Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 63

On Super-duper majority and voting for administrators
I have been studying closely the issues surrounding RFA and have determined that perhaps one of the problems is the requirement for a super-duper majority of support votes in order to obtain adminship (75% to 80%). If you compare this to other areas where community consensus is measured, this criteria looks like a slap in the face to those standards. In particular, since Wikipedia is not a democracy, it seems weird that in the RFA process suddenly we are requiring a super-duper majority of basically self-declared voting Wikipedians who can create their own arbitrary standards for voting and affect a decision in a manner that is easily abused by pile-ons. I have been a member of Wikipedia for some time, but I could not believe it when I was bitten by diehard RfA voters who didn't like the responses to the questions I made but made no attempt to explain what exactly they didn't like about them. Since every user can make up their own standards and RfA voters seem to move like a pack, there is really little in the way of protecting outsiders here in this peculiar corner of Wikipedia. I think if we removed the 75% to 80% statements in exchange for the normal statements about consensus this would be a lot better. Have the beuracrats exercise their arbitrary authority the way admins exercise their arbitrary authority at WP:AfD. If they can ascertain a consensus in favor, a consensus against, or no consensus, great. Maybe we can have them sift through some of the baloney that people have begun to insert in their personal standards that are not a part of the written prose regarding the RfA process. --ScienceApologist 18:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * To achieve this without changing the threshold, we would need a rethink of RfA standards, however. I suppose the bureaucrats can decide, but in my opinion if a candidate receives less than 70% they need to look at those oppose votes and think about their position, then do their best to change before their next RfA (if they have another). It's important to note that bureaucrats can use their discretion of a nomination is clost. --Draicone (talk) 00:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Clarifying what is meant by 75%
Thanks to everyone who helped me clean up some of the explanations of the process in front matter. I had one more change for your consideration:.

The rationale for this change is that it removes the parenthetical and the "rough" approximation which is unnecessary and misleading since it's pretty clear that someone getting less than 75% would not be granted adminship (as per the last time this happened people made a big stink) and it made it clear what the 75% support was refering to -- specifically votes in support of the nomination. Please tell me what you think of this edit.

--ScienceApologist 18:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * This doesn't make it clear enough that at 80%, promotion is likely. In reality, between 75% and 80%, Bureaucrats have a lot of discretion. Outisde this range, they (importantly) still have discretion (for example, if new information comes to light near the end of the debate) but have to tread carefully. Depending on feedback, I'll put this in words on the page, but I don't want to leave it in its current form for long, because I think it is an undiscussed material change to current consensus. Stephen B Streater 18:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, the promotion threshold can be made larger if bureaucrats have a good reason to promote or not promote outside the 75-80% range (e.g. a hypothetical HRE case had occured just prior to closure, and the nomination had an 85% or so support ratio). The actual numbers themselves are a sort of unspoken rule, although having them on the page could produce an appearance of official endorsement, which could be counterproductive. Tito xd (?!?) 18:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I am not a fan of "unspoken rules" being hidden because we should, as accomplished Wikipedia editors all, be able to explain how things happen so that there are no surprises. I think we can nuance this to let people know what the standards usually are but also inform them that in extreme circumstances there can be other things that happen. --ScienceApologist 19:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe a table would be appropriate for illustrating what happens in general?


 * --ScienceApologist 19:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * ScienceApologist: You're looking at this the wrong way. RfAs are not about percentages, at the core.  RfAs are about consensus, and that should be stated.  A table is unnecesary, and it only creates confusion.  Consensus is always determined by a beaurocrat, and while I can't provide an example (I'm too lazy to find one) of a nom where it failed at above 80%, I'm pretty sure one exists.  You're trying to make something fluid into a hard and fast rule, instead of stating the general terms.--digital_m e (TalkˑContribs) 19:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Believe me, I'm not trying to make the 75% threshold a rule, I'm trying to describe what generally happens at a RfA. While I understand your concern that this is really about consensus and not about "standards", we should be able to nuance our statement so that people who come to RfA know what to expect. Consensus building at RfA is considerably different than consensus building in other parts of Wikipedia. I just want to illustrate how it's different. I'm sure that there are RfAs that were successful that were below 75% and there were RfAs that were unsuccessful above 80%. That's not the point of this description. I think it's only fair to explain that this is a community-accepted standard that is subject to the discretion of the bureaucrats. Is there anything wrong with that? --ScienceApologist 19:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * To save the trouble of new tables, why not use the existing one on BN, adequately coloured to indicate what the percentages mean.... Tyrenius 19:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I like this idea a lot! Having a table that the bureacrats actually use would improve the transparency of the description of RfA. --ScienceApologist 19:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * While you discuss how to get the table colours with Tawkerbot, you should remember that this is not a vote and so percentages are only approximate. The weak law of large numbers just means that generally strong and weak points can balance out between pro and con supporters, so percentages usually work. There is no clear percentage which guarantees success or failure as good arguments may all be one one side, and late events may invalidate earlier arguments. Stephen B Streater 20:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree with all of this. I just want to describe the process so it is clearer to people who come here for the first time is all. We can include in bold blinking letters if you want that the percentages are approximate and subject to the various meaningful consensus issues. I liked your wording about "discretion". --ScienceApologist 20:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Isn't the process described accurately at WP:GRFA? I think that it is, and perhaps just linking more prominently to that page would solve the issue. Tito xd (?!?) 20:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed it is buried at the bottom of this page, but what is a description of the process doing in the guide anyway? Shouldn't the process be described up-front? --ScienceApologist 20:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

So I'm pretty confident that accurately describing RfA right now is summarized in part by the discussions we're having here. Is it okay to say that there is consensus that the parenthetical wording can be changed to accomodate a better description of what goes on? --ScienceApologist 01:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

75% threshold brings entire RfA into question?
75% is not consensus. That's majority. I think that a lot of people really do now just treat RfA as a vote. We may need to replace it soon. Could people who previously had proposals for replacement systems please step forward? Kim Bruning 20:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * As long as big stinks are made whenever this treshold is violated and bureaucrat-status is dependent on accepting this "unspoken rule" it certainly feels like a voting system to me. --ScienceApologist 20:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the best way to get RfA to be more concensus based is to increase the range of descretion from 75-80% to 65-90%. It would be nice to remove the guidelines completely, but that will just cause people to use the 75-80% guideline unofficially, so it's better to have a firm guideline, just one that is closer to the desired system. I don't think RfA is broken enough to require a whole new system - that would be overkill. --Tango 20:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That's still a majority based system. Could you propose a less "dangerous" system? Kim Bruning 21:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC) [1] The danger of majority voting systems is that they get imitated in the article namespace, where they're not supposed to be used. 


