Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform/Phase I/RfC

I'm closing this following a request from the RFC closure board. Firstly a comment; this discussion has contribution from a lot of people; nearly 200 in fact. That's pretty good going for a community RFC! Further down the page I see a bit of dis-enfranchisement with this RFC, and the feeling that there is an expectation of a Rubber Stamp on the result. I think that's unfair on the people who contributed a lot of time and effort - so I intend to write out a proper close that does your contributions justice.

Clear consensus

The discussion shows clear consensus on the following questions:

• C: Hostile environment
• D: More participants
• I: Ease the load on admins
• O: The discretionary range is too narrow

The community clearly believes that admins need more clear support from experienced editors and should brainstorm on how to do this. It's also clear that the community thinks that the RFA process is becoming a bit of a walled garden; improving the engagement of the wider editorship and the general attitude during an RFA will encourage more good candidates to step forward. The "discretionary range" question was closer, perhaps ironically falling short of the current discretionary range... I think it's safe to say the community consensus is that the range could be raised (to 80, for example) but that lowering it would be more contentious (although still well supported).

Mixed Results

• A: High standards

This was very close, with good discussion on both sides. A very large part of the community does feel that standards are too high - particularly looking for lots of non-Admin activities (which they hold to be unrelated). Opposition argued that it was important to have some standards and a significant portion of the opposition affirmed their support for strict standards. However, a good portion of the opposition talked about the vagueness of the question and in some cases even lightly supported the idea of some defined standards. It's likely that some well worded proposals in the next phase will find consensus, so I think this is valid to pass to the next phase.

• B: Undefined standards

Broadly, I think that the community supports the idea of some standards for potential Admin candidates RFA. In the discussion two formats were discussed: minimum standards before RFA can be attempted and guideline standards to help during votes. Opposition to these ideas was mixed; but the overriding concern was that a) the only real standard was that a user could be trusted and b) that any guidelines would risk becoming discriminatory. All valid concerns. I think it's fair to say this question "passed" too and that proposals based on this question would be worth having in the next stage.

• E: Difficult to remove admins

A complex discussion that needs discussing in the next phase - but with care. The community is interested in revising the RFA process, that is clear, but it is less certain it want's to implement community Adminship removal as part of that. According to my reading of this discussion, it would possibly be an overreach of this process to try and implement that during the later phases.

• F: Unbundle the tools

This is a perennial discussion. In this case it was phrased as follows: "Currently, it is too difficult for candidates to pass because they are being trusted with a large toolset. If we unbundled the tools, candidates could simply apply for the particular right(s) which they would personally find most useful and/or have the most non-admin experience in." The wording is important because it's effectively asking the question; "Should we consider unbundling options in the next phase as an option for improving RFA". The consensus here seems broadly to be "no". At this stage it's probably not worth proceeding with this line of thought in Phase 2.

• J: Oppose votes carry too much weight

This is a specific variation of O (I appreciate O came later). As it stands I think the community consensus is against this question, but elements of it may be relevant in Phase 2 in relation to O.

• M: Active clerking at RFA

This was a nuanced discussion. I think the community would like to discuss the idea of clerking at the next stage of the RFC. The valid concerns are that it would lead to stifling of discussion and force !votes to be less candid. So these are things to look out for in the next phase.

• P: Discard or discount high-end oppose votes

This is a specific variation of A. I think it's no consensus at this point, and one of the more hot button topics. It's unresolved really in this discussion and might benefit from careful incorporation into the next phase.

Clear Opposition

• G: RfA should be replaced
• H: Leave as is

These two questions are interesting; whilst there is clearly no appetite in the community to completely scrap the RFA process, it's also fairly uncontroversial to say that the current implementation of the process doesn't work.

• K: Allow limited-charter RFAs
• L: Minimum requirements for voters
• N. Determine granting of adminship based on consensus of pros and cons

Most of the remaining failed proposals were more specific ideas/changes. Which got quite a bit of opposition on those grounds (this being a broad overview process). There was a lot of valid opposition too, it's worth adding. Some of the ideas and concepts from these proposals might be supported or revisited in later parts of the process.

Summary

7 items passed through to the next stage. One item is in the "discretionary/advisory" range where I suggest that, based on community comments, care is taken if incorporating into Phase 2. The remainder of the questions failed to attain consensus to move on to Phase 2.

Passed: A, B, C, D, I, M and O Discretionary: E

I hope everyone finds this close acceptable and complete. I've tried to be, as requested, as lenient as possible in pushing through items. But applied common sense in terms of topics that clearly would have no use in the next phase. Item E is really up to you, there's not enough there to judge if it would be beneficial or problematic to use in the next phase. Please let me know if you have any queries or concerns. --Errant ^(chat!) 13:32, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A: High standards

Participants at RfA generally expect too much of candidates (e.g., have excessively strict criteria). Those who !vote at RfA should lower their expectations and understand that the majority of candidates will be less than perfect.

Support A

1. Support The current expectations of !voters are unrealistic. Several years of experience, tens of thousands of edits, accurate participation in all admin areas, the right "hit rate" at AfD. It's nonsense. My idea of the right admin candidate is simple: the candidate has been around for a time (about 9 months to a year), shows no signs of habitually making personal attacks, and has demonstrated knowledge of basic policies. Some oppose for extremely petty reasons not grounded in policy. We were much less strict previous years, and Wikipedia didn't plunge into ruin. --
   Biblioworm 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
2. Support – in general, I find this to be true. The most extreme version of this is those voters who have already expected candidates to have participated in virtually every facet of the project before supporting for RfA. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 01:52, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. Perfection is impossible. 100s and 100s of good edits, and an opposer will pin point one bad CSD or AfD nomination. That doesn't really make sense. And the next thing is asking for GAs and FAs. It should be understood that not all editors are native or professional English speakers and it is hard for non-native or non-professional English speakers to promote articles to GAs or FAs. Plus less or no content creations doesn't necessarily mean they have little or no idea on policies. Regards—
   Talk 04:43, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
4. Support. The "requirements" people look for are the source of the problem. Adminship is not about content creation and is not about being "right" in a discussion. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:17, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support. Well, alright, I'll support this. But what effect will supporting this have? It seems like a petition, or maybe an Arbcom principle. Are we going to vote on the "purpose of Wikipedia" like Arbcom? Well, anyway, I agree. Let's just focus on one aspect of high expectations: numbers of edits. Someone with 6500 edits would probably be told they need more experience, but that's enough to put you on the
   list of 10,000 most active Wikipedians of all time. There are only 2100 people have more than 30K edits total, and there are only 3300 people who make more than 100 edits per month on English Wikipedia. I think people probably should have some kind of experience with content creation, voting at AfD, new page patrol, and speedy deletion. But these should be indicators of suitability, not a checklist of "must have" qualifications. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 05:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
6. Not sure I agree with the premis for promotion suggested here but overall we do have unreasonable expectations for candidates.
   Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
7. Support. Agree with everything stated by
   Biblioworm and NinjaRobotPirate, above. Also, the backlogs on Wikipedia are getting worse. — Cirt (talk) 08:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
8. Support. One year and 5000 edits are more than enough if they come with clue, and perfection is something we should not expect from anybody. The ability to achieve something great without asking for immediate perfection is central to Wikipedia's success. —Kusma (t·c) 09:45, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. we have moved from a system where people check the candidate's edits and come to a view as to whether they would make a good admin to one where few really check edits, not least because the expectation is that candidates should have too many edits to be checked. So some expectations are higher and unrealistic, others are lower. I don't believe that overall the standards are as effective at screening out people who would make bad admins, but some arbitrary bits such as edit count and tenure are higher. ϢereSpielChequers 12:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
10. support, though I have no idea how this will lead to an actionable recommendation. Protonk (talk) 13:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support: the "NOTNOW" opposes in this RfA (a recent prominent example) show just how unreasonable people's base expectations are. But in RfAs that are close to passing, we hit a different problem: lots of people have very high standards in a specific area. So some people expect unreasonable levels of 'content creation', others value AfD stats too much, others expect candidates to make X posts to random admin boards Y and Z etc. These are significant enough minorities to cause an RfA to fail, so for a candidate to pass they have to appease every single one of these groups, leading to a requirement for them to pass every single high standard if they want their RfA to succeed. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support All a candidate has to show is a good level of experience, competence and confidence. That doesn't translate into perfection or haughty standards. ^{My name is}not^dave (talk/contribs) 15:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support - the main question we need to answer, in order to vote in an RFA, is: Are we better off with this user handling the issues (s)he claims (s)he will, or without? Obviously, if the user would do the job badly, then we're better off without. However, a user needs not to have any experience beyond what's necessary to understand the policies behind his/her planned areas. For example, having written an FA makes a user no better at recongizing edit warring or sockpuppetry, or at assessing the level of notability of the topic of a specific article, etc. And age is certainly of little value - I doubt a 5-year-old could possibly edit on an adult level well enough to pass an RFA, but a 15-year-old who can certainly should be able to run with no disadvantage due to age. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. Support. While trusting a user with the tools is a subjective judgement, there are cases where the standards of voters are simply too high. Requiring featured articles, 10K+ contributions, a certain number of contributions to AN & ANI, digging into problematic edits from several years back, are standards that show up at RfA and are generally higher than should be necessary. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:09, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. Everyking (talk) 14:13, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support.By and large, those who vote regularly, intelligently, and objectively at RfA practice a code of criteria that a vast number of editors of the right calibre for adminship easily exceed. We must be wary however of those who apply ludicrous barriers to adminship, vote against the system rather than against the candidate, and those who just never seem to get it right. Some fairly recent newer regular voters to RfA appear to have brought with them some ridiculously high demands for edit count. Even if some arbitrary statistic might have shown that most successful candidates have 33,000 edits or whatever, it is absolutely possible for a candidate of the right calibre to have demonstrated within the right dispersal of 6,000 or so edits that they do indeed understand what is required of admins. Other newer voters insist on GA and even FA. One downside to this is that it makes adminship a meritocratic process - a trophy for good work or it simply forces candidates into half-hearted superior quality content work while they may already be more than satisfactorily helping us to build this encyclopedia.. Naturally a handful of medium sized, immaculate creations would be a plus, because I do ascribe the theory that 'Anyone who wants to police pages should know how to produce them' to be a quality for potential adminship. BTW, NOTNOW failures have nothing to do with any of this; they are generally the result of people simply refusing to read all the advice before transcluding an RfA, or strangely believing it does not apply to them. Such RfAs are the least of our worries.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:10, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. Mild support. Adminship eligibility shouldn't be based on number, or frequency, of edits. It should be based off the decisions made, the clue levels shown, especially during the last few months. No-one should be refused adminship due to a mistake years ago. Eman235/talk 01:53, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Mild support. I wouldn't say it's so much that the criteria are excessively strict, but that there are -- and have been for the better part of a decade -- far too many RfA regulars who demand allegiance to their personal hobby horses for a Support vote, and that failure to have enough edits in a particular area, conformance to notions of cooldown blocks, a high enough percentage of edit summaries, or whatever the issue de jour happens to be ensures an Oppose. Ravenswing 20:00, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
19. Support – I still don't think anything is going to come of this. RFA is dead because of issues that could've been handled years ago. Mitch32^{(Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer.)} 20:59, 22 October 2015 (UTC)e[reply]
20. Support, definitely. The idea that any minor transgression or lack of experience in any single area of the encyclopedia can entirely derail a nomination is an enormous problem with the process. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 00:10, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Support I want prospective admins to be experienced, but expecting admins to have broad experience is often unrealistic. When I was an admin, I was one of only a handful who closed FFDs and PUFs. There should be more understanding and acceptance that many candidates gravitate toward one or two specific areas of admin work. I did 30k log actions here, and didn't go anywhere near AFD or do much at RFPP for example. INeverCry 03:57, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support Perfection seems to be expected. Some of the AfP discussions look more like a Senate confirmation hearing, with attempts to uncover any minor deviation at any time since the prospective admin's first ever edit, every slip of the keyboard and every forgotten edit summary. This is why I am not interested in becoming an admin - who needs the stress of fending off attacks? Davidelit (Talk) 05:13, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support No one's perfect.--
    talk) 10:55, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
24. Support - I know I'm perfect, but I don't expect everyone else to be as well..we have lost many-a-candidates over the last 6 years who i feel would have been perfect as admins but were forced to 'leave' or 'never run again' due to these unsubstantiated high expectations..and personally, I do not mind an admin who attacks other users or is seen as rude or generally a PITA, as long as they are getting the job done..we need leaders, not politicians.--Stemoc 11:07, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support. Not only are they too high, they are rising over time. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:42, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support, high standards are good, the problem is excessively high standards, which are now at a point where they are almost impossible to meet. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 13:12, 23 October 2015 (UTC).[reply]
27. Limited Support. I think standards should be high, but at the same time, we should actively-via-clerk disallow "country club" rationales for oppose !votes. Lack of participation in GA's and FA's should be taken completely off the table, for example. An editor can do amazing work in the Wikipedia without having ever once touched these processes.
    Talk • Work 16:29, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]

    I have created a spin-off proposal based on this !vote. See

    Talk • Work 17:44, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply

    ]

