Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 53

Dissecting the questions
I'd like if I might to plead the case that the additional questions, if and when they are used, need to be tidied up a little. I do this pleading here, as I don't think they are templated or 'owned' anywhere I can find. Question in italics, comments in plain type: More generally, the questions seem designed to constrain an admin into giving sociologically correct answers that they may feel somewhat bound by later, when a different approach is needed to that they gave as an RfA answer. This concerns me a little. -Splash talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) You find out that an editor, who's well-known and liked in the community, has been using sockpuppets abusively. What would you do?
 * This one seems ok to me. -Splash talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) While speedying articles/clearing a backlog at CAT:CSD, you come across an article that many users agree is patent nonsense. A small minority, of, say, three or four disagree. Upon looking the article over, you side with the minority and feel that the article is salvagable. Another admin then speedies it while you are making your decision. What would you do?
 * The question errs. Speedies are not discussed, nor are they readily discussable by this many people. One or two implicitly, perhaps, in the history of the article, but that's all. The question describes either an AfD debate, in which case it neuters itself, or a talk page discussion, in which case it should say so and be reconstructed on those lines. -Splash talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) You speedy a few articles. An anon keeps recreating them, and you re-speedy them. After dropping a note on their talk page, they vandalise your user page and make uncivil comments. You realise they've been blocked before. What would you do? Would you block them, or respect that you have a conflict of interest?
 * The end of the question, "...or respect that you have a conflict of interest", is highly leading in one particular direction. It also appears to misunderstand that simple vandalism is blockable wherever and whenever it occurs. The question does not say that it might not be vandalism, it says that "they vandalise", and thus needs to be reworked or, preferably, discarded. Why is incivility thrown into the mix? -Splash talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that this question is leading. Personally I feel that an incivil vandal is an incivil vandal, and should be blocked whether they're attacking you or someone else. By that logic, all a vandal would have to do to not get blocked would just be harrass any Admin that might block them. Obviously that doesn't really work. &Euml;vilphoenix Burn! 00:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Long question about a whole bunch of dispute resolution hypothetical happenstances.
 * This is so hypothetical, and makes so many assumptions about what a given admin might get involved in in the first place, that really it should just be gotten rid of. Also, "Would you respect the other admin's decisions" is another leading question.
 * 1) If you could change any one thing about Wikipedia what would it be?
 * Ok, I guess. -Splash talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Under what circumstances will you indefinitely block a user without any prior direction from Arb Com?
 * This should be more gently phrased: "will" is a very binding sounding word. "...might you..." would be better.
 * 1) Suppose you are closing an AfD where it would be keep if one counted certain that you suspect are sockpuppets/meatpuppets and would be delete otherwise. The RCU returns inconclusive, what do you do? Is your answer any different if the two possibilities are between "no consensus" and "delete"?
 * Has anyone ever conducted an RCU as part of an AfD closure? Do we just count the votes? Does RCU not have better things to do? -Splash talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Do you believe there is a minimum number of people who need to express there opinions in order to reasonably close an AfD? If so, what is that number? What about RfDs and CfDs?
 * Potentially an interesting question, if mispelt. -Splash talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) 10 and 11 seem fine.

