Wikipedia:2024 administrative elections proposal

This proposal seeks to add an alternative to the current requests for adminship (RfA) process. As it currently stands, candidates for adminship are subjected to a highly publicized and corrosive test that has systematically scared well-qualified editors away from doing badly needed work, amplified and legitimized incivility, and quashed reasoned dissent. Under this proposal, prospective candidates will have the option to instead submit their names to periodic, privately-balloted elections that include 10 days for discussion and vetting instead of 7. These elections will be conducted via SecurePoll for the last 7 days of the election. Candidates who clear 65% of the vote are granted adminship; candidates who achieve 55% or more are granted adminship temporarily.

Principles

Current system

The current atmosphere of the RfA process is widely agreed to be toxic, unmanageable, and incivil, driving good candidates away from the process. This phenomenon has multiple causes, of which this proposal aims to address the following:

1. Administrators and bureaucrats have systematically failed to take action against comments that violate norms, policies, and guidelines.
2. Participants are frequently badgered or criticized for their rationales. Rather than checking a tide of toxic or poorly reasoned votes, this criticism only adds to the cacophony and corrosive atmosphere.
3. Every current RfA results in either lifetime adminship or failure. This unyielding binary raises the stakes, and thus the hostility, at every RfA.
4. Because RfA no longer has a wellspring of candidates, new candidates command the undivided attention of RfA participants for a week. This raises the "social cost" of filing (and possibly, subsequently failing) an RfA.

Aims and objectives of proposal

The community has agreed the current system should not be the only path to adminship. To minimize shock to the system, this proposal leaves the current RfA system as it is, instead adding an alternative path.

• To improve civility at RfA, this proposal:
  1. Gives an avenue for those opposing a candidate to not have to do so publicly, inviting badgering and rebuttal.
• To maintain healthy scrutiny and questioning of candidates, this proposal:
  1. Provides for a discussion and questioning period, importing the level of rigorousness present in the current RfA system.
  2. Creates a gap between the start of the discussion period and the start of the voting period, allowing participants to have some indication of the community's attitude before casting their vote.
• To encourage new candidates to approach RfA and succeed, this proposal:
  1. Provides a mailing list where candidates can quietly signal their intention to run, creating "flights" of editors running at the same time.
  2. Provides a way for voters to anonymously encourage prospective candidates to run.
  3. Sets the private-ballot threshold at the low end of the public-vote threshold, to account for an anticipated increase in privately ballotted opposition.
  4. Creates a pathway by which candidates can obtain adminship temporarily to demonstrate their ability hands-on.
  5. Bolsters civility, as described above.

Proposal

The current pathway to adminship will remain intact. The requests for adminship process is amended to include an alternative elections process, which will take place as described below.

Timeline

Elections take place on the first days of February, May, July, and October. The first election will take place at least a month after the final implementation is finished. An election lasts for fourteen days. The nomination period spans the first four days, in which time any user may stand for adminship in this process. The next ten days make up the discussion and questioning period, where participants can raise questions of, or pose questions to, a candidate. In the final seven days of the election, which run concurrently with the end of the discussion period, participants may vote on the candidates via SecurePoll.

Standing for election

Any extended-confirmed user who wishes may directly transclude their nomination statement. For users who are more reticent, the bureaucrats will maintain a mailing list by which users can privately announce their intent to run once a critical mass of candidates has been reached. At that time, a bureaucrat will transclude the nomination statement of each participating editor whose conditions have been satisfied. A candidate may withdraw at any time – if the voting period has already started, a developer will remove their name from the ballot.

Voting

Participants will have the option to vote "Support", "Oppose", or "Neutral". Editors eligible to vote must have registered their account at least 30 days before the beginning of the election; have made at least 150 mainspace edits before the beginning of the election; and must not be blocked from the English Wikipedia at the time of their vote. Participants may also write in the names of any users they wish to see request adminship; these votes are non-binding, but when a user who is eligible for election receives five or more votes this way, their name will be recorded in a subsection of the election results.

As in Arbitration Committee elections, votes will be scrutinized to verify that they are legitimately cast. Scrutineers will be selected from the bureaucrat team in the same manner as Arbitration Committee election scrutineers, with volunteer bureaucrats publicly submitting their name and a brief nomination statement with a section for endorsements throughout the election period. The Arbitration Committee will make the final decision on appointees by the end of the voting period; the scrutineers will be temporarily granted checkuser status for the purposes of conducting the election. Should they be unsatisfied with the publicly declared pool of volunteers, they are empowered to privately solicit and appoint other users of advanced permissions to fill the role. A bureaucrat who was not involved with scrutineering will make the final decision on whether to promote any candidate. Should irregularities arise with the election that cannot be addressed by scrutineering, the closing bureaucrat can extend the balloting period for, or decline to promote, any or all candidates.

A candidate with 65% or more of the vote, as determined by the proportion of supports against supports and opposes, is granted adminship indefinitely. A candidate with 55% or more of the vote is granted adminship for a period of six months.