28. Support. Many of the !votes in the oppose section seem to assume the present criteria actually being applied are more lenient than they really are. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:54, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Support most recent RfA's I've watched are nothing but a rolling character assassination, with many editors looking for any slip or poor judgement call to oppose the candidate. No wonder many good potential candidates won't even apply. What is needed is a lot less "random" gatekeepers using apparently completely made up criteria they have developed in their own mind to decide their vote. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:51, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
30. Support Standards are too high and keep on rising, i'm not suggesting that we start letting in any user with a couple thousand edits under their belt, but highly qualified users shouldn't be disqualified because they haven't had tens of thousands of edits and so on with the rationale. -
    talk) 01:35, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
31. Support. It seems that nowadays large amounts of content edits are required to be an admin, despite the fact that an admin role when it comes to content is to be strictly neutral with regards to it. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:33, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Support A correct statement. Debresser (talk) 15:40, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
33. Support Gamaliel (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
34. Support The whole process will be better if we can make it easier to both promote new admins and to remove existing ones. Deli nk (talk) 17:50, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support. Don't see how this statement can lead to improved selection. A nomination was brought to my attention. I examined it, not remembering the nominee, who was being grilled over every edit s/he had ever made. This seemed a bit much IMO. Student7 (talk) 18:52, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
36. Support I don't feel many of the criteria used by editors actually correlate to how good the admin will eventually be as an admin.--Aervanath (talk) 19:03, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
37. Qualified support I don't believe the problem is the standards per se; the problem is the perception of standards, which ensures that the number of serious RfAs is small. Additionally, I would feel more comfortable agreeing that "admins need not be perfect" if the removal process were not next to impossible. The selection process and the removal are linked, and can't be separated; we can't loosen one without also making the other easier. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:23, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
38. Mild Support Mainly along the lines of Vanamonde93 above. The problem is that the requirements are strong now because of the difficulty of removing the bit. I dont think admins need to be perfect, have GA's or FA's. They need to have had some time editing, to know policy, have a respect for consensus, and have a little common sense. AlbinoFerret 22:33, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
39. Strong Support. Whilst I agree that the candidates must meet high standards, the voters and people reviewing the candidates (at times) get very unrealistic and exceptionally tough. I recently came across a RfA candidate
    RfA statistics and the result of this can be seen at the administrator stats table
    . From a high of 1,011 active admins in Jan 2008, we are down to 583 and the count is constantly shrinking. In Jan 2008, Wikipedia had appx 2.2 million articles which translated to 2,200 articles per admin. In Oct 2015, we have 4,994,931 articles with 583 admins. This means every administrator has burden of 8,567 articles i.e. admin burden has increased four folds. We are horribly short of administrators and need few urgently. It is my humble suggestion that;
    1. The "pass criteria" for RfA should be made more realistic.
    2. Please create a minimum edit / experience threshold for RfA voters. Allowing a very new user to vote is unfair both for the voter and for the candidate and is just like asking a Kindergarten kid to decide if his older brother should apply for a college or not (pardon me for being curt).
    3. During the process of voting, one must not be able to view the votes already casted and the comments by other voters. This will avoid the herd mentality and will allow voters to form their own and genuine opinion rather than getting influenced by the majority opinion. Final votes can be made public once when the RfA process gets over.
    4. Standards need to be defined for RfA process. We cant leave everything to voter's imagination.
    5. Like we welcome the new users and always ask everyone to AGF towards the new users; same principle should be applied for RfA candidates. The environment is very hostile for RfA candidates and (on the pun intended side) it appears that they are going to Vietnam War.

    I hope that this message will be taken in the right spirit and will also catch attention of some senior editors / administrators. Cheers, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 06:33, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

40. Support Per the above sentiments, although I do feel the need to clarify
    talk) 07:11, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
41. Strong support — Jimbo has stated in the past that adminship should be no big deal. I agree with that. We admins are not meant to be some kind of aristocracy. Adminship should be something that ALL active users with a reasonably clean record (i.e., no vandalism) should more or less be entitled to expect, should they desire it. To put it another way, anyone opposing an RFA should be able to come up with a damn good reason why the candidate is unsuitable. David Cannon (talk) 11:51, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
42. Strong support - RfA should answer one question and one question only. "Can an editor be trusted to use the tools to improve the site and will not abuse them." That is it. It's not a forum for discussing how many edits to an namespace someone has had, or criticizing every minor blunder they may have had. David Cannon makes a very good point, it's something any active user with a reasonably clean record should expect to be able to obtain if they want to help the project in an administrative capacity. We wonder why the number of active editors has been dropping, I suggest it's because we've made a very big deal out of something that was never intended to be a "big deal" -- Tawker (talk) 22:06, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
43. Strong Support It appears that obtaining the Congressional Medal of Honor is easier than passing RfA. New England Cop (talk) 02:41, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
44. I can support this in the sense of being advice that all participants in RfA should think seriously about. I have frequently been dismayed at what I think are unfair criticisms of candidates, so as far as that goes, I do think this statement is an accurate description of what exists. But I would not want to enforce a lowering of standards. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:36, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
45. Support - I don't know about "generally", but too many expect too much. Johnbod (talk) 18:09, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
46. Support - Without a clear set criteria, people are free to interject their own bias into the discussion based on their own prior experiences with their own RfA or interactions with other admins. Tiggerjay (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
47. Support - !Voters often demand experience in areas that candidates have no intention of working in, and experience that is totally unrelated to the performance of admin duties. Candidates are often rejected on the basis of criteria whose ties to admin performance are tenuous at best. Criteria to be used against a candidate must be shown (not assumed) to be relevant to admin performance.—Swpb^talk 20:21, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
48. Support — I've watched the criteria creep higher and higher over time despite no compelling evidence that this creep was solving a problem. When I joined the criteria was "been around for a while and is not engaged in attacks or other counterproductive activity." This was no only more in line with our values as a community, it was more effective. —mako๛ 21:03, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
49. Support I mean, yeah, this is a problem, but I don't really see how to "enforce" it. In counterpoint to the comment just above, I do believe that in the past the standards were too low and that the realization of that led to a backlash and we have now swung much too far in the opposite direction. Somewhere between what it was like in 2001-2007 and where we are now is a reasonable level of scrutiny and vetting of candidates.
    talk) 01:02, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
50. Support - definitely part of the problem, Sadads (talk) 16:41, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
51. Support though I don't see how this could be enforced. Mkdw^talk 18:35, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
52. Support Ironholds (talk) 06:22, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
53. Support This kind of goes without saying. 10:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
54. Support Clearly true. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:31, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
55. Support It seems a quite high standard of editing frequency and content creation is required of someone whose new tasks would include neither of these. Wouldn't a history of civility and correctly gauging consensus be more important? Though, I don't see where voting on this leads. Daß Wölf (talk) 15:30, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
56. Support, but this is motherhood and apple pie. This is not really a proposal. Fiddle Faddle 22:32, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
57. Support Too many opposers seize on one mistake out of thousands of fine edits and argue that we cannot allow anyone who would make such a mistake to have the bit. Too many have a particular model of what the pattern of activity should be, such as wanting all the time to be spent creating articles or creating articles which get some cachet of quality. The process is a snake pit. Edison (talk) 18:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
58. Support for obvious reasons. epic genius (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
59. Support - What I have never, ever seen mentioned is the assumption of 'good faith' on the part of the candidate and the reviewers. It's as if we are looking for minuscule traces of possible bad faith in the process.   Bfpage |leave a message  10:49, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
60. Support. While I suspect that it would be difficult to formulate this proposal as a policy, I've seen too many oppose votes based on personal criteria that are not supported by the wider community. My own criteria can be summed up thus: Has the candidate done or said anything that makes me think they would misuse the tool set, or would not take the job seriously? Oppose votes based on the lack of GA/FA work, or lack of work in various drama-boards, or at XfD, or even because the person's ratio of edits within various name-space areas does not meet a particular editor's criteria, all seem silly to me. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  21:07, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
61. Support. Though I don't foresee any (easy) actionable recommendation coming out of this, I think some of the expectations are way too high. Yes we need knowledgeable admins, but we do not need perfect ones (I tend to suspect of 'perfect' people, most time they are dissimulate). - Nabla (talk) 23:06, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose A

1. I want admins to be seasoned. A year is a minimum. Usually, usually, a significant number of article edits, some article creations (not redirects or stubs), that's a minimum too. Come on--we want an admin to have judgment, to have a feel for the community and for its members, to know what it's like to write an article so they know what it's like to get one's work deleted, etc. Drmies (talk) 00:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Current policy
   WP:RfA. By measure of policy then, the support arguments for this proposition must fail. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. RFA has no shortage of editors who will comment upon (and ridicule, if appropriate) overly strict and/or unreasonable criteria for adminship. Neil916 (Talk) 01:45, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. While we certainly shouldn't expect prospective admins to have the gift of the gab or a golden tongue, we should certainly expect them to have experience in mediation, negotiation and conciliation especially those that work in contentious discussions. Blackmane (talk) 01:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. The idea that becoming an admin is "no big deal" is a remnant from a different age, and is not relevant today. Admins need to be well vetted. Although it's easy enough to find faults in the current system, this is not one of them. BMK (talk) 02:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. WP:NOBIGDEAL is a big deal now. If you want to talk about being too strict you can review our GA and FA criteria, and the effort it takes for a sole person to achieve those goals in comparison to what it took many years ago. The same is true with adminship, its criteria has grown stricter as the project grew large. Candidates should know the ins and outs. Overall I don't think our expectations are excessive or unreasonable given the circumstances, but that's not to say an RfA won't be a harrowing experience, but it can be, but for different reasons — MusikAnimal ^talk 05:45, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
7. It's not clear how this is supposed to work. For example, Biblioworm opposed Montanabw's recent RfA while I supported. We were both aware of a general issue - her feisty behaviour - but took a different view about it. Was our judgement too strict or too lenient? It seems impossible to say because there are no standards or measures for this. My impression is that, if we were to be more relaxed about this then we'd use a significantly different system which would be more automatic - like
   autopatrolled status. That would be more efficient but we'd then need term limits and a better process for removing the tools. Andrew D. (talk) 11:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
8. Cats do not go back into bags - Wikipedia is no longer small, irrelevant potatoes, and we can't treat it as such. WilyD 12:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. Since administrators are effectively lifetime positions, removable only in case of egregious misconduct, it's only natural that users are difficult and exacting in RfAs. Even without that factor, users have a right to expect editors who have some experience in content creation. If the tools were ever unbundled, that might not be necessary. If the procedures for removing admins were made less onerous on all concerned, the process itself might ease. Coretheapple (talk) 15:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
10. While the "high expectations" are somewhat of a problem, the solution is to respectfully ask voters with these expectations to reconsider them. If they continue to vote with high expectations, it's their standard, and since RfA is based on community consensus, they should be allowed to vote with such expectations. I personally believe that the general standard (~10,000 edits and 2 years of editing on average) is fine. Esquivalience ^t 21:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. RFA can be strict at times but for the most part I'd say overall it's well balanced, Whilst I don't expect every potential admin to know everything here I do expect them to have atleast some knowledge of things. –Davey2010^Talk 00:25, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Too often in this Trophy Generation, people equate "having standards" with "having high standards." It's OK to have standards.
    Townlake (talk) 01:58, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
13. Makes little sense, as drafted. Telling people who !vote that they have to lower their standards when there is no benchmark standard doesn't get any where near the "is this practical" test. It isn't. My standards might already be low. I'm not going to agree to lower them further just so that a few popular editors can be scrape through. Leaky Caldron 15:50, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    By and large, those who vote regularly, intelligently, and objectively at RfA practice a code of criteria that a vast number of editors of the right calibre for adminship easily exceed. We must be wary however of those who apply ludicrous barriers to adminship, vote against the system rather than against the candidate, and those who just never seem to get it right. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:49, 16 October 2015 (UTC) Moved to support.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:13, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

14. The proposal has no practical effect because those opposing a candidate do so because they do not think that candidate is suitable at this time—many would be quite happy to accept less than perfect but they would still think that a particular candidate was not suitable. RfA does not need motherhood statements. Johnuniq (talk) 09:21, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. I believe most !voters have reasonable standards. I may not agree with those standards, but I can respect them. I don't want to impose my judgment values on others, and I don't want others to impose theirs on mine. Glrx (talk) 17:44, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. Oppose lowering standards absent clear evidence that qualified individuals are regularly failing to pass their RfA. RO^(talk) 17:57, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. Oppose What defines "excessively strict criteria"? I feel this question is badly worded. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:34, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Oppose – This could have done with being better worded, but from my perspective, most RfA participants have reasonable standards, which is why most "serious" RfAs have more support votes than oppose votes – most fail because the support percentage simply isn't high enough.
    CT Cooper · talk 20:30, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
19. Oppose. Different standards and evaluation criteria should not be mindlessly/mechanically equated to standards that are "too high" merely because one may disagree with them. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 15:55, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
20. Oppose Wording is far to vague. As a general rule, lowering standards does not improve situations, but instead mushrooms problems. Admin should have to conform to standards, minimum number of edits seems reasonable. Arbitrary time-frame of say a year, seems pointless, as one can be "on" wikipedia for a year without making any edits. At a minimum, Admin should understand the processes and have an overall idea of how it works. I have been on here a year, have written literally hundreds of articles, promoted 3 to GA and still have no idea how the system works, what 1/2 of the acronyms are, etc. Time is not a valid criteria, experience is. SusunW (talk) 16:49, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Oppose People vote based on trust, in my view. I am opposing all proposals to shift standards because I doubt they will have any practical effect, and I don't think they are a good idea anyway.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:49, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
22. Oppose It's good to have tough standards for admins. It keeps Wikipedia honest. John Nagle (talk) 06:07, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Administrators need to have a lot of experience. It needs to be demonstrable to the community that they have this experience, and that they have been making good decisions. SpinningSpark 20:55, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Oppose per MusikAnimal and John Nagle. We have too many admins, already. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:13, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    I support high standards, but we do not have "too many admins" by any means. Jonathunder (talk) 18:22, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    It depends on how you define it. At (over?) 1,350 users with Admin privileges, you could definitely argue that there are too many Admins (personally, I think there are). But of that 1,350, only about 300 are actually active Admins, with maybe another 150 being "semi-active". That means we have 900 users with the "bit" who basically never use their tools or help clear backlogs (and a significant percentage of those who only edit one or twice a year). So it's a dual problem: too many Admins, and not enough active Admins. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:39, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