 * As it exists today, RFA is not a simply vote or election. It is a consensus building activity with using the opinions expressed by participants to gauge consensus. Reality on the ground shows that very few RFA's are difficult interperate if you look at volume of comments, trends, as well as the number of participants voicing a particular opinion. FloNight   talk  21:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As I said, I'd prefer it to be entirely at the beurocrat's descretion, but I don't think that would work - people would expect crats to continue using the 75-80% guideline, and when they decide against convention, there'd still be an outcry, as there is now. With a firm guideline, but one with enough leeway for crats to use their descretion in the vast majority of cases where there is any need to, the crats would actually be allowed to do their jobs.  It's a compromise, basically. --Tango 21:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * /me takes large step forward. There have been a number of proposals, including my earlier suggestion for a sponsorship-driven system where prospective admins would be under the tutelage of a seasoned admin who would be responsible in part for their conduct.  The core problem at RFA is not the percentages but rather the fact that good candidates get discouraged by the uncertainty and by the fact that even responsible involvement in conflict can be disqualifying.  Less significant but still important is the fact that a handful of poor candidates are getting approved.  The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Just to correct something said above, I don't think any RfA with 80% or more support (after accounting for socks) has ever failed, at least not since the days when there were 10-15 people commenting in the average RfA. So despite the vigerous insistance that 80% is not a rule..... it is a rule, and we're simply not going to see anyone with legitimately over 80% support fail. --W.marsh 22:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That's why it's important to have bureacrats you can trust to make a good decision. As is, people with the right social connections can muster 50-60 support votes without making a substantial contribution to the project.  In addition, many people tend to vote and walk away - people who switch their votes in response to the discussion are rare.  If something really worrying came up late in the debate, I trust that most of the bureaucrats would hold off on promotion.  Still, I would prefer something closer to the FAC idea, where you would promote someone after all the substantive criticisms were dealt with the the satisfaction of the people raising the complaints.  It would take much more bureaucratic involvement, it would require that they make the (higly controversial) decision of which opposes to discount, but it would move the idea back towards consensus...  Guettarda 04:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Discussions for adminship proposed a system of commentary/evidence first, 'voting' later, but got shot down earlier this year. -- nae'blis (talk) 04:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be more like a US Senate confirmation hearing. Seems like everybody gets turned inside out and then gets passed overwhelmingly that way. Nothing wrong with a thorough examination as long as people don't get vetoed for every little mistake.Blnguyen | rant-line 04:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflictx3)Why would someone that had over 80% support fail? That is strong community consensus. If 'crats saw an issue raised toward the end of customary timeframe, the best course of action would be to extend the RFA. The appropriate role for the 'crat should be guiding the process toward the best outcome for the community. FloNight  talk  04:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. I am just saying that I could forsee circumstances in which a 'crat might not promote someone who passes the 80% threshold.  Guettarda 04:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You could get partisan "vote lobbying" by someone organizing a bakdoor campaign to get similar editors of similar ideology to contribute. Look at the ethnic splits on the Khoikhoi (Turkish bloc oppose) or Bormalagurski (Serbian supports). If there was an innappropriate majority (OK, it's highly unlikely that Bormalagurski could find 100 ultra-nationalists to vote for him) or a large gropu of friends they could just override the dodgy aspects brought up by serious contributors. Blnguyen | rant-line 04:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Unless those people were already wikizens their votes would just be discounted. And if someone did have a stack of 100, it wouldn't be that hard to find 25 people who'll oppose on the grounds that stacking shows bad faith.  And there are other appeal processes.  But this is just speculation.  Personally, I'm not convinced that there is a problem with the current system that needs fixing.  Regards, Ben Aveling 08:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Current system is fine. I see no need for change. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I doubt this type of behavior described above is effective. During my RFA, (last of April/early May) a newbie started a email campaign against me because of a content dispute with my nominator. He left a strong oppose comment that was not factually accurate. These tactics did not sway the community, I was promoted with 93% (another of the opposes in the count was someone 14th edit to Wikipedia.) I agree that the current process is good. The main problem is getting enough experienced Wikipedians to comment on a regular basis. FloNight   talk  04:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So you don't disagree that the system works then. I frankly don't see any improvements which would not be burdensome and which would qualitatively improve things. My rant above is because I am getting tired of people wanting to change things. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, people *have* changed things, and moved away from consensus over time. So we need to get that fixed back to consensus yet again. I guess that if you can't handle constant change, wikipedia is probably not really the best place to hang out. Kim Bruning 12:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As to whether RFA is working? Apparently there's some bad apples in our current group of admins, because we currently have a Oversight process, that is designed specifically to keep certain information away from admins. That's a pretty clear vote of no confidence in our en.wikipedia admins as a group by the wikimedia foundation. They saw the problem of admins misbehaving in particular circumstances, and apparently had to do something or risk getting sued(!).
 * That leaves us with new problems of course, (like who gets oversight over oversight), but that's a different story for a different time.
 * In the mean time, don't try to sell to me that Requests for adminship is still working, because it has so obviously failed in real life. RFA will probably never be perfect, but it doesn't have to be quite THAT bad, does it? Can we make it so that oversight can go unused, sometime in the near future? Kim Bruning 12:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Not really, no. The two are designed to combat different problems.  Administrator "abuse" comes in two broad types:
 * Self-serving abuse: this is the usual blocking users that piss you off/protecting pages to your own version/etc. issue. We can probably push RFA towards more reliably detecting people who are likely to do this based on their behavior in conflicts and so forth.
 * Malicious abuse: this is what oversight was designed to handle—people who aren't after particular results within the project, but are instead looking to actually harm the WMF and/or its projects from the outside. There's no way for RFA (inherently a social process) to detect something of this sort, because the actions taken here are generally not visible on the wiki itself.  Hence, the need for technical measures. Kirill Lokshin 13:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, what Kirill said. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Do need to give 1000 people access to the information that was removed? We should be operating on a need to know basis. I do not need to know the who, what, when, where and why of oversight. The same is true of many things on Wikipedia. Like checkuser and some issues with banned users. Everyone, even admins, do not need to know all the details. FloNight   talk  20:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Even if Oversight is a good idea in general, the fact remains that there exist administrators who repost deleted content. It is not merely a preventive measure or to stem satisfaction of curiousity. —Centrx→talk &bull; 20:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Another problem could be that friendly users passingly acquainted with the nominee stop by, whip off of a "Support obviously, he is the greatest!" or, almost worse, "Support, great edit summary usage", and then never return to find problems, or, as mentioned (don't know if true) above about mboverload, come by and give an "Oppose, per comments by Bob" because of a first post by an opposer that turns out to be weak. I find this happens sometimes on AfD, but is not a problem because it is not used like a vote. Later comments clearly explain why the article should be kept or deleted, and the closing administrator can clearly see this is valid when compared to the first, unconsidered "Delete per nom" comments. This is also because AfDs have various users breezing through and commenting where necessary, without a hundred possibly little considered votes that are locked in with the user not returning. —Centrx→talk &bull; 04:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The difference between RfA and AfD is that respect is that RfA has a default (to promote - the whole "no big deal" thing), whereas AfD doesn't. Any vote in AfD needs to give specific reasons, however there generally aren't any specific reasons to promote someone in RfA - you promote if there is no reason not to.  If someone votes with no reason in an AfD, you can ignore it, you can't do that in an RfA, otherwise you'd be ignoring every support vote. --Tango 13:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * In practice does anyone ever dismiss an oppose vote in RfA because of this? I had a number of people vote "oppose" on my RfA with little to no explanation yet nobody seemed to indicate that this was in conflict with the "no big deal" thing. --ScienceApologist 16:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think crats only take it into account if the result is in the 75-80% range. --Tango 16:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hardly any week passes without one-three threads that the current system is broken and needs fixing, will all kinds of proposals floating around. That made me curious. Do we really have a problem? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It would at the very least indicate that many candidates do not think they were considered fairly. Otherwise, I see no reason why many discussions of problems could be taken as evidence of a lack of a problem. —Centrx→talk &bull; 20:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It is better to keep it at that percent. It might look too restrictive, but that is the intention. Otherwise, some troll/vandal with working habits could get en.wiki into junk. Think, a vandal with his fellows + their sockpuppets and there you are. Just because the threshold was too low. A calm, fair and neutral person will mostly get over 75%, any doubtful person won't. Or, as we know it "better (too much) safe than (even more) sorry". Kubura 14:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Very informal poll
The current Support/Oppose system is simple enough and works well in the absolute majority of cases.

