Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-01-17/News and notes



Surge in RFA promotions: a sign of lasting change?
Eight administrators were promoted in the first 16 days of 2017, following four successful requests for adminship (RFAs) in December. This is more than any month since March 2011, which saw nine new admins. January has already seen half as many promotions as did the entirety of 2016.

From a large-scale research project in 2011 to several subsequent attempts at reform, the precipitous decline in admin promotions over the last several years has drawn the attention of the community. The Signpost investigated whether these reforms are working: whether this surge is the start of a trend, or just a temporary blip on the radar. We spoke with several recently promoted administrators, past candidates, nominators, and RFA observers to explore that question.

One common theme from their responses was acclaim for the optional RFA candidate poll (ORCP), a development championed by Anna Frodesiak that began in October 2015. It provides a forum for prospective administrators to put their names forward and receive appraisals from community members on their likelihood of passing. In 2016, of the sixteen successful RfAs, eleven (69%) had used the poll. Of 2016's twenty unsuccessful candidates, only two (10%) had first used the poll.

Montanabw, who ran unsuccessfully in September 2015, points to another improvement in the RfA process: watchlist notifications.

Generally, the sentiment that RFA has become less nasty shined through many recent candidates' reflections. NinjaRobotPirate, who passed overwhelmingly earlier this year, commented that "a lot of the nastiness has been purged" from the process. Nevertheless, he described putting himself forward as a challenge, given that "nobody likes the idea of putting their contributions on trial."

RFA's reputation as a nasty experience for well-meaning contributors has certainly not helped encourage editors to take the plunge. Sam Walton, an administrator himself who has recently begun a mini-campaign of nominations that has yielded several new administrators, offered his insight on RFA's perception problem.

He went on to say that when RFAs are rare and only one candidate runs at a time, it fosters an atmosphere of intense scrutiny on that candidate, which can lead people to look for more reasons to oppose. He has sought with his recent nominations to curb the notion that "no one runs because no one runs" and to address the recurring challenge of getting more people to run by simply asking and nominating qualified candidates. He believes his recruitment efforts are "doing a good job of spreading some goodwill and improving the negative perception of RfA."

Another recent change that may reduce the time-consuming nature of running for adminship is the limitation on questions to two per inquirer, which was imposed in 2015. In all, 11 proposals reached the request for comment stage of a 2015 reform effort, and four of those proposals passed. (The others were the tweaking of promotion discretionary range, watchlisting, and the notice on the Centralized discussion template; while the pre-RFA candidate poll happened at a similar time as the 2015 reform RFC, this was coincidental.)

Two editors at the forefront of RFA reform efforts in recent years have been WereSpielChequers and Kudpung. Kudpung was a coordinator of the massive research endeavor and reform effort of 2011, and WereSpielChequers has compiled statistics and has written about the issue for the Signpost (here, here, and here).

WereSpielChequers doubts that the reform efforts of late 2015—including the optional candidate poll and the lowering of promotion criteria from 70–80% support to 65–75%—explain the recent surge: "the slightly lower threshold for promotion has made almost no difference; Those who do pass usually do so with near unanimity or at least a strong consensus. I fear that ORCP has succeeded in persuading more to come forward, but then deterred them from actually running. It is too early to say whether the January surge is a welcome but temporary rally or a change.".

Kudpung also doubts that the recent spike in successful promotions is part of a longer-term trend. In a statement to the Signpost, he suggests that RFA remains an inherently broken process:

Although many deride RFA as a broken process, those who have recently experienced an RFA have differing opinions.

K6ka noted that "the drama (of reading old RFAs) was enough to keep me at bay" before he ran successfully earlier this year.

"I got very little sleep throughout the week. I'd stay up till midnight watching the !votes on my RFA fluctuate unsettlingly before getting eight hours of terrible quality sleep, waking up at roughly eight-thirty in the morning or so to scroll through my RFA page again on my phone in bed," he said.

However, both he and Ealdgyth, who recently passed with 250 supports and no opposes, described their RFAs as enjoyable, a sentiment not shared by Hawkeye7, a former administrator who ran for the tools again in early 2016:

"RfA remains a tough process. There was a vicious off-Wiki campaign against me. It deters people from running, and it deters people from contributing to Wikipedia. I was heartened, though, by the editors who supported my candidacy—a veritable Who's Who of Wikipedia."

Ad Orientem, whose successful candidacy in late December may have springboarded a wave in nominations, summarized RFA as it stands today:

"My RfA was contentious and for me personally, highly stressful. Twice during the RfA I seriously considered withdrawing but was talked out of it … The problem with those who complain about RfA is that there seems little consensus or even serious suggestions for an alternative. As long as we need Admins (and we do!) we are going to need some system for vetting candidates. Like many Wikipedians I have heard horror stories about RfA before the series of reforms that began a few years back and I would like to assure readers that abusive and trollish behavior is generally not tolerated anymore," he said. "Overall I think the process is fair if imperfect." GP



Brief notes

 * WikiCup 2017 sign-ups open ... this year features a cash prize! Sign-ups for the WikiCup, an annual on-wiki competition to improve content on Wikipedia, have opened and will close on February 5. This year, winners will receive monetary prizes including $US200 for the first-place winner. The money for prizes was donated anonymously. Details on how it will be awarded can be found on the main WikiCup page. GP!
 * Death, politics, and Vincent van Gogh: 2016 as seen through the lens of Wikipedia: In one of the WMF's blog series, followed up by online newsletter Billboard, Ed Erhart and Samantha Lien asked what were the most-edited English Wikipedia articles in 2016. Four of the top five, they found, relate to the US election. The deaths of many notable people also featured strongly, among them that of Prince (pictured).
 * Another WMF board vacancy: Two WMF trustees' two year terms expired at the end of 2016. Alice Wiegand sought, and was granted, reappointment; Guy Kawasaki did not renew. Three of the organization's ten board seats are now vacant.
 * New restricted grant to fund structured data on Commons: The Sloan Foundation, one of the most substantial funders of the WMF over the years, granted US$3 million, targeted at improving the structure of metadata on Wikimedia Commons. More info in the announcement.
 * Strategic planning updates: WMF executive director Katherine Maher has posted several weekly updates on the upcoming strategic planning process (covered in the previous Signpost). The WMF board has approved up to US$2.5 million in spending, up from the $1 million spent on the 2010 plan. The firm Williamsworks will serve as the lead architect for the process. A discussion on the Wikimedia-L email list focused on the lack of a published long-term plan for the WMF's own future.
 * Birthdays: Wikipedia celebrated its 16th birthday on January 15. The Signpost's own 12th birthday came and went without much notice on January 10. We'll be OK.
 * Wikimania 2017 scholarship applications open: You may now apply for a scholarship to the annual conference, which will take place in Canada.
 * Eureka! The WMF has reported on the results of the Gender Gap Inspire Campaigns to date.
 * Wikimedia Developer Summit: The annual meeting on the evolution of MediaWiki and other Wikimedia-supporting technologies took place January 9 and 10. See the session notes and our Technology Report for details.
 * New administrators: Recent promotions have included Boson, Ad Orientem, and Ivanvector (December) and NinjaRobotPirate, Schwede66, K6ka, Ealdgyth, Ferret, Cyberpower678, Mz7, and Primefac (January). GP!
 * New members elected to Affiliations Committee: The committee announced three new members: Camelia.boban, Kirill Lokshin, and Satdeep Gill. See here for more information.