Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 189

User:X!/RfX Report neutral column malfunction
Just FYI the neutral column has been listing "0" across the board since Sept 19. I've raised the issue with X! but he seems to be on a wikibreak. –xenotalk 15:32, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Eh, on the plus side, the neutrals don't get factored into the percentage displayed, so as far as things that are broken go, that one's pretty low-priority. :) EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 15:50, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Might get people wondering why the discussion is so polarized with no one on the fence =) –xenotalk 17:54, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Advice on how to become a administrator?
Hello,

Just wondering if i could get some advice on how ot become a administrator what sort of things are looked at and asked? My experaince i doubt would be good enough to quailfy so i doubt i will apply any time soon but if i knew where i could improve or wha ti need to at least be able to do to prepare would be helpful. Although at the end of the day i would never be a perfect admin and i would always when i am not sure about sometihng turn ot experainced admin for advice and no one is perfect and can be :(-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 21:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * You don't want to be an admin. Trust me. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:58, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Whilst Short Brigade may or may not be right can I suggest WP:Editor Review as a starting point? Pedro : Chat  22:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Or you could read pages like Guide to requests for adminship to get an idea for what goes on, as well look over past nominations. It'd also be a good idea to read this page and new RfAs to see what goes down.  And I would definitely suggest checking out WP:ADMIN to know what sysops actually do day-to-day. ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the advice :) i will look into them and then decide what i need ot work on then maybe in 6-18 months put a request in and see how it goes from there :)-- Andrewcrawford ( talk  -  contrib ) 22:17, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * How to pass an RfA--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 22:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Anybody who wants to be an administrator is ill qualified to be an administrator. Anybody crazy enough to think it is a good idea to become an administrator certainly can not be trusted with the tools. I can think of many less painful methods of torture in use today than becoming an administrator. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:13, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That's over-generalising. You want to exclude people lusting for power, but some people are just gluttons for punishment :) Rd232 talk 14:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, give us masochists admins some credit! We like to be tortured or else we would not have run for constantabuseship adminship! :-D  So Why  14:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There is..like..this other category of editors who feel..like...they can, you know..help. Wisdom89  ( T |undefined /  C ) 14:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, and those of us in that category are not yet sure they're willing to run again :-P ( talk→   BWilkins   ←track ) 14:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * And there are those of us sane enough to realize that wanting and trying to become an administrator is just stooopid :) --Hammersoft (talk) 14:46, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Given the story I recently read in the sign post, I thought the typo in the section heading here was a commentary. ;-)-- Fabrictramp |  talk to me  15:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I had similar thoughts :) But, after reading more about the German arbcom resignation and the Spanish abolition of their arbcom, and the poor behavior by the ArbCom with regards to User:Law, I'm beginning to think the days of our local ArbCom may be numbered. Certainly the current governance model is failing. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * And I see someone has corrected the typo.-- Fabrictramp |  talk to me  21:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Just out of curiosity, I looked at the top ten deletion admins from the last week of October 2007. They were responsible for 56% of deletions in that week. Of those 60% of them haven't done a deletion in the last four months. Only one is truly active in deletions anymore (Nawlinwiki), and of the remaining three they're marginally active in deletions. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:46, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Proving that... two years is a long time to do the same thing every day? ~ Amory ( u •  t  •  c ) 15:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It doesn't prove anything. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Also the last week of the year may not be a typical week. Schools are often out, some businesses are closed, family obligations are increased for much of the world where English is a first language.-- Fabrictramp |  talk to me  15:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I meant to say October 2007. I've changed my comments above to reflect that. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose that's the definition of "out of curiosity!" ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 15:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well I've been working on other forms of deletion. - Mailer Diablo 16:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

To the original poster, might I also suggest WP:VETTING? - Adolphus79 (talk) 16:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

There's also WP:BRIBE as an option. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Careful Hammersoft. The last time I tried a "bribe" joke, it sank my first RfA. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 22:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Like somebody would be stupid enough to nominate me? Like I would be stupid enough to accept a nomination? Got any bridges for sale? :) --Hammersoft (talk) 04:21, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * pssst... You are *SO* asking for it. Shh! --Kim Bruning (talk) 10:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, Admin coaching. Jafeluv (talk) 19:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Not that I have a lot of room to talk, but I'd go the route of WP:Editor Review --> Admin coaching --> WP:RfA. ArcAngel (talk) 23:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


 * (ec)I personally tried this route and failed... the bottom line is that there is no route to guarantee adminship... it all fully depends on your past actions and logs, knowledge of policy, and experience... oh yeah, and the all important, figuring out which week to run, and figuring out which of the active RfA !voters are active that week, and how they are feeling about assorted policies... - Adolphus79 (talk) 00:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Andrewcrawford, if I may present an au contraire and possibly unconventional opinion: ignore all wiki-processes designed to train one to be an admin and just do what you enjoy on wikipedia. If those interests align with stuff admins are typically involved in, someone will recommend that you stand for adminship. In the meantime you would have become familiar with the related policies and guidelines through experience, and more importantly gained an appreciation of why those rules are in place. Spending time and effort training to be an admin on a website is as worthless as going to college to be a little league coach. This is supposed to be a hobby, not a vocation. Enjoy your time here ! Abecedare (talk) 00:12, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with this ... I will warn about trying to solve problems sometimes though - I'd say that my work in WQA probably sunk my first because no matter how much you help, you're still pissing someone off. However, jump in all over Wikipedia, get your hands dirty, be a good editor, bring something to the table.  ( talk→   BWilkins   ←track ) 11:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Andrew, Abcedare has given some good advice there. I was asked to consider running for adminship long before I did so. At the time I felt I wasn't ready. Do what you enjoy doing on Wikipedia, find a WikiProject or two that cover subjects you enjoy and join them. Write or expand articles, get involved in deletion debates, vandal fighting, new page patrol etc. You will inevitably get into a dispute or two along the way. Remember that it's the issue you are in dispute with, not who the holder of the opposing view is. Mjroots (talk) 19:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

perenial Yet Another RfA is Broken Thread
Lots of people say RfA is broken. Where is a good place for me to start a discussion about why RfA is broken? I'd like to get as much useful input as possible. At first I really don't want people's ideas for fixes. In my opinion discussion then gets distracted into why those ideas won't work. I think it would be useful to have a list of what (the community thinks) is broken at RfA. Then, when there's a consensus on the problems, and a rough consensus of the severity, we could maye move discussion onto solutions. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 17:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Right now, WikiProject Administrator is the place to be, when it comes to improving RFA. --Alecmconroy (talk) 17:48, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There is RfA Review, too. There may possibly be ten or twelve other historical pages/projects devoted to the same problem, I'm sure folks can point them out as well. Nathan  T 17:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * RfA_Review/Reflect might be the best starting point for looking into RfA Review. Lots of good work and thought went into that project. Nathan  T 18:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to thank everyone for this. There's a **lot** of reading there. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 13:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

<"perenial"? Surely this is a bi-monthly thread, not perenial :-)  Keeper  |  76  16:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out the etymology of the word "perennial". It comes from Latin perennis (“lasting through the whole year”), from per- (“through”) + annus (“‘year’”). I'd be careful not to use the word as "perenial"... Jafeluv (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that "perenial" isn't a word, in case anyone is unsure. :| It's snowing in NJ–again!  ceran  thor 20:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I knew I should have stuck with acronyms. :p NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk)

nationalism and RFA standards
Cross-posting here since WP:AN relates to RFA standards in considerable part. Moreschi (talk) 00:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

RfA is broken threads are broken
URGENT: The RfA is broken threads appear to be broken. In checking the history of this page, that goes back quite some time, and has apparently gone unnoticed. While the concept of RfA as a broken process has been well known and accepted by everyone for some time, apparently the threads about fixing it have been the root cause for not developing an appropriate solution. Otherwise, these threads wouldn't keep popping up every two or three days. Thus I ask, how do we fix the threads about RfA is Broken?! Please try to avoid disagreeing in your assessments as we need consensus to correct this problem. Consensus, as you well know, is achieved when any of the following occur:

1) A majority of those involved in a discussion vote on the same proposal. 2) In some cases, if a majority is unclear, we can just select the smartest group of like-minded voters. 3) In the event that only the village idiots show up to vote, we can open an RfC on the behavior of at least one group of voters, while also opening an ArbCom case to ban the group of editors who supported opening the RfC. 4) A sizeable number of editors start a secret mailing list dedicated to two things. Thing #1 - Renaming "Requests for adminship" to "Admins requesting a ship". Thing #2 - Agreeing to redirect both George W. Bush and William J. Clinton to Tool box. These editors then game the system, and abuse their mops to ban anyone who disagrees with either of these two things.