could we maybe just cut down on the number of additional questions just a little? i don't even read most of them anymore because there's so darn many, and then you get into the string of ten different joke questions, and in the end it makes for a rather messy RfA page. does anyone else feel this way? if it's just me, i'll shut up.--Alhutch 02:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Nope, not just you. When joke questions begin to be added, the user(s) who added the question(s) looks bad. I don't care what your answer is to "If there's a thunderstorm and your Internet connection dies in the middle of deleting an article, what would you do?". Tito xd (?!? - help us) 02:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Absolutely. What's with all those extra questions?  I'm all for asking questions that may be pertinent to any particular RfA, but we need to keep it real.  Lately, a group of 11 "standardized" questions is being added to new RfAs.  That's a little too much, I believe.  It has been suggested before that the standard questions need to be revised, since the answers are not meaningful anymore, etc., etc.  So maybe that's what needs to be done.  And then we can keep it reasonable, at least.  Yes, I know the extra questions are "100% optional", but really, who's going to take the fifth in their own RfA, of all places??  Redux 02:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * i think there are people that won't support unless you answer their optional questions, too. I agree that we could revise the standard questions, as having to answer 11 questions seems a little much to me.--Alhutch 03:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, being the poster of those 11 questions (which are basically other peoples questions that I liked) (which upon review of this page is now 9) - I do think they help the candidate a bit, without the extra "insight" some people might vote oppose. I know they are essentially mandatory once I post them, though if a user requests on my talk page, I'll remove them (to remove the user removing questions stigma) -- Tawker 03:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Makes for an interesting definition of "optional", eh? While I dislike the idea of a standard slate of questions (seems like instruction creep), it may be necessary to keep RfA candidates sane. Ummm, more sane. -- MarcoTolo 03:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I've used question 6 in the past before, and will change the wording per the above comments. Actually quite a few of these questions originally came from me. I think they are useful under the right circumstances (like when they were originally used in Tawker's highly unique RfA (with his permission). Also, if someone is a good admin candidate then their answer will generally show it. I do try however to personalize my questions to each candidate (and in some cases have felt no need to ask additional questions, although generally that means I'm going to oppose). JoshuaZ 03:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Your point is one I was reaching for but hadn't quite hit: the majority of the questions are very good, but the key is tailoring the question set to the candidate. Much of the value is in picking questions to clarify issues that may have come up while you (the impresonal "you", not JoshuaZ) were reviewing a candidates edits, user interactions, conflict resolution skills, etc. By tossing a mass of identical questions at someone, you reduce the value while making folks expend the same (or more) effort in answering them. -- MarcoTolo 03:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I would like to know whether this is true in practice. Do people really change their potential oppose to support after reading the answers to the optional questions ? Tintin (talk) 03:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I know I have. One example: I was going to oppose Jedi6 and expressed my concern in my first question to him. He have a very satisfying answer and I voted support as a result. Given that people sometimes vote "neutral pending answer to ___'s questions" or "neutral pending answer to question _ by _" and similar things, I would suspect that there are other examples also. JoshuaZ 03:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * That's an example of a rarer case. It's more common, however, for people to oppose due to inapt answers to questions.  I suppose everyone would remember a RfA where the candidate got a lot of opposition after answering, in an optional question, that (s)he had never heard of the test1-5 and bv templates.  That would have never shown in the answers to the present standard questions, since they are far more general, allowing the candidate to talk about topics (s)he selects.  If this were to be incorporated into the standard questions, there'd be no need for extra questions designed to test a candidate's basic knowledge of Administrative functions.   Redux 04:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Questions to test policy minutia are not good. However, if a candidate gets one, then they presumably have the time to look up what the relevant thing is, check the policies and guidelines, and then answer based on that. Also they are functions of what a candidate intends to do as an admin. For example, if the candidate intended to use it principally for vandal fighting but didn't know what test1-5 were that would be a legitimate concern. JoshuaZ 04:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe we are in agreement. Even if it's not ideal, we should introduce more specific questions, designed to check the candidate's basic knowledge of Administrative functions.  True, it's always possible to look up the information before answering, but I suppose we would be able to tell when the user was writing about something (s)he knows and when (s)he was copying the information and just changing the words.  With one or two well-written questions, the candidate's familiarity with the job should become apparent.  Noting, of course, that all of this would become pointless if we were to come up with some 20 new standard questions, since this wouldn't be reasonable.  Perhaps five or six, and we'd need a compromise so that users will not add blocks of questions to RfAs at a time, or else the whole point would be moot.  Redux 17:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more reliable to test people's knowledge by looking at their contribs? If you see them placing the test templates on vandals talk pages, you know they know how to use them - that's the only sure way. If everyone gets asked the same questions you can just look at the last few successful candidates answers and reword them as your answers. --Tango 17:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * But there are other Administrative functions in which the user may be more interested. VfD, for instance &mdash; if you are not an Adminstrator, you don't get to close *fDs and carry out the decision, which may be what the candidate is interested in doing.  I haven't given any thought to any specific possible wording for any new questions, but I suppose they would cover more than one area of Administrative functions.  We already check the contribs, anyway.  Even if the candidate says that (s)he knows everything that there is to know about (e.g.) fighting vandalism, most users will still check the contribs to see if the candidate has been reverting vandalism, warning vandals with the templates, etc.  The questions should serve the purpose of complementing the data we get out of checking a user's list of contribs (or vice-versa).  Redux 18:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to mark administrators like featured articles
Please see relevant discussion at. -- May the Force be with you! Shreshth91 ($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) 14:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

This is getting out of control
Hypothetical questions and "I would like to see more of..." votes are two ways voters are trying to exercise power over admins. There is at least one voter who votes no if any admin refuses or otherwise fails to answer his long, extremely hypothetical questions (involving god, a priest etc etc) within 24 hours. Then there are the others who dangle the ever diminishing carrot "I'd vote for ya, but I'd like to see just a few more edits...". 500 edits was once enough. Then it was 1000. Now 3000 is a more reasonable target. Why? Because adminning is suddenly harder? No, because voters simply want to extract more from their candidates.

I was considering applying for admin. Hell, check out my edit summary stats, I've been suckered into commenting all my minor edits, even when they're creation of redirects, or in my own user space! What for? To pander to the voters. Will it make me a better admin?