25. Strong Oppose - lower the standard and we risk lowering the quality. Candidates need a sense of community and also need to know what it's like to create and edit articles under a variety of circumstances. They should have GAs and at least 1 FA under their belt, too. --Atsme^📞📧 21:12, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Oppose - Let me know when the community can remove adminship, just as they can approve adminship. Until then, the community is going to have high expectations. - jc37 22:19, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Oppose - If we lower the standards, there will be more semi-passive admins abusing this right to push their POV agendas.Zezen (talk) 13:10, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
28. Oppose it's more complicated than that. Most !voters don't have super high standards. The issue is that different !voters have a variety of standards (sometimes contradictory) and it's impossible to meet them all. This gives the illusion of RfA participants all having super high standards. Brustopher (talk) 18:40, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Oppose firstly as fundamentally unworkable , one editors high standard might be another editor's minimum. Think significant periods of service / edit count are a good thing as they give an editor a long time to avoid pigeon-holing themselves into certain areas rather than possessing a broad understanding of enWiki as a whole. Fenix down (talk) 13:04, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
30. Oppose the standards for adminship are much higher than they once were. Some seem to remember those halcyon days with fondness. However, the demands on the role are much higher now, and the community has a right to demand that admins know what is going on and have a significant proven track record. --ℕ ℱ 01:13, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
31. Oppose. When adminship is essentially a lifetime appointment, and the community does not have a credible process for removing the tools, standards ought to be high. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 14:26, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Oppose until a realistic balance is created between ease of appointment and ease of removal. Intothatdarkness 19:30, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
33. Oppose - This proposition has got to be a joke. Trilobitealive (talk) 01:41, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
34. Oppose The problem is not high standards, the problem is undefined arbitrary standards. HighInBC 16:50, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
35. Oppose. For all practical purposes adminship is a lifetime appointment, and admins do have a huge amount of power. I'd like to see a substantial degree of unbundling of the tools and some form of community de-admisnhip process enacted. But until that happens, high standards at RfA are fully justified. Nsk92 (talk) 03:12, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on A

• 1) Unless RfA is changed from "consensus about whether other editors trust the candidate" to "consensus on whether the editor fulfills a community-crafted checklist" every editor will have his own standards and some editors will have standards that others consider unreasonably high. 2) It's very very unlikely that RfA will be anything other than a "consensus about whether other editors trust the candidate" any time soon. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree, though I cannot see how any checklist could ever work, as every editor is different. Adminhipfor life combined with no process for community desopping means the expectation will continue to be high. - jc37 22:19, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I have always found it very amazing indeed that this is so difficult to see for some. We rely on the admins elected back in the day when the standards were lower. There is no question that they were. As recently as a few years ago, we still had admins being elected with only about a year of experience and less than 15k edits. Wikipedia did not crash amist all the alleged abusive (or incompetent) admins that are supposed to result when we're not incredibly strict, right? In fact, without them, Wikipedia would have tanked a long time ago. Several admins that were elected back in that time are still active today, so the effect of standards increases may not be extremely obvious. But, inevitably, these old-timers will retire, and with the strictness of today's process, we will not have anywhere near enough to compensate for our losses. Mark and remember my words: eventually, in a few years' time, this will happen and everyone will see that we annoying "gloom and doom" predictors were right after all. But really, is there any evidence to suggest that we had loads of more abusive admins from the older period than we have now? Bad apples will always get through, even if we set the bar at 90% and made our standards even stricter. Of course, it should be realized that there will almost certainly be more desysopped admins from the older period, since there have been more years since they were elected and therefore they have had more time to do something wrong and lose their tools. But the same thing will happen in a few years to those at least a few of those who we elect now. I suspect that over time, the ratio of admins elected in a given year that are desysopped to the total number elected in that year stays even. In fact, I'm compiling data on this offline right now, looking for an even way to present the data. --
  Biblioworm 03:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• It seems like the two "sides" here have extremely different ideas of what "unreasonably high" is. shoy (reactions) 12:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• @
  WP:BOOMERANG hit them and are out for revenge?(Full disclosure: I had an unsuccessful RfA) Montanabw^(talk) 01:22, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Is there any evidence that lowering the standard will increase the number of suitable admins? Many users with ≥10,000 manual edits and reasonable tenure pass RfA easily; there were two 2015 admin promotions by editors with less than that (~9,500 manual edits including old blocked sock; 7,000 edits at RfA and 6,000 edits). Esquivalience ^t 23:10, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I, personally, don't recall ever looking at a valid oppose at an RFA and thinking "this standard is far too high". No one has unreasonable standards; many have reasonable standards that, when taken as a whole, become unlikely. So for editor A to expect X is reasonable, and for editor B to expect Y is reasonable, but X and Y may be in vastly different areas, so few editors will have both. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 23:22, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I've moved my vote from oppose to support due to the ambiguity of interpretation of this section's proposal and people in both the support and oppose departments often saying the same thing. For example, I'm absolutely sure that Drmies and I both want the same thing but with my move we are now on opposite sides of the fence. Anyone closing this will have to ignore the traditional support/oppose split and draw their consensus on the strength of the total of the comments. I feel sure that the proposer means that voters' criteria should be lowered from some of the ridiculous targets they are demanding, not that the overall criteria practiced by the majority of serious, intelligent voters who vote regularly and generally match the result. No one can match the result all the time, even I don't, but it's around 88%, whereas anyone who votes regularly but only gets it right 44* of the time (and usually votes 'oppose') may be using a scale of evaluation that is not very accurate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:48, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Serious, intelligent voters" don't really focus on their RFA match-result percentage.
    Townlake (talk) 15:13, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
• This proposal is too broad in phrasing for its own good (for it to be expected to pass), because it's all too easy to oppose it on the grounds of "quality first!". --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:26, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• This proposal is right on the money. I've been on-wiki for nearly four years, and have nearly 40,000 manual edits, but I wouldn't go near this process with a barge-pole (despite encouragement to do so from others) because I edit in a contentious area (under ARBMAC cover), have one short-term block and a couple of slaps in the back of the head for incivility in that time (all deserved I might add). Some voters would build that imperfection into something equivalent to having authorised the Sack of Rome. I've been watchlisting the RfA process for all that time without making a stink about how truly screwed up it is, but there are people on here who need to grow up a lot. Maybe I'm in the minority being nearly 50 rather than nearly 20. Some sort of voter entry requirement would be a good place to start. Make people show they are a serious editor before they can even ask questions of people who clearly already are. And exclude applicants who haven't proven their commitment to WP. At least 1,000 manual edits on a registered account before being able to vote on RfAs would be a great start, and twice that requirement to even be able to apply. No IPs voting, ever. I'm happy to be judged by people who have been on-wiki and editing in contentious space for half as long as I have (or twice as long for that matter, as they are still out there), but I baulk at some snot-nose with 100 edits and no sense of reality even having a say as to whether I should be an admin. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:09, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The way adminship works is that if you became one, you'd still be practically unable from using admin tools in the same topic area (
    WP:INVOLVED. It effectively means that you get to use the mop on the most egregious of cases in that topic area, and are required to venture outside the topic area in order to use the admin tools in a significant manner. It is burdensome for the prospective admins, but could be understood to be good for the encyclopedia as a whole. The real issue is practical - do we have a sufficiently large pool of suitable candidates to be able to maintain this high a standard? We probably do, but if we are also ridiculously draconian with all the other prerequisites for adminship, we might not have it. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]

• I like the idea above about keeping the votes (and the tally) private until the RfA is over...there is a significant pile-on of "me too" votes. I think the tally influences some people's choices. Seeing someone with a lot of opposes might trigger a potential supporter to stay away as much as inspire a schadefreude vote of "i must add to the candidate's misery by adding my two opposing cents". People should vote blind to what others say, develop and articulate their own rationales for their votes (i.e. more than just saying "support, per nom" etc.) and shouldn't see the tally until it is over. Please consider this--secret ballots would single-handedly change RfA for the better.
  talk) 15:19, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• People will have whatever expectations they have. A load of people saying they should have lower expectations isn't going to change anything, so I can't see that this proposal is going to make any difference even if it gets the support of a majority. --Michig (talk) 15:40, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

B: Undefined standards

Participants can support or oppose candidates using any criteria they like, some of which are not based in policy but rather personal opinion. This system is not used in other areas of Wikipedia. Arguments for keeping/deleting an article at

Support B

1. Support – minimum standards, either in terms of edit count, or time of active editing, would be an improvement to the process to my mind (as it would mostly eliminate
   WP:NOTNOW candidacies). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
2. What I think is a problem is that expectations keep shifting and its difficult for a prospective candidate to gauge whether their face fits at the time they are planning a run. I agree opinion is good but we should offer more consistency.
   Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. Support. Agree with
   Spartaz, above. More specificity and increased standardization and increased uniformity would be a great thing to provide ease of mind to both our candidates and the community. It would also set certain standards for the future. — Cirt (talk) 08:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
4. This is the heart of the problem. We don't have this issue with other rights such as Rollback where we have agreed a criteria. Frequently RFAs degenerate into discussions not about whether the candidate would be a good admin, but whether admins need to have x months tenure, an FA or be an adult. If this was a job interview you would have some things set out in the job ad. You'd know if the candidate had to have a clean driving license or other qualification and you could then concentrate on other issues. ϢereSpielChequers 13:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support...sort of. If ATA is the model, I'm not super hopeful for a resolution, since I don't really want the oppose section of an RfA to be filled with meta comments about ATARFA. The alternative is to have roving clerks/crats remove opposes based on this, but I can't see that ending in any other way than a huge shitstorm. Protonk (talk) 13:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. The community needs to decide what it wants in an admin and set those standards. Right now a minority can force their view of what admin should be even though the community at large rejects the idea. Arguments that goes contrary to the expectations of the community should be given less weight like everywhere else one Wikipedia, otherwise we are picking admins by voting, not by consensus. I disagree with those that say this would be hard to define, I am sure for example we could come to a clear consensus of the age issue. If a topic is not covered at all then it is naturally left to opinion, if it is divisive then we can have a nice talk about it and amend our expectations. HighInBC 14:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. I think this would certainly help. Comparable processes involve judging specific situations against generally agreed upon policies and guidelines. Without that people are free to make up whatever standards they like, however unreasonable. This would reduce the number of such comments at RfA and give bureaucrats clear authority to discount them. Hut 8.5 20:08, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support minimum standards, to cut down on
   WP:NOTNOW nominations, and to highlight that the standards are not impossible. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
9. Support: This is the only one of the multiple “contentions” that this RFC seeks to evaluate that I will address because I believe it is the root of all the ills of RFA. The other contentions are merely symptoms of a lack of agreed upon standards (no matter how objective or subjective, no matter how rigorous or liberal) for selecting or not selecting an editor for Admin tools. Until there is an agreed upon set of standards, all the other things perceived to be wrong about RFA will continue and there will be no solution, no matter how hard we try, to those ills.

   Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.

   — John Locke

   If the ultimate qualification to become an admin is that the community has confidence it can trust the editor with Admin tools, the community must decide what are reliable indicators (objective and subjective) that engender that confidence and trust?; and hold all admin candidates to the same standards. As John Locke reminds us, arbitrary standards and norms are contrary to the health of any enterprise.

   Apart from the readily apparent ills of RFA that a lack of standards causes, it also causes editors who aspire to be admins to possibly behave in ways or venture into elements of WP and make big mistakes which are eventually held against them in RFAs. My contention is that those kinds of aspirational mistakes might never happen if we had a consistently applied set of standards that editors must meet to be selected as an admin. I would relish to opportunity to participate in a standards discussion about this. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:52, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