Discuss. Agree. Resolve. Hiberniantears (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a fascinating view. Getting back to the context of reality,  history has literally millions of examples  where discussion of a problem continues for years before its resolved.  Happily communities dont typically  stop discussing a pressing problem if they don’t achieve early results.  Hence new bridges  are eventually built , sanitation systems are improved,  or to offer a more specific example the slave trade was eventually made illegal after over 10 years of parliamentary debate led by William Wilberforce.  Currently a number of initiatives are already in play to address the issues raised here,  and if  they don't deliver new ones will arise ,  based in part on discussion hosted on this page. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In other news, Milhouse is not a meme. ~ Amory ( u •  t  •  c ) 02:52, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Merely pointing out that to whatever extent RfA is broken, this is a reflection of issues that are inherent weaknesses of Wikipedia as a whole, rather than of RfA itself. RfA will be "fixed" the instant these larger and fundamental issues are fixed upstream. Comparing RfA reform to the abolition of slavery innapropriately conflates voluntary involvement with a free and open website with humanity's tendency to create involuntary social contracts that allocate rights and priviledges in the real world based solely on where and to whom one is born. Our greatest challenge is to prevent anonymous editors from spouting off against other anonymous editors for purely vindictive reasons when one editor attempts to win community support for extra buttons that allow him or her to remove the word Penis from the middle name of one famous individual or another, and to block user's who think it is either funny or appropriate to name themselves User:BootyBanger. Perspective is everything. Are we seeking to create a free and open compendium of human knowledge? Yes. Is this akin to ridding the world of human slavery? No. Are we even a legitimate compendium of said human knowledge? No. Hence the greater ability of a Freedom Fighter to pick up ladies at a bar than a Wikipedian. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:21, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * All reasonable points, sorry about the tone of my first reply. Still not sure what perspective youre coming from. The right upstream change could indeed fix RFA, but is such a change likely and could we do anything to encourage it? Workable solutions can be imposed from the top or can bubble up from the grass roots – in our case, the guy at the top is a libertarian so the latter seems the best hope. The slavery example was just to counter the suggestion that unproductive debates are a barrier to ultimate success. Sometimes a community has to debate the same thing dozens of times over before sufficient momentum is achieved to solve the problem.  Freedom fighters have slightly better chance to score in a bar as they’re more likely to have qualities like intensity, passion and purpose – the very slight extra social cache a Wikipedian might have if we were considered legitimate  wouldnt make much difference in that environment. Regardless of how authorative we're considered, as long as the site gets the number 1 google ranking for key terms it will retain its influence on peoples views and on the media, and hence events. Returning to RFA is broken threads, I guess the point im getting to is theyre working ok as long as they keep resulting in a deeper understanding of the problem or attempts to put solutions into practice .  Providing discussion continues one day a tipping point will be reached leading to consensus to update RFA. If not were all doomned!! FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:SOCKPUPPET now has ramifications for this process
Input from crats and others would be good here. Tony  (talk)  01:54, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

My Rfa
I applied on WP:Rfa about half a month ago and the whole affair went down in flames. I just wanted to leave a quick note here saying that I am sorry for my rash and and unjustified behavior. I apologize to all those that I ranted against there and I will make sure nothing of the sort happens again. I have been monitoring the Rfa page for several weeks now and I am impressed with the headway that the community is making in appointing new, capable admins. I understand now quite a bit of the criticism that came my way and understand that everyone involved was simply looking out for the encyclopedia. I would just like to say again that I apologize and that I hope that in the future we can all work together to make the encyclopedia a better place for all editors. - Regards, Gaelen S.Talk • Contribs 20:47, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi. (I'm not going to dredge over past events.)  I'd be interested to hear from someone who's been through the process how it could be made easier to understand / better.  Did you think it'd go so badly when you started?  What messages were clear and easy to understand?  What messages were hidden, or not so easy to understand?  NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 22:42, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think there's not a solution to this problem given the tools we have available now; if there were, then the last 20 failed RFAs (I'm not counting SNOW/NOTNOW) wouldn't have all been surprises for the candidates. Like a lot of people, I think that some kind of intermediate step involving one or two userrights would be good; it would be easy to craft a position or two that enables people to make a significant contribution to admin work, and if the position is seen as significant and enough voters show up, then any of the last 20 failed candidates would probably have been given some solid clues what they should worry about in a future RFA, along with (in many cases) a promotion, and competence in the new job would help them pass that future RFA.  Ideas like these  haven't met with a lot of opposition; one problem is that different people favor different proposals, so no one proposal gets anything like 75%.  A bigger problem is that the 4 or 5 most intuitive and most popular approaches either don't get support or seem not to work as desired (vetting, ER, coaching, provisional adminship, etc).  Coaching is okay for helping candidates become more well-rounded, but candidates generally pass or fail based on their unique strengths and weaknesses. - Dank (push to talk) 02:13, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm interested in the SNOW/NOTNOWs though - there does seem to be plenty of advice about when to run, so why do so many people run too early? I'm gently worried about people who are nomm'ed much too early, but that happens rarely.  I strongly agree that splitting the tools up is a good idea.  There's more "no big deal" and less worry about giving people adminship. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Dank, I wouldn't necessarily assume that those who fail are completely suprised by their loss. From my perspective, as a seasoned editor open to running in future, I could see someone like me running just as a "what the hell, see what happens" gesture, even though like me they would be surprised at an easy pass. (It does get tiring for some waiting in the wings.) I also wouldn't be surprised that many who do pass easily didn't expect it either. You just never know.  Auntie E.  17:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I can tell you I was surprised at my first failed RFA, not because I didn't pass, but because I didn't pass because of one edit summary. Although I fully understand why it was brought up as a negative, the original poster identified it as a "weak" reason to oppose, but as we've seen again and again (the current "Saint Pancake" issue being a good example) there's an awful lot of people who just wait for someone else to find something they can base their vote on. As soon as they have something to latch on to, the bandwagon gets crowded very quickly. Not to say that every single person who opposed me then falls in that category, but, um, let's just say I think a lot of them were simply to lazy to do their own research and arrive at their own conclusions, and here was this convenient rationale they can latch onto. What could or should be done about that particular problem though? I can't think of anything. As far as the pile-ons that can happen in not-now cases, the main RFA page is quite clear that this is what will happen to you if you are grossly unqualified. I think it's silly the way people add "moral support" votes to such RFAs. Moral support? For ignoring a great big notice that says not to do it? Doing that in some areas of Wikipedia can get you blocked. I do like Julian's new editnotice (see above) as a sort of last ditch attempt to try and talk some sense into such candidates, but once that RFA is transcluded, you have said to Wikipedia "I am ready, take the gloves off." The best thing that can happen with notnow candidates is that their RFAs are closed very quickly, possibly before a single vote is cast in the most obvious cases. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess it's safer going in to expect to fail...not very encouraging however. Auntie E.  19:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, it's not as bad as all that, I passed quite handily on my second try. Since most of my opposition opposed over one thing, I just didn't do that thing again, depriving the lazier voters of convenient stones to throw. At least I know that those who opposed me a second time had to do their homework... Beeblebrox (talk) 21:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

New editnotice
I've been bold and created a small editnotice for the RfA page that can be seen here. Thoughts? Objections? – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 15:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems fine. I hope it does something, really. The 0/10/5 notnow RfAs are very disappointing.  iMatthew  talk  at 16:00, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Too small imho and will probably not noticed by most newbies. I think a bigger notice with an warning sign image would be more effective. Regards  So Why  16:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ditto. I'd support something larger and formatted in a way to get attention.  Jamie  S93  16:08, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Let's make it red, bold, and maybe even flashing. Better to be abrasive at this point, than to let more new editors get smacked around by voters who can't seem to restrain themselves. Hiberniantears (talk) 16:09, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * {edit conflict} Succinct note, but I'd suggest a larger font/bolding and also a caution sign or something to go with it. - Spaceman  Spiff  16:11, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 16:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: because of the semi-protection notices when I click on the link above the warning is hidden. I have to scroll back up to see it. I'm using 1024x768 full screen and have reduced my font size. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Undisclosed multiple accounts and RFA
This is related to some recent threads at WT:SOCK.