Could we all get our minds a little bit more on the task of simply deciding whether someone is too risky to have as an admin? Low edit summary usage, edit counts in the 1000's, and failure to answer improbably hypothetical questions have nothing to do with that. Thanks. Stevage 23:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Some questions have merit but the time limit on responses (aka I will vote oppose if no response within 24 hours) are pretty silly. Someone quoted CIVL as a reason, I don't get how its not CIVL to not respond to a question within 24 hours, admin (and candidates) are allowed to have lives too.  Edit summaries, well, I'm 50/50 on em, they do help in RC Patrol but a lot are very very trivial. -- Tawker 23:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * On the other hand: "If you were admin, an angel, a prophet, and a priest all claiming that you must do something on Wikipedia behalf of your deity. One the page you was to work on they all contradict each other, the angel say save, the prophet say delete, the priest says rewrite a page. Who do you believe, and obey?" is definitely not helpful, especially the "believe, and obey" part, which suggests doing whatever they want rather then following policy. Prodego  talk  23:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * That's certainly an interesting question. Candidates always have the right to pass over a question or indicate that they'd prefer not to answer it, though, if they choose. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 00:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anything is out of control. I see it as just a low level of static. X number of people will vote oppose for silly reasons, and you will be asked a bunch of questions. Not too many people are going to care if you don't answer the silly question, those that do would probably have voted against you anyway. We still end up promoting good candidates all the time. Candidates and their supporters should just grin and bear it, and not worry about it too much. NoSeptember  talk  00:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I also think Stevage is exaggerating things a bit (and the comment about edit summaries was not quite accurate). Your adminship nomination failed for some good reasons. If you reaply at the end of May (two months since your last nomination) and don't do any big questionable things in between, from my experience you will have a very smooth sailing. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Oleg, just wanted to say I totally accept my RfA getting killed. My complaint isn't so much about that, but about the process in general - and how it will apply if/when I am nominated again :) Politics is always a dirty business, but these unreasonable demands are really unnecessary. Stevage 08:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter if candidates have the option of foregoing answering the "optional" questions, since people will vote them down anyways solely for not answering the questions. -- tomf688 {talk} 01:38, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it may be a little crazy, but it is not yet near out of control. Prodego  talk  01:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * In plain english, with all these farfetched voting patterns.....I find RfA silly now. I look at some of the opposes and laugh, and think, "Thank god my RfA was in early March..." Something needs to be done if this spiral continues. &mdash; Deckill e r 01:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps de-admin all those promoted before March, and see if they can still hack it? -Splash talk 02:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm? What I was saying was that I'm just seeing a lot more awkward opposes lately. Not enough to really affect the stats, but just enough to be noticable to me. &mdash; Deckill e r 03:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, in the last few days we have had opposing because questions werent answered in 24 hours, opposing basically because a candidate wasn't defensive enough, and opposing because a candidate thought that for content disputes admins are at the same level of other editors. And those are only the worse examples. JoshuaZ 03:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This must be about the millionth thread on this hyperbole. Not a lot has changed in a couple of years, and Durin has produced graphs that prove it. Not much to do with edits, not much to do with behaviour. Sure, there are more questions lately. Don't answer them if you don't want to, and don't read them if they are answered if you don't want to. Don't complain that it's a pure vote at the same time. The comment above about "early March" exemplifies this: I find it more-or-less unbelievable that the world has shifted so much that you find things unrecognisable since 6 or 7 weeks ago. You just haven't been around here enough, that's all. To Stevage: yes, if you can't write an adequate edit summary for near every edit, and answer those questions skilfully, I do think you will be less of an admin for it, and you will be less likely to earn my support as a result. Good editors would be able to handle those things entirely gracefully, and all in a day's wikiwork. There'd be no need for "World is ending, must stop spiral of doom" threads, because they'd spot the flaws in the questions, and just have the good manners to summarise their edits. Extracting more from candidates is also reasonable. There are more of them to choose from; it's natural market forces, even though Wikipedia is not a market is a should-be bluelink. We need more admins, sure, but it's not like the current corps is cracking at the seams and on the verge of sinking (with some notable exceptions like WP:CP, but that's not a function of how many admins we have). -Splash talk 02:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm? Not trying to jump on you here but I think Durin's charts show substantial change in the past year on RfA. In 7/05 there was over an 80% success rate for candidates, by the end of 3/06 there was under a 50% success rate. Candidates being expected to play 20 questions is a new phenomenon, at least in my RfA a scant 4 months ago, I got the 3 default questions and that was it. It's true that candidates can skip the questions... but I highly doubt even a well qualified candidate would pass an RfA if they did that. --W.marsh 03:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * But these graphs draw straight lines through essentially random noise. Also, I did not talk about success rate. One explanation for that is that candidates are less qualified at the point of application than they used to be, without standards having shifted. That would tally reasonably well with a larger number of Wikipedians being around and thus those who have a weak appreciation of the hypothetically static standards being more likely to turn up here. The "average edit count of RfAs over time" graph exemplifies the fact that statistical techniques need care in their application: I find it more or less meaningless to draw a straigh line through a thing that goes up, down, round about and finishes up more or less where it started. Don't always blame the RfA participators for a candidate being rejected: it may well be the candidates fault entirely. I already dealt with the questions, and anyone saying that they are a problem should go and mark their ballot paper in the polling booth and wait for the results of the vote. If a well-qualified candidate can't answer those questions, then I disagree that they are well-qualified. If a well-qualified candidate thinks themselves above community scrutiny and feels no need to respond when information is asked for, then again I disagree that they are as well-qualified as the assumption in your statement. -Splash talk 10:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You know what should also be a bluelink? Wikipedia is not a contest. While our community shouldn't hesitate to set standards for adminship, you shouldn't have to have a jaw-dropping edit count, a huge portfolio of featured articles or 100% edit summary usage. Reading through the oppose votes on some current RFAs, it seems to me that a few users here and there are digging pretty deep to find reasons to oppose. I mean, a couple of editors think admins are not allowed to name themselves after a fictional character. Really, where do people come up with this stuff? Apparently some expect potential admins to be absolutely perfect Wikipedians in all possible ways, picking out outlandish, contrived "flaws". szyslak  (t, c,  e ) 07:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Done, I just created a proposal for Wikipedia is not a contest. Pegasus1138 Talk 07:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * There doesn't really seem to be any consistancy to some people's comments either. For example, User:Lord Voldemort and User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me were given oppose votes for having supposed "copyrighted" usernames yet I wasn't? Jedi6  -(need help?)  07:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The old addage "WP:NOT consistent" comes to mind here. Oh well, what can you do.  8-)  Can&#39;t sleep, clown will eat me 07:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

On edit summary usage, I agree with Splash that an editor who always comments is better than one who only sometimes does. But is a non-commenter too risky to be an admin? If it becomes a big problem, perhaps someone could just tell him: hey, you're an admin now, mind using a few more edit summaries? Splash argues that given the oversupply of admins and the smaller demand, then "natural market forces" leads us to oppose them? I disagree. We have a policy to apply that says that anyone vaguely trustworthy should be acceptable. Until that policy changes, I don't believe "natural market forces" have a place here. Stevage 08:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Which policy says that? Never have I read a page on Wikipedia that says "anyone who is vaguely trustworthy shall be an admin". And, anyway, policy is what people does. The "give it away to anyone" thing has probably never been true, and it isn't now. Jimbo's "no big deal" comment requires a great deal of interpretation, not least to elevate it to a policy, to reach the kind of conclusion you're demanding. The problem, most often, in a failed RfA is with the candidate and not the process or the community (not always, no, but most often). -Splash talk 10:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed. It is only natural that when admins are in rich supply (acting admins, not inactive accounts with admin rights), there is no need to appoint anybody, except for people with a potential to be extremely useful and very unlikely to become problem users. Otoh, when admin tasks are piling up with no-one bothering to do them, the community will be eager to promote anybody vaguely trustworthy with an interest in doing them. Yes, these are market forces, and yes, the community should select admins from a rationale entirely biased towards the maximum benefit of the project, and no, there is no inherent right to be an admin. I would be open towards unbureaucratic de-adminning procedures for less than useful admins (viz., bitching/wheel-warring to mopping ratio; disclaimer: I know I'm no showcase admin, but I am here to write articles first and foremost; my occasional admin actions are next to always uncontroversial, so I argue my admin rights continue to be slightly beneficial at zero cost to the community). dab (&#5839;) 11:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Re no need to appoint just anybody, recently a certain user has been supporting candidates with the reason "'Currently, there is only one admin to every ~1,224 articles and ~1449 users. I.E., they number at just ~0.07% of the total population on Wikipedia. I'd say that is too few. At least 0.1% would be adequate. An idea you should apply if deemed necessary- Watch any new admin's actions closely for the first thirty days to make sure they are fit for the job'"


