Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-10-31/Discussion report

Editors are brainstorming and proposing changes to the Requests for adminship (RFA), following discussions in which editors found issues with large parts of the process (see the September issue's Discussion report). The participants have identified eight key issues to tackle and have brainstormed ways to tackle them that are varied both in scope and substance. Editors can propose solutions until November 7, 2021 at the 2021 Requests for adminship proposals page.

Eight key problems identified
Eight key problems with RfA were identified during Phase 1 of the RfA review process, which concluded on September 29. According to the main page of the 2021 RfA review. These problems were:

According to and, who created the closing summary that identified which problems enjoyed community consensus, the identification of issues 1–5 as problems enjoyed "clear consensus", while the identification of issues 6–8 as problems enjoyed "rough consensus". The two administrators noted that there were two additional concerns identified that "have a numerical rough consensus but have very low participation relative to other issues", choosing to classify them as having achieved "no consensus." These were:

Editors brainstorm solutions
Editors floated a number of ideas to solve the community-identified problems with RfA via the review's brainstorming page. Of particular note, editors who have proposed creating an alternate admin-making process to RfA were given a contingent green light by Wikimedia Foundation's legal department (WMF legal) to explore their options. , citing permission from posted an email communication from WMF legal that identified the Foundation's current stance:

Various methods for alternate processes to RfA were suggested along these lines. described an idea to create a community-elected "Adminstrator Appointment Board" that, after a discussion period, would vote to decide on whether an individual should be given adminship; some editors—both in support and in opposition to the idea—pointed to the failed 2014 proposal for the Administrative Standards Commission as a baseline to evaluate against. Another alternate method to become an administrator was offered by : non-administrators that do sufficiently well (>65% support) in the Arbitration Committee elections could by default become admins. Others, such as submitted an idea for RfA to be composed of two phases—the first to "establish an outline of the candidate's characteristics, qualities and qualifications, experience and expertise" and the second to determine "whether or not a person with this profile should be made an administrator, determined by !vote with normal bureaucrat closing ranges". advanced a separate idea for a two-phase RfA during which the first phase would be a moderated discussion on the candidate's aptitude for adminship and the second phase would be an anonymous vote.

Along another vein, there were several ideas on altering how adminship can be revoked. advocated having a probationary period for new administrators during which they could be subject to binding recall by the community. proposed a "PROD-style adminship" process where potential administrators only answer three standard questions and become administrators by default unless a certain number of editors objected to their adminship; the idea would not prohibit individuals who fail the PROD-style adminship process to undergo RfA.

A full list of the brainstormed ideas is available at Requests for adminship/2021 review/Brainstorming.

Period for formal proposal submissions opened
Since October 24, editors have been able to formally add their proposals to a list for community evaluation, with a November 7 deadline to submit proposals. The community evaluation process begins on October 31 and will last until November 30, according to the 2021 RfA review hub page. Following the end of community evaluation period, the proposals will be evaluated for consensus, and those measures that achieve consensus will be implemented. "[H]opefully," the 2021 RfA review hub page says, implementation will "be fast and not require any further phases."