Agree

 * 1) Sure. RfA isn't perfect, but perfection is unrealistic. It works in the large majority of cases, and there's yet to be anything proposed that would work better. It seems like the main criticism of RfA is ultimately "This one person I really like didn't get chosen", and if that's the problem, then no consensus-based system is ever going to satisfy you. --W.marsh 17:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not to say that tweaks and improvements over time aren't important. The whole reason the current system works is that it's developed naturally over time to deal with the various problems that have come up. Thus, we should start all reform by clearly stating the problem to be adressed, rather than just proposing all kinds of totally new systems. --W.marsh 20:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) It would be good to know which arguments each person has read. Marginal votes (with a wider range) could result in a second round where only people who have assessed the totality of arguments from the first round express an opinion. I'm always a bit surprised at how few people take enough notice of the discussion to change their minds. Stephen B Streater 18:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) What W.marsh said. --Tango 18:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Support.  Grue   19:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) It's a not a perfect system, but it has few false positives (qualified admins being rejected) and very few false negatives (unqualified admins being promoted). I would like to see fewer votes lacking any reason at all. Aren&#39;t I Obscure? 19:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Add me - Obvious. However, i'd have prefered this poll to be about shifting from universal suffrage to census suffrage. Admins are better fit to vote than non-admins (w/ all my respect to good abd very good contributors). -- Szvest 19:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)  Wiki me up&#153;
 * 6) Perhaps - in most cases but 'crats should engage in judicial activism a bit more so to speak, especially as per what Cyde and Naeblis say. In any case, if there is new info, a person who tries to ask a drive-by to reconsider is often fears being threatened for "soliciting votes" - also some users are very reluctant to switch sides - perhaps they feel "weak" if they did so, which is a problem if new info is discovered and a swing begins to develop.Blnguyen | rant-line 03:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Agree - I waited to read the disagree opinions below before voting and quite frankly the alternatives offered to my mind are not any better than the current system. The current format does have problems, but, my fear with a comment based system is that the most vocal, agressive and users that write the longest comments will cause their opinion to have undue weight - which is unfair. At the end of the day it could quite easily become a free for all shouting match. One "vote" (note the ""s) per user is a better option to my mind (at least at this stage) - Gl e n 02:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Support Generally, RfA does a good job. Anyone who thinks that the system is broken because of the rejection of X (or the "flawed" promotion of X) should consider that his/her individual judgment is at least as likely to be in error as is a community process. Xoloz 23:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Support Am I too late? Did they close the RfA? ;) -- Avi 02:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Disagree