 * Can we ignore these supports as disruption? This user clearly does not observe usefulness of candidates before deciding upon his "vote". Otherwise we could just admin everyone for the sake of it already. NSL E (T+C) at 12:09 UTC (2006-04-21)


 * I would slightly WP:AGF and say that the voter possibly means "we really need admins for these reasons and (implied) I don't see any strong reason why this person shouldn't be one." A more serious problem is that one of the user's unstated premises- that the above numbers are somehow bad- is questionable. There is no obvious reason why this should be too few or too many. How many admins we need is a function of many different things, how active the admins are, how much vandalism we have, how many admins are willing to do which admin duties etc. A backlog based argument might make sense. Furthermore, many of the users in the user total are blocked accounts, and it is highly unobvious why one would need a high admin/article ratio. An argument founded on these ratios is simply innumerate. JoshuaZ 13:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * (Responding on several points above); Once again there's claims that the edit count standards are skyrocketing. As noted before, I'm slowly working my way through all RfAs done through WP:RFA. I've got the first 28 successful RfAs now. Average edit count at time of RfA: 3638. So far, there's only one unsuccessful RfA, and that user had 9 edits at time of RfA. There's lots more data to be mined here, but the average good candidate does not look all that dissimilar to current standards. It's going to take a while to collect all the data. But, when it's done I'll post my findings here (and, finally, all the raw data...you can start drooling now JoshuaZ, NoSeptember :))
 * As to the ratios of users/admin and articles/admins...I've thought about these ratios as well, and keep track of them. However, I don't think they're particularly illuminating. There are plenty of articles on Wikipedia that never see edits. They're essentially static. So, the burden of such articles on the admin corps is zero. Similarly, there are literally hundreds of thousands of inactive accounts. Again, the burden is zero. What is probably more illuminating is how much activity there is relative to how many admins there are (though it'd be nice if we had a good read on the number of active admins). I've been keeping track of that ratio as well for a considerable length of time. I gauge this by the number of edits per day vs. the number of admins we have. While the number of users per admin keeps going up and up, and the number of articles per admin keeps going up and up, the number of edits per day divided by the number of admins we have has remained essentially flat for the last half year.
 * Over the history of RfA there have been a number of trends regarding the ways in which people comment on RfAs. Some of you may recall the time period last year when people frequently did things like  EXTREME LESBIAN SUPPORT!!!  and the like. Right now, it's the fashion to add lots of questions to RfAs. I don't know that this is wrong per se; often the questions are good, and the answers illuminating. If a question is in bad faith, it should be treated as such. Maybe this is another way in which bureaucrats could help the process; shepherd the RfAs by monitoring what questions are asked and remove those that are inappropriate to the task at hand. Regardless, I think this fashion will probably pass, especially if the bureaucrats step in and begin culling inappropriate questions. --Durin 13:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Averages of all RfAs is less revelatory than a close inspection of close RfAs (both close successfuls and close failures).
 * I would note that a lot of the past failed RfAs were not properly recorded in the past as they are today, so a calcualtion of the success rate of submitted RfAs is also not truly accurate. I found 7 Failed RfAs from May/June 2004 that are not listed at Unsuccessful adminship candidacies. NoSeptember   talk  15:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * As someone who often adds questions and is slightly annoyed by the guilt by association with the more ridiculous questions, I would strongly support bureaucratic removal of unproductive questions. As to your other comments, as usual, they are very insightful. JoshuaZ 13:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I concur. I extremely lesbian appreciate your statistics. Puts current fears on potential admins and number of admins in an objective perspective! Have bookmarked you stats page now as well, and look forward to drooling along with the rest ;-)  The Minist   e   r of War   (Peace) 14:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I would strongly oppose bureaucrats removing questions. Their role is to determine what the outcome has been, not to control the process itself. Any editor can remove trollery when they see it, and all editors should avoid edit warring over a given question. -Splash talk 14:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Bureaucrats already do more at RfA than just resolve whether a person is given adminship privileges or not. I take your point though, in that if bureaucrats make subjective calls about such things there will be opposition. I agree. I'm just thinking that might be more palatable than non-bureaucrats removing bad-faith questions. It's a subjective move no matter how you do it, and bureaucrats are highly trusted individuals thus more likely to be non-controversial in removing such questions. --Durin 14:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we overuse the term "highly trusted" about bureaucrats. They are trusted, yes, but the second they make a mistake, that trust goes out the window (at least from many who feel shortchanged by the mistake). Rather than setting them up as supermen of trustworthiness, we should just accept them as being human. Increasing their involvement during the RfA process is not necessary, they should not remove questions except those that anyone could remove as obviously silly or trollish. I don't see a bureaucrat removing a marginal question as being any less controversial an action just because they are a bureaucrat. NoSeptember   talk  15:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Formal standards for voting
Ok, so the problem is basically that anyone can vote for or against any admin, for any reason they like. Think we need 10,000 more admins? Vote for everyone. Don't like Christians? Vote against Christians. However, this is at odds with the way most things work on Wikipedia. AfD has rules: We only delete when an article topic is not notable, contains no sources to allow it to be destubbed, is a copyvio, and so forth. We generally discourage people from voting delete simply because they dislike the subject, for example.