People with undisclosed accounts typically run into problems at RFA or worse, after they get the bit and the accounts are linked.

For prospective admins that are willing to link their accounts, this is not a problem: Just ask them to do so as part of the RFA process.

This is a problem for those who maintain multiple accounts for legitimate reasons including privacy or in some cases, "Clean start under a new name." The latter typically won't be an issue as 1) clean start should be for accounts with no block history and 2) anyone with enough edits to pass RFA won't be hurt on-wiki by things done on a non-blocked old account.

People who create multiple accounts for security reasons, or who abandon an account if it is linked to them in real life, are the ones who need some way to accept an RFA nomination securely.

Question for the RFA community:

Assuming there was a group or person who could "vet" undisclosed not-publicly-disclosed accounts on behalf of the community, what standards should these accounts live up to?

The assumption is the standard would be much higher than that of a disclosed account, since we have to trust someone else to make the judgment for us. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  23:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC) updated 23:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Not thrilled at the idea of another group of functionaries. I'd suggest that if we need such a group, that we add a duty to the checkusers.  It's more or less up their alley.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed, I think checkusers are already that group. If there's ever a question about the undisclosed accounts, they're the ones to consult for verification that the alternate accounts are legitimate and not blocked. Equazcion (talk) 23:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree, it should be existing functionaries. However, the question isn't (yet) who should they be, but what should they do.  Also, just to be clear, I'm speaking of voluntarily but privately disclosed additional accounts, such as those created for security/privacy reasons, not suspected sockpuppets or alter-egos the candidate is trying to keep secret to avoid torpedoing his candidacy. I've updated the language above. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  23:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The Arbitration Committee has long been the repository of this information, and we currently log it on the arbitration wiki. It would probably be most effective if editors were encouraged to list such accounts at the time of their creation, and this holds true for any alternate account that will not be disclosed publicly. Note that the Arbitration Committee has, under certain circumstances, denied authorization to create such accounts. Risker (talk) 23:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't get it. You're asking people who have legitimate alternate accounts to disclose those accounts to 'someone', but why? Anyone running socks is not going to disclose the abusive accounts.  So what's the point? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 23:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * By "legitimate", I think he meant they're not abusive accounts. Equazcion (talk) 23:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's the point. There's a bunch of people who have good reason for multiple accounts.  What's in it for them to declare those non-abusive, legitimate accounts?  Why do I care that someone has declared a non-abusive legitimate account?  As well as "good" admims there may be "evil" admins, with a white-hat sock and a black-hat sock.  These people are not going to declare the black-hat sock.  So, what's in it for me, that good admins are declaring aalternate accounts (and risking whatever they're protecting by using those alt accounts) and and admins are continuing to hide socks? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 00:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm uncomfortable about amending wp:CLEANSTART, especially as this would be in a sense retrospectively changing the deal for people who exercised cleanstart x months ago and might now be considering RFA. I really dislike the questions we often now see at RFAs about former accounts, and see some of those questions as a breach of the cleanstart policy. If there is a consensus for the recent amendment to wp:SOCK to undermine the cleanstart policy, then I would prefer a limited breach of cleanstart such as RFA candiates with other undisclosed current or former accounts must either declare tham to Arbcom or declare them in their RFA. I don't know whether there are any potential admins out there who exercised Cleanstart in the past and now find that there are some who seem to want to change that deal, but if there is anyone in that position you have my simpathy.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  00:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Most of the current questions are about existing or future accounts, not past accounts. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 00:06, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Most of the RFA questions are about alternate accounts, and currently clean start is billed as an example of an alternate account in the sockpuppetry policy. In my view it would be much more logical for us to have a policy on multiple accounts with sock puppetry, clean start, publicly declared alternate accounts and secret alternate accounts as sections within that - if so then secret alternate accounts could be asked about at RFA without any impact on the policy of clean start. Alterntively people could ask the question "During the time you have edited wikipedia with your current account have you edited with any other accounts (except for ones you have publicly declared here or privately declared to arbcom)?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  00:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Bingo. The prototypical example is the Chinese dissident, but there are more common examples, such as a politician or company executive making edits that, if tied to a "main" account known to others in real life, might come back to haunt him. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  00:08, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * To answer my own question: I could live with the output of a vetting should be a statement something like:
 * "This person has 1 or more privately disclosed alternative accounts. There are a total of 2 blocks against all accounts including the main account, the most recent of which is more than 3 years old and still in effect.  There is a total of 1 arbcom action against all accounts, which was decided more than 3 years ago, the last sanction expired more than 2 years ago.  In the last 5 years there have been other serious issues which might be relevant to an RFA. These issues related to off-wiki behavior which impacted the project.  The last incident happened more than 3 years ago.  In the last 2 years there have not been any less-serious issues which might be relevant to an RFA."
 * or, for a person with no problems at all:
 * "This person has 1 or more privately disclosed alternative accounts. There are no major problems in the last 5 years and no minor problems in the last 2 years.  I did not check for major problems more than 5 years back or minor problems more than 2 years back."
 * I would like to know what others think, and in particular, what time-frames should be looked at for more serious things like arbcom actions or serious blocks and what time-frame should be looked at for for minor things like 3RR blocks or minor vandalism indcidents. I'm using 5 and 2 years in this illustration, but I'm not implying those are anywhere close to community consensus. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  00:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I would like to know what others think, and in particular, what time-frames should be looked at for more serious things like arbcom actions or serious blocks and what time-frame should be looked at for for minor things like 3RR blocks or minor vandalism indcidents. I'm using 5 and 2 years in this illustration, but I'm not implying those are anywhere close to community consensus. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  00:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I would like to know what others think, and in particular, what time-frames should be looked at for more serious things like arbcom actions or serious blocks and what time-frame should be looked at for for minor things like 3RR blocks or minor vandalism indcidents. I'm using 5 and 2 years in this illustration, but I'm not implying those are anywhere close to community consensus. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  00:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * But how do you get the first response in your examples? Someone with three accounts (two dirty and blocked, and one clean) isn't going to declare the dirty accounts.  What is the actual problem you're trying to fix?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk • contribs) 00:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Most people are basically honest, including many who were at one point either less than honest or simply didn't understand or appreciate Wikipedia's rules of behavior. This won't solve the problem of the person who is trying to hide his past or present for the purpose of gaining adminship but it will help those who are trying to hide their past or not tie their accounts together publicly for legitimate reasons.  In other words, this proposal is for those people who, if they fully disclosed publicly, would likely be approved as administrators, but who cannot safely disclose publicly due to off-wiki concerns.  As it stands, those who fall into this category are faced with a choice:  decline an adminship nomination, continue to hide the account, thereby deliberately commit a breach of trust which would disqualify them for adminship, or bite the bullet and give up their privacy.  We know some who have given up their privacy and some who have been caught trying to keep things hidden.  We don't know how many have declined to run for adminship, and of course we don't know how many of them would've gotten the bit and how many would've become valuable administrators.  The proposal above would give those people a method of doing so legitimately, while still giving the community some indication of their past negative behavior.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  02:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Requests_for_adminship/A_new_name_2008, a recent failed RFA, was suggestive; the voters seemed not to care much about a previous account with 11000 edits, leaving it to an admin, Pastor Theo, to vet the account. When Pastor Theo turned out to be a banned sock, things didn't turn out so well, so future candidates should probably pick someone the RFA community trusts to do the vetting.  As I understand it, the previous account was abandoned due to harassment, perhaps RL harassment, so A_new_name didn't want the new account to be tied publicly to the old one.  The previous 3 times the issue came up (one was Enigmaman, and the other two don't want me to mention their names), the RFA community seemed to care a lot about previous and alternate accounts and IP edits.  For one of these, I don't know what the issue was exactly; I got the sense the candidate edited under a new name for a while to get some distance from some drama.  