User talk:WereSpielChequers/RFA reform

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Thanks

Just wanted to say thanks for the page. For the people with brains who can hold all this stuff, it's important to keep track of all the different threads at the same time, so that if what everyone is focusing on at the moment doesn't quite work out, you've got a choice of things to swap in that might work. - Dank (push to talk) 00:47, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I want to add that reading over your page again, I'm wondering if some version of the endorsements idea, plus the Eureka-thread ideas, wouldn't allow us to have an effect on many of the things you think aren't working. - Dank (push to talk) 00:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow! Some genuinely good stuff - I like the idea of non-moving goalposts, I do :o) How about adding something along the lines of "any !vote which comes across as any kind of personal attack, however euphemistically worded, will not be considered". Anyone else with more tag-on ideas? Pesky (talk) 18:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm hoping that User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_reform#Crat_decision - "Encourage crats to discount or strike !Votes that have rationales outside of an agreed criteria for adminship." Would largely do this, however there is a difficulty with talking about euphemistically worded attacks. as RFA is the place for criticism of candidates. But it might be an idea to expand that point into a whole section. I'll have a think. ϢereSpielChequers 20:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Fairy nuff .... but there at least two kinds of criticism! Some people have the knack of doing the right kind; it seems others just can't resist a bit of twisting the knife while they're at it. Debate is always fine, constructve (genuinely constructive, not sarky!) is fine - but when it starts to degenerate into lynch-mob mentality, that is definitely not fine. And neither is deliberate baiting. Just out of curiosity, anyone ever done a survery to see if there are any characters who almost always seem to turn up on the oppose side, and almost always leave a sour taste in a non-involved reader's mouth? Pesky (talk) 00:32, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have, but I have naturally never published the results. Some of them turned up on my own recent RfA. Kudpung (talk) 04:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm aware of several members of the "opposse" who mainly oppose and in some cases do so unconstructively. No-one currently opposes all candidates on sight, and I doubt if there is currently any frequent !voter who is simply there to undermine wikipedia (though there has been at least one in the past). I suspect there may be !voters who check out candidates, oppose those who fail certain criteria but don't go so far as to support those who they don't see a reason to oppose, but as long as their criteria are not too far out of line with the community I don't see this as a problem. I suspect they are balanced out by editors who will support anyone who meets a certain criteria but don't yet feel comfortable opposing. But again as long as results range from 0% support to nearly 100% support we don't have a problem at RFA either with uncritical supports promoting candidates regardless of what emerges in the RFA nor do we have an "opposse" who can fail a candidate for no discernible reason. In my view RFA fails in that some !voters sometimes oppose unconstructively, there is insufficient scrutiny of candidates and certain things that in my view would and should torpedo RFAs either don't emerge until late in the RFA or in one notorious case from a year or so ago, not until just after the RFA had closed. I think there are several changes that would transform that. Agree and stabilise the criteria for adminship; Gently, or where appropriate firmly chiding !voters who use inappropriate rationales; expanding editor review or reviving admin coaching so that candidates would have the opportunity to discover and resolve problems in a less public arena than RFA; and be less likely to get opposes for unexpected reasons. Fix any one of them and RFA will be a much better place, fix all three and RFA would work acceptably well (there are other possible improvements or solutions some of which would make it better than just "not broken" but in my view these are the three that really matter) . ϢereSpielChequers 12:14, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree of course 100% on all three. Getting those changes made and written into policy is the problem. Lets hope the idea of a task force to fast-track the reform will be approved, because if we rely on our traditional system of discussion, those of us who have started the current initiative might have suffered another overdose of stickyproditis. Kudpung (talk) 12:28, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again