So, how about we refine the exact qualities and numbers of admins we're looking for? It seems really counterproductive to have some people voting support on the basis that they want more admins in general, and others voting oppose for the reverse reason - when neither is particularly interested in the individual candidate in question. It would make much more sense to have the discussion about how many admins we want in one place, build an RfA policy out of that, then vote according to how well we believe each candidate meets the criteria we've defined.

So, a very tentative set of guidelines, which are totally open to discussion:
 * Edit count. An admin must have at least 1000 edits. It is not reasonable to discriminate against a candidate for low edit count if s/he has more than that.
 * Edit summary. An admin must have 75% edit summary usage for major edits for the last 150 edits. Again, anyone who passes this requirement is satisfactory.
 * Edit wars. An admin must have had no veritable edit war in the 3 months prior to the RfA. Minor edit wars prior to that are forgiven. Major edit wars in the 12 months prior can be used as a reason to vote oppose.
 * Featured articles. Absence of featured articles is not a reason to vote against a candidate.
 * Admin demand. At various times, there may be a surfeit of available admins. At such times, the RfA process will be placed on hold. Any other time, voters should consider that Wikipedia needs all the qualified admins it can get.

And so on. The idea is that the voting process should simply amount to a review of the candidate, making sure they meet the criteria. As opposed to a popularity contest. Comments please! Stevage 14:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Won't work, everyone already has their own guidlines, in fact we have pages full of different people's guidelines. JoshuaZ 14:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * And they're all different. My proposal is to make them one. Stevage


 * Responding to the measures:
 * Edit count: I could make 100 edits that contribute more verifiable material to the project than 10,000 edits of another user. Edit counting is not a valid way to measure the worthiness of anyone at Wikipedia. The value of a particular edit (outside of vandalism) is 100% subjective.
 * I mostly agree, but that's not the point. I'm proposing ruling out editcountitis above 1000 edits. Once you've done 1000, you're good, and people should not keep you out because you haven't reached 2000, for example. Stevage
 * Edit summary: I'm a big fan of good edit summaries. But, that's subjective. If I see a person with 100% edit summary usage, but uses them poorly I'd consider that a negative. It's not just the numbers.
 * Ditto. These are reasons not to vote no. They're not reasons to vote yes. Stevage
 * Edit wars: Some edit war participation is 100% acceptable. Heavy POV fighting, vandalism fighting, etc. For example, if a user keeps trying to push "George Bush is an extreme conservative christian" into an article on George Bush, and another user keeps reverting it and attempting to engage the person in conversation on the article's talk page or the user's talk page without success, the revert warring is perfectly acceptable. I'd personally try to get some admins involved to help stop the POV pushing, but revert warring in that case on a temporary basis is acceptable until the cavalry arrives, so to speak. It can be very difficult to untangle such messes and determine who was in the right and who was in the wrong. So, who does it? Also, how do you define "major" vs. "minor" edit wars?
 * Just on that last question, *that* is something I'm leaving up to voters. Rather than making the whole question totally subjective, I'm just making definition of terms like "major" and "minor" subjective. Stevage
 * This in itself is highly subjective. I recently observed an editor edit warring with a troll only to get punished himself when the 'calvery' arrived. (Not that the admin who did the punishing was bad. He did it with good intent.) --  127 . * . * . 1  14:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Admin demand: How do you measure whether we need more admins or not? I'm very interested to hear your response on this.
 * People seem to have their own ideas on this, but they don't discuss them much. We should have the debate, then at least we can all just agree to follow the policy. "I think we don't need any more admins, but consensus says we do. Guess I have to follow the group decision". Better than mavericks fighting against each other. Stevage


 * There's some comments for you :) --Durin 14:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * ta. Stevage 14:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think there is some amount of confusion as to what you propose. Are these minimal required conditions, or rather sufficient? Either way, you still run into the fact that ultimately some people which meet all the requirements wouldnt make good admins, and some people who dont meet them would! Its all a pretty subjective matter any which way you turn it imho. The Minist   e   r of War   (Peace) 14:45, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually my edit count guideline is both a minimal condition (you must have 1000 edits) and a sufficient condition (1000 edits is enough - you can't ask for more). Note that you can still find another reasons to vote against people (eg, vandalism), but you should not cite lack of edits as a reason if they have met the agreed minimum standard. Stevage 16:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Re-factoring in a sense, in pulling conversation back together. Steveage, if someone had 5000 edits and virtually all of them were to their userpage, I'd most definitely oppose. Sure, that's an extreme case, but it serve to highlight that some people, regardless of their edit count, are just not qualified to be an admin. If a user has 1,000 edits and not one single edit to the Wikipedia project namespaces, you'd censor my oppose vote because it's not a valid oppose? I'm sorry, I'm 100% against that. Regarding admin demand; I've yet to see any argument that supports (much less strongly supports) the idea that we have, have had, or ever will have enough admins. It's an unending demand. There's constant backlogs all over the place. --Durin 14:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I haven't been clear. I would oppose that person to. But you wouldn't say "5000 edits, not enough!", instead you would say "doesn't seem to be interested in actually building an encyclopaedia". But if you did for some weird reason say "not enough, I need 6000 edits", then (according to this guideline) your vote could be discounted.