10. Support: Clear standards will benefit both candidates and !voters. Also per Mike Cline Montanabw^(talk) 01:27, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support some general, broadly stated standards. There's always IAR. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:03, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support – To me, this is a simple factual statement. On what its implying, there will always be differences in opinion on who would make a good admin and who wouldn't, but I think the line needs to be drawn somewhere – opinions that are clearly offtopic should be discounted.
    CT Cooper · talk 20:38, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
13. Support some standards. AWB permissions have standards. Adminship should too. Eman235/talk 01:53, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. Support Having read through the other input, I find it interesting that there are those who oppose because one will be unable to express an opinion if there are standard requirements. That makes zero sense to me. Just like AFD, it *is* one's opinion whether one meets the guidelines. It *is* one's opinion whether any weight should be given to an essay, whether a blog by a noted authority is still a blog, whether multiple single line statements that carry the weight of notable accomplishment add up to sufficient, adequate notability. In the same manner, it will still be opinion if guidelines are established for admin. Surely guidelines which includes an analysis of whether one has demonstrated an ability to lead and is familiar with Wiki systems will allow one sufficient room to express varying opinions. SusunW (talk) 16:58, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. 20-Mule-Team Support: Abso-freaking-lutely. People oppose because a candidate is foolish enough to admit ignorance in a project area in which the candidate says outright he'll never work. People oppose because a candidate disagreed with them on their (allegedly) "optional" question. Anyone remember how Kurt Weber used to blanket oppose anyone who dared to self-nom? And so on. These spurious popularity votes carry just as much weight as the most serious participants in the RfA process. Ravenswing 20:04, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support. Many of these de-facto standards have nothing to do with what the actual work administrators do. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:47, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. Yes, it should be abundantly clear what the requirements are. Those that submit themselves to this process have to endure hell. They should at least be aware of what is coming. SpinningSpark 20:59, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Support on principle. For as long as we aren't actually implementing the whole
    WP:CONS principle at RfA, but instead a poll with a strict minimum requirement, we have to work on determining the criteria for those !votes, otherwise the process tends to devolve into a mess - almost all the criteria are aimed at the candidate and almost none at the voters. But the candidate is a volunteer, not an employee of the voters! If we eliminated the voting threshold, we could eliminate the need for other vote standards - but the former is unlikely to happen. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:50, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
19. Support. The way it is now, it's too easy for someone to support or oppose mostly based on personal preference. We need adminship standards so we can evaluate candidates a little more objectively. Some parts of the standards should be subjective (not just numbers), but we also need specific requirements like: successfully resolved a dispute, participated in AFDs giving reasons, etc. Kind of like the
    FA criteria, a mix of objective and judgment-based standards. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:46, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
20. Support this is precisely one of the major issues with AfD. Personal preferences should be irrelevant, there should be clear minimum requirements and if you meet them, you're in. There also needs to be a probation period, during which egregious actions can be overturned by an admin in good standing, and the mop suspended for a period. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:55, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Support. Any argument that is not primarily policy-based should have little to no value; that is all that adminship should represent. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 04:05, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support. Arguments should be based in both policy and sound decision-making, not random stuff. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:34, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support. Not to imply that people's personal synthesis impression of a candidate's suitability should be discounted, but it should be secondary to a well-defined set of basic 'metrics'. Currently, many opposes ride entirely on one or a few personal criteria while expressly ignoring what tentative base criteria there are (x k edits, x years, sanction history). This would benefit from being codified.-- Elmidae (talk) 19:13, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Support The standards are different from editor to editor. There is a need to have specific criteria. This will also have a better chance of attracting people to be admins. As the criteria is not specifically spelled out and some may not even apply thinking they may be missing something, and have others improve in required areas before applying. AlbinoFerret 22:40, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support. Please see my detailed comments here (point 39). Thanks, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 06:48, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support: By the look of it, any old average Joe can become an admin. Catmando999 Check out his talk page! 20:18, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Support Uniform standards are appropriate. New England Cop (talk) 02:42, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support. It seems that any balance of content / curation / project space work will attract oppositions. Some consistency will be helpful. Deryck C. 12:18, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Support but only as a minimum standard to avoid NOTNOW. Would add credibility to the process and a gateway to RfA but would not influence decision making. Fenix down (talk) 13:06, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
30. Support, mainly per Peacemaker67.
    talk!) 15:12, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
31. Support subjective opinion & gut feel has its place, but we need more uniform base expectations. Johnbod (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Support there is a clear need for some standards, but beyond simply objective ones such as edit counts, time on the project, etc... but there is also room for subjective criteria, however that doesn't mean undefined - for example, showing Good Faith in comments, particularly when dealing with conflicts -- which is a subjective assessment, based on a concrete standard. Tiggerjay (talk) 16:01, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
33. Support (weak) - I had to think a while on this one. I think that the community should be free to be very flexible in determining a candidate's suitability for adminship, and indeed each participant may have and apply their own criteria to each candidate. However, with that in mind I think that some semblance of standard basic criteria would improve the process, in the sense that we have
    WP:NOTNOW for candidates who are clearly unsuitable, so long as participants are free to apply their own higher standards; consensus ends up being somewhere in the middle of everyone's standards regardless. But if we did have a set of basic criteria for adminship, then they would serve equally as basic criteria for a standard de-adminship process (or standard recall, maybe) and lack of such a process is very frequently cited as a problem with our current RfA. I don't have any such criteria in mind, and as I said below it's premature to start talking about what they would be if there's not a clear agreement that we should have them in the first place. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:13, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
34. Support this seems to be closely tied with the need to unbundle the tools: noone newish can reasonably expect to have the range of experience in community processes that we were able to acquire even 3-5 years ago: the backlogs are simply too long, and its really easy to get isolated in a topic area. Sadads (talk) 16:43, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support In particular, I would like to see RfA officially defined as a process to determine if the user can be trusted with the admin tools. All !votes should be focused on whether the candidate can be trusted or not trusted with the tools. Everything else is just one facet that helps determine trust: experience, temperament, knowledge of policy, and so on. If comments are not framed in terms of trust, they should be discountable by the closer. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:47, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
36. Support Trilobitealive (talk) 01:43, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
37. Support This is not to say that personal opinions aren't relevant to an RfA process, but those personal opinions should be grounded with clear on-wiki support of said opinion. A user is more than welcome to oppose an adminship, but if that opposition comes from baseless personal animus, then I would consider that a black mark against the user voting, not the candidate. Heterodidact (talk) 04:23, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
38. Support Ironholds (talk) 06:23, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
39. Support Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:25, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
40. Support it is important for votors to have their own criteria and for there to be flexibility on how candidates are assessed. I not that some opposers also support this idea. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:40, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose B

1. If there's any place where Wikipedia should allow for "opinion" it's this. And this question is problematic: you can't say "I support candidate X because they have reliable sources". You can say "I support candidate X because they seem to have the right temperament for the job", and that's the kind of thing one should say. If RfA turns into a rubric...well, that will be the end of Wikipedia. Drmies (talk) 00:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Current policy
   WP:RfA. By measure of policy then, the support arguments for this proposition must fail. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. I see no problem with each editor determining for themselves what's important in an admin. For one thing, it allows for the possibility of more diversity in elected admins, which would not be the case if a single standard were imposed. BMK (talk) 02:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. This is a consensus-driven project, and applies to every corner of the wiki. Adminship accounts for a suite of tools and responsibility that I don't think can be put into a definitive set of standards, and requires broader input. If you want a rough guideline you can refer to
   WP:RFAADVICE, which I fear many candidates fail to review — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:08, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
5. Editors need to apply their own life experiences and common sense to the process. There should be no arbitrary "standards." Coretheapple (talk) 15:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. Common sense should apply - Personal opinions are IMHO fine if they're relevant to the candidate but Supporting this would only see stupid reasons!, –Davey2010^Talk 00:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. The question everyone must answer for every RFA is "Should this user be trusted with the tools?" Everyone gets to their answer a different way, and that's fine. "Is this person trustworthy" does not lend itself to rigorous criteria that applies and is conclusive in every circumstance.
   Townlake (talk) 02:00, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
8. If we could define an objective standard for RfA, we wouldn't even need RfA. The problem is: it's too hard to objectively judge a candidate under a defined standard; it may lead to wikilawyering; and community consensus isn't adequately represented. Esquivalience ^t 20:10, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. WP:BURO is a core part of Wikipedia—there can be no set of rules to define the features needed for a candidate to be successful. For one thing, if such rules were enforced, the hat-collectors would go crazy ticking all the boxes without showing any clue about how things actually work. A set of rules could be developed, but they would be far too generic to be useful ("candidate must have demonstrated they have a clue" would be near the top of my list). Are there any known examples of failed RfAs where this proposal would have helped? There are probably many such examples where a candidate would have been successful with this proposal, but who is to say that would have been a desirable outcome? Johnuniq (talk) 09:31, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
10. I'm confused by the statement (what is support supposed to mean? any standard is OK? there must be a standard? no standards?), but I'll come here with the notion that there should not be a uniform policy decision. A significant portion of my judgment is about the candidate's skill, personality, and judgment. Some of that is objective, but a lot is subjective. A candidate might be exceedingly polite, but may not let something go. Another might be polite most of the time but blow up once in awhile. Are those enough to oppose? Possibly. Sometimes the words are mostly right, but something just does not seem right. Glrx (talk) 17:57, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. Oppose This is begging the question, as community consensus determines standards, and that's how it ought to be. RO^(talk)
12. Oppose. Everyking (talk) 14:17, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
13. Oppose - you can't compare content issues to user issues in that way. All content issues have core policies where each voter simply has to express his/her opinion on how the policies apply to the article in question; with user issues, the question is the level of trust the community members have with the user - and these can't be reduced to a list of policies. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:54, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. Oppose - Community consensus is a key part of Wikipedia, without it many policies that we have wouldn't even be in place. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:38, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. Oppose to the extent this formulation appears to authorize users to indulge impermissible personal biases such as race, religion or gender. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 15:58, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Are you sure the above isn't meant to be a "support", based on what it says? LjL (talk) 16:00, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    No, as written the statement declares that a !vote saying, for example, we have too many female/black/Christian/LGBT admins somembers of such groups should be rejected will be treated as legitimate by bureaucrats. If that's true (and I don't think it is) our first step should be to purge those bureaucrats. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

16. Trust is the only real criterion. Very few votes would be shifted by such a proposal, and after a little practice, people who wouldn't vote for a candidate because of grudges will shift from "Reluctant oppose" to "Reluctant oppose, does not in my view meet criterion 5(b)(4)(iii)--Wehwalt (talk) 20:47, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. Oppose This is almost akin to going strictly by a candidate's statistics. Unique votes from experienced editors and admins add valuable depth and perspective to RFAs. INeverCry 04:02, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Oppose Like I said in my limited support of A, we need to actively-by-clerk disallow "country club" rationales for opposing nominees, but that doesn't mean we should have a strict and/or complete list of standards. Much of the decision process is "gut feel", and I'm afraid implementation of this idea would take away that necessary component. When you're giving someone the keys to power over other people, this cannot be entirely objective.
    Talk • Work 16:43, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
19. Mild oppose There should be room for the overall impression here more than elsewhere. Debresser (talk) 15:41, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
20. Oppose This is a political issue; editors vote for whatever damn reason they want. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:16, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Oppose. Afds are supposed to be judged by weight of argument. I have yet to see this happen. They are always judged by quantity. Student7 (talk) 18:56, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
22. Oppose The only valid criteria is "do you think this admin would be a good admin?" Until we see some kind of statistics that correlate a candidate's accomplishments as an admin with their actions before their RFA, we have no objective basis to create consensus criteria.--Aervanath (talk) 19:10, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Oppose - comparing behavioural to content disussions is truly apples and oranges. And consider also the behavioural RfCs (WP:RFCU) has been deprecated for several reasons including this. - jc37 22:19, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Strongly oppose — as per my comments above. Adminship is ssimply the lifting of a few security features. Give users the benefit of the doubt unless they have engaged in vandalism or the like. They should have to demonstrate proof of wrong behaviour when opposing an RFA. Yes, I know, in real life politics we can vote against politicians just because their hair-do is back to front, but adminship is NOT a "political" position. At least, it's not meant to be. David Cannon (talk) 11:57, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. I see no problem with one editor caring especially about one thing, and another editor caring especially about something else. Candidates need to be able to juggle complicated demands. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:38, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Oppose - there are uncountably many reasons that would make someone unsuitable for adminship - proposals like this simply must not be allowed to try and bind the hands of the community in this silly way. --ℕ ℱ 01:17, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Oppose Anything discriminatory should be taken out of consideration if not struck. i.e. opposing someone on the basis of the gender. Mkdw^talk 18:37, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
28. Oppose It's important that editors can say what they think about the candidate, freely without looking at set standards. It's the bureacrats' job to sort the comments into a consensus, so it's OK as it currently is. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (intone) 10:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Oppose This is akin to liking an article and thus saying it should not be deleted. Fiddle Faddle 22:33, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
30. Oppose The various !voters each have their own concerns, and no list of criteria is likely to be agreed on by consensus. RfA clearly needs fixing from the 10 or so I've watched, but making a checklist of criteria as the only issues relevant will not help attract new editors to become !voters. I think Phase II needs to focus on other areas than this.Bahb the Illuminated (talk) 23:12, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on B

• There will always be cases of relevant non-policy reasons why someone would support ("has been an admin on the Commons and French for years and was elected a Steward two years ago, no history of problems on those other projects") or oppose ("Met him at Wikimania last year, he was supposed to give a talk but bailed with a lame excuse, plus he got drunk and got a DWI, it was in the local papers[citation goes here]. Therefore not trustworthy.[link to candidate's own publication of his real-life identity goes here so there are no "outing" issues]"). So, even if I were to generally support this I cannot absolutely support it as written. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• @
  Biblioworm: I actually cannot tell whether this section is intended to be an affirmation of current fact or of what the goal should be. Once I can tell whether I should be supporting or opposing, I will respond there. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  Despite that I never received a response, I have made a proper support. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 04:05, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Instead of community standards, why don't we encourage individual editors to state their personal standards? This would let candidates get more of an idea of what RFA participants are looking for before they take the plunge. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 23:22, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • This used to be a thing, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-Z. With the exception of the very last sentence my standards generally still hold. Thryduulf (talk) 19:15, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• @Od Mishehu and עוד מ: Re your oppose above, can you provide an example where the community might not trust a potential admin that isn't based in some part on past transgressions that violated some aspect of the Five Pillars, Policies or Guidelines? I ask the question because I wonder if it OK to say I don't trust someone for reasons completely unrelated to the Five Pillars, policies and guidelines? --Mike Cline (talk) 17:01, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last RFA I opposed was on the basis of inexperience in project space. It wasn't a lack of trust per se, it was lack of evidence on which to base a judgement of their trustworthiness and understanding of the admin role (iirc they had fewer than 10 contributions to XfDs in total, all related to a single topic area). Thryduulf (talk) 19:06, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't really like the idea of everyone supporting an admin fo reasons like "he was good on the French wiki" or stuff like that. I will support if a little bit more specific.--
  talk) 10:45, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• If you wanted to post an RfC that requires the candidates meet a certain criteria you would need well over 50% support. But if you want to simply shoot down every candidate that doesn't meet your criteria, you need maybe 25% -- less if there are a few good-faith oppositions for other reasons. Furthermore, a candidate who is otherwise supported by everyone can be shot down if 15% oppose anyone without a dozen FAs, and another 15% oppose anyone who has fewer than 50,000 edits; multiple invalid criteria each with support in the single digits can combine to shoot down a candidate with overwhelming support from the community. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:56, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Reliance on personal opinion and the degree of consensus needed for the request to succeed should be related. If personal opinion can be a factor, then the person closing the discussion should be free to not require a high degree of positive votes to decide the request is successful. But considering the "just say no" attitude that is prevalent, I think personal opinion should be disregarded as a remedy to overcome the bad RfA process. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:00, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't think we should force users not to opppose/support just because there is some standard. A *descriptive* (statistic) of measurable data about (un)successful RfA's wouldn't hurt. That is, "(un)successful candidacies usually have X to Y edits (per namespace), T years active, regular voting on n XfD venues, etc." - Nabla (talk) 23:14, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

B.1: Standards or Criteria - Potential Development

The community requests that interested Users create a

• • Normal editing consensus.
  • Possible borrowing or repurposing of text from other pages (including, for example an individual user's written criteria). It is also suggested that the essay readily cite to Wikipedia policy and guidelines.
  • WP:Dispute resolution with respect to content of the essay.
  • Seeing if people actually find it useful, perhaps by looking at links to the essay in RfAs or elsewhere.
  • Gaining consensus to include appropriate reference to the essay at the
    WP:RfA
    page.
  • Gaining consensus to promote the essay to guideline or policy (or guideline, then policy).

Support B.1.

• I can support further discussion and the B.1. path is a Wikipedia way to do that (I cannot support the conclusory B., however.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:16, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose B.1.

1. Oppose a dozen essays exist with a variety of opinions. There's no reason to change this system. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:18, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Oppose no need for that, do we need several hundred essays? Do most voters even think to that depth? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:42, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on B.1.