It's very similar to my own set of suggestions for RfA reform, which proves already some of us are thinking on the same lines. There are one or two points that I would take you upon when the project gets to discussion stage, but they diverge from, rather than oppose my own views. Kudpung (talk) 04:34, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll just add this thought: It is a popularity contest because plenty of non-regulars vote. Popularity is a curious denominator - many voters express their opinion based on their own interaction with the candidate and nothing else. Such views are not representative, but all votes can influence how other people vote. Plenty of one-time fans turn up to vote 'support', ostensibly a a result of canvassing - often in the case of RfA of younger editors (schoolyard canvassing). Some canvass for popularity through a campaign of handing out barnstars willy-nilly. --Kudpung (talk) 04:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Just because a large proportion of the !voters in many RFAs are intermittent voters doesn't necessarily mean that it is a popularity contest. I don't hang out in the IRC channels other than attending the occasional office hour, but I'm aware that there are those who do and that there is a theory that this boosts RFAs of people who are popular in such channels, so perhaps there is an element of popularity contest for such candidates. But I fear that most RFAs are more of a beauty contest - many editors only concern themselves with the surface detail and the question answers. As long as the candidates have a fashionable level of editcountitis and know the Wiki equivalent of saying how much they want whirled peas and love to work with chilled wrens, then 90% will support unless one of the 10% who actually check the candidate's contributions finds something troubling. ϢereSpielChequers 16:51, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Better Judges?

Personally, I think someone who's clearly an ordinary, everyday, bog-standard, occasionally-fallible human being may well be better able to differentiate between genuine vandalism and plain ineptitude, genuine perpetual battle-mentality and someone who's just reached a snapping point after too much provocation, genuine contentious editing and a 'personal blind spot', and so on, and on, and on. In many instances it's better to be judged by a fellow-sinner than by a pedestalled saint. (I know which type of person I prefer.) Someone who's all-too-human from time to time - not consistently and forever, but sometimes - is more likely, I think, to remember that there's another human being on the end of the computer they're looking at. So I think a bit less nit-picking about stupid things someone's done in the past, and a bit more watching how straightly-but-compassionately they deal with other people now and on a regular basis, might be a better way of assessing candidates. Adding a bit: some of the Admin nominees are pretty young - and do we really want to be labelled as a society as the sort of people who continue to berate a perfectly reasonable, mature 17 year old, for example, for something they did in a moment of stupidity when they were 13? Pesky (talk) 06:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I find that RFA is a remarkably forgiving place. People don't go back four years, for some things they don't go back four months. Past problematic behaviour is usually discussed in terms of whether it might recur, and most voters would rather that an editor continued after being unblocked rather than start a new account. Since a new account can make admin after 12-15 months there is little point opposing over anything that happened more than 15 months ago. Also perfection is neither required nor expected. Something really needs to be egregious to merit opposing for without first asking the candidate how they would handle the situation if it recurred, or at least looking for further examples to check that it is part of a pattern and not an isolated incident. ϢereSpielChequers 10:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently looking at an anonymous participants' questionnaire, with a pulic 'RfA Process Feedback Page', as an idea on RfA Talk. Pesky (talk) 10:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Growing up is relative as anyone who has worked in pedagogics will know. A candidate's level of maturity is fairly easy to recognise, ironically however, usually only by people who have achieved full maturity. We have a great many adult editors who still behave like children. We do however have some excellent young editors and admins. We also have some who became admins by 14, defrocked at 15, and are still roaming around the project at 17 and creating havoc. We have to be on our mettle when considering giving the bit to very young people, but we are neither here to punish them for trying, nor to make it harder for them than for anyone else.

My RfA was nearly train-wrecked by a group of adult sinners and poorly qualified/uniformed voters (and admins) dragging minor issues out of the past from 15 months ago and blown all out of context and proportion, and with a few lies thrown in for good measure, and I was told to shut up and put up. Fortunately I'm old and made of very strong stuff, but this is the kind of thing that urgently needs cleaning up, because it's exactly what's preventing your ordinary, everyday, bog-standard, occasionally-fallible human beings from running for office. Some of the very sensible voters have abandoned taking part in RfA too. Frankly I would have preferred to have been judged in public by a fixed panel of admins and crats (the pedestalled saints), but as we'll probably never get consensus for such a solution, it's not even on my list of suggested reforms. What could happen, is that the WMF might decide over our heads on a new system which might have no transparency at all, and those of us who don't like it will only have ourselves to blame.Kudpung (talk) 10:57, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