I think the answer to minimum standards is what is going on here in this discussion. Let ideas be thrown out so we can all think about them and maybe change our view on how important different things should be in evaluating RfA candidates, but in the end rely on the human factor of each individual voter making their own choice of whether the candidate passes muster. Our standards are set and our standards change over time in the collective minds of the active participants in RfA. No formal standards are needed, and there is no need to bring the few users who have standards out of line with the majority of us into line with us either. NoSeptember  talk  15:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * As it is now, it is within crat's authority to discount votes they consider to be poorly based. If one wrote "Oppose Because he is in reality the anti-christ and is working with his UFOs to subvert Wikipedia!" the vote would be most likely be ignored. Similarly, if one wrote "Oppose Must have at least 10,000 edits" I suspect that would also be ignored. JoshuaZ 15:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * A bureaucrat who does too much of that is not doing a good job. If a well established editor has unusual standards, so be it. There are just as many (probably proportionally more) support voters without good reasons as well. It can have a slight impact on close contests, but we didn't pick bureaucrats to replace our opinions with their own, but only to judge community consensus. NoSeptember   talk  15:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I simply disagree with this. The AfD equivalent would be "let's chat about what we want in this encyclopaedia, but in the end, everyone make up their own mind". The music:notability equivalent would be "different people have different ideas about what bands are notable. it's up to you!". The manual of style equivalent would be "use whatever style you like, but if you come into conflict with another editor, try and talk it out". It is precisely because there is so much freedom in voting here that we have these bizarre situations where voters try and exercise power over candidates by making them jump through hoops such as answering 20 questions, hypothetical questions about god, or eternally raising the bar on the number of edits an admin is supposed to have. Stevage 15:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Admins are not encyclopedia content. And how a candidate handles questions says more about them than what their answer is oftentimes. Comparing RfA to content or MoS issues doesn't work well. While everyone can make up their own mind when casting a vote, it is all those "normal" people in the middle that make the actual decision as to whether someone passes or not. You become an admin whether you have 0 oppose votes or 15 oppose votes, as long as you have consensus. Unlike with articles, each editor can not make someone else an admin or revert someone else's making someone an admin, we wait for community consensus and make the decision once. It is not an edit war. We don't need to worry about the unusual voting and questioning behavior of the few. NoSeptember   talk  15:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem with that analogy is that human editors are more complex than an article, so naturally there will be more complex criteria on which they can be evaluated. So complex that we let other human editors decide without restricting what they can object to.  It results in silly oppose votes, but I haven't seen a candidate killed by unreasonable votes alone.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Votevotevotevotevotevote. It's not, and so if someone is being completely spurious, they can be overlooked by a skilled bureaucrat. The skill of course, is in making sure you don't overlook someone simply because you disagree with them, and in being able to tell the difference. RfA does not often produce bad results. This is in large part because of the great freedom editors have in their participation here, and the ability that imparts to be quite detailed in ones assessment of a candidate prior to deciding which way to go. It allows for the 'rules' to change as they need to, and allows us to avoid having to promote someone who meets your favourite criteria but has some bugbear lurking somewhere. It also allows us to promote someone who misses some number somewhere but is nevertheless an outstanding editor. It is not reasonable or sensible to impose one person's, nor one small group of people's personal preferences on everyone. You can have them and hold them yourself, and participate in line with them. The rest of us can make our own decision as to whether we agree with them or not. -Splash talk 15:42, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but these guidelines would be drawn up with normal consensus process. Ultimately the whole community has to deal with the effects of each admin getting promoted. Therefore the admin should be promoted by a process that the community agrees with, rather than the whims of the few people who actually vote on any individual RfA. I'm quite specifically arguing *against* imposing personal preferences on the group - it should in fact be the other way around :)
 * I do also have to disagree with "the ability that imparts to be quite detailed in ones assessment of a candidate" - yes, this happens sometimes. But "Come back in another 1000 edits" happens a lot more often :) Stevage 16:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I would point out that Presidents and Prime ministers get elected without all sort of rules like You must have X years of foreign policy experience.... Voters take such things into mind without our need to tell them what exact standards they should use when voting. RfA should be the same way. NoSeptember   talk  15:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Presidents are quite openly elected in a popularity contest. No one would disagree with that. The point is that adminship should not be about popularity, but instead trust. It's not about representation, it's about risk management. Stevage 16:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Good people skills tends to make one popular, and good people skills are useful in the job of admin, so the fact that popular editors do well is not surprising. But I see people voting against popular candidates all the time, in RfAs because they don't think they would be a good admin, and in political elections because the popular guy belongs to the other party. You can't eliminate subjective factors in RfA voting, because there are legitimate subjective factors that matter in the making of a good admin. NoSeptember   talk  16:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:SIG
I'm a bit curious, what do others think about treating images in signatures as a reason to oppose admin candidates? JoshuaZ 13:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * People sometimes use RfA as a platform regarding issues that are important to them. Some people are well aware of the strain on the already over burdened image servers that having images in signatures generates. For them, it's an important issue. It can be tied back to a person's ability to successfully enhance the project in the sense that if the user is inconsiderate enough to have images in their signature, they probably don't care too much about other negative impacts on the project. The missing link in that though is whether the candidate knows it has a negative impact. If they do, and they do it anyways, then certainly that could be a valid reason to oppose. If the user doesn't, then ignorance is a valid defense. In the most recent case, the person voting oppose is saying they'll support once the person removes the images as opposed to voting oppose without possibility of the vote being changed. So, I don't find any particular problem with the vote because it is not a static vote and allows for the ignorance defense. --Durin 14:13, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Opposing someone for something as trivial as not liking their signature is petty. Much better to simply discuss it with them. We're not electing representatives here, we're appointing administators. Stevage 15:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's a fine reason to vote oppose. To Durin, I would say ignorantia legis neminem excusat.  Ignorance of the law is no excuse.  People who don't know the project well enough to figure out what kind of signatures are preferred also don't know the project well enough to interpret consensus, delete pages, and implement bans.  -lethe talk [ +] 15:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Pictures in a signature? hmmm... [[Image:EsperanzaN.png|20px]] oSe [[Image:EsperanzaP.PNG|20px]] tembe [[Image:EsperanzaR.PNG|20px]] talk  18:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Nosept, sig pictures drain the image server uncessarily and make pages much slower to load for people with slower connections. By the way Lethe, the sig rule is only a guideline, and a minor guideline at that, so ignorantia legis neminem excusat shouldn't apply. Although, as long as we are doing the latin, imagi in signaturi delendi sunt (someone correct that if there are any mistakes, I'm sure there is at least one thing terribly wrong with it but not sure what). JoshuaZ 18:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * As to whether or not the proverb applies, if you think that violation (willful or otherwise) of minor guidelines, shouldn't allow you to vote oppose on candidates, you're welcome to that opinion, but I happen not to agree. For people who don't agree with you, who think that violation of the guideline is bad, then there is still the ignorance defense which Durin brought, which I was objecting to.  I think violation of the rule is bad (in disagreement with you), and that ignorance is no defense (in disagreement with Durin). -lethe talk [ +] 19:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I knew that, but I'm always looking for new ideas for signatures :-). Πø§ėþťεmβër   talk  18:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe the plural of imago is imagines. Also I think it's feminine, and prepositions take the ablative, so I think maybe imagines in signaturis delendae sunt, but don't quote me on it. -lethe talk [ +] 19:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Wow, that had more mistakes than I thought (I suppose assuming everything is second declension is unhealthy). Your version looks correct. JoshuaZ 19:13, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Getting lessons in Latin at WT:RFA. Who'da thunk it? pops a budweiser open and kicks back.. --Durin 19:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting trend
While considering the statistics regarding changes in edit count standards, I remembered another chart that I have at this location. I decided to update the table there, and replace the chart as both were out of date. I was frankly surprised to find that all categories of RfA candidates have dropped in success rate. I'd previously been under the faulty conclusion that we'd seen an upswing in the number of unqualified candidates (read in this context: low edit counts), which explained why the overall success rate has gone down significantly.