• Good luck. There've been attempts to reform RfA for years, and they've all come to nothing. Ravenswing 20:05, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Abstain. I think it would be a good thing if it could be done but I am convinced that it cannot be done because there can be no agreement between the opposing camps on this and related issues. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:00, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• The cart goes behind the horse. There's not even a rough consensus above (yet) that lack of common standards is an issue with the current process. Jumping into discussing what those standards should be is premature by a long way here. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

C: Hostile environment

The environment of RfA is hostile toward candidates and is discouraging for those who are contemplating a candidacy. Incivility, lack of

Support C

1. Support The general environment at RfA seems to be "assume bad faith" rather than "
   Biblioworm 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
2. Support While there are certainly many times voters will cast a !vote to support/oppose per Editor X, the RFA environment is nonetheless hostile. RFA regulars may view that as fairly standard but at least, in my eyes, some RFA's descend into something that is just this side of a brawl. Blackmane (talk) 02:07, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support – I also find it to be, on balance, an "assume bad faith" environment among far too many of the participants. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support This is the biggest fix that I think is needed; the questions and votes too many times do not assess the suitability of the person for the job, but are veiled personal attacks and attempts to play "gotcha". I don't know yet what to do about it, but to say that the general tenor of RfA is not "lets find suitable candidates for granting admin tasks to", it's "Someone wants to be an admin, that means there must be something wrong with them. Expose them now!" It has to stop if we're going to keep the admin corps going. --Jayron32 02:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. We are here to build the encyclopedia. One good faith contributor means a lot. And an experienced editor, who is ready for an RfA, means more. Even if he's not ready for the mop, hostility or incivility or ABF is not really a way to address them. Facing all those nonsense, he'll retire or loose interest in contributing. Congrats community, we've lost one valuable asset. —
   Talk 04:51, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
6. Support. This is a corner of the site that I have stayed away from participation in simply because of all of the toxicity reported, and though I've been silently watching, I regret not arriving sooner. If there's only one thing that needs to change, it's the desire to sharply oppose for small things, and I additionally agree with the proposal's words in regard to self-defense. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. Support. We should better enforce civility at RFA. It's better than it used to be, but that doesn't mean that we should allow anything to go. I'm not talking about trick questions or assuming bad faith of the candidate. I don't really care about that. I mean passive-aggressive hostility, outright personal attacks, and aggressive badgering. You can ask as many bad-faith questions as you like, but remain civil while doing so, that's all. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. Partial support It can be hostile, very hostile, but that's expected anywhere there's community-wide discussion. Here it's just a matter that we have a sole individual at the center of it, who has to take a beating if the discussion goes sour. It probably wouldn't hurt to have some additional ground rules on conduct at RfA, or rather we just better exercise the existing fundamental policy on civility. However I think the ability to see past the imminent nonsense and have the strength to deal with it is yet another expectation or valued asset of an aspiring admin – this prudence shared with the bureaucrats who should discount frivolous opposition. Genuine opposition doesn't collect on it's own, though, there's reason for it, and if the candidate is well-suited there should be plenty of support to make up for it in both the eyes of the community and the closing 'crat — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support, strongly, per
   Biblioworm and NinjaRobotPirate, above. Unfortunately, RFA can be a poisonous, toxic environment. Increased standards for civility and professionalism that are standards which would be uniformly applied to increase standardization — would go a long way towards ameliorating this significant problem. — Cirt (talk) 08:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
10. Jayron32 says it well. —Kusma (t·c) 09:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. The most effective way to derail an RFA is to give a clear civil oppose with two or more reasons supported by recent difs, showing why the candidate is not yet ready. There are some who seem to believe that adding invective and overstating their case makes it stronger, at worst they then ramp up the invective instead of taking the smarter route of making their oppose more focussed on reasons why the candidate is not yet ready. I've seen at least one RFA sail through because the opposer was so incivil they were counter productive. ϢereSpielChequers 13:12, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support, RfA should not be a place where editors take their hatches to. Fix the hostile environment will allow more candidates to be willing to come forward. -
    Mailer Diablo 13:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
13. RFA can be hostile - Sometimes RFAs can go well and at times they can get completely derailed, Not sure how but I too a point think this perhaps needs fixing. –Davey2010^Talk 00:39, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. The bureaucrats foster and encourage a hostile environment for close-call RFAs.
    Townlake (talk) 02:02, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
15. Support, going through an RfA is frequently described as running a gauntlet, and very good users are put off by the hostile environment. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:15, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. I support this as a statement because it is one of the two reasons why I launched
    WP:RFA2011. It's actually reundant as a statement though because it's something we already know and it's the main reason why all candidates (except the hardest nosed and those who just cannot fail to pass) are staying away. For some odd reason which no one has ever ventured to explain, RfA has traditionally been the one accepted venue where editors and admins alike can be as spiteful, vindictive, and downright insulting as they like with total impunity. I don't know why this is either, but if progress is going to be made, we have to find a way to put an end to it. Probably by either potty training the participants, or showing them the door. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:05, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
17. Support: No one in their right mind would want to go through what I did. (raising the question if anyone accepting a RfA nom in the current climate is in their right mind, but I digress...) This per my own experience at RfA which, my personal strengths and weaknesses aside, included doxxing, on and off-wiki canvassing, stalking, false accusations, character assassination, raising issues related to newbie mistakes many years in the past, and so on. Relevant mistakes, particularly when recent and supportable by on-wiki diffs, fair game. The rest, only for the truly iron-spined, and even then, it's an open question if the heat tempers the metal or warps it... Montanabw^(talk) 01:33, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Some RfA candidates are universally acclaimed, but for others, insults, chasing, and incivility are the status quo. Montanabw's RfA is an excellent case-in-point; although I had to oppose due to valid concerns, I considered weakly supporting just for enduring the seven days of angry mobbing. Esquivalience ^t 22:57, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
19. Support. Everyking (talk) 14:20, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support – Absolutely spot on. No one should have to tolerate what some RfA candidates have to go through, and in my experience, what goes on in some RfAs is worse than what most active admins ever deal with.
    CT Cooper · talk 20:43, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
21. Support -- if what's being suggested here is less hostility. The statement is rather ambiguous. Eman235/talk 01:53, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support. RfA should be a civil discussion to determine a candidate's suitability for adminship, not a venue to make unsupported allegations against an editor with no comeback. Thryduulf (talk) 12:07, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support As a general feeling, Wikipedia is a hostile environment. Very little support for editors, a lot of egos. It is not a welcoming, friendly environment, where the goal is to assist others. But that being said, in evaluating whether or not one is qualified to be an administrator, opposition comes with the territory. There will be various input which may be contentious or supportive. Isn't that the reason for debate? The problem in an RfA when civility is not maintained is that people who wish to avoid drama will not participate, myself included. SusunW (talk) 17:10, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Support Full agreement. RfA definitely brings out people with axes to grind. Not only generally; if you've made any enemies in your time in Wikipedia, RfA is where they always seem to emerge to lead the charge against an admin candidacy. Ravenswing 20:07, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support - Much of what I've seen in RfA is more like a hazing ritual than anything. Not sure why anybody would want to go through it in its current incarnation. Eeekster (talk) 21:46, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support - I agree with this. I could probably do some good as an enwp admin if I were minded to do it, but I know damn well that my work on Commons has been controversial enough to disqualify me almost immediately. I don't want to deal with that, so I wouldn't run. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:50, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Support the statement, I don't know how anyone would even argue that it's not a hostile environment. To some degree it is natural and necessary - this is a venue where the community evaluates an individual's suitability to be permanently assigned the project's highest powers. It is thus natural and necessary to discuss the individual's conduct and character, and some of this by our usual definitions falls into the category of
    personal attacks. We need to be fairly lenient at RfA, but not to the degree that we allow free reign for commenters to make unfounded or unsubstantiated attacks on a person. The goading and veiled attacking through the endless asking of pointed questions needs to stop, and equally the endless badgering of any well-reasoned opposition needs to stop. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 00:26, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
28. Support Some of the interrogation of prospective admins is nasty and scornful. Davidelit (Talk) 05:17, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Light Support Some hositility is needed to insure everything is found and taken care of. However, too mud hostility, which happens in most admin discussions leads to many personal attack and so on and so on.--
    talk) 10:51, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
30. Strong support. I for one would never willingly put myself through the hell that is RfA, and there are many others who have expressed the same opinion. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:05, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
31. Strong support. The reason that RfA is so difficult is that the entire community can come along with any old issue that they happen to have an axe to grind on. It is like the worst job interview that you have ever been through - thousands on the interview board and all asking those irrelevant difficult questions that come from human resources who can't ask a sensible question because they don't understand the actual workings of the business. SpinningSpark 21:03, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Support - this is an inherently contentious process, the acrimony of which is all too easily exacerbated by the very heterogeneous nature of the !voter pool. The issue has grown progressively worse over time, while at the same time I don't think I've seen a proportionate practical increase in new admin quality (which could be an excuse). --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:31, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
33. Support, if it weren't for fear of being fried over my past incidents, I'd have run for RfA in the past. Simply put, !voters are mean to candidates. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 23:12, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
34. Support. It sure is a hostile environment. The least we can do is admit it. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:46, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support the current process is akin to "hazing". Cruel, childish and counter-productive. There are a lot of people involved who need to grow up or leave it to the adults. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:59, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
36. Support; this largely ties into the same issues Positions A (editcountitis) and B (Opposes/Supports with no sane or relevant rationale) discuss. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:37, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
37. Support Gamaliel (talk) 16:33, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
38. Support - I've communicated with experienced editors who would make great admins, but just didn't want to go through the hazing process. Jonathunder (talk) 18:27, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
39. Support. It's hazing alright. Don't see how this can be controlled, though. Student7 (talk) 18:59, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
40. Support From the once I have looked at, I tend to stay away from even commenting because of the ABF. AlbinoFerret 22:42, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
41. Support As a 10-plus year editor who's been asked a couple times to run for admin, this is the single biggest thing holding me back. Just not interested in going through a hazing experience.
    talk) 01:53, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
42. Support Just from reading this page, RfA is something I would avoid getting involved in, in any way. I came on here to help write and edit articles for relaxation, not to argue with people about ill-defined "opinion" criteria not based in a clear rule or policy. This whole process sounds like a great way to turn off otherwise worthy candidates and participants. TheBlinkster (talk) 04:23, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
43. Support. Please see my detailed comments here (point 39) for details. Thanks, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 06:49, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
44. Support — I think the RFA process puts the burden of proof on the candidate. That violates Jimbo's "no big deal" directive. The burden of proof should be on the person opposing the RFA.David Cannon (talk) 11:59, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
45. Support I'm sure there can be a civil way to ask questions for a would-be mop manager but the current RfA environment is the opposite of civil. New England Cop (talk) 02:43, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
46. Support, from personal experience.
    talk!) 15:10, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
47. Yes, I agree that this is the case. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:40, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
48. Support Johnbod (talk) 17:48, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
49. Support - yep, impossible to defend your own RfA and if you try, you would be seen as confrontational and hostile...pathetic.--Stemoc 05:16, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
50. Broadly support I'm not sure it's impossible to defend yourself, though I agree it's not easy. I have some sympathy with the oppose voters who call it trial by fire, but I think they are wrong. Not all admins follow a path that exposes them to hateful interactions with other editors. I was an admin for 7 years and never received the sort of treatment from the vandals I blocked that some regular editors seem happy to dish out on RfA. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 06:13, 27 October 2015 (UTC).[reply]
    
51. Support. I think it's less hostile than it used to be just a few years back, but it's still not unusual to see bad behaviour among the electorate. The way I see it, this is the #1 problem with the current RfA process. — sparklism ^hey! 12:21, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
52. Support a recent candidate I mentored got hit pretty hard with excessive attacks on minor actions in his past; we treat Admins with extraordinary scrutiny, near the level of harrassment, especially when we consider We are all volunteers, Sadads (talk) 16:45, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
53. Support I'm surprised there are editors who do not think this to be the case. I wonder how many of them have undergone an RFA themselves. Mkdw^talk 18:39, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
54. SupportTrilobitealive (talk) 01:44, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
55. Support Ironholds (talk) 06:23, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
56. Support Too right this is true - there would be many more candidates if only it weren't such a harsh experience (and portrayed as such). Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (intone) 10:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
57. Support This looks like the main issue that discourages potential candidates from applying. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:33, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
58. Support RFA is like showing up for an interview to become a volunteer for some good cause, and then it becomes a forum for attacks by the playground bullies who hated you in grade school, your angry exgirlfriend, and the crabby neighbor who doesn't want you to park in his half of the block. Edison (talk) 18:25, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
59. Support. It looks like the sheer number of opposes at some RFAs prevents some otherwise-qualified people from even running. epic genius (talk) 14:50, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
60. Support There are clear and reasonable standards for civility that are imposed on all types of courtroom and parliamentary discourse. They can and should be implemented at RfA (and, I believe, throughout WP at large). SteveStrummer (talk) 22:45, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose C