 * 1) Early votes are frequently "drive-by" and do not take into account either refutation of earlier claims of terrorism/vandalism/eating kittens, or false aggrandizements of skill and sainthood. Even a few days of discussion/research into the candidate before voting would be a nice incremental improvement. -- nae'blis (talk) 18:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This recent RFA shows that we are already using RFA exactly how you describe it should be done. I did not want to overwhelm the RFA with my comment too early so I purposely waited. Many users came back and changed from support to oppose. For that reason, I think RFA is working. We need to encourage both oppose and support commenters to to a better job explaining themselves.  FloNight   talk  20:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that in that instance what you did took into account the nature of RfA, but I'm not sure that demonstrates that the process is working in general. Why did you want to wait to comment, for example? I submit that it's because RfAs are presently frontloaded. That's why I'm in favor of a period of discussion/evidentiary findings before people start piling on the votes. -- nae'blis (talk) 18:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I wholeheartedly disagree.  I think there's too much subjectivity into what an admin should be, and I also think that if you're going to apply a standard, the standard needs to be applied uniformly across the board to all administrators, not just new administrators.  I think that the current process pushes editcountitis and doesn't reinforce the policy aspects of administration.  I think that if edit counts are going to be taken into consideration, then the quality of the edit counts needs to be taken into consideration as well.  I think that if an editor can demonstrate that he or she can do the job, regardless of edit counts, they should be permitted to become an administrator. CQJ 22:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) I agree with nae'blis. I think a three day comment period followed by a seven day voting period would be better.  The way it is now, a bunch of votes comes in before the candidate has responded to anything but the default questions.  Oftentimes a lot of really insightful questions are asked, but combine the lag of the question asker finding out about the RFA and the candidate getting around to responding to them and you frequently have over half the votes coming in before the candidate has even responded to any questions specifically tailored to him (versus the general RFA questions).  -- Cyde↔Weys  00:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Not sure I understand the logic in this system Cyde - after all, we are all welcome to change our votes pending new answers. In fact I can think of more than one RfA from just this past week where the decision totally turned about face when new info came to hand. - Gl e n 05:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Why have a voting period at all? Why not just have a comment period? What purpose does voting serve? Can't we determine consensus without voting? --ScienceApologist 00:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Without a specific voting period, the comment period will turn into a vote, despite everyone's best intentions. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need to vote, but this is wikipedia, not an ideal world. --Tango 01:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What if we had people write only comments that were objections to the nomination? Those reading the nominations could join the conversation about the objections. The closing bureaucrat could then read through the discussions and give specific reasons why the nominations failed. Or would that devolve us into too much Usenet-ness? --ScienceApologist 01:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have a proposal floating around my mind which works along similar lines. Prehaps I'll write it up properly somewhere... --Tango
 * You have my full support. --ScienceApologist 18:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I'm with nae'blis and cyde. As soon as an rfa is posted, there is a rush to get votes in. A lot of the users that vote never come back to check the comments, making it impossible for them to have any effect. A 3 day waiting period for would completely solve this problem. Alphachimp  talk  03:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) I have no clue how to fix this, but a voter who doesn't check back for further discussion isn't much of a voter. Real elections have serious debates with informal polls, but the only thing that matters is a few hours of real voting. --mboverload @  07:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Let everyone vote twice, but your second vote must be at least 48 hours after your first vote. If you don't come back to vote the second time, your opinion will get only half the weight as those who do. I'd prefer this to prohibiting anyone from voting during a comment period because it is natural to state your support or opposition when you are making a comment. NoSeptember  12:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Double voting isn't logical or necessary. If people were more willing to go back and change/revisit their earlier vote, the quality of votes would improve, but while some wikipedians do, I don't believe they're in the majority. -- nae'blis (talk) 18:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) There's a very easy way of making RFA better, which is to require at least one relevant diff for every 'vote' made. Think the user is a good and sensible editor?  Provide a diff to back it up.  Think the user doesn't grasp policy?  Provide a diff to support that claim.  Don't know how to provide a diff?  Then you shouldn't be involved in selecting Wikipedia administrators. Simple, to the point, requires people to either know what the nominee has done or do some research, and beter informs the whole process.   Proto ::  type  13:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So hundred voters will have to find a hundred distinct diffs ? Tintin (talk) 14:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. Why not?  It sounds a lot less onerous if you say 'each editor will have to find a new diff'. If you can only find one diff that proves the editor is an terror that should never be let near the rollback and block buttons, then perhaps that line of thinking isn't completely correct.  And there wouldn't be a hundred voters, as this would remove all those drive-by voters who only vote 'support' to every RFA so when they go for their RFA, they'll make it.  