It can be observed from the table at the above linked location that all categories dropped in a range of 3-6% with the execption of 2001-3000 edits, which fell 9%. This got me wondering what the data looks like if we isolated only the data from this year. This showed something rather different. The drop in % for the categories for this year so far vs. all RfAs from June 27, 2005 to December 31, 2005: What really lept out at me was the 2001-3000 range dropping 40% in success rate. In general, for some reason, there are more failed RfAs across all ranges than last year. Why, I don't know. There's lots of potential reasons, and little data to show which reasons might relevant. I'm going to partially reverse myself here; this data does suggest that standards are going up. I think more analysis would help to highlight what's happening. --Durin 15:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It could equally well suggest that, with the growing Wikipedia population, more unsuitable candidates come forward and are rejected, without standards having dramatically shifted. All these edit-building tools like AWB and Godmode-lite and things make it easy to rack-up edits and still fall well short of pretty basic admin standards, without those basics having fundamentally shifted. -Splash talk 15:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Bingo. Any analysis that lumps all candidates together (including the obviously unsuitable ones) is flawed. We should focus on the pass/fail line, not the overall pass rate. I would be interested in seeing an analysis of RfAs that had between 50% and 90% support votes (so that we exclude the obvious failures and the obvious great candidates). On a separate point Splash brings up, is there a way to measure non-revert edit counts?  NoSeptember   talk  16:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Do you have any data on the amount of votes Durin? Perhaps the fact that there are more voters around (more aspiring admins? At least that seems to be the case in my perception) has influenced it as well. The Minist   e   r of War   (Peace) 16:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * IMO this means that edit count standards have risen above 2000-3000. Candidates with such edit counts now pass much harder than before. Conscious 17:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Apart from that simply not being borne out by the data, there are any number of reasons why a candidate with 2000-3000 edits might not have developed themselves sufficiently for people to support their RfA. There is nothing wrong with that. -Splash talk 17:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * To echo splash, there are many explanations other than the acceptable edit count having gone up. For example, we have recently had more POV-warriors trying to become admins. Many such candidates have many edits but will be voted down. Also, we have had more admins who have been desysopped by the Arb Com who have since run again. AFAICT Those cases lead almost uniformily to failure but will push the average edit count up. There are other possible explanations as well. JoshuaZ 17:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that there may be other explanations. Conscious 18:30, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Splash's comments in general, that standards (not standards regarding edit counts, but standards) may have not changed at all. There are other factors at play here. There are many different ways of looking at the same data. Minister of war: Yes, I have data on the number of sup/opp/neu votes for every RfA from June 2005 through current. NoSeptember (see, I knew you'd drool over the data ;)) Yes, I can generate the same data only for candidates in the 50%-90% support range. I don't have the time right now to do that though. If I don't get back to you, remind me about this sometime next week. --Durin 19:14, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * This only goes to show that the distribution of edits is more important than the raw number of edits. But I guess we already knew that.  Or did we?  Redux 20:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * PAGAN SINNER! IT'S THE RAW NUMBER OF EDITS YOU FOOL! Anyone beneath 10,000 edits just isn't worthy! wait...that includes me...hmm... --Durin 22:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Good job, Durin. Just a reminder, though, whenever we look at these statistics: correlation is not causation, and there may be many other lurking variables that influence these data. (In fact, the decreases may not even be statistically significant; the appropriate test must be performed to determined that.) All caveats aside, though, these numbers are quite interesting. Thanks again! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 23:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. What Flcelloguy said...right...totally.  We cannot assume causation from correlation...wait, no... [check dictionary and thesaurus]... I mean, yes!  Oh, I'll just go count edits ;).  Redux 04:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Strike outs
Please do not strike out a sock puppet's vote or comments (WRT: RasputinAXP's RFA). Instead 1) delist it from the numbering system by using #: and 2) add a small signed note below saying that the above user is a sockpuppet. The closing bureaucrat might want to evaluate the validity of the claim. =Nichalp  «Talk»=  08:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree 100%. Removing and/or striking votes is a bureaucrat task, and should remain such. Essjay  Talk •  Contact 21:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Note to bureaucrats: The above user has been a bureaucrat for less than a month (^_~). NoSeptember   talk  15:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Threshold for adminship
I'm a bit surprised that a simple majority among self-selecting voters is enough for adminship. I realize that a bureaucrat can exercise discretion in the event that the vote results were questionable in some way, but since this is a subjective call we should assume that a simple majority is all that is usually necessary for adminship.