1. Sorry
   Biblioworm, but the "tendency to oppose for the slightest issue" is more than balanced by the tendency to "support per editor X". I should know; my own RfA was full of those (and I thank you all very much for them). That editors Y or Z got a hard time at RfA may well mean that they deserved to get a hard time at RfA. Drmies (talk) 00:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
2. Current policy
   WP:RfC - in fact the proposition, itself, generally assumes bad faith by those who pose questions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. In actuality, my experience is that the atmosphere is not hostile to the candidate, per se, it's hostile between those voting "support" and those voting "oppose". That's one of the primary things which makes the process so unpleasant. BMK (talk) 02:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. Even if it were the case, its fair to say that being an Admin can be very challenging and we need people doing the job who are robust enough to deal with the pressure that even the most routine admin actions can engender. I personally think the level if unpleasantness depends on the level of controversy around the candidature and the more marginal the candidate the harder the ride. Whether that is a good thing I'm not sure but it does serve to test the level of resilience.
   Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
5. It's the opposition that gets too much heat, in my experience. This can be quite intimidating and this risks distorting the process. Notice that, when you have a secret ballot, as in the arbcom elections, you tend to get a higher level of opposition. Andrew D. (talk) 11:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. There is a "hostile environment" for editors who probably shouldn't be up for RfA in the first place. I've seen many slide right by. Coretheapple (talk) 15:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. There is no "hostile environment". If there were, all RfAs would be fought over and lead to lots of discussion, but many don't. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ian.thomson (139/9/3), Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Opabinia regalis 2 (118/22/5), Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Abecedare 2 (119/0/0) etc. Especially in the last one, which was unopposed, where is the hostile environment? Hostility ensues, for example, when blatantly unsuitable candidates appear, and get support !votes from their cronies, and then the community makes an heroic effort to avoid an exponential increase of future drama... Kraxler (talk) 11:17, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. An admin must be able to engage with people who are in a heated battle without emotional stress. If people say nasty things, the solution is to respond to the core issue and ignore any over-excited rhetoric—exactly what an admin would have to do. Johnuniq (talk) 09:39, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. A difficult RfA is the first test to see if an admin can handle the stress of dealing with difficult editors and difficult situations. If RfA is too tough for the candidate, that candidate is a unsuitable. RO^(talk) 18:00, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
10. Yes, it can be rough and several recent ones have been toxic: lots of bickering has been moved to the talk page. Lots of heat has been directed at the !voters rather than the candidate. Overall, I expect candidates to cope well with conflict. Glrx (talk) 18:14, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. If someone has skeletons in their closet, it isn't assuming bad faith to let others know about it. As an admin you have to take responsible for your past mistakes, say what you learned from them if asked, and move forward. I agree with the above as well, that as an admin you have to be able to stay calm through a heated discussion. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:44, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Oppose. Admins have substantial power on this site, and it's quite difficult to remove those powers. That's why it's so challenging.
    talk) 19:58, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
13. There is one standard, and that is trust. Wikipedians are very smart people. If you tell them their vote must fit a mold, you won't change the vote, but they will ensure it fits the mold.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:42, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. Oppose Sometimes there's a few to many questions, and some of the voters are harsh or unfair, but candidates need to be able to deal with pressure and difficulty to be decent admins. If an admin does enough deletions and blocks, he or she will definitely run into abuse and arguments from blocked users and creators of deleted content. INeverCry 04:17, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. Oppose I agree with the comment above "...being an Admin can be very challenging and we need people doing the job who are robust enough to deal with the pressure that even the most routine admin actions can engender." One of the main requirements for adminship is the ability to keep one's head when all about you are losing theirs. Admins who fail at that make things worse. John Nagle (talk) 06:09, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. Oppose Nonsense. I recall Anne Delong's RfA sailing through. Unqualified or questionable candidates have a bad time at RfA, as well they should. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:19, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. Oppose Editors in this discussion appear to confuse trust must be earned with ABF. As well as, AGF doesn't mean to continue to do so when fact is presented. (No need to assume, if fact shows differently.) That said, if a particular editor may inappropriately ABF, then that should be dealt with in that case-by-case basis. - jc37 22:26, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Oppose - Not my experience. Yes there are the RfA trolls but obvious ABF tone is obvious and should be quickly observed and dismissed by other participants in the RfA discussion. For the applicant, dealing with such comments with good grace is to me a key indicator of the temperament required of an Admin. Fenix down (talk) 13:10, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
19. Oppose - if you can't cope with the pretty mild experience of being asked to make an account of yourself at RfA, you certainly will not be suitable for the demands of the role. --ℕ ℱ 01:19, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
20. Oppose - At present, with the unbundled toolkit, each admin is entrusted with a good deal of power over the encyclopedia and the editors who work on it. Editors should be allowed to inquire about and express any good-faith reservations about entrusting a candidate with that power. Besides, as noted above, admins should expect to be called to account for their on-wiki actions as a matter of course, and I don't see why candidates should be treated any differently in this regard. There is a saying where I'm from: "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen." -Starke Hathaway (talk) 14:37, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Oppose while some opposes may be ABF or simple attacks, it's fairly common for people who oppose an RfA to be attacked by supporters of the candidate. If this is acceptable, there are bigger issues at work here. Also, if a candidate can't remain cool in this situation, how would they handle an actual dispute? Intothatdarkness 19:34, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    oppose bad admins are big contributing factor to making Wikipedia hostile to editors. If RfA is hostile, it's probably because the candidate is not suitable for very good reasons. Commenting or harassing voters for their votes needs to stop. If I feel the way I feel after observing the situation and gathering the facts I need, I vote the way I think right and no moron should get to harass me for voting that way. The same problem pops up at AfD.

    talk) 16:03, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply

    ]

    Talk page). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:30, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply

    ]

22. Oppose. In my observations, the "hostile environment" at RfA is primarily propagated by aggressive badgering of the oppose voters by the supporters of a particular candidate. Nsk92 (talk) 03:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Are there some hostility? Sometimes too much? Yes and yes. Is it RfA specific? I doubt it. - Nabla (talk) 23:18, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on C

• While I acknowledge that this is true, I also acknowledge that it can be necessary to a degree. A few years ago an RfA was nearly passing until about day 5 or 6 when someone dug up some policy-related "dirt" which rightfully caused the nomination to tank. By "rightfully" I mean if the info had been stated up front the person would probably never have crossed 50% much less 75%. I don't remember the details but the revelation itself - an the feeling that participants had been duped - had inherent elements of hostility in it. If "hostility at RfA" were banned, such an editor may be promoted because late-arriving RfA participants who know there is relevant "dirt" to be found may be afraid to bring it up. Having said that, we should expect everyone to behave as politely as reasonably possible under the circumstances with allowances for human emotion to intrude a bit in certain circumstances such as the one from a few years ago (sorry I can't remember the particular RfA, and it wouldn't surprise me if such things have happened more than once). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  This kind of thing is a common problem in RfA-related commentary. "Something bad happened this one time, I don't really remember exactly what, but it was definitely bad, and we should definitely make sure something like that doesn't happen again! Or something." I appreciate this is just a thinking-out-loud comment here, but really. Everything on this project is logged. Evidence-free speculation shouldn't be necessary. If it's not worth the time to search for what you're remembering to refresh your memory, is it worth the time to write the comment? Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not sure that "hostile environment" is even correct. Some admin candidates are challenged more than others, but that's because their qualifications are questioned and there is concern. Coretheapple (talk) 18:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I make these comments as a matter of opinion or different perspective, not for the purpose of dispute or argument. I am not sure how the "tendency to oppose for the slightest issue" is more than balanced by the tendency to "support per editor X" unless editor X is supporting for some minor reason or slight issue or the later supporter is simply relying on the previous supporting !voter or !voters, due to reputation, friendship or whatever, and not on their reasons. If one or a few editors write comprehensive, well-written comments and give good reasons, is it incumbent on later !voters to write these out again or can they simply say: editors X, Y and Z express the same position and give the same reasons as I have, or in shorthand, per editor X, without their vote being questioned in some way? Oppose !votes also are made per another earlier !voter's reasons. In the final analysis, this point may not be important with respect to the value of this proposition or overall, but I think it is incorrect to suggest that !votes should be discounted, whether support or oppose, if they are per previous !voters' well-written and persuasive comments. And I do not think that !votes per another editor's position necessarily balance !votes on the other side that are based on a narrow issue - especially when comparing oppose !votes to support !votes when oppose !votes are worth 3 to 4 times the value of support !votes. Perhaps an affirmation of the later !voter having given an independent look or a statement that the previous expressions cover the later !voter's position would help the credibility of such !votes per earlier ones, if that is necessary. Yet, the need for such statements would not seem to be something that could become well-known, much less required. This may be a minor point in the overall scheme of things but I would not like to think that the original comment on this point would be taken as a given without some further discussion. Donner60 (talk) 02:30, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I should note that Kraxler's examples conveniently glide over an important fact. This fact being, two of examples he chose are examples of successful RfAs from very highly experienced (both tenure and edit count) candidates. The other, although she admittedly had a much lower edit count than average, got more objections as noted in the final tally. But, she also had previous experience as an admin, so I'm sure that worked in her favor. However, we're talking about candidates who didn't have it so easy, and of these there are many. In fact, the whole point of discussion is that it shouldn't be only near-perfect candidates who have it so easy. There are many candidates who might have been good admins but failed and had a very bad experience at RfA, and we see candidates fail much more often than not. It should be a civil, productive experience for every candidate, not just the candidates we decide are "good" with our unreasonable expectations. In fact, according to
  Biblioworm 15:45, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]

But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

— Otter, Animal House, 1978

If we are willing to tolerate "hostility" or uncivil behavior in any form in RFA discussions regardless of target or topic, then we can hardly expect the community at large to behave differently. In my dead serious view any tolerance of "hostile", uncivil discussion in RFA is contrary to

• This is too nebulous for me to !vote on. I think we should concentrate on actionable or near-actionable proposals that improve the RfA process and as part of that, hopefully reduce forms of disallowed hostility (i.e. personal attacks).
  Talk • Work 16:15, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Neutral I think some degree of skepticism is to be expected when you are nominating yourself. On the other hand, it is often overdone. Debresser (talk) 15:43, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• A proposal must propose something. This proposes nothing. Fiddle Faddle 22:36, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Users can already be warned for not assuming good faith {{
  WP:AGF with more regularity and less tolerance. Habitual offenders should be topic-banned from RfA. There's only one way to clean up behavior and that's by informing people of appropriate vs inappropriate behavior and having consequences if they act inappropriately. The infrastructure already exists to do this so I'm asking those that read this to start issuing those warning templates and support issuers if the user fights back (and often will). Jason Quinn (talk) 11:03, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Yes it can be hostile, just like any other discussion, but I don't see a proposal for actually changing anything here. Everybody just agreeing it isn't perfect isn't actually going to change anything, and that has been the problem for years among the 'RfA is broken' crowd. --Michig (talk) 15:45, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

D: More participants

RfAs should be advertised more widely than they currently are. Different !voters, rather than constantly the same ones, would result in a wider and fresher range of opinions. This would also make RfAs more representative of the community's opinion, rather than a small subset of it.