You would actually have to have some kind of investment in the process to have a say.  Proto ::  type  14:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The last thing you mentioned is why I don't really ever vote support on an RFA unless I know the guy or I've put a signficant amount of effort into evaluating the candidate (including asking questions). I'll be honest, I'm lazy, so there's a lot of RFAs that I just don't put the time into, and thus don't vote Support even if it's 75-0 and nobody's brought up a credible objection.  On the other hand, I tend to oppose rather often, even when I find just a little something wrong.  This is because of a combination of my high admin criteria and a desire to balance out all of the blind support votes.  -- Cyde↔Weys  18:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So if someone is a perfectly good Wikipedian except that he's replaced major pages with a penis image three separate times at large intervals, and ignored any attempt to get him to comment or apologize, he only needs to get a dozen supporters (which will get progressively easier as Wikipedia grows) to outvote everyone and become admin? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Errr, huh? Where did you get that from? Are you implying that 'diffs' wouldn't include Image upload logs? -- nae'blis (talk) 18:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Simetrical is acting under the assumption that we will keep the 75-80% threshold requirement with this new system. (See how nefarious this voting thing is, once it is established, people don't want to give it up!) Simetrical is pointing out that there might be some admin candidate who unapologetically replaced an article with a penis image one time over the course of their career. In this case, there would be only one diff, but if said candidate could drum up 12 of his friends to vote for him AND we required everybody to provide a different diff to support their objections then it could be with this curious amalgamated system that awful admin candidate gets the nod. However, I think what we are suggesting here is getting rid of this outdated 75% threshold business all together and replacing it with a meaningful comment section that requires people to refer to the actions of the candidate. That way a real evaluation can be done instead of one that relies on the majority of the unwashed masses coming in and expressing unresearched opinions in the hope of swaying consensus. --ScienceApologist 18:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That's what some of us are suggesting, yes, but I gather the only change Proto would make is to force each oppose to present a different diff. I'm saying that a single diff, or a few diffs, could potentially be a sufficiently good reason to oppose to merit the rejection of a candidate, which this proposal doesn't account for. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Aha, I hadn't caught that nuance. I would submit that the diffs showing a lack of response to objections to the candidate's penisification of the Wiki would be additional diffs that could be submitted under such an (admittedly baroque) system. It's also a bit of a straw man, however... -- nae'blis (talk) 22:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I think that this page almost more than any other is a slap-in-the-face to consensus which is, to my understanding, not based on a democratic sentiment but rather on something more like a meritocratic sentiment. But at RfA, there is little to no attempt to measure the merit of people's comments unless there are some users that take it upon themselves to point out problems with the explanations for the votes and, in fact, there are a number of editors who object to doing this and will vote against a nomination on principle if a nominee or a even another user tries to start discussions about the explanations (this happened to me). The support/oppose dichotomy which is set-up only serves to encourage people to treat the RfA discussion as if it is a popularity contest. I think that this system of having a "comment" section that's really a "voting" section where a super-duper majority of voters must commit for there to be a reasonable chance for an adminship to succeed is duplicitous. In principle, I have no problems with the system being this way, but it isn't described this way in the description of the RfA nor is it clearly stated that what is really going on in every RfA is an attempt to drum up support for one's nomination to the tune of 75 to 80% of the people voting for you. Can't anyone see how ridiculous this is? --ScienceApologist 18:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Let's have a comment-based system and leave the decision up to the bureaucrat. --Tony Sidaway 20:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we should try that out for a few weeks. --mboverload @ 21:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Set some firmer criteria rather than letting everyone vote (and that is the correct term for what goes on today in RFA) however they feel like, allow people to comment on whether the candidate meets the criteria, and then let the bureaucrat decide. Which, yes, will give them much greater power than they currently have; in debatable cases they could confer and have a vote (which might seem to defeat the purpose of reform until you realize that they'd be voting on whether the candidate met sensible consensus requirements, not voting however they felt like). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) I Agree with Cyde that something needs to be done so that late objections don't go unnoticed. The "comment" period would need to be fairly structured ... almost like an RFC ... otherwise, it could have the same problems the current system has.  I don't like the idea of restricting the voting process to administrators - for a very simple reason.  If there are lots of people you can't get along with, sometimes, it isn't everyone else - it's you.  I understand that active admins sometimes have users with a vendetta (even then, a lot of it can be brought upon themselves - if you taunt the trolls, don't be surprised when they respond), but we're not talking about people who are already administrators.  If you can find 20 people to oppose someone for non-trivial reasons (ie, "there are too many admins already"), even if not a one of those opposing is themselves an administrator, there's probably something wrong somewhere. BigDT 17:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Implement an evidence/comment subpage and permit the bureaucrat to make the decision on said data. -Randall Brackett 14:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comments