You are dead right on the age thing. I have known some exceptionally mature, well-oriented young people (and by 'young' I'm talking 'under-15'), and also some should-be-mature chaps and chapesses who have a long way to go yet! Discussion - and as mature (and that means 'humour allowed without misunderstandings', too) as possible, and as creative and constructive as possible, too - is the best way forward. And we need to allow each other to be the aforementioned everyday, bog-standard, occasionally-fallible human beings during those discussions. Talks themselves can be emotionally wearing, when it's on a difficult subject, and it's unreasonable / naive not to make allowances for moments of frailty and / or escapism. We all do it. It's species-normal! :o) Pesky (talk) 11:05, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

No one is obliged to disclose their age here of course. There are however subtle signs that demonstrate a level of maturity, and let's be quite clear on this, if under-15s are ready to be admins, they have developed certain abilities or proclivities at an earlier age than usual. The sad thing is, my RfA also almost failed because I had dared to make that suggestion in the past and I was branded as a child hater. That, or those, particular voters had taken everything I said completely out of context simply because they had once joined a discussion thread in the middle without reading the previous pages of tedium, and it caused a pile-on of about six 'oppose' votes - a dangerous number, considering it needs 18 more supports to be cancelled out, and a disasterous result for a candidate who might be your everyday, bog-standard, occasionally-fallible human beings and not well known outside of their close circle of content providers. This bears the subtle proof therefore, that it is essential for a candidate to have accumulated more than just average experience in a reasonably wide range of Wikipedia activities. Kudpung (talk) 12:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

After years of having zero awareness of current teenagers I find that in the last few years I have a number of relatives and children of friends who are going through adolescence and teens, just as by coincidence I find myself spending a lot of time on here and often interacting with surprisingly young people. There are people here and in real life who I consider to be more responsible than many adults will ever be, and others who I wouldn't currently trust to paint a shed. Maturity and age do not always go hand in hand, where I think this causes a problem at RFA is that people who haven't yet realised our age balance will see some trainwreck RFAs and not realise that adolescent and teenage boys are likely to be opposed for "immaturity" especially by other lads who think they are older either in real life or wiki terms. I'm not sure what the best response is to that, other than to say to teenage boys that they should think of RFA as a two stage process and to older candidates that they shouldn't concern themselves with the overall failure rate at RFA, better to compare themselves with other candidates who are adult or female. ϢereSpielChequers 12:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

<outdent> rofl ..... "other candidates who are adult or female" ..... that could be read sooooooooo many ways! (And I am an adult female, with adult female offspring, and have school-age grandchildren, and I'm a Brit! So either fantastic or a total no-hoper, depending which way you look at it :o) ) Pesky (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Both is OK:) I've nominated ten candidates for adminship and voted in or at least read hundreds of RFAs. We get far fewer candidates who self identify as both young and female than we do young and male. But most young male candidates will fail on their first attempt, whilst it is a jolly long time since a female candidate failed RFA (and that was her boyfriend/nominator's fault not hers). My experience is that female candidates are less likely to run too early, and rarely make the sort of aggressive errors that the community is least tolerant of. ϢereSpielChequers 16:04, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Age and "maturity"

This is a well done and generally fair essay.

Nonetheless, it commits a common error, that of accusing persons who oppose minors of opposing minors because of "maturity". Three counter-examples spring to mind:

1. I oppose minors (because of ethical-legal concerns), not because of "maturity". I have at least once raised a concern about maturity for an adult, because of past behavior (apparently as a minor).
2. Malleus has similarly opposed minors because they are not adults, not because of "maturity".
3. Fetchcomms seems to have similar concerns, although he seems to have supported some minors.

