User talk:Spawn Man/RfA Standards


 * I commented on your oppose at Minesweeper.007's RfA and then chanced on this Review page. So here goes. You have obviously done a great amount of work on wikipedia and obviously your general disposition has improved since your RfA. But please do not expect everyone to be as prodigious a contributor as you are. As I said there at Minesweeper's RfA (rather curtly and obliquely), do not ask for x number of edits for any namespace. Instead, actually go through the contributions of the candidate. The Wannabe Kate edit counter is a tool that helps you in starting your assessment of the candidate. But do not stop there. Look for evidence of maturity, good judgment, etc. From your withdrawal statement at your last RfA, it is obvious that you were peeved that people did not recognize your efforts on WP. I hope you realize now that passing adminship is not about recognition, it is about having the right temperament. I request you to consider assessing candidates from this perspective rather than counting the numbers. And I hope this perspective will also help you in your next RfA, whatever the outcome may be. Good luck. - Two  Oars   (Rev)  09:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No no, you've got me completely wrong. I do make exceptions for my "X number of edits" standard, but it was obvious to both me and others that the candidate did not have sufficiant experience to cause me to wave that standard. I do indeed look deeper into the edits, but you have to admit, if an editor has very very few edits to the Wikipedia namespace, then whether you glance at the edit counter or delve deeper into their contributions, the outcome is probably going to be the same; the don't have any Wikipedia namespace edits, which equates to not having enough experience in that area. Under no circumstances do I simply glance at the edit count and decide, but in the case you mentioned, it was pretty cut and dry. You fail to mention that I said the candidate was well tempered and wouldn't abuse the tools, which in itself, would have taken a while to find out from his edits. So in regard to that, I do indeed research who I'm voting on. In regard to "From your withdrawal statement at your last RfA, it is obvious that you were peeved that people did not recognize your efforts on WP." Yes that was true, but then again, that was around 11 months ago Twooars - I'd hardly say that I still feel the same; I'm quite happy with how people are perceiving me at the moment; I've not had an argument for a few months (Knock on wood...) ;), and even you yourself said "...obviously your general disposition has improved since your RfA.". Thank you for that, I appreciate it greatly. I am not peeved off though, as I know that I am recognized by some people now and I'm enjoying my time here. Surely you can recognise that what I said was said nearly a year ago. Anyway, thanks for posting here, but as you may not have noticed, this page isn't actually on the main "Editor Review" page anymore; it's been removed. You musta got here by following the link on my user page. Thanks very much for the comments. Regards, Spawn Man 06:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

but you have to admit, if an editor has very very few edits to the Wikipedia namespace, then whether you glance at the edit counter or delve deeper into their contributions, the outcome is probably going to be the same; the don't have any Wikipedia namespace edits, which equates to not having enough experience in that area: Actually no. I do not agree with that statement. See, this is the problem with edit count-based standards like those you have on your RfA standards page where you say at least 750-1000 WP space edits are a minimum requirement for you. What you do not appear to understand is that no case is "cut and dry" and certainly not Minesweeper's.

Wikipedia space edits, although oft quoted, is not a good metric because the so called "wikipedia space" is not really separate from the "mainspace"; one is an extension of the other. Actions taken in wikipedia space actually affect the mainspace. And there are many other ways a user can show good knowledge of policy without working in wikipedia space. Here are a few situations I can think of, off the top of my head:
 * insertion of the right kind of references in mainspace articles is a clear indication that a user has good knowledge of the verifiability and reliable sources.
 * Reverting and warning vandals the right way indicates that the user knows enough about the blocking policy (even though there may not be any reports to AIV in wikipedia space).
 * A CSD tagging done by the user but rejected by an admin or another user may give us an idea that the candidate may be too quick to delete or that they do not have an adequate grasp of policy.
 * A user's article talk edits may give us an idea about their understanding (or lack of it) of NPOV, OR etc.
 * A user's user talk edits (like replies to helpme queries for example) will tell us how well they understand almost any policy.