Support D

1. Support Although I don't think this will fully "fix" the process, it would be good to have a wider spectrum of opinions from the wider community. --
   Biblioworm 00:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
2. I wish we had a quick and easy bulletin board where we could see this stuff--this, and major changes in the interface, ArbCom elections, what not--and not those irritating pop-up kinds of things. Drmies (talk) 00:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support with the obvious reservations about making things too open, and possibly find !voters drawn in from some other site to support of oppose a candidate. John Carter (talk) 00:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. Strong support More often than not, the voters tend to be those who are familiar to regulars on the admin boards. The consistency with which some names appear at RFA to support/oppose certainly give the impression of a cabal promoting their friends, even if this is not the intention. Blackmane (talk) 02:10, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. There's never going to be anything wrong with getting as many voters out to participate as possible, although I will say that I'm constantly surprised that many of the names I see voting on RfAs are of editors I've never heard of before. BMK (talk) 02:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support RfA has become a walled garden of regulars who have axes to grind with adminship in general, and we need fresh voices to fix the system. Not sure how to do that, but having more people invovled would certainly help a lot! --Jayron32 02:50, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. Strong support - I would go so far as to have random messages go out to experienced users, such as "one out of every 100 editors with over 3 months of editing and 1000 edits total and 10 edits in the last 90 days will get a message about a current RfA or RfB candidate, assuming there are any RfA/RfB's in progress," with a method to turn this off in the user's preferences. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support - Better outreach and advertisement with the RfA process would do many good things (as stated in the initial proposal). It would encourage a wider and more diverse range of voters that would provide new/different opinions and insight. An even more important reason to support expanding outreach and encourage new/more !voters is because it would help "shift" the norm that the RfA is comfortably used to sticking by - something that usually does not occur when the same long-term participants, and only the same long-term participants, cast !votes. All you need to do is simply look at the last 100
   RfC is started that would change things with RfA, it fails... every time. I believe that expanding outreach and encouraging more editors to participate and vote in the RfA process is a solution that would begin to break this entire cycle. If anything, it's a perfect place to start and we really have nothing to lose. ~Oshwah~ ^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:35, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
9. Support I think that getting more opinions is generally a good idea, and I don't see any harm in better advertising RFAs. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
10. Support, with one suggestion being to add RfA as a category of the
    feedback request service. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
11. Support - "New blood" in these kind of important discussions on Wikipedia is almost never a bad idea IMO. Guy1890 (talk) 05:57, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support The more the merrier. We could consider a watchlist notice, or for starters transclude the RfX report on more visible pages. — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support, strongly, per Bibliworm. This is an excellent idea, for excellent reasons as set out, above. — Cirt (talk) 08:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. Strong support, in international comparison our participation rates are embarrassingly low. If at least half of active admins could show up at RfA, that might help. —Kusma (t·c) 09:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. Support I agree, getting more opinions by advertisements will be a net profit. Jim Carter 12:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. More community input means a more diverse opinions. It will bring up great qualities of a candidate which other never know and vice versa. Regards—
    Talk 13:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
17. Support - It makes sense. More participation means more varied opinions. This has many plus points and would a net positive change.
    Yash! 14:12, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
18. Yes, there needs to be a mechanism to inform people of pending RfAs. On several instances I've learned of RfAs that just ended, purely by happenstance, and was sorry I hadn't had a chance to participate (mainly to vote favorably, by the way). Coretheapple (talk) 18:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
19. Advertising this in a larger scale should hopefully bring in new editors so thus you'd have new & varied comments - Sounds a great idea. –Davey2010^Talk 00:43, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support I echo Coretheapple and Davey2010 (above). I usually find out after the fact that editors I know have run the gauntlet, wishing I'd voted them up. I'd welcome a notification system for users with a certain number of edits, or who have shared editing history and/or interaction with the admin candidate (as discussed elsewhere). Notification has the potential to both enlarge and democratize RfA culture; it might help people understand what admins do, improve their own behavior, and encourage more to consider doing the job. Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 01:04, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Each RFA should be linked in the Centralized Discussion box. This process absolutely needs more eyes on it.
    Townlake (talk) 02:03, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
22. Support. Not everyone checks
    WP:RFA, so other ways of spreading the message should be considered (CENT, Signpost, a notification system, etc.) ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:17, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
23. Support I strongly feel that if fresh eyes come to RfA they will quickly settle one way or another many of the perrenial disputes the usual crowd(me included) keep rehashing. Having a greater cross section of Wikipedia will give us fresh input on the community's view of administrators. It will reduce the amount of power minority views have to derail an RfA. Most importantly I hope it will replace the repetitive arguments at RfA discussions with fresh new ones. HighInBC 14:14, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Support per my comment below where I suggest a candidate to self-identify any WikiProjects where they work and thus an automated, neutral message that says that "editor foo, a member/participant of this wikiproject, has an RfA" would be generated. Likewise, others could also note this RfA on any wikiprojects where the candidate had a "history" - thus making it neutral (in my case, pinging WikiProject Horse racing may have generated support, but pinging WikiProject Opera may have generated opposition - arguably, pinging both projects would have been appropriate). Montanabw^(talk) 01:47, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support Coupled with a "de-weighting" for editors with under 250 total edits under their belts as being unlikely to have had enough administrator contact to have the slightest idea about the process. Historically under 2% of the voters fall in this category (too much time to go back to the beginning though), but in the last case it represented 4 out of the 58 "opposes" which was a significant percentage in that case. (a difference between 67% yea and 73% yea) Collect (talk) 14:10, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support This is hands down the best idea on this page. Increased participation dilutes block voting that is currently too influential at RfA. We need the whole community to decide RfA, not a small group of regulars. RO^(talk) 18:02, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Support The more opinions that are cast upon a candidate the better as there is more to take away from the discussion. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support – I have nothing against "RfA regulars", particularly given that I used to be one, but presuming the current system is kept, RfA would have more credibility and probably a higher quality of discussion if a larger and more representative segment of the community participated.
    CT Cooper · talk 20:47, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
29. Support -- something like the feedback request service? Eman235/talk 01:53, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
30. Support Completely agree with more participation by varied users. Yes, it would be hoped that editors who have familiarity would be those commenting; however, unless wide community support is sought a few editors end up controlling the process for everyone. On the other hand, there may be plenty, as I have said before, who came, saw all the drama and chose not to become involved. SusunW (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
31. Support. The more we dilute the votes from those with unreasonable criteria, the better. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:08, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Support for the sake of getting more voices included, which is a matter of basic fairness. Anyone who would oppose this should ask themselves whether effectively keeping this process exclusive is prudent. However, I don't think doing this solves the main issues with RfA, although it may ease some. This is a "worth a try" idea and doing it harms nothing.
    Talk • Work 14:24, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
33. Support - how about we get something like
    WP:FRS for RfA? Just as I had typed this, I checked and saw several other people have mentioned the same thing. :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:33, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
34. Support. We need more participants who evaluate candidates using defined standards. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:46, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support I think they should all be advertised at the top of the page. That will draw more editors that have actual experience of interacting with the editor in question, not just trolls going through their history to find something they don't personally like. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:02, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
36. Support per Peacemaker67.--
    talk) 11:34, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
37. Support wider advertisement. I don't know if it will help, but I also don't think it will do any harm.--Aervanath (talk) 19:12, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
38. Weak support. It's getting somewhat clique-ish in there - rarely a good situation. A broader base of participants would be desirable. However, I doubt it's a smart idea to broadcast RfAs onto the widest editor base; that's a recipe for crashing the signal/noise ratio, and more work for those who have to decode the result. Competence is Required applies (although harder to define here, natch). Is there such a thing as notifications that fire only for editors with x+ edits?-- Elmidae (talk) 19:23, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
39. Strong support - Though, while I strongly support this, we should still follow
    WP:CANVASS rules. I've personally seen several times how "votestacking" can be a legitimate destroyer to a discussion. - jc37 22:30, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
40. Support More community involvement is a good thing. The more comments on any topic are more likely to come to the best result. AlbinoFerret 22:44, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
41. Support — RFA's should be advertised at the top of the page (as per Peacemaker). That way, every active Wikipedian will be reminded of his or her opportunity to vote on the nomination, rather than a few people who make RFA their hideout. David Cannon (talk) 12:02, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
42. Support — We should make it more diverse. Zezen (talk) 13:13, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
43. Support Or else Wikipedia will always be stuck with the same old "Cabal that is not a cabal"[1] ruling the day and no real major changes will ever happen. Brustopher (talk) 18:45, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
44. Support - A balance needs to be created between involving editors in process and avoiding promotion that indicates excessive bureaucracy, but it is not easy for new and newish editors to navigate the internal workings of enWiki. Some form of light promotion here or on one or more of the subpages might be useful. Fenix down (talk) 13:14, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
45. Support. I agree with Aervanath's reasoning. More light promotion wouldn't hurt.
    talk!) 15:13, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
46. I can very weakly support something like a watchlist notice, because I guess it seems helpful in principle, but I am skeptical that it will really have much of a positive effect. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:42, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
47. Support, though I'm not sure how useful this will be. The other issues need to be fixed as well, or any new users may pick up the bad habits shown in the current process. Johnbod (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
48. support should be widely advertised. --ℕ ℱ 01:20, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
49. support and dare I say: perhaps some automated methods might be a good idea as well. Similar to an RFC Bot that will post about RFA announcements to talk pages of editors who appear to be constructive and active. Tiggerjay (talk) 16:06, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
50. Support - "More eyes may help" is part of our culture. Jonathunder (talk) 18:31, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
51. Support, mostly per Peacemaker above. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 14:41, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
52. Support, per Peacemaker, whose comments make a lot of sense to me. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:10, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
53. Support Ironholds (talk) 06:24, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
54. Support per Biblioworm. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (intone) 10:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
55. Support I think more people raising different concerns would at least change the pace in RfA, where it seems everyone now raises the same concerns every time. Fresh editors with fresh viewpoints might fix the broken process.Bahb the Illuminated (talk) 10:21, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
56. Support - I strongly support efforts to publicize *all* significant wiki votes and proposals, and RfAs certainly belong at the top of any day's morning briefing. The input of committed editors is the true strength of the project, and the more of it we can get inside deep-wiki arcana like RfAs, the better. SteveStrummer (talk) 01:43, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
57. Support Why not? Gamaliel (talk) 00:12, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
58. Support Quality over quantity argument makes no sense here. Making RFA more prominent doesn't mean we'll start promoting unqualified candidates. It means there will be more candidates, and with more candidates, will come more qualified ones. It's how schools work. The quality over quantity argument only speaks to changes to the standards in which we promote candidates, not how much we promote applying. Mkdw^talk 20:35, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose D

1. RFA is not going to hold widespread appeal for most of the users of Wikipedia. Editors who have the familiarity with issues that matter at RFA are going to be aware of the process, they may just not choose to participate, just as an editor may be aware that there is a process of deletion, but it's not a process that interests them. I don't think RFA participation rates are unreasonably low. Don't overlook that a count of the number of participants only includes the number who have actually commented on a candidate, not the number who have reviewed the RFA, considered the supporters and opposers, and chose not to comment because the RFA was already going in the direction they would have preferred anyway. Neil916 (Talk) 01:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. People who are interested will watch WP:RFA and those who aren't won't. Advertising is simply going to randomise the expectations even more then they already are and encourage inexperienced users to dive in with out of field thoughts and opinions. There is very litter evidence that involving more random people has ever solved anything. Just look at the reactionary cesspit that is AN and ANI.
   Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:22, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. I thiunk that lack of participation is a result, not cause, of the RFA trouble. When fewer users run at RFA, fewer users will keep an eye on it and vote in the new discussions. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. A short lesson in History: To increase the overall voter base has not led to any significant change in history. When women conquered the right to vote in New York in 1918, politicians were afraid that they may vote for new parties, bad candidates, or women, but actually nothing changed. Although the total number of votes doubled, they voted for the same people as the men used to vote for, and only two women were elected for 1919, one Republican and one Democrat. At some time the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in Germany, with the same result: no big change. On the other side, when Jacob D. Fuchsberg (a lawyer without experience as a judge) started to campaign for a seat on the New York Court of Appeals, which had never before been done (the judges were nominated by the parties, and voted for without campaigning) and defeated the party nominees, the seats were made appointive. Apparently the voters are won over by the candidate who spends more money, and makes the funnier TV commercials, not by the more experienced and qualified candidate. Kraxler (talk) 11:35, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. The turnout at RfA has never been so high. We don't want extra publicity to attract even more trolls to the process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:09, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. Quality over quantity of voters. Quality of voting needs to be addressed before quantity. Esquivalience ^t 20:15, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. Why do people assume that if we only got a different batch of voters, they'd be ever so much more thoughtful and reasonable than the extant RfA regulars? They are far more likely to have similar prejudices, similar voting patterns and hobby horses of their very own. Ravenswing 20:11, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. When the electorate keeps saying no to you, the answer is not to change the electorate.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:41, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. Oppose - I'm putting this here because although I agree with the sentiment and encourage more participation, this is demonstrably not a problem with the process. RfAs frequently pass the 200-participants mark, and that is very hard to achieve in any venue on this project. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 00:28, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
10. Oppose Quality over quantity. INeverCry 04:09, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. This is about the worst thing that could be done in terms of encouraging more people to request adminship. SpinningSpark 21:33, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Oppose, if reluctantly. RfA participation as it is only really attracts those most interested with the internal workings of the project, who by virtue of that generally know what to look for (even if their standards are warped) and are familiar with Wikipedia's policies. Given that we have a fair amount of users who either don't care to see how the sausage is made or who have been put through the meat grinder to be made into sausage and are gunshy as a result, this position is, for all intents and purposes, untenable. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:41, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
13. Oppose There's no evidence that more voters is better for the process. In fact, we ought to start making qualification requirements for voters to keep Wikipedia insular. (No, I'm not kidding.) Chris Troutman (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. Oppose — ditto on what Esquivalience said: quality over quantity. Also, ditto on what Ivanvector said: the number of people participating is rarely the issue. Furthermore, just using anecdotal evidence when it applies to countries, increased visibility of an election appears to do nothing to enhance the quality of the arguments raised in the election (and if anything seems to dilute and lower the quality of arguments—the antithesis of what RfA reform aims for). --slakr^\ talk / 07:56, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. OpposeTrilobitealive (talk) 01:45, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. One, RfA is one of the most participated venues in WP; Two, if anything, number of participants seems to be a symptom, not a cause.

Comments on D

• Although I support this idea, care should be taken as this invites SPAs, and votes rather than discussions i.e., Supports and Opposes not based on contributions.—
  Talk 04:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• @Neil916: If they don't comment, then they shouldn't be called a "participant". —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  @KarasuGamma: That was sort of the point I was trying to make, I probably didn't word it as clearly as I could have. Restating the point: You can't look at a completed RFA, and determine that only 126 users determined the outcome. Many more people would have seen it, may have formed an opinion about the candidate, and did not post a comment about it because it did not add to the discussion, and it was clear that the apparent where the candidacy was headed. This is especially true if a candidacy is heading for defeat, as many experienced contributors don't like to pile on in opposition. Neil916 (Talk) 19:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't know whether to support or oppose: I oppose the header but support the statement underneath it. We need different participants. We do not need more. Roughly 100-200 !voters per candidate is more than enough. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• How about having an automatic watchlist notice every time an RfA or RfB starts? This should be possible using Lua without having to resort to a bot. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:43, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  Could the automatic watchlist notice wait an hour or two after the RfA has been transcluded to avoid bothering people with obvious

  NOTNOW RfAs? — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 14:53, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Yep, that shouldn't be too hard. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:14, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding SPAs, they find their own way to RfA if their "single purpose" includes that. As for the arguments that we don't need greater numbers of people I agree, but what we do need it not to have the same people every time. Right now there are more than a few people that go to RfA to oppose the process of RfA itself or to push a minority view by opposing at RfA. More people will reduce the power these minority views have to disrupt RfA(no I will not mention names). HighInBC 14:38, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Per
  JAaron95, I would echo the caution about anon IPs and socks. I had a clear anon IP and a SPA try to !vote or comment on my RfA, and I strongly suspect the came from one or two now-banned sockpuppets where I had a role in "busting" them. That said, I also think there needs to be some way to "advertise" an RfA to those who might actually know the candidate's work and be in a position to offer clueful comments. One idea might be for a candidate to self-identify any WikiProjects where they work and thus an automated, neutral message that says that "editor foo, a member/participant of this wikiproject, has an RfA" would be generated. Likewise, others could also note this RfA on any wikiprojects where the candidate had a "history" - thus making it neutral. Montanabw^(talk) 01:44, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• We need a bot that sends an invite message to all active, experienced editors who have had a talk page interaction with the nominee. One main reason I don't participate is that I generally don't know most who are nominated. This bot would fix that issue for me, and I hope others.
  Talk • Work 15:08, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• The worst excesses of the RfA process are caused by the fact that the entire community can take part in the "interviewing" of the candidate. Of course the community should decide on the process and the requirements for administrators, but it is completely hopeless to have them all there for every individual interview. It kind of makes it a political process. But the job is not a job for politicians, it is a job for technocrats. If you want politicians, just carry on this way. SpinningSpark 22:38, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• As pointed out by Guy Macon, I'm currently running a roughly similar straw poll to inform eligible arbcom voters that they can vote [[2]] - with the exception that I am not proposing a general policy change, but instead seeking feedback on the appropriateness of using my own admin toolset to carry out my idea this arbcom election cycle. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:34, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Neutral...more doesn't mean better. Better voters are needed. There needs to be minimum standard for voting in an RfA (edit count, no biased connections or suspect interactions with the candidate, etc.), maybe make voting a permission or right like autopatrolled or rollback. If that were the case, have a bot select 50 or 100 eligible voters to participate and let them decide by secret ballot. 60% support wins.
  talk) 16:09, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]