For the other one, the person had some problems with an old account resulting in sanctions, but I totally support their desire not to have their new account connected to their old one ... they made some choices that make people go "yuck", and they learned from the experience and moved on, and they've done marvelous work for a long time since then.  I'm sure that publicly tying them to the old account would be a net negative. - Dank (push to talk) 03:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm personally troubled by the whole concept of private vetting. Either the community should know who's who, or it isn't our entitlement.  If the community doesn't know, then I would not want a private body confirming that we don't need to.  One of the major points that I think can be forgotten is that Wikipedia's transparency comes not from knowing who everyone is, but from knowing that there is not any control over who edits at all.  The material is offered entirely at face value, and could have been written by anyone.  If official groups are going to start having broad controls over the creation of accounts, such as over who can have more than one, especially when there is no way to enforce this control, then the decisions of such groups take on quite some importance.  Of course, so does control over the information collected.  Besides which, even with adminship, what exactly is being protected?  Honestly I find the whole concept backwards: what Wikipedia needs is either full institutional control over editing, or a free-wheeling and open community.  Not back-room pseudo-control by pseudonymous groups (with their tendencies to believe everything is ok so long as they have the most information around).  WP:NOBIGDEAL, wasn't it?  I know the frog has been boiling, perhaps I just wasn't ready to see it plated and served.  Mackan79 (talk) 04:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * With respect to editors, I think only arbcom has the authority to tell someone they can't use multiple accounts. They also can and have imposed such sanctions through "private" actions, with the complainer, arbcom, the sanctionee, and possibly other involved parties participating in an off-wiki discussion.
 * With respect to admins: The de facto current policy and practice is "disclose accounts publicly, announce you have accounts you won't disclose publicly, or keep silent, take your pick, but whatever you do, you do so at your own risk."  There is no established practice of how to handle admins who announce they have accounts they won't disclose publicly, and the "at your own risk" may mean the very act of announcing such a thing will result in an "outing" of that account, either on- or off-wiki, which defeats the purpose of keeping the information out of the public eye.  By "public eye" I mean more than just wikipedia, I mean the internet and the real world.
 * RFA needs a process where those who have past or present alternate accounts can run for RFA while simultaneously preserving the privacy of the other accounts and giving RFA participants some general indication that the alternate accounts are either problem-free or some general indication of the types and time-lines of any problems with non-publicly-disclosed accounts. Otherwise, only the very bold, those whose alternate accounts have absolutely nothing negative or controversial about them, and those willing to pretend they don't have and never had any other accounts will accept nominations for adminship.  This is not a good thing.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  14:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm still not getting what's so wrong about "keep secret". An admin can have 5 alternate accounts, all with admin rights, as far as I care.  So long as those accounts are not abusive.  Nothing you're suggesting will reduce abuse, but will pressure people to declare alt accounts.  And they're declaring those to unknown people.  And what do they get from this?   Really, alt accounts isn't a problem unless people are socking.  There are very many much bigger problems with wikipedia.  Still, you now know what I think, so I'll leave the discussion for others. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 14:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It's perceived as a problem by many at RFA. As an RFA participant, I want to look closely at someone's edits for the last year and progressivly lighter the further back in time they go.  I want to see all edits, unless there is some good reason I shouldn't.  May other RFA participants feel the same way, more or less.
 * If there is a good reason I shouldn't see all of a person's edits, then I have to be able to trust that someone else will look at them for me, or it will be very hard for me to support.
 * Here are three non-sockpuppet examples, one where knowing would confirm my support, one where knowing would turn the tables and cause an opposition, and one where the account was publicly disclosed late in the RFA, torpedoing the RFA:
 * Editor with an apparent 18-month clean edit history knows the rules and appears to be a typical 95+% candidate. He discloses to a 'crat that he has an alternative account that he uses to edit about his hometown.  He does not edit these articles or related discussions with his main account.  The crat says there is another account with no negative history and no indication of inter-editor squabbles.  He keeps my support.
 * Editor with an apparent 18-month clean edit history knows the rules and appears to be a typical 95+% candidate. He discloses to a 'crat that he has an alternative account that he uses to edit topics about his hometown. Again, it's a segregated-use account, so there is no sockpuppetry involved.  Upon investigation, the 'crat finds he's been blocked twice for 3RR and has an ongoing and current history of uncivil but just-short-of-getting-blocked behavior.  The special purpose account's talk page history is filled with warnings.  The crat reports the person has two blocks on his non-publicly-disclosed account and recent warnings for uncivil behavior.  At a minimum, I will turn neutral, and so will many other RFA participants.  I would encourage him to edit with civility on all accounts and try again in 6-12 months, or a year after the last block, whichever is later.
 * Editor with an apparent 18-month clean edit history knows the rules and appears to be a typical 95+% candidate. He does NOT disclose to a 'crat that he has an alternative account that he uses to edit topics about his hometown. Again, a non-sock account.  This account been blocked twice for 3RR and has an ongoing and current history of uncivil but just-short-of-getting-blocked behavior.  The account's talk page history is filled with warnings.  The RFA is headed for a landslide promotion.  Late in the RFA someone, it doesn't matter who, realizes that the two accounts are by the same person and manages to prove it. Maybe the guy slipped up and left bread crumbs, maybe he mentioned it in a public place off-wiki, maybe his ex-wife filed it in a public record in their divorce case.  It doesn't matter how.  In any case, it comes to the attention to RFA, and the appearance of a coverup torpedoes the RFA.
 * davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  03:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * example2 - is that editor going to answer any question about alt accounts honestly? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 22:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Anyone with the mop is more powerful here than anyone without one. Not a popular thing to say, but it is true nonetheless. If you have multiple mops, and this is unknown, then you are abusing multiple accounts. Five mops controlled by one editor means you can rally four admins to support one admin for taking innapropriate action. That we haven't caught that many people doing this doesn't mean that many people aren't doing this. Hiberniantears (talk) 04:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you think any editor planning to 5 abusive admin accounts is going to honestly answer a question about alternate accounts? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 22:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the question is what Wikipedia wants to be. I support disclosure of identity for "functionaries," as they're very limited in number, and their discretionary authority is substantial and clear.  The small number makes it possible to require this, and to be pretty sure that you're keeping good tabs on what is going on. For admins, it's entirely different.  The very large number and the lack of full disclosure make it impossible to keep any track of who is who.  This in turn makes it a bad idea to grant them much authority, which of course was never the idea.  Admin duties are very "close" to the writing of the encyclopedia, and their terms are indefinite, again suggesting that the (one might say predictable) movement to continue elevating their status should be resisted, not taken for granted.  If someone had proposed that Arbitrators just disclose any alternate accounts, without disclosing their identities, I would have to oppose it, since all that would do would be to intensify the prospect of abuse.  If you aren't going to enforce a rule (because you can't, or aren't willing to), don't just keep increasing the volume of required disclosures as a substitute.  I think the proposal here is similar, except for the obvious answer that admins should not be considered to have any of the authority of those in high positions. Mackan79 (talk) 04:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The sad thing is, you know Eco/Pastor Theo has started another account already with an RfA as the singular goal. Sigh. Tan   &#124;   39  23:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Number of active admins update
We've lost 14 admins since October started, according to this. We started October with 891 active admins, and now we're down to 877. That's a pretty big number, IMO. Anyone still deny we have a problem on our hands?  iMatthew  talk  at 14:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It's an exceedingly crude metric, and I really don't see what yet another THISNUMBERISBIG=RFA IS BROKEN thread is going to achieve. Skomorokh,  barbarian  14:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Compare to about 956 give or take counting errors a year ago. Anyone want to make a chart comparing the number of active admins to the number of total wiki edits per day over time?  That would give a very rough indication if the "load factor" has gone up or down over time, and if we really do need more admins or not.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  14:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * No scientific numbers here but my impression is that we're indeed getting quite threadbare on the number of admins helping out. There's a fifty page backlog at WP:RM right now and has been for a few months now despite the listing and removal process becoming far more efficient a few months ago through a bot. A year ago there was rarely a backlog of more than a handful of articles. People at the village pump have been talking about how articles at CAT:CSD are sometimes there for days before being reviewed. I'm not edit conflicting anymore with people when blocking through WP:AIV and, from some edit summaries that I've seen out of the corner of my eye, DYK updates have been missed or almost missed a few times.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I put about as much effort into looking for such threads as the doomsayers did before deciding to run around panicking in them.
 * February 2007: The sky is falling.
 * August 2007: The sky is falling.
 * April 2008: The sky is falling.
 * September 2008: The sky is falling.
 * 2009: ...you know the story.

