processes), accompanied by a notable and regrettable absence of those more familiar with the FA process, some background about my involvement in the FA process (and my potential biases) may be in order. I became heavily involved as a reviewer at FAC in 2006; I also participating heavily at FAR and TFA/R during 2007, maintained FA-related archives, developed and maintained FA-related statistics pages, participated in the review of the 523 FAs identified as needing review after citation requirements changed (see the now-defunct list of Unreviewed Featured Articles), and helped Gimmetrow and Maralia migrate the talk page of every FA and FFA to the new articlehistory template (see Taming talk page clutter Dispatch)-- all under Raul654's oversight and direction and most at his urging. Also at Raul's urging, I initiated (with FAC delegate Karanacs and writer Tony1) the Featured Article Dispatches for The Signpost (the Wikiwork I was most proud of-- I encourage everyone wanting a good overview of what the FA process once was to peruse the articles at the Featured Content Dispatch Workshop). I was appointed the first delegate to FAC by Raul654 at the end of 2007 (see discussion links in the FA history). I served as FAC delegate for four years and promoted 1,436 Featured articles (of which 5 have been demoted at FAR); during that time, I initiated reviewer rewards (sample), oversaw the writing of Dispatches for The Signpost, and dealt with the first known copyvio in a TFA, subsequently declining to promote any FAC whose primary editors had not been subjected to a sourcing review. I also oversaw (with help from a cadre of committed and knowledgeable FAC reviewers and fellow delegates Karanacs and Laser brain, and later Ucucha) an era of more stringent review of sources at FAC (with the invaluable assistance, always, of Ealdgyth, see Reliable sources in content review processes Dispatch), and images (with Elcobbola and Jappalang, see Image review Dispatches). There is no area of the FA process where I have not worked. I resigned in February 2012 to keep a promise I had made to retire when certain FA milestones were met, and to pursue my interest in editing medical articles. On a lighter note, further information about me can be found here and at User:Giano/A fool's guide to writing a featured article. It is my hope that whatever the outcome regarding the governance of FA, discussion will be collaborative, productive, and representative of what should be appropriate behavior on the pages where Wikipedians hopefully determine examples of Wikipedia's best work, worthy of being displayed on the main page. Those who respect what was once the value of the bronze star may see that declining involvement and subpar reviews in an environment of intimidation and retribution, where promotions are based on rubber-stamped buddy supports, benefits no one: not the article, not Wikipedia, and not the editors claiming credit for the bronze stars. Let us collaboratively and constructively move forward with proposals for dealing with the governance of FA. If participants are unable to interact constructively, and admins are unwilling to deal with the personalization, acrimony and battleground, then at best I hope such participants will keep in mind that most of the Wikipedia doesn't care about, know, or understand what a Featured Article is, but they are most surely aware that a number of FA prima donnas can't even conduct themselves with decorum, and to that extent, those bronze stars are devalued by the behaviors exhibited.