As you can see, knowledge of almost any policy may be evident in mainspace contributions and talk edits alone. (That policy knowledge is precisely what we look for in WP space edits anyway. It would take a real moron to not understand the mechanics of the WP-space processes). So in a hypothetical case where there are zero WP space edits but the mainspace contributions indicate all this, delving deeper would make you support a candidate whereas looking at the edit counter and thinking that the "editor has very very few edits to the Wikipedia namespace" will make you oppose. And all this policy knowledge can be demonstrated in as few as a few hundred edits. So we might be losing out on good admins if we think "the outcome is probably going to be the same".

It sounds more efficient to "process" more RfA candidates in a given time by using the edit counter, thinking that "it is unlikely that a person, who demonstrates such excellent knowledge of policy in mainspace, would fail to leave his mark in the WP space. So going by probability, a person with 0 WP space edits is less likely to know policy than one who has a 1000." But we will lose a good number of potential admins by this rather unnecessary and faulty sifting.

Similar arguments can be made against the 1 FA/GA and DYK standard (I, for example, prefer to improve really bad articles to presentable and decent levels rather taking a B or GA to FA status; does that mean my contributions to articles are any less knowledgeable or policy-compliant than the FA making ones of others?), minimum mainspace edit count, barnstars (which indicate that the user is well-liked or on the other hand, that the user is into a clique; I have seen barnstars being awarded for something as silly as making a signature. My own barnstars are definitely not for any significant thing I did) etc.

So you might think I am singling you out when a lot of others are opposing for similar reasons. Well, here, I am more worried about the number you specified. While it is rather unproductive to argue about the "right number" for reasons I mentioned above, actually mentioning a number gives the wrong impression to relatively inexperienced users who stumble into the RfA pages (RfA is relatively a high user-turnover area). Someone who sees that number would think, "wow, great argument" without realizing that you do make some exceptions, as you do not mention the exceptions bit on that RfA. There is a real danger that inexperienced users will take a quick liking to the edit-count/X namespace edits-based argument bcause it has many obvious attractions: 1)The wannabe kate counter creates an illusion of an indepth analysis. 2)edit-count based arguments are much easily understood by the lay person because there are concrete numbers rather than relatively abstract ideas like temperament and such. 3)And this is the best: The edit counter is a lazy man's best friend.

Take a look at WT:RFA and if that doesn't change your mind about edit counts, take a look at this page: WP:AAAD. If you still think your standards are reasonable, well, I've tried. :) (I think the easiest standard that one could "achieve" in your list would be the last one. :D ) - Two  Oars   (Rev)  11:16, 14 September 2007 (UTC) PS: Feel free to remove these comments if you do not want this lengthy discussion on your editor review.


 * No, it's okay. Look, not everyone's standards are the same, obviously. Mine are obviously at a different wave length to yours, but there's no need to "try and change them", because neither your nor mine are wrong. They're different. I don't want to get into a long discussion about it, but as I said, if you smell smoke, there's usually a fire; Minesweeper had very little experience in the Wikipedia name space, something which others agreed with and which the editcounter showed - even after I had delved deeper into his edits, the story was still the same. I didn't say this was always the case; you may have noted that I used the word "probably"... I have to disagree with your assessment that if someone is doing things right, it shouldn't matter how many months they've been active or how many namespace edits they've acquired; A person could be an ex-html programmer and be really good at citations etc, and it's possible that you can quite easily rake up 1000+ edits in one month. This doesn't mean that they're still admin material, as they could have a one month spurt and then go inactive or something else along those lines. So to sum up, my view is this, and I want it to be very clear; Although I start off at the edit counter making a fair assessment, I do actually search through edit records to see if the edit counter is actually correct in my initial assessment. Usually it is, but as I said, sometimes it's not. My standards are not rock firm, and I quite often make adjustments and exceptions (Depending on how much homage you pay to me... ;). I know quite well that no case is cut and dry, but in this case it was pretty much so in regard to the user not having enough experience. In fact frankly, I've been involved in so many more controversial RfAs that I'm not quite sure why you're picking me up for Minesweeper's which was pretty obvious by both my votes and the many others. You mentioned above that it was wrong for me to oppose when the candidate has zero WP namespace edits - I'm quite sure not many (If any) other voters would support either. Frankly, I'm a little tired of the conversation as I've explained my reasonable views on a RfA which wasn't even that narrow in terms of support/oppose, but if you insist on continuing the discussion, please do so at my talk page. Cheers Twooars. :) Spawn Man 04:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)