It's a lot to ask on WT:RFA that editors apply themselves to something productive – as we always need more good administrators this would include finding good candidates (here's a start) or provoking intelligent discussion about standards inflation, or even doing some vaguely scientific and worthwhile research into areas that could especially benefit from extra administrators.

But please let's stop pulling numbers out of the air and bullshitting each other about conclusions we've jumped to based on them. All it does is spread the cancerous meme that this process is fatally broken, encourage doomed overeager candidacies, and further fuel the cycle of disillusionment and dysfunction. Skomorokh, barbarian  15:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * User:Useight/RFA Subjects/Too many or few admins, there's a bunch from before 2007. It's still a work in progress, but I've scoured the first 67 archives. Useight (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Users, including admins, leave wiki for three main reasons:
 * 1) they simply move on to other things, that's part of life
 * 2) they get blocked/banned/deadminned for misbehavior
 * 3) they get tired of the abuse, this mostly applies to admins, arbs, crats, who get heaped piles of abuse for doing their job, arbs for example get constant complaints because no matter how a case is decided one or more groups will be pissed off, it gets old really fast.  — Rlevse •  Talk  • 15:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * @Skomorokh Well my post is certainly not couched in anything like "the sky is falling" language nor is that the main tenor of the discussions you linked. I intended to say no more than "yeah we do seem to have a shortage, so it would be good if everyone kept a lookout for good candidates". Ever heard the expression "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean X" Well the preponderance of posts on the topic supports the notion that there's something to the idea there is a shortage (not necessarily the "sky is falling" lens you saddle the notion with).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:38, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * What Rlevse said, really. Just as well admins don't have reconfirmation here... Stifle (talk) 17:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This "massive number" is largely due to the whole Law fiasco. We lost at least three there. GARDEN 20:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Eh? Only two, I thought. An Arb, too, but he didn't resign the bit. Glass  Cobra  19:32, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Law is the third, depending on who you're missing. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 19:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, yup, of course. Rather funny that I didn't think of him, actually... anyhow, we may wish to note that this year's ArbCom has been far more active in deadminning people than in previous years. Glass  Cobra  19:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Abuse, pointlessness, affecting real life, people digging through your history and emailing you through your own fucking company due to a short-sited posting of a website linked to you, hatred, Wikipedia Review and the many braindead hardline maniac retards of said site, Encyclopedia dramatica, railing against the pointless and shouting at clouds is the reason. Frankly I'm impressed we still have + 800 admins. But mostly the clowns who hate admins because they aren't one is the major issue. Pedro : Chat  21:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Pedro, I've seen from Talk pages that you have a forthright style (no wrong with that, IMO, as long as your reasoning is good). But now you seem to be really pissed off, and may need a break for admin before you burn out.
 * Your "the clowns who hate admins because they aren't one is the major issue" may identify a major issue, but from the wrong end of the telescope. The things that seem to anger non-admins are AfD, which will always be contentious, and conduct issues. On conduct issues, recent events show what many non-admins have long thought, that admins can (a) get away with bad decisions on conduct of non-admins; (b) in practice there seem to be much less strict rules on conduct for admins. That rankles. If you want suspicions of admins by non-admins to decrease, you need to ensure that the same conduct standards are enforced for admins as for non-admins. --Philcha (talk) 07:10, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Lol. Tan   &#124;   39  13:50, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * And the third possibility is that both Pedro and Philcha are correct to a degree. While it's convenient to be able to make broad generalizations (all admins do x, all non-admins behave like y...) each of us is an individual, and the distributions are likely to be bell curves. In each group, there are a few saints, a few truly bad apples, and a whole lot of folks somewhere in between. The bad apples of any group tend to cause the most grief, tend to stand out in our memories and tend to color the way we perceive the entire group.-- Fabrictramp |  talk to me  20:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. - Dank (push to talk) 20:42, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sure I'll regret asking this, but has anyone thought about closing particularly contentious AFDs by committee to some extent? I've seen bcrats create a separate subpage and discuss how an RFA should be closed, maybe admins could do something similar with nasty AFDs?  Same could go for other admin closure areas.  I know I avoid big AFDs like the plague because one side or the other is going to come down on the closer like a ton of bricks.   Wknight94  talk  20:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * What, the hive mind doesn't already make these decisions? Man, no one tells me anything... ;-)-- Fabrictramp |  talk to me  20:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Relist and no-consensus/default-keep closures seem to be the preferred way to do it. However, for AFDs in topics with rabid proponents or opponents where the outcome is on the border between delete and no-consensus/default-keep, getting a 2nd opinion wouldn't hurt.  This can probably be done ad-hoc, possibly by the "1st closing admin" putting the discussion on hold and posting to AN/I or someplace similar asking for help from un-involved admins.  In the few cases a year that this "make up your own procedure to close contentious, close AFDs" would be appropriate, I would consider it a valid use of WP:IAR. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * (r to Wknight) In AFD, there appears to be no shortage of admins willing to make controversial decisions... at least, judging by the current backlog of 1 there. Perhaps a committee thing could be occasionally useful in backlogged areas like RM, but honestly I don't think there are many admins modest enough to ask for help, especially if the reason would be fear of retribution. We admins are a pretty proud (read: arrogant) bunch, on the whole. -kotra (talk) 20:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Then again, Wknight, while I like your idea, I don't think it will happen. Bureaucrat discussion takes place because they won't just take away the bit like that if someone makes a mistake in judgment. Deletion review is there to fix bad deletions, they CAN be overturned. You can't overturn an RfA.  ceran  thor 01:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Is that true? I thought we just chose not to overturn RfA's, but that we could overturn them (i.e. ignore the consensus) if we feel the consensus is flawed (for reasons of, say, an off-wiki mailing list coordinating support)... Outside of that, a desysop for bad behavior is essentially an RfA overturned. Hiberniantears (talk) 03:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe so, but it's much harder to get someone desysopped nowadays than it is to overturn an AfD closure.  ceran  thor 10:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Desysopping may be the equivalent of court-marshalling a colonel in terms of difficulty, but convincing an admin he should resign in the face of a major issue isn't nearly as hard. Most responsible people know when it's time to step down when people tell them they should step down.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  13:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I found that it was very difficult to remove officers from command positions for general incompetence, but once you run the ship into something, it is pretty durn easy. Protonk (talk) 19:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Amen, pedro. Protonk (talk) 18:47, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Not minimising the gravity of the situation, but check out WP:AN.... there's always someone worse off than you!! Rd232 talk 21:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Admin recruitment campaign
Has such a thing ever been tried? I respect the effort to reform RfA, but perhaps this might help too. Maybe people who are qualified are out there, but don't know it or haven't seriously considered it. A project page could be started (maybe for a limited time, such as WP:Admin recruitment campaign 2009), in concert with watchclist notices. To avoid an influx of new RfAs that might overwhelm the community, people could add names (themselves or editors they know) to a new list, and wait for a present admin to nominate them. Or if the inundation isn't a concern, people could just be encouraged to go straight to RfA nomination. Just a thought. Equazcion (talk) 19:54, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There are two or three prior examples like this that I can't recall, but I do think this is an idea with potential.  MBisanz  talk 19:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Please see my comment above. --Anthony.bradbury<sup style="color:black;">"talk" 20:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * We did a kind of recruitment campaign here at the end of September, and it did some good and some harm. For instance, RayAYang applied at WP:VETTING, didn't get reviewed, and then got a failed RFA out of it.  We could make some progress with both of the issues we're discussing ... recruitment/motivation and getting admin chores done ... with a less-dramatic voting process that gives editors some kind of userright that lets them help with the high-volume jobs (CSD for instance), as long as we can attract voters who will say the same kinds of things that they would say at RFA.  (WP:VETTING didn't work, and coaching, nomming and WP:ER are don't pick up on the problem areas nearly as well as a roomful of RFA voters do.) If the candidate passes, it's all good: we've got someone who's competent, motivated and enabled to help,  a voting process that serves as a community stamp of approval (which is after all a big part of what attracts people to RFA), and if they use the tool we gave them, that will impress voters at a later RFA.  If they fail, that's still better than a noisy, very public, failed RFA, and what the voters say is probably what we want them to be working on whether they do RFA later or not.  My guess is that the lower-level process will tend to attract the most conscientious voters, but we'd have to see ... I would think it wouldn't attract voters who are concerned the candidate would destroy the wiki.  Even if we can't predict exactly how it would work, especially if we can't, it's worth trying. - Dank (push to talk) 22:05, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Revisiting some perennial proposals to lighten the admin load
There are some admin tasks, like seeing deleted revisions, which for legal and historical reasons won't be given to anyone who hasn't been through an RFA-like process, at least not in the next few years. Blocking and unblocking users also falls into this category.