 * Neutral. First, I think that it's ironic that this poll question about the effectiveness of the "support/oppose" system uses the "support/oppose" system. ;) Irony aside, I have not been enolved enough in the RfA system to have a highly informed opinion. Based upon my limited experience here, however, I think that it works well enough. Then again, I would be open to suggestions. --AaronS 17:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral. On one hand, it does generally work - most people who should be admins get promoted.  On the other hand, there at least isn't a perception that rationales are taken into consideration in the support/opposes, meaning that I could walk in and support or oppose anyone for any reason, regardless as to whether it were true or not, and have it hold the same weight as anyone else.  So is the support/oppose a good judge of consensus?  Only up to the point that the strict vote counting gives a good indicator, but not of what the actual consensus is in a number of cases. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Quadruple Edit-Conflicted, Beat-the-Nom, Strongest Ever, Cliché, Rattatatat Ding-Dong Neutral on Top of the Reichstag Yes, RfAs are generally okay, but I feel like this RfA is not a vote is just a thing we say rather than a thing we put into practice. If we were to put a bit more effort into keeping requests for adminship a discussion rather than a place where candidates are, in many cases, discouraged from responding to comments about them, we'd have more informed and less over-the-top !votes. That would make the requests for adminship process significantly better. --  tariq abjotu  (joturner) 19:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * "Very few false negatives": Sure there may not be many admins promoted who go around vandalizing, but unwise or impolite administrators may still be promoted. As pointed out above, also, there are bad administrators, which are the reason for the Oversight permission, and there are indeed administrators who block and protect over content disputes they are involved in. Also, if half the rejected administrator (not withdrawn) could have been approved with us still being able to say "Very few false negatives", that could indicate a failure in RfA. Another problem I see is that it does not scale up, where the sheer numbers become less and less an indication of suitability for adminship. These numerous "Support for awesomeness" do not all represent evaluations of administrative ability, and provide no reasons why the user should be administrator. One question is, one year from now when active users are maybe doubled, what happens when Voice-of-all, Crazyrussian, Yanksox, etc. are all voting one side, and on the other we have several registered users for a few months who make a few article edits every now and then but do not administrator functions? Certainly, the bureaucrats are doing their own research and making the decision, but insofar as that decision is not based on the RfA vote, the RfA vote is not meaningful. If the dozens of support votes with little or no justification do not strongly factor in, why not encourage reasonable discussion instead? —Centrx→talk &bull; 19:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem with support/oppose is that there's no set idea of what a person needs to be an admin. Drive-by votes of "looks okay" are harmful, but so are "has enough edits in all the right places". Admins do a lot more than what they are 'approved' to do, and while RC patrolling is good, RC patrollers should not all be admins. Admins need to negotiate with other admins and they need to agree with other admins and have a unified front. Accepting anyone who believes anything about the project because they've got enough edits will split the unified front which holds us together, a bad thing. RfA needs to be a discussion, in which all the participants continue to be involved for the entirety of it. I don't know how to do that, heh, but the vote-and-go, at best, needs to stop, somehow. --Keitei (talk) 20:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral. Undoubtedly some people don't check back on updates, and this isn't good, but I can't see what an alternative is. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The alternative is to have reasons. If a person bases his opinion on something that later turns out to be false or weak, it can be considered in that light. Currently, we don't know if a person's "Support" is because he is accepting what is described in the nomination straightforwardly—which could end up being exaggeration or somesuch, or whether it is based on his knowledge and a good examination of the user's contributions, or whether it is based solely on edit summary usage. It would also encourage returning because a user would not feel as though he has stuffed his vote in the ballot box and that is that, without bothering with or caring about discussion. —Centrx→talk &bull; 06:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm. And then we could set out some firmer criteria to stop all the people who think that someone who's made 1000 model edits over three months is suddenly going to turn around and start abusing tools.  Okay, you've convinced me. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment Having seen many of these discussions and polls on the same topic over the last 15 months or so, let me guess that absolutely nothing will come out of this poll. We will make the same few arguments back and forth. The discussions will go on for three or four days. There won't any consensus except for status quo, a couple of people will make suggestions which will be immediately shot down, and it will business as usual. Tintin (talk) 12:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What is necessary is having a formal proposal, getting the bureaucrats to agree, and getting a significant number of administrators and editors to support them. The problem is that few people seem to be involved with this Talk page, even the dozens of people who regularly vote in RfAs. Saying that nothing will come of it because nothing has come of it before is a self-fulfilling argument, as people may ignore the discussion, thinking it moot, and there will never be any change to RfA, barring a major catastrophe. Even with a major problem, for example wheel warring, for some reason people didn't conclude that it indicated a problem in the way those administrators were selected in the first place. —Centrx→talk &bull; 21:46, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Things won't change because the current process is very simple and works very well. Significant changes will make the process much more burdensome (think WP:DfA) and it won't prevent bad admins better than the existing one. Wheel warring happens very seldom and so far has been dealt smoothly with via requests for arbitration. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oleg is right. The beauty of the present system is its flexibility and adaptability. Change can happen by us, the participants, changing our standards, and this happens all the time. If every person who thought the process was broken committed to expressing their opinion on every editor who applied for adminship, they could easily move the standards of what is most important in selecting admins. If things aren't the way you like it, you are either not participating or your views are not in alignment with the community. NoSeptember  06:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well put. If you think a simple vote is insufficient, make sure you comment on each candidate in detail. If people like it, they will join in. Admins are the "rule from below" part of Wikipedia, after all. Stephen B Streater 06:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Support/Oppose is broken persay, but the criteria for selection of subject to drift indefinantly torwards unreasonableness. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 09:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Foo (wrong question)