1. ...Weak support maybe policy or guidelines could be adjusted in such a way as to make
   WP:AE or something similar a way to remove admins, probably with a fair number of opinions or !votes on the removal required before action could be taken? John Carter (talk) 00:49, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
2. I think this point can be worded better to illustrate that "RFA is hard to pass because participants know it is so hard to remove a seated admin". I agree with this, and in the current system, it causes participants to be very cautious about who makes it through the process. Neil916 (Talk) 02:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support. I agree. I think that, if
   crat proceeds with desysopping. Just another idea... ~Oshwah~ ^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
4. Support BMK (talk) 22:14, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support, though I don't have much to add; my opinions are closely aligned with those of Neil916 and Oshwah here. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 05:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support - There needs to be a more widespread community recall procedure for administrators on Wikipedia. No where near enough current administrators are really open to voluntary recall efforts, and I think that the community would get better general behavior from our administrator corps (and improved confidence in them over time) if we all knew that being an administrator wasn't a "lifetime appointment". Even a few Wikipedia administrators that feel like they are above reproach can cause a lot of damage to this project over time. Guy1890 (talk) 06:05, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. Support, with a good idea put forth by John Carter, above. — Cirt (talk) 09:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support without reservation. IMO one of the big causes of RfA problems is the eventual realization by the community that adminship is essentially indefinite. We can talk about how it isn't a big deal or how opposes should be moderated on the basis of this or that, but so long as people understand the structure of the underlying game, they're going to be strongly risk averse. Protonk (talk) 13:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. Yes, this is a major underlying reason for the reluctance of users to elevate editors: that being an administrator is a roach-motel lifetime position. The process for removal needs to be made more civilized, less drama-ridden for all concerned. Also, within reason, users bringing complaints against admins in such proceedings need to be given "whistleblower" protection and not subject to retaliation unless their complaints are utterly groundless and made in bad faith. Coretheapple (talk) 15:28, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
10. I’ve seen this proposed a lot, and I think that allowing a more streamlined, community centered way to remove admins is a good idea. I think it would also increase the number of successful RFAs, since the community would be more willing to give the mop to editors if they knew they could take it back with relative ease if the editor started to misbehave or failed at his or her duties. I would like to make two caveats though. First, I would like to see some protection put in place to ensure that admins aren’t being desysoped for purely political motives, and that outside groups such as GamerGate aren’t able to hijack the recall system to get revenge against admins who make sound, policy-based decisions that are to the disliking of the outside group. Additionally, I oppose limited terms. I feel that if an admin is doing their job well, then they should be allowed to keep the mop as long as they keep up their good behavior. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 20:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. A community based board/discussion sounds a brilliant idea - Not everything needs to go to Arbcom. –Davey2010^Talk 00:47, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support - but it will never fly because a) nobody wants to come up with an idea and launch it at RfC, and b) if they do, the professional anti-everything mob turns up to derail it including the noisy back benchers and those former functionaries who believe that bullying the participants is the best tactic.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:54, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support. I've been unsure about this one, but after considering it I think it would be best for the community to have a more direct voice in dealing with admins who need to be dealt with. --
    Biblioworm 17:05, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
14. Support Taking the mop back should not be more difficult than giving it away. RO^(talk) 18:03, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. Support Everyking (talk) 14:23, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support, having seen this problem. There should be Requests of Adminship and Requests for De-Adminship. Simple. Eman235/talk 01:53, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. I Support the principle, but this has been proposed before without a suitable procedure being devised so I'm explicitly not supporting any specific method to achieve this (at this point). Thryduulf (talk) 12:09, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Support. Why shouldn't there be a process exactly the same as RfA, but for the exact opposite effect? It could be called RfU(nadminship). Or something like that. Very similar procedures, with an attempt for consensus. But right now it's way too hard to remove an admin, and relatively easier to make someone an admin. Admins have immense power on WP, there should be no reason why they aren't accountable.
    talk) 20:02, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
19. Support On Commons we have de-sysop requests (basically de-RFAs). Mine worked like a charm... INeverCry 04:24, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support in principle, although I don't see the relevance to RFA. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 13:13, 23 October 2015 (UTC).[reply]
21. Support. Per Super Mario Effect (explanation in comments) --Guy Macon (talk) 13:14, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support I've seen admins that were horrible — more interested in POV-pushing than in Wikipedia's major policies, and in helping allies, threatening, harsh -- yet they will be admins for life. -- Ríco 17:43, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support There are many bad Admins out there, who seem to enjoy using their Admin status to threaten and ridicule others. Make them stand for re-election each year and they would be far less likely to behave that way. (Be sure to post the re-election schedule somewhere where anyone they have ridiculed can find it.) StuRat (talk) 19:53, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Support! Yes, RfA standards are too high (A) and !votes are too strongly weighted (J), but why? RfA voters and closers are wary of rubber-stamping admin candidates precisely because bad admins are all but impossible to remove. Even admins who don't break the rules can be counterproductive, and even blockable offenses are not always enough to earn a de-sysopping. Improvements to RfA itself will help, but the best way to boost the size and quality of the admin pool is to introduce a straightforward, consensus-driven de-sysopping process. —Swpb^talk 20:04, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support, while it doesn't directly have to do with RfAs, this would be a huge help. This would let more candidates, good and bad, pass, but then, people wouldn't have to worry about horrible incivil arrogant admins that are about impossible to be desysopped. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 23:15, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support there should be a system of probation, where three uninvolved admins can suspend a probationary admins mop for specific infractions. Probation for say, three months. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:04, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Support I've seen alot of situations where people with an axe to grind with a Admin have misused some of these process. I could see a form of peer review as useful. Other Admins reviewing an Admins actions similar to what some doctors do in a medical inquest. There may cases where an admins actions shouldn't lead to a block but there actions should be corrected. This could do both.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 08:34, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support a more community-based method with which admins can be desysopped. Tim Smith (talk) 13:49, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Support It's seems close to impossible for an admin to get desysopped unless they've gotten themselves
    WP:INVOLVED and committed wrongdoing. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:26, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
30. Support The whole process will be better if we can make it easier to both promote new admins and to remove existing ones. Deli nk (talk) 17:49, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
31. Support - Per above.--Catlemur (talk) 18:02, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Support. A permanent Arbcom has been established for the sole purpose of enforcing politically correct language and permanently banishing people deemed "offenders". Okay. I don't care for a lot of
    WP:FRINGE either. This one, however, designated non-admins to "nominate" people for a "blacklist", which would make me eligible for "participation" in the Arbcom which was throwing out a half dozen editors a day. I disagreed in pure innocence (so help me!) with editors on the discussion page and one put me on the blacklist. I took the hint and unwatched the article. This seemed thuggish IMO. Anything that can prevent non-admins from assuming the mantle of a prosecutor would be appreciated by me. Student7 (talk) 19:18, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
33. Support. If this is structured in a sufficiently abuse-resistant way, it alone might be sufficient to prevent many precautionary opposes.-- Elmidae (talk) 19:27, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
34. Support The task is hard, and only in extreme cases is it possible to remove an admin. AlbinoFerret 22:47, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support Of the past 7 admins to be desysopped by Arbcom, 3 were resigning and trying to get desysopped on purpose, one was scamming a whole bunch of Indian students , and another caused a national political scandal a month before a general election by making close to baseless accusations against an MP. If this is the level of abuse you need to reach to get desysopped there's clearly a problem. Brustopher (talk) 18:52, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
36. If there is one thing that could be done to make more editors comfortable supporting RfA candidates, it would be to make those editors more confident that mistaken supports would be easily corrected. I believe strongly that we need to make it easier to remove bad administrators without making it easier to hassle the good ones. But I also think that ArbCom is continuously getting better at accomplishing this, whereas it is very difficult to design a community-based system that would really be better than ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:46, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
37. Support though I doubt this is the key issue. Johnbod (talk) 17:52, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
38. Support - This key concept is continually shot down by existing admins, many of whom gained their extra buttons years ago and would not be able to pass an Rfa today. Going to be interesting to see what the final percentage of opposers to "E" are admins, a quick survey reveals the number at over 50% as of this post. I agree with Tryptofish that this is the single most important solution towards breaking up the current logjam at Rfa. Jusdafax 12:01, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
39. Support. When you unbundle the tools, you make it easy to add and remove rights at a moment's notice. Problem solved. Viriditas (talk) 07:35, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
40. Strong support: if the community wishes to bring back the days of NOBIGDEAL, this is one thing that absolutely must be done. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 14:43, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
41. Support. These days, anyone with the ability to block a user's access to a site is seen as powerful, and thus a "big deal." Wishing this wasn't so won't fix that. Arbcom does act in specific circumstances, but Brustopher does a good job of illustrating the level which must be reached before this happens. We need something better. Intothatdarkness 19:39, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
42. SupportTrilobitealive (talk) 01:46, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    support in principle. We need a workable solution, and it must involve admin rights being subject to recall for abuse or misconduct. Admins should have their bits suspended during review. Admin rights should not be a life tenure. There should be some form of reelection process.

    talk) 21:32, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply

    ]

    Talk • Work 13:50, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply

    ]

43. Support - Possibly the biggest reason that RfAs have evolved into such desperate affairs is that it's clear that admins, once installed, are rarely removed. This policy of effective lifetime appointment should be reviewed (and changed), but it's also absolutely necessary to secure and expand the community-based recall option. SteveStrummer (talk) 21:29, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
44. Support. OK, here's an example: Neelix. I guess you could say that the system is working, as he's currently at
    WP:RFAR. However, this is only because a motion to desysop him failed. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:39, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]

1. RfA is too hard by desysopping is also too hard...? The recent past has seen a number of admins desysopped, and while that usually takes a bit of time, that's the proper way. And if desysopping is so hard, I wonder what one makes of the case of Malik Shabazz, who got his tool within a few hours (or less?) yanked after one tiny little infraction, being baited by racist commentary. Drmies (talk) 01:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. I'd say this has it 100% backwards. The reason why adminship is too hard to take away is that the community treats it as too precious. If it were already easier to become an admin, we'd have more better admins, and wouldn't feel the need to make removing it so hard. --Jayron32 02:51, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. The evidence is that admins who step over the line are having their bit removed - if the Malik Shabazz case shows anything, its that Arbcom are too quick to yank the bit. People who claim abusive admins are inviolate rarely provide the names and evidence to back up their assertions.
   Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:32, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
4. Oppose: ~97% of administrators who have passed RfA have not been removed from their posts by ArbCom. Unless a body of evidence can be provided showing there is some significant number of admins that should not be admins that have not been de-adminned by ArbCom, then this idea is moot. Everyone likes to think that a community based de-adminship would solve what ails RfA. There's no evidence to suggest it would. Meanwhile, there's significant evidence to suggest it would decimate the standing admin corps and reduce the ability of this project to function. I am not opposed to a community based de-adminship process. I am opposed to attempting to implement one without evidence to support there is a need for one. Taking a poll is not evidence, just opinion. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. Oppose - In theory, there are only 2 options for desysoping in case of misbehavior: community or a selected committee. I believe that in this case, the community would tend to remove the very best sysops (the ones who handle the most controvertial issues), so we need a selected committee - and ARBCOM seems like the best option we have for it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. Desysopping isn't exactly rare. Five admins have been desysopped for cause this year, and more resigned under a cloud. Nor does it really have much to do with RfA: the promotion rate has taken a nose dive while it hasn't got any harder to desysop people. Most concrete proposals for an alternative desysop process have major flaws. Hut 8.5 20:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. This is a popular meme with no apparent basis in fact. I'm not aware of recent difficulties removing problematic admins.
   Townlake (talk) 02:14, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
8. The statement is just wrong. Several admins have been desysopped by motion within a few days, lately. You better withdraw this, or reword the statement. Anyway, any admin who is active in AfD would be mobbed by those who got their articles deleted, if there was some community desysop procedure. There's a reason why in civilized places people who are suspected of breaking the law are tried in a court of law, not by their neighbors. Kraxler (talk) 11:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. Desysopping has become significantly easier (and more common) over the last ten years, while becoming a sysop has become harder. (Maybe we should make desysopping harder? Would that make becoming a sysop easier again??) —Kusma (t·c) 13:32, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
10. It's not really that hard to remove unsuitable admins; it just may take a while. Esquivalience ^t 20:17, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. Weak Oppose per several of the above comments and my own observations that many admins who make serious mistakes voluntarily resign the mop or quit wikipedia altogether. It isn't that difficult to deysop, actually it's easier than getting the mop in the first place these days. My thinking is that if there is any actual problem, just clarify the grounds for a desysop - any weakening of the process is just bait for the disgruntled trolls who love drama. Montanabw^(talk) 01:50, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. I'm OK with hard to get the bit and modestly difficult to remove it. My impression is that wheel wars were very common in the past and have become less common in the present. I don't buy into the theory relaxing standards to give more editors the bit. Glrx (talk) 18:20, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
13. Oppose, in the current climate of RFA. A side effect of the demanding nature of RFA is that those who are promoted are *very* good candidates. If getting the mop becomes easier, then we should talk about making taking it away easier. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 23:22, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. Weak Oppose I don't think leaving this in the hands of the community is the best idea. For all the bad admin out there, what is stopping a lynching for an admin that might have done something minor? The people voting to desysop an admin would have their votes weighed in by strength of argument right? If so then by who? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:54, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. Oppose – I'm not against a community led process to remove problematic admins, but I haven't seen much evidence of it being too difficult to remove the tools from problematic admins. ArbCom is far from perfect, but they are generally effective at yielding their power to remove admins that have lost the trust of the community. I certainly do not believe that the removal of adminship is the core problem with RfA today.
    CT Cooper · talk 20:55, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
16. Oppose Neither attaining adminship nor losing it should be taken lightly. Standards should be followed. SusunW (talk) 17:18, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. Oppose: If people sought desysopping for better reasons than the all-too-typical "That rat bastard admin did something I don't like!!!" that'd be another thing. I'm quite comfortable with making things tough for the lynch mobs. Ravenswing 20:12, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Oppose It should be somewhat difficult to remove admin privileges once given. Otherwise, admins will be timid where they should be energetic. The tools should be very hard to obtain, so they wind up only in the right hands. Once they've been granted, there should be a significant burden to carry before they can be removed. Think: life tenure for federal judges in the U.S. David in DC (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
19. Oppose ArbCom is adequately handling cases of actual misconduct. Anything else is moaning "oh, I don't like Admin X because they're mean". Such a system would require, at a minimum, significant procedural safeguards against mob action, and we have that with ArbCom (though they are not immune from poor conduct against people either, I'm thinