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User:Useight/RFA Subjects/Guide to RFA

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Guide to RfA (Archive 35)

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I get concerned when good editors get upset in RFAs. Sadly, some have even left the project. Is anyone else worried about this?Borisblue 14:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

It is a concern certainly. I think it might be a good idea to have a very prominent link on the nomination page to a subpage that concisely lays out the potential consequences of RfA, what the user should expect, how the user should be prepared, etc. This should not be provided as an obstacle to nomination, but as a guide. Beyond that, I don't know what more we can do. I don't think we should be responsible for user's poor reactions to contentious RfAs, assuming we do the above. Some users are just ill-suited to being an admin. We might be able to head some of the off before they go up for RfA, but once they are up for RfA we can't control what happens nor should we. --Durin 15:09, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I was just about to write exactly what Durin said. Anyone coming up for RFA should steel themselves for a possible pounding by all the POV warriors with whom they have ever collided, and accept it--as best they can--as an inevitable part of being part of this huge and chaotic community. A lot of good editors who stay away from controversial articles still go through 40-1, or so, while now almost anyone who has been brave enough to tackle Israel-Palestine or Bush-Kerry or Lilliput-Blefescu or whatever, will likely be subject to oppose votes, and sometimes downright nasty comments. A subpage giving warnings and advice on how to handle the stress of RFA might be a good idea. Antandrus (talk) 15:16, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Those are some good points, Durin. I'd support having an "RfA Guide" that would explain the process and potential complications. I also think that a user fit for adminship should be able to withstand a harsh RfA. If the candidate starts lashing out at users who challenge them or act in an incivil manner, they're probably not ready to be an admin. Carbonite | Talk 15:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I slightly disagree with any worry about this, specifically in regards to Zereshk. Zereshk, IMHO, overreacted and called the oppose voters the bad guys. He was definitely not civil, and voters were calling him on this. He also was insulted that a voter called him on his lack of experience with using Wiki code. While Zereshk may be a valuable contributor, he may not be a good admin candidate. Durin is right: we shouldn't be responsible for user's poor reactions to contentious RfAs. I edit conflicted twice, so I think we're all on the same boat. Linuxbeak | Talk 15:18, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    • That's four of us now that think the RfA guide might be a good idea. Pending time availability today, I'll craft something. When I've got a rough draft, I'll let you guys know about it here. In the meantime, I'd certainly welcome input on what should be on it. I do think it's important we keep it concise; one of the things I do in my professional job is web development, and an age old maxim is keep it short or expect it not to be read. --Durin 15:23, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I think the idea of a guide is a good one. As to what it includes, well links to some of the harsher RfA's would be useful. In answer to Borisblue, I think that if an editor leaves because of a failed RfA and/or get upset at their RfA then they probably don't have the temperament to be an admin. CambridgeBayWeather 15:41, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    I concur, but they could still make good editors. Some good editors have left the project because of bad RFAs, and WP has lost good contributors because of that. Zereshk has 5000 edits for instance, though thankfully he isn't leaving the project. My main example is User:Rl. I feel guilty because I voted oppose on his rfa. He was a good editor, but we've lost him for good now.Borisblue 15:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Just as a point of data; over the last 35 admin nominations, 12 have been withdrawn early. That's 34%. Over the preceeding 207 RfA noms, 22 were withdrawn early. That's 11%. This is a bit paradoxical; we recently changed the nomination process to make it a requirement that nominees accept their nominations prior to being posted on WP:RFA. This was done in part to reduce the number of nominations that were withdrawn. I'll try to get to work on the guide. Maybe that will have a reducing effect on the number of withdraws. --Durin 17:07, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I've retitled this section with a more appropriate title. This might draw more people's eyes to the discussion in this section. --Durin 17:08, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Hear hear. Happy to contribute from the perspective of a user who has recently had an unsuccessful RfA. The Land 17:16, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Modifying Carbonite's suggestion, I've begun working on Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship. There will be a shortcut for it, WP:GRFA. Anybody disagree with these titles? --Durin 17:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Durin, great contribution, as always!! Preparing oneself mentally for the RfA journey is a really good idea. Being nominated and then thrust out "naked" into the open can be a very humbling experience. I might add that you may wish to include a section on RfA ettiquette discussing such matters as advertising your RfA, campaigning, er, uh, voting on your own, etc. Noting that there are no rules against such things, but they often land the candidate in an ill light. I'd love to see the draft when you post it. >: Roby Wayne Talk • Hist • E@ 17:30, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Cool stuff. I've scribbled some thoughts down at User:The Land/RfA Guide; hope they are of use. The Land 18:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Now that I think of it, making it a subpage of the RFA page makes more sense than making it a page by itself, as per Durin's original suggestion. Borisblue 18:18, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Guide? Borisblue 18:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Precedent examples? --Durin 18:43, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    There's a first time for everything :) Actually, in your first comment on this section you said it would be a subpage. Not a big deal for me, though, I'd just thought it would make more sense since the guide would be intricately linked to RFA. Borisblue 19:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually, I found some precedent but I think it's not a good one to follow. For quite some time now, there's been a general opinion that subpages are bad, and linked articles are better. I've created the guide as per convention of Wikipedia:Guide to deletion and others. --Durin 21:30, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • In considering issues for the guide, I've come to realization that there's perhaps need for two articles. One would be something along the lines of Wikipedia:Advice for administrator nominees as suggested by Borisblue. Another would be as I suggested, Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship. WP:GRFA, starting with suggestions by RobyWayne (RFA Etiquette), is as a mental concept for me greatly expanding. What does concensus mean? Should you avoid pile ons? What's the policy on early withdrawals? How do you withdraw? etc...etc...etc... I was hoping for a far more concise guide directed strictly at potential nominees as per the original discussion this section. But, I see now that there's potential for both and reasons for both. Thoughts? --Durin 18:43, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure you need two pages. Why can't the first just be a section of the second? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:59, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I definitely think it could be. In fact, that's the way I'm structuring Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship (working on the draft now). My concern is as I noted above; "keep it short or expect it not to be read". But, perhaps there's so much text in this section you didn't read that ;-) Seriously, I think part of the goal needs to be educating would-be horribly failed nominees as to the likely result of their nomination. Having a looooong document for them to read is unlikely to result in that effect. Regardless, I think Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship is a good idea...even its focus is less about advice for nominees than about the process in general. --Durin 19:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Nah, I caught it, but perhaps I am simply underestimating the length of this guide. Or have some sort of shortcut to just that section. Or have that section near the top where people might notice it. I can't wait to see what you come up with. Have you looked at User:The Land's subpage yet? There are a couple of decent points on there. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:49, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Ok, I completed the draft WP:GRFA. LV: Yes, I used substantial material from User:The Land's subpage. Note that I used a style guide whereby "voters" is replaced by "contributors" to steer people away from the notion that RFA is an election, as it is about determining concensus, and not an election. Feel free to edit what I put in the draft; this should be a joint effort to help improve the RFA process in general. As you can see from the page, it is already quite long and I can easily see it getting significantly longer. That's why I was suggesting a secondary page of more direct advice that was short, concise, and very to the point. I don't think the guide as it stands will help to reduce the number of withdrawals that we are seeing, but I think it's a worthy project to help the RFA process improve in general. --Durin 21:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

In my rather unsympathetic approach to RfA, I think that any good candidate for adminship should already know all that before they go ahead with a request. I suppose it may serve as fair warning to editors likely to be unsuccessful, however. -Splashtalk 14:24, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I've seen a number of noms that are virtual "a HA! Gotcha!" because some nominee did not follow process (for example voting for themselves when in fact voting for yourself/your contributions is perfectly normal elsewhere on Wikipedia), or made some other "error" that is not outlined in any instructions on RfA (such as campaigning, or putting a link in your signature to your RfA) but is standard practice in the RfA process. One does not need to follow RfA for a few months in order to be a good administrator, nor should we expect anyone to do so. Catching them on errors is hardly beneficial to Wikipedia. Instead, I think we should be working to prepare people appropriately for the RfA process and adminship in general rather than laying traps for them to trip over. --Durin 15:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Case in point; User:Babajobu (RfA) just lost a support vote because he advertised his nomination on IRC. There's no statement anywhere that he should not have done this. Yet, he's lost one vote and will probably lose more because of it. That's entirely unfair to editors who are not familar with RfA who are up for nomination. --Durin 18:00, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Guidance (Archive 42)

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Better guidance could help to make RfA more positive and reduce the number of hopeless applications. The proposed guides appear mature now, and I propose that the third paragraph of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship should be revised to read:
Please be familiar with the administrators' reading list and how-to guide before submitting your request. The miniguide to requests for adminship gives useful advice on applying for adminship.
dave souza 11:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I think we should note that of the 40,000+ accounts that people have signed up for here (sure I saw that number somewhere), fewer than 750 editors have been promoted thus far (ergo, tho adminship is no big deal, neither is it a given). BD2412 T 12:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    Special:Statistics - "User statistics - We have 658,721 registered users, of which 721 (or 0.11%) are administrators." But yes, I agree. NSLE (T+C+CVU) 13:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Seeing that: we need more admins ;-) Lectonar 13:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
You're right, but the need isn't quite as dire as that stat makes is seem. Here a copy of a comment I made in a section above:
I took a look at Wikistats [1] and found out some interesting info. The most recent data was for October 2005. There were 1854 users who made at least 100 edits in October.[2] I think this is a pretty good definition of "active", since that's slightly more than 3 edits/day. There are currently 576 "active" admins (see here), so let's estimate that there were 500 back in October. Thus we get a ratio of 1854/500 or 3.7 active users for every active admin. Of course, this doesn't take into account anonymous users or those users who made less than 100 edits in October. Still, I think this shows that while we'll always need new admins, we're not really in an emergency situation at the moment. We can afford to examine each candidate thoroughly and possibly request that they get a bit more experience before being promoted. Carbonite | Talk 13:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Not sure whether the active user stat is significant. Not only do a very large percentage of the active users create no trouble, most do some sort of vandal fighting. It is the less active ones who often need admin attention. Tintin 13:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
The active user stat is useful for boiling down the absurdly inflated figure of 650,000+ users. The overwhelming majority of these users have made only a handful of edits. Carbonite | Talk 14:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Another way of looking at this is whether the new policy of preventing IPs from creating new articles has had any impact. Initial returns on the statistics says no; the number of new articles per day has remained more or less static. Meanwhile, the number of new accounts per day has more than doubled. Also, the # of edits per admin per day has increased somewhat. I don't think this new policy has had the intended effect. --Durin 14:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Lots of our admins are students. Many academic institutions are winding up about now; exams are finishing, deadlines have ended. It doesn't surprise me that there'd be an increase in admin activity around about the first week or two of December. Shimgray | talk | 20:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Allow me to rephrase. What I mean is the # of edits that are done per day divided by the number of admins we have has increased. Thus (assuming vandalism as a proportion of total edits stays the same), the load on admins has recently increased. --Durin 02:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
And an greater number of new users have been created after the anon-indiction (some stats here, courtesy Kelly Martin):
  • november 19th (50000 users ago) it was 500 users in 7 hours 0 minutes
  • november 23rd (40000 users ago) it was 500 users in 5 hours 21 minutes
  • november 27th (30000 users ago) it was 500 users in 6 hours 43 minutes
  • november 30th (20000 users ago) it was 500 users in 3 hours 38 minutes
  • december 3rd/4th (10000 users ago) it was 500 users in 4 hours 54 minutes
  • current (0 users ago) it was 500 users in 2 hours 4 minutes

which had to be expected, after all. Lectonar 13:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Some of the new accounts will, for a while, be established but anonymous users converting to identities. The Land 13:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
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