 * 1) Yes I've stopped beating my wife, wait I mean no! ... oh foo... I plead the fifth!.You're asking the wrong question and getting the wrong answer. RFA would be broken right now with or without support/oppose or what have you. It's irrelevant. Kim Bruning 19:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You failed to tell us what the right question is, a question that will lead us to do some sort of positive change. I want to know what you think it is. NoSeptember  20:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Here are some:


 * Can we trust our current admins?
 * Answer: No. Empirically no, the foundation does not trust our current admins, in certain situations (Oversight, Office).
 * Can we rule out RFA being part of the problem?
 * Answer: No, in fact current rfa standards and processes appear to be geared towards arbitrary requirements, with no discernable relationship with the responsibilites admins should have. (see above)
 * Does RFA promote people who know much about wikipedia?
 * Answer: No. How many recently promoted admins know the trifecta and foundation issues? Many are clearly confused about consensus too.
 * to be fair do foundation issues really mater than much?Geni 13:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * How about this one: Does the foundation have any problem with a particular admin, or are they being cautious about giving extremely sensitive information to 1,000 people, some of which they don't know anything about? Tito xd (?!?) 23:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyone I actually nominate for admin... I actually do know a number of things about. Don't you? Kim Bruning 23:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What's your point? The foundation didn't nominate the 1000 admins, so why would they know about them? --Tango 00:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That's the problem. They do. They know that some are leaking information and causing legal difficulties. Kim Bruning 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oversight is not an indicator of a "broken system". There will always need to be a "higher level", per se. You cannot simply assume that oversight would not have been created if RfA worked perfectly or under another system. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 23:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * We already have a higher level an sich. Apparently the load was so high that an entire system was needed. A similar argument goes for the Office policy. Kim Bruning 23:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Previously the removal of history from the database could only be done by developers; Brion and others simply didn't have the time to do so, focusing mainly on the many technical issues that they deal with to keep all of the projects running. Oversight simply transferred the priviledge to other just as trusted people with the time and responsibility to do so; the creation of the level cannot be interpreted strictly as either a lack of trust in the admins or a broken RfA system. In a similar fashion, Office actions were necessary to improve the overall editing structure; by efficiently dealing with poor articles, we are not only improving our quality but serving the Foundation's need to deal with such queries. It does not implicate or imply that we have a broken RfA system. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 00:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It should be so rare that Brion doesn't need to hand it off. Office is specifically there to fix problems when we have just made a spectacular error (think siegenthaler). Definately a vote of no confidence. Kim Bruning 00:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * All that media publicity about WP is bringing in the people and companies that have articles here, and more of them are expecting to fix their articles the way they like them without understanding the WP way. This is not a surprise to me, the demand for Office and oversight will grow like crazy, and would do so even if every admin were top notch. How can we expect to be a top 15 visited site and not get that sort of attention from the lovers and haters of the subjects of articles? NoSeptember  00:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Our community should be able to handle problems internally. If it cannot, then the community should take steps to change that, or admit that it is incapable of operating autonomously. Kim Bruning 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * We can handle it internally. New programs like Office and oversight have been set up by Jimbo and the developers because it is new, just as the original ArbCom was completely appointed by Jimbo, and the original bureaucrats were selected not elected. Nothing prevents us from taking over this role, why not propose a good procedure for us. ArbCom is charged with selecting new checkusers and oversight people, so the community already has control going forward since we select ArbCom. While Jimbo and the foundation will have a veto, there is no reason we can't run our own selection processes. Brand new processes always seem to be top-down, but they don't need to stay that way. NoSeptember  12:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * "It should be so rare that Brion doesn't need to hand it off." - were you asking him on a daily basis to remove damaging edits from the history of pages? No, you weren't. The oversight permission was created because if admins tried to do the regular "delete and selectively restore" method, the database would lock and the site would crash. The WP:OFFICE rule was created because Jimbo did not have the time to handle all the requests the Foundation Office needed to deal with directly (in cases, deal with immediately), so he devolved powers that were originally with him towards a few he knew already well. It doesn't sound to me as a vote of no confidence. Tito xd (?!?) 00:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As above: the en.wikipedia community should be the one to handle those requests autonomously. It currently does not and can not. Kim Bruning 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Some good questions. I think the lack of knowledge of issues could be addressed even by a minority of people who are willing to press candidates to prove their bonafides. On the sensitive information issues, it is a bit too late to deal with the 1000 admins that already exist, many of whom are fairly unknown and thus untrusted by the foundation. The problem seems to have been solved with the new oversight and office functions, is there some way you want to make those functions work better? And how will changing RfA improve these issues? Reform of RfA doesn't quite seem to be the solution to solve the sensitive information issue. NoSeptember 23:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, those functions are a constant reminder of our failure to look after ourselves. No other wiki has them (yet). It's quite embarrasing. I propose we make them obsolete. Kim Bruning 00:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * English WP is just getting too big to maintain that personal touch it once had. The other WPs will have the same problems when they get to this stage. Some of them already have their share of problems. Do you think these problems could have been avoided at any project that grows to this size? NoSeptember  00:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That's a pretty bizarre way of looking at it. As I said above RFA was not designed to pick people who could be trusted to carry out the Foundation's business, only those who could be trusted not to screw up too much with shiny admin buttons.  It's fundamentally impossible to have a selection process that relies entirely (or primarily) on on-wiki activity while at the same time filtering out the people whose malicious actions are done entirely off-wiki (and usually under a different name).
 * (Which is not to say, however, that we don't need some way of ferreting out the second group; but it is something that would need to be done primarily off-wiki as well, or through the use of more sophisticated technical measures. In neither case would a change to the RFA process be effective.) Kirill Lokshin 00:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * My admin requirement is the traditional "can be trusted not to blow up the wiki". Admins don't need to conduct the foundations business, but they shouldn't actively do things that could end wikipedia and/or require foundation intervention either, right? Apparently in (some? limited? [1]) situations, the foundation thinks that admins as a group no longer fit even that criterium.
 * Forget things like 1 featured article, vandalism patrol, and 3 months, 1500 edits. We're failing on the fundamentals here! Kim Bruning 09:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC) [1] I'm hoping it's only limited. It probably is, but I'd prefer to start taking corrective action early. :-)
 * I don't really disagree with you; my point is that while the theoretical requirement might be "can be trusted not to blow up the wiki", we cannot generally do any better than "has not shown any signs that he cannot be trusted not to blow up the wiki" in practice. Some people will inevitably manage to game this (see sleeper agent), and any changes to our process shouldn't be motivated by trying to stop them—because we simply can't without doing highly invasive background checks on every candidate. Kirill Lokshin 12:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that it's that we can't trust our admins. Can we trust all 1000 of our admins (give or take) to adhere to the set guidelines, which most of them see as unbendable policy in my experience (which is probably a good thing...), on how they should use their admin tools under pain of ArbCom? Sure we can. The checks and balances are there; it's extremely bureaucratic and uniform, with little left to good judgement; it works.

However, can we trust all our admins to effectively run the community, as they will end up doing? No, I don't think we can. It's self-deceptive to say that admins are not viewed as higher than normal users. They are high-profile and people go to them with questions and for advice. Many of them are also more aware of what is going on with the community and Wikipedia in general and are contributing to how policy will play out. Is this bad? No, this is good. The people who spend the most time doing stuff will understand it best, and admins are promoted because they have spent that amount of time, and a good many continue to be very active. However, they are also promoted for very stupid reasons, and not promoted for equally stupid ones. The evidence shows that admins do not get along with each other (wheel warring, etc). Other admins are viewed as just any other editor, which divides the community. People tend to make their little groups, which is inevitable, but the admins should be a group also. It shouldn't be Christianity related-editor admins vs admins who edit or identify with other religions, or anything of the sort. Wikipedia doesn't have room or time for partisan politics.

Anyhow, it's my personal belief that one's ability to work with others to the good of the encyclopedia, finding and helping in the finding of compromises for major issues, and working with others to resolve things should be the main criteria for admins. The idea is not that we vote against each other and battle for things; it's that we resolve our differing opinions in a way favorable to everyone. Also, it doesn't take any special skills to 'fight vandals', and quality control is everyone's business, not just admin candidates. --Keitei (talk) 09:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Trust is not a Boolean attribute. Sure admins are trusted, but that doesn't mean they're allowed root access to Wikimedia servers. Admins are just trusted more than most users. If you pick out people that you think meet the highest standards of trust, at least one is going to actually be untrustworthy. That's just a fact of life. And then there's the issue of accounts being hacked; it hasn't happened yet to an admin, to my knowledge, but some of our admins must have weak passwords, and so it's an open possibility. So give admins any tools that are somewhat dangerous in the wrong hands, but useful for a reasonably large percentage of editors to have; don't give them tools that are very dangerous in the wrong hands, or tools that only a couple of people really need to have. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Poll to determine that polls are evil is evil