Thanks,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, sorry for not responding earlier. Are you happy that I've now updated this to reflect your concerns, and are there specific areas of adminship that you don't consider should be done by minors? ϢereSpielChequers 21:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Bad admins

Apart from those who routinely delete articles out of process, I'm not aware of any other group who Arbcom would probably not desysop but who might be considered "bad admins", if any of the proponents of CDA would care to delineate another group I'd be happy to discuss this here on this talkpage. If we can define such a group perhaps we could get Arbcom to tackle them? NB For obvious reasons please refrain from naming names, lets focus on why someone could be described as a "bad admin" not who one would tag that label onto. ϢereSpielChequers 12:36, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Defining bad admins is not easy. As far as I understand, the only applicable criterion for a bad admin is the one that addresses misuse of the tools. However, bad admins are also those who deliberately disrupt discussions, bite, bully, and intimidate other users, resort to incivility and personal attacks, and make unilateral edits to content and policy of the kind that should be subject to discussion. They do this with impunity safe in the knowledge that users are aware that complains of this kind about admins are rarely taken seriously. Fortunately, most such admins are now quite few, and were elected at times when a few weeks and a couple of hundred edits would suffice for promotion, and little concern was given to behavioural issues because tenure had not been long enough to reveal any nastiness. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Without naming names I'm now aware of multiple instances where ARBCOM has desysopped, or people have resigned "under a cloud" after others have threatened to take them to Arbcom. That may reflect a change in Arbcom policy since 2011 - my examples include a couple that predate that, but they both resigned rather than go to Arbcom. I'm particularly thinking of people who commit copyvio or otherwise get blocked for things that don't involve a misuse of the tools. On the other side of the coin, we have at least one exception of a rights holder who can't be acted against despite a very incivil comment. So I'll concede that at least one such exists. ϢereSpielChequers 12:33, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you; linked

Thank you for this service. I have linked this essay to mine at User:Bearian/Standards#WP:RFA_standards. Bearian (talk) 18:18, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Bearian. I would be interested to know which of my possible solutions you don't endorse and why. ϢereSpielChequers 21:56, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Nice work

Much more to say, hopefully, I will follow up.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback / Recruitment Drives

Agree this is great work. I'd especially like to see you further develop the 'Crat decision' section.

The one section I'd omit would be 'Recruit more candidates'. For me the recruitment drives solution is a siren and an enemy to real reform. Some think its a way to obtain the end goal of more admins while side stepping the need for real change, but in practice they only deliver at best a very brief uptick in promotions. And a high profile recruitment drive can take all the steam out of a reform effort. I remember this especially back in Sept 2009, when we had a couple of dozen editors enthusiastic for reform, with activity on several sub pages & BN, not just RfA talk, and were gearing up to take proposals to Village Pump when a recruiment drive started and the reform attempt fizzled out. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:57, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that there is a risk that a handful of candidates can shift the focus away from a reform process. But I feel we need an annual clutch of new admins, doing so by way of a signpost article is one of the few reliable things that mitigates the RFA problem. My plan is to go for such a clutch in the New Year - just a year after the last batch. That leaves plenty of time for reform proposals. So I'm not prepared to omit it, but I can clarify that it won't on its own solve the problem. ϢereSpielChequers 15:05, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

RfA standards changing over time

I've been around since September 2018, and I've seen people saying that standards for RfA have changed over time. I didn't realize the extent of this change! I was looking at some older RfAs to try to understand what might have changed... and I find this one from 2010 [1]. An RFA that passed 84/18/7... most of the opposes mention too little experience. What do they mean by that? 1,298 article edits to mainspace, 3,552 total edits, mostly automated, and no articles created. And in that RfA, a reply to one of the opposes states "He has over 3000 edits here in a varied number of tasks. Please tell me the RfA standards haven't changed so drastically over the years."

I'm amazed. I don't think an RfA like that now would turn out the same way. There'd definitely be a lot more opposes, maybe even enough for a snow close. There'd be opposes mentioning WP:NOTNOW and maybe even WP:NOTNOTNOW. There'd probably be more opposes based on the low amount of edits, and high amount of automated edits. There'd probably be opposes calling the RfA WP:HATCOLLECTING, instead of supports praising the cross-wiki participation.

Not to say that this was a better way of doing things, but I am amazed at how different things used to be. This RfA is probably not the only example of ones that would probably turn out differently if encountered today, though. Clovermoss (talk) 23:31, 22 December 2019 (UTC)