There are other tasks, like article protection and un-protection, deleting a revision or article, that could be given to people who have gone through a lighter-weight process.

Other than protect and unprotect (mentioned above), are there any specific admin tools that could be given to someone who passes a light-weight approval process? For those tools and for protect/unprotect, creating such a class of users be A Good Thing? davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  21:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

What do you think of the Slashdot approach? They give out "moderator points" to high-reputation users, who can then moderate up to 5 comments up or down over a several-day period. Once they use up their 5 points or once the time period expires, that's it, they have to wait until it's their turn again. If you are found abusing moderation points, you may not get them again. If we identified tools that don't require a community approval process, such as perhaps protect or un-protect, we could hand out "tool points" a few at a time. Of course, this would require a coding change, so it won't happen any time soon. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  21:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The tool points idea seems like a reward system and that doesn't strike me well, but I'd need time to construct an articulate rationale. As far as protection being one of the tasks to give to users who've been through a lighter process, I disagree. I think protection is a sensitive issue that requires diplomatic ability. Protection is almost always the result of a dispute, except perhaps for semi-protection. Equazcion (talk) 21:11, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I appreciate that page protection can be sensitive, but what if some editors were given the right to impose temporary PP? I was originally going to propose a short, fixed time, but then I realized it would be better to simply be until an admin can look at it. So if the backlog is a couple couple hours, it means the non-admin would only be imposing a restriction for a couple hours. The request would not be removed from the queue, so it wouldn't lighten the load, but it would mean that very active vandalism could be stopped in short order, and in cases where it wasn't warranted, it would be undone in hours if not minutes.-- SPhilbrick  T  00:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The mod points approach (ignoring the massive change to code and movement of focus away from content building to moderating users and meta-moderating) works on /. because the worst that can happen there is someone claiming the first post!11!!@112 or making a bad "overlords" joke. I'm not quite sure on your proposed implementation, but someone given five blocks or deletions could do some serious damage really easily. ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 21:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree with Amory on that. All admin-lite approaches have been rejected previously for a multitude of reasons and this suggestion, while innovative, does not address those objections that have been raised against splitting the tools before. I have previously argued against splitting the tools and I have yet to be convinced that this would be a good thing to do. I would much more prefer getting more people to run for adminship (the guy who started this discussion for example ). There is a large reservoir of people who are simply either not aware that they could be admins or who need some coaching first, some who have fears to fail and those who know they could be but fear it would take too much of their time. We should inform those not aware, help those in need of coaching, encourage those who fear to fail and remind those who fear it will take too much time that having the tools does not mean you have to use them - just that you can. It would certainly be more helpful than all those threads we have created in a few short days here, all on the same topic. Sorry for the rant. Regards  So Why  21:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you'd be interested in commenting on my proposal for an "Admin recruitment campaign" above? Equazcion (talk) 22:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a rant, SoWhy, but I think failed RfAs do more harm than good, and I don't want to be encouraging people to run unless we can find a better way of giving them an idea how it's going to go. I have more thoughts 2 sections above. - Dank (push to talk) 22:20, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There was a proposal a few days back for an admin-in-training, or "live coaching." I like that idea for a number of reasons, including that the person would know before he ran what the likely outcome would be.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  23:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I could be wrong but it seems like there's some renewed interest in this "Admin lite" idea. I'd like to boldly get a proposal up and have a broad discussion about it, but given the history, it needs to be really well-worded and detailed. My first question is, would CSD be the only task admin-lites would be responsible for? Can we get some consensus-lite (teehee) on which specific tools that group should be given? Equazcion (talk) 22:25, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I would likely support any admin-lite proposal if and only if:
 * It solved a real need.
 * It didn't grant privileges that the community OR WP:LEGAL believes requiring a full-scale RFA or equivalent.
 * There was not an existing or easy-to-implement way to do the task without granting tools. For example, if one of the tasks was CSD review clearing out the backlog of CSD requests, we don't have to grant admin privileges, we can do it with a bot and either a protected list of authorized names or a new userright called "delete-bot-suggester."  See below for how a delete-bot would work for CSDs.
 * davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  22:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC) updated 23:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That's good to know, but I was thinking more of getting down to a practical proposal. The problem seems to simply be backlogs, such as at CSD, AIV, move requests, RFPP. Let's determine what other backlogs commonly exist, and which ones could be theoretically handled by people who haven't gone through RFA. I'm not familiar with "CSD review" so you'd have to enlighten me. I thought we were just talking about people checking the pages tagged for CSD and deciding which require deletion. Equazcion (talk) 22:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