I would like to see a higher number of Support than Oppose votes required for a successful nomination, maybe a two-thirds majority? --Saforrest 17:16, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm? The threshold is generally around 80% support, 70-75% at the very lowest. --W.marsh 17:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Who informed you it was a simple majority? Johnleemk | Talk 17:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Indeed. The 70-75% [oopps. corrected and noted underneath. Redux 17:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)] is only in particular conditions.  The safe pass is only at 80%.  That's a higher percentage of support than one needs to become Pope (that's "just" 75% of the votes in the conclave).  Can't get much more selective than this.  Redux 17:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Excuse me. What 70-75%??  Sorry about that.  The window for bureaucrat discretion in 75-80%.  A 74% support means fail.  My mind must be going...  Redux 17:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, from Guide to requests for adminship: "it is unusual for those below 75% to succeed, but all cases are weighed on their merits". Of course the whole thing is rather murky in my opinion. --W.marsh 17:52, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The GRFA is not policy, and a Bureaucrat can only act in accordance with the clear community consensus, which right now is rather specific that below 75% is just too low to promote. Of course, that's about the actual consensus.  It is completely possible that a RfA gets so complicated that there may be an apparent consensus that is below 75%, but once all the problems get pealed off, we realize that the legitimate community consensus to promote is actually sufficient.  Naturally, that level of disturbance is a lot rarer, and normally a "complicated" RfA will have consensus just under the necessary 80%.  A Bureacrat is allowed a degree of discretion exactly so that this can be compensated.  The observation in the GRFA is in the sense of "it's not just about counting votes; the whole thing needs to be analyzed before any decision can be made."  Redux 18:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Even though the standard threshold is >80% = immediate pass; 75-80% = possibly controversial and up to discretionl <75% = immediate fail there are plenty of exceptions both ways and it should be remembered that RFA isn't run off absolute numbers, it's run off consensus, although I think the lowest below the 75% mark that passed was 72 or 73 percent and that was extremely controversial. Pegasus1138 Talk 18:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but my point was that under the current set of standards 74% and under technically doesn't "mean fail" - that's not codified into policy anywhere. People have been promoted with under 74% support, so it's not a hard limit. --W.marsh 19:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict: answer to Pegasus):That's what I was saying, in other words. Although there aren't that many cases of promotion with consensus under 75%.  And yes, the last time it happened it was in the aftermath of someone  [mistakenly] editing the instructions for Bureaucrats, and involving a recently-promoted (then) Bcrat.  It was problematic exactly because that time around the consensus was indeed below even 75% (there were no huge controversies in the RfA throwing off consensus).  But someone had changed the instructions to read that a consensus as low as 70% was enough for promotion on Bureaucrat discretion (which does not mean that the Bureaucrat gets to pick and choose unilateraly who gets to be promoted if consensus is within that window; the Bureaucrat has to conduct an analysis of the situation in order to determine the actual, legitimate community feeling about the candidate). Marsh, if the closing Bureaucrat cannot identify any odd circumstances that may be throwing consensus in the RfA, (s)he can't promote at 74%.  The nature of Bureaucracy is action on community consensus, and as I said before, the clear community feeling these days is: 80% or greater means pass; 75%-80% means discretion, so that eventual problems can be compensated; under 75% means fail, unless a very unusual problem has appeared that has disturbed the RfA deeply and is creating an apparent consensus that is far below what the community actually feels about the candidate.  But it would have to be something truly, amazingly exceptional.  Redux 19:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What I disagree with is the fact that even though consensus here is not hard coded and due to it's ever changing nature probably never will be it is becoming more and more of a faux hard rule. For example, many people here are saying that -75% should be failed barring hugely acceptional circumstances which I agree with for the most part, but the fact that bureacurats are too are being somewhat held to this rule with them being berated and even being asked to resign (as happened twice in recent history) if they dare go against what the mob thinks is just unacceptable. Pegasus1138 Talk  20:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

But you need to understand that the very nature of the role played by Bureaucrats is to act only in accordance with community consensus, not only in promoting (or not), but also with respect to the inner workings of RfA. Bureacrats serve Wikipedia (that is, the community), not the other way around. If Bureaucrats could go about as they please, and make unilateral decisions as to how things will work, or who gets promoted and when, then there'd be no need for RfA, and people would simply petition to Bureaucrats for promotion (I'm "borrowing" this last sentence from Cecropia, btw, with alterations in wording). Redux 21:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Request
Since I figure it will get read here more likely than in the comments section on my nom I'd like to make an official request that my nom not be snowballed even if it has a lot more oppose than supports since I'd rather withdraw the nom myself if I feel that it has no chance of suceeding. Pegasus1138 Talk 20:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I take it you're asking that it not be closed early; I for one will respect your request (and lately, I've been the rouge bureaucrat who has been closing 75% oppose votes early :-D). Essjay  Talk •  Contact 20:59, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes that is what I'm asking, thouh I may or may not decide to withdraw in which case it should be delisted and archived if I withdraw. Pegasus1138 Talk 21:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * User:Linuxbeak closed and delisted after User:Moe Epsilon noted it was piling on. NSL E (T+C) at 02:21 UTC (2006-04-23)


 * Yes, but he asked me about it first on IRC and I told him I didn't object. Pegasus1138 Talk 02:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)