 * 1) Ideal, no, good enough until a better replacement has been worked out, yes. And if the system is broke, start to change it with new ideas, not with the supposed broke ideas to show that it has been broke.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * People are opposed to fixing it, because they claim it ain't broke! Kim Bruning 00:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * How is it broken? We are promoting ample admins that are basically doing a good job, right? So how is the system broken? FloNight   talk  01:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit of an odd man out, because I tend to work through other people, rather than doing things myself. (That's also why I handed in my own admin bit, to remove the temptation to micromanage). But I'm having more and more trouble finding people who are willing to do a good job. Often I find people who will help me in spite of RFA rather than thanks to it. I've hardly ever managed to recruit people off of rfa to do useful work. I've also seen RFA turn down people who are known to be useful. So for me, RFA is not doing much useful work.
 * That's ok. It's always nice to have fun and interesting clubs like Esperanza or RFA, who don't do anything useful per-se, but who chat with each other and provide a friendly environment, and make their members feel important. Of course, if they actually become harmful to wikipedia, they should be shut down and/or replaced. Kim Bruning 11:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I've suggested in the past that we have a list of a half dozen frequently backlogged processes and we ask each admin candidate to promise to adopt one of them to learn it and do work on it once an admin, as a condition of us promoting them. NoSeptember  13:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That sounds like an excellent optional question, although it could be a rephrasement of Q1. -- nae'blis (talk) 20:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, but we cannot expect constant contribution from all users. If everyone capable wikified one article, took care of 10 disambig link repairs etc. we could clear all the backlog. Its a good idea, but you also need to figure out how to hold candidates to their promise and if that really is the purpose we are promoting them for (many should really just be using the anti-vandal functions). --Draicone (talk) 00:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a volunteer project. Noone is required to do anything, and noone can be forced to keep a promise they make. -Splash - tk 14:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I never suggested we force anything, getting a promise to do a specific task will work with those who keep their promises. With the others, well we learned what they are willing to do to get promoted ;) (useful information). NoSeptember  15:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Polls to determine that polls are evil is evil are evil

 * 1) Tony Sidaway 20:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) digital_m e (TalkˑContribs) 20:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

What in heaven's good name is this section of this talk page trying to talk about? If it's just an opportunity to say "yeah" or "no" I do/do not like RfA, then we heard it all a hundred times. Last week, probably. As it is, this section meanders randomly in all directions at once, and in no direction at all. -Splash - tk 14:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Poll to determine whether the mind-numbing nature if this discussion is sufficient to drive a user to spouse-beating, assuming he/she has one

 * 1) — Jul. 18, '06  [23:46] < [ freak]&#124;[ talk] >

Poll to determine whether or not this poll has gotten way too frickin' long and should be truncated before someone other than Freakofnurture beats their spouse in frustration over the confusion
In the end, crats can choose to discount the driveby votes anyway.--The ikiroid (talk•desk•Advise me) 02:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

User:The Mad Bomber the first RfA candidate blocked during candidcay period?
Just for the record, I have blocked this user for wind-ups...for lack of the T word....on his own RfA. He had been making racist attacks in June, when I gave him a onoe month block, and has since made a few more dubious antics between then and now. Is this OK? It not, then unblock. Blnguyen | rant-line 08:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Excellent. How has he been allowed to get away with this name anyway??? Tyrenius 08:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Request semi-protection for an RfA
Hi. Would someone semi-protect Requests for adminship/Grendelkhan? It's been vandalised twice three times in the past few hours by an imposter forging a vote - first from a new imposter account, then as an IP,, and again as a different IP. In this circumstance, I feel a semi-protection will adequately prevent future disruption to this RfA. I'd do it myself, but as the nominator in this case feel it would present a conflict of interest. After all, I'm too involved to be sure I'm not blowing this out of proportion. Cheers! bd2412 T 02:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * done,.Blnguyen | rant-line 03:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Cheers! bd2412  T 03:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Too Far-Gone Conclusions
I'm a bit worried about my comments on Sean Black's RfA and JD_UK's RfA, due to their lengths. I'm not trying to stab them with my opposition rationale, but I fear I'm inadvertently doing just that, especially since long opposition comments sometimes draw potential !voters to a side even if they don't particularly agree with them. In all honesty, have I gone against my own principle that this is an RfA, not an FBI investigation, and climbed on top of the Reichstag wearing a Spider-man suit with my oppose !votes in hand? Should I cut down the comments (or at least cut down comments in the future) or is the detail okay (this isn't a vote, after all)? Comments would be appreciated, and this doesn't just have to be about the length of my comments specifically. And, yes, I know that's not the correct usage of "far-gone". --  tariq abjotu  (joturner) 14:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No, the length of your comments is fine. I cannot imagine a reason for wanting to provide less rationale. People complain all the time about !vote or vote (even though nearly every single opposer gives a reason in nearly every RfA) and writing proper comments just proves that this is, in fact a discussion! not a !vote. -Splash - tk 14:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, please don't stop. As long as you're not piling-on (which I've never seen you do), there's nothing wrong with giving thorough explanations. I, for one, greatly appreciate them. ×Meegs 17:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Alright; thank you both for the feedback. --  tariq abjotu  (joturner) 22:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If you think they are long on the page, move them to the rfa/nom talk page, then link to them from the rfa/nom page. — xaosflux  Talk  04:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The more thoughtful the reasoning, the better. Length in itself shouldn't reflect badly on a comment. There was one small thing I noticed though in your comment on Sean Black's nom, Jo: "Okay, okay, perhaps I over-reacted on some of those..." If you feel you may be over-reacting, than perhaps reconsider whether the diffs are really all that egregious. Marskell 12:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I see what you meant by that. It was only an "oppose" with my comment (as I wanted to see if what I said really was an over-reaction), but I changed it to "strong oppose" after seeing what others - namely BigDT - had to say. --  tariq abjotu  (joturner) 12:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)