A crude but direct question
How many fucking admins are we going to have to be reduced to before we can convince folks that we aren't chicken little? I'm not (mostly) trying to rile folks up here. This is a direct question. 100? 50? Protonk (talk) 18:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand the frustration, but is it really necessary to settle the question of whether we have enough admins? Non-admins can do many of the things that admins do; it's a matter of training, vetting and motivating.  (Obviously, getting the mop is a motivator for some, so I agree that it's a problem if the mop appears to be permanently out of reach to many.  Does it appear that way?) - Dank (push to talk) 19:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, but at the moment we have a subset of jobs that only admins can do yet are still vitally important for the encyclopedia. Obviously we have wide variation in admin activity between people who log 100s of admin actions a day and people like me who log maybe 2-3 a week.  But unless we are willing to give cluebot the block button (that would cut the gordian knot!), we will reach some number which becomes unsustainable.  And since entreaties about making small changes early have failed, I can't rely on arguments that admin jobs get shittier as the number of admins drop, that as your friends leave wikipedia you want to leave too, because both of those are flow arguments and people evidently want to talk only about stocks.  So lets talk about stocks. Protonk (talk) 19:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well it doesn't seem likely to me that a number would really satisfy you, so I do think riling folks up is the goal here :) (said with the utmost affection I assure you). The admin number issue obviously isn't all that visible to most editors; that's why it's so difficult to get people concerned about it. It may also be the (partial) reason for all the "rfa is broken" threads. People are saying (perhaps) "you want more admins, so make it easier to run for adminship". I don't necessarily agree, just providing some food for thought. Equazcion (talk) 19:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * A number would satisfy me, actually. :) Think of it as a reservation price in admins.  Or a trigger scenario.  what I'm looking for is some healthy average from skeptics about RfA reform as to what number of active admins it would take for them to recognize an incipient crisis.  If that number is 0 or "when the effects are seen", then ok.  I suspect there are ancillary reasons for the "rfa is broken" threads, but that is neither here nor there. Protonk (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I choose to make no comment about the number of admins presently active, but I would like to say that there seem to be fewer of them willing to undertake the basic housekeeping jobs which are essential to the project. When I became an admin CSD could, with a modest effort, be cleared. Now, getting below 50 nominations is good going. We can make as many admins as we like, but if they are not prepared to get their hands dirty on the basic work, as I have done for some 2.5 years, then their value is arguable. --<b style="color:red;">Anthony.bradbury</b><sup style="color:black;">"talk" 19:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've seen/made a number of proposals recently about how to deal with frequent backlogs, none of which have come to fruition yet. But I still think the number of admins is also a contributing factor. Equazcion (talk) 20:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I totally agree Tony. When I log on at around 7:00 UTC CSD is just, well, horrific. It becomes a mountain. Let me digress a little and mention something that occured to me earlier today. Editors hand out barnstars (a concept I actually find to be very meritable) for many things - quality writng, quality sourcing, vandalism reversion, copyediting, good humour, graphic design, technical skill, collaboration et. al.. Do we have a barnstar for "wow you blocked ten vandals" or "wow you protected ten pages". No. Just for once a little bit of recongition would not go amiss. I've said it countless times before and I will say it again. If we stopped editing right now the site would be a credible reference work for years. If we leave it open with no-one to block vandals and protect pages it would be worthless (at best) in weeks. Pedro : Chat  20:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right, I don't see a lot of barnstars for admin work ... odd. - Dank (push to talk) 21:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Too many variables. 5,000 admins who make 1-2 admin actions a week might not be enough.  100 admins who put in 4 hours a day might be.  In a month with relatively little trollish and other admin-required activity a given amount may be more than enough, in a month with a spike in trolls we may need twice as many to keep up, assuming per-admin productivity is unchanged.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Mathematically correct but, with deepest respect, not relevant. We simply need more admins who are prepared to do the basic housekeeping work. And we do not have them. And I (and perhaps Pedro, and others) are feeling the strain. Is it worth resurrecting the perennial question about allowing/preventing IP edits? --<b style="color:red;">Anthony.bradbury</b><sup style="color:black;">"talk" 20:22, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Bureaucrat 1.0 to Hermes: "You are technically correct. The best kind of correct." -Futurama davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:29, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Actual, real belly laughs on my end. Thank you. Protonk (talk) 20:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Admin backlog check: Of all the backlogs that require administrator attention, which ones are essential to clear?  That is, which ones would hurt the project in a big if the backlog grew to more than a few days? more than a few weeks?  Knowing this can tell us what kind of grunt work needs to be done, and more importantly, it can tell us where to focus tool-writing efforts to make these jobs easier.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:28, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Whilst CSD does not suffer week long backlogs I hve seen G10's and G12's hanging around for hours. Copyright infringements need to be dealt with swiftly. BLP's the same (allthough the majority of G10's are "Wayne is a wanker LOL" stuff). AIV at times suffers as does RFPP. They all can "harm" our reputation. None can be dealt with effectively by bots. Pedro : Chat  20:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Related question: is there a template which lists the current backlog levels of various admin related tasks: AIV, RFPP, CSD, RM, SPI etc ? That way, when I and other admins have a few minutes, we know free we know where our attention is best focussed. Abecedare (talk) 20:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * A related proposal: VPR Equazcion (talk) 20:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I am thinking something along the lines of User:Dragons_flight/Category_tracker/Summary, but perhaps with only the admin related tasks. Abecedare (talk) 20:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I like where this is going. I don't watchlist every admin related page so as not to clog up my list with every AIV report etc, but it would be good to have a centralized place where admin backlogs are listed. Although the other day I simply dropped a note at WP:AN that A7 speedies had spiked up to 85 articles, and apparently it was seen because within 30 minutes more than 50 of them had been dealt with. Maybe we could put a "backlog ticker" there at AN. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll pose this question at WP:AN in a few minutes, since it is likely to be more pertinent there. Abecedare (talk) 21:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I noticed that the discussion here has centered around the topic of admins not wanting to do the dirty work. Just a thought, but maybe that should be asked on most Rfa's. That way we would have some idea of whether or not they are actually willing to do the less-desired tasks that the encyclopedia requires. - Regards, Gaelen S.Talk • Contribs 02:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * RFA is broken enough without having people ask how much time you will spend on admin work. This is a volunteer project and there is no limit to the number of mops we can hand out. By all means look for hyperactive hugglers and newpage patrollers when you are trying to find candidates, but please don't ask questions that might deter a candidate from standing because they don't intend to weild the mop as much as some do.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

A crude but direct subquestion
How many fucking tasks need to be backlogged before we debundle the tools? I don't see any particular reason that we would need more than, perhaps, 50 full admins. It seems clear that we need people working at WP:RM and not admins per se and that debundling so there's a MoveHelper flag or whatever would be more likely to get us more people working at this task, whereas more full admins might just get us more people fighting at ANI. We could have created a MainPageHelper flag years ago. There's no reason to look at a particular backlog and say more admins is the solution, and not debundling specific to the needed task.Or, here's another crude but direct question: how fucking long do G10 and G12s have to sit in the CSD backlog until we remove A7 as a criteria for speedy? Why should A7s be dealt with as speedily as copyright violations or potential libel? If we have libel sitting around for a few hours that's an obviously bigger problem than an article on a garage band that lasts for a few days. How long do backlogs have to be before we stop treating trivial nuisance articles (that nobody sees) like harbingers of the apocalypse. "NO! This article about a real, but small, bakery cannot be here another second." How fucking backlogged does AFD have to be before we disallow the deletion of unarguably correct articles on the basis that they're about works of fiction? Okay, I'm just nettling you with that one, Protonk. But my point is 1) that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with less admins that 2) when problems are identified more full admins is hardly the only obvious solution and that 3) even eliminating admin tasks might be a better solution than creating more admins. I don't mean to be obtuse, but if there is indeed a problem that obviously needs changed, there's no reason to believe that RFA is what must change and not the lack of bundling, or the overly-restrictive rules that give admins too much work or whatever other problems might be identified. --JayHenry (talk) 19:39, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Smiling to myself about the use of the F word in this thread and sub-thread (i.e. my fault!). JayHenry makes some excellent points. Unbundle the damn bits allready. I've deleted like thousands of articles and used block hundreds of times. Protection - almost never. View deleted - virtually zero. Edit the interface - never. Says it all what tools I "need". Pedro : Chat  19:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * To go off-topic a bit: I thought WP:SPEEDY referred to the process not the time interval.  Some types of "speedy" like copyvio and attack really should dealt with ASAP.  Others, like test pages and patent nonsense, should be treated as a PROD that expires after 7 seconds instead of 7 days.  It's no big deal if a PROD sticks around an extra day, and it's no big deal if patent nonsense sticks around an extra day.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:25, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, that is arguable. If we were just creating MYSPACE then nonsense and just plain stupid edits could be left until someone felt like sweeping them up. But we are creating an encyclopedia, are we not, which should be as accurate as is possible; and in my view we should take pride in keeping it as neat and tidy and correct as is practical. Which in my view means keeping backlogs down. All of the time. Purely my opinion. --<b style="color:red;">Anthony.bradbury</b><sup style="color:black;">"talk" 21:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * And just for the record, per Pedro, my personal admin stats are Deletions 12980, Blocks 1593, Everything else in total 187. --<b style="color:red;">Anthony.bradbury</b><sup style="color:black;">"talk" 21:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I must ask, but wouldn't debundling the tools result in a backup of applications at Rfa? After all, we would have to try to "personalize" the tools for each applicant and it seems that would just be more trouble than it is worth. Even if certain admins do not use all the tools that are provided doesn't necessarily mean that we have to try to give certain users only the tools that they might need. Anyways, just a thought. - Regards, Gaelen S.Talk • Contribs 02:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous nominations
Seems like people would be making more nominations, if it didn't mean risking tarnishing their own reputations. How about setting up a system whereby people could make nominations anonymously? There would probably be a lot more of them then. I'm aware there would be many downsides to that, but still. Food for thought. Equazcion (talk) 19:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * To what end? Are you talking about candidates running anonymously?  If so, that would never garner enough support to pass---you are already anonymous from your RL identity unless you revealed it somewhere.  If you are talking about a nominator, doing so anonymously, they could do so via an IP... but what does that say about the candidate if somebody doesn't want to be linked to them?--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 19:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree, I have to think on a purely tactical matter an editor would be better off writing a good self nom, then accepting a nom from someone who won't put their name to their thoughts about the nominee.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I was proposing that just the nominator be anonymous. Assuming we didn't go the IP route as Balloonman suggested, there would need to be a system for going confidentially through a third party, who could verify the nominator's edit stats and user rights, let's say. The nomination would have to stand on its rationale and the candidate's history, rather than on the identity of the person making the nomination. It's true that a single anonymous nomination might not inspire confidence -- unless it's understood that there are some editors who choose to only make anonymous nominations, rather than decide based on who they're nominating. Again, food for thought. I'm not sure how practical this is. It's just one possible way of dealing with the fear of nominating. Equazcion (talk) 20:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * But isn't the major reason for having someone nominate you that the nominator's reputation influences people? If that nominator is not revealed, why not simply nominate yourself? It would probably have the same effect (come to think of it, an anonymous nomination might even lead some people to believe that it's a self-nom in disguise). Regards  So Why  20:19, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I would treat an "anonymous" nomination as a self-nom, unless a trusted third party somehow "vouched" for the nominator. For example, if  said " is being nominated by an anonymous editor.  I know who this anonymous editor is.  In the last year he has over 6000 edits including over 4000 in mainspace and over 500 in Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk spaces and no blocks.  In his 3+ year tenure he has over 15000 edits including over 10000 in mainspace and over 1200 in Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk spaces.  He has 1 block that expired more than 1 year ago.
 * However, I'm just not seeing the need for someone whose reputation is good enough to positively impact an RFA to nominate anonymously. When you nominate someone, you are saying you stand behind him.  You are saying "you trust me, I trust him."  Otherwise, we might as well require all RFAs to be self-noms.
 * davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the way I envision it working: A trusted third party vouches for the nominator's edit stats and user rights. Additionally, the third party would vouch that "I can verify that the nominator makes all of his nominations anonymously, so this should not reflect poorly on the candidate." It should be respectfully accepted that some people simply don't want to deal with any possible political complications arising from RfA nominations, and the candidate shouldn't be judged based on that. Sort of like pleading the fifth. Not wanting to reveal something shouldn't necessarily imply something bad. Equazcion (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In response to the purpose of nominations, I don't see the purpose as merely putting the nominator's reputation behind the candidate, although that does help significantly. The nomination criteria, ie. the blurb that the nominator writes, is, I think, just as meaningful. Equazcion (talk) 20:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * But that blurb can be written by the candidate as well, can't it?  So Why  21:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The candidate could write their own blurb, but the perspective of a different editor, and one who is more experienced than the candidate (as is usually the case), would be more valuable. I think an editor's experience would show through their words, even if we don't know their name. Equazcion (talk) 21:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Does this not boil down to essentially a nomination statement for the nominator? I think that would draw a large amount of concern away from the actual candidate, and put focus on evaluating the nominator: "Candidate is okay, but nominator seems good/iffy so I support/oppose."  Plus, words don't always convey the severity of someone's credibility; there are some names here that are exceptionally well-known.  How could the third party say "This nominator is an admin, and very well trusted.  Seriously, you all trust him."? ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 13:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Uh, Im more worried about tarnishing the candidates reputation. The reason I don't nom is mecause a recommendation from me is possibly a black mark. (But, if someone wants to nom someone else they could llook and see if Wisdom89 is suitable yet.) NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 22:06, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You seem to be supporting my proposal, then :) Equazcion (talk) 22:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I don't like this proposal, but the reasoning has some merit. How about a list of possible candidates (WP:List of possible RfA candidates) to which anyone of standing can add people. Addition is understood as "worth a look for nomination, or might consider self-nomination", not as nomination or even recommendation per se. Would need some mechanism for removing people too, but we could come up with that I'm sure, if it was felt to be a good idea. Rd232 talk 13:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Category:Wikipedia administrator hopefuls would seem to cover that? Pedro : Chat  13:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Not really, because (a) that's self-identified as wanting to be admins, my List is about other people saying "might be a good candidate" (but not sure, needs a closer look before I'll stick my neck out). (b) there's no removal mechanism. How many people in the category are currently active? On removal mechanisms, a bot could easily process the list, say weekly, and show the last edit by each person on the list. Rd232 talk 13:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to reduce impact of G10 and G12 backlogs
Would encouraging CSD taggers to remove the original contents of G10 (Pages that disparage or threaten their subject) or G12 (Unambiguous copyright infringement) reduce the impact of CSD delays, turning a 3-hour backlog from a real danger to a mere nuisance?

A proposal of this nature to WT:SPEEDY endorsed by multiple administrators who regularly do CSD deletions would increase the chance that it would be adopted by the community.

By the way, this was exactly why I asked where the important backlogs were: If we can identify them and either make it easier to shrink them or lessen the importance of getting them knocked off in a hurry, it makes life easier on the janitors. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * First, I'll say that articles tagged with the specific G10 template seem to have pretty much no backlog; I check it once in a while and it never seems to hold articles that have been tagged longer than a few minutes. Second of all, Courtesy_blanked exists for just that reason; this is already an accepted/encouraged tactic. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Christopher is right in that the blank template is pretty widely used - and rightly so. Nevertheless G10's do hang around for some time and the blank template is just what it says. More importantly in terms of overall integrity are the G12's. A few more of them could do with being blanked prior to deletion as well. Google can be pretty fast these days... Pedro : Chat  20:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Should adding a CSD template automatically add a noindex?-- SPhilbrick  T  00:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a discussion for WT:SPEEDY. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  00:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It'd be largely pointless due to technical limitations ~ Amory ( u •  t  •  c ) 19:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Please elaborate. Assuming __NOINDEX__ works like it should, adding it or NOINDEX to speedy templates should be trivial.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Replied at talkpage ~ Amory ( u •  t  •  c ) 20:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * When you add to a page it asks you to blank all content, so that's already not a huge issue (except for page titles).  I see no reason not to include the same tag on G12 pages, although I recognize that there is definitely room for abuse, but that won't change.  And besides, the abusers should be easy to find since it's the entire page not a section. ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 21:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I know the 'possibly copyvio' tag replaces the whole page, but that isn't the CSD tag. Protonk (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * blanking attack pages is a change we implemented in the last few months and IMHO it is working well. Very few G10 tags are incorrect, very few are not blanked, and funnily enough the ones that are not blanked are most likely to be good faith errors. As one of the admins who frequently checks that subcategory and deletes lots of attack pages I suspect that there are a number of admins who will keep an eye on attack pages but won't often spend hours going through the whole of CSD.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:08, 21 October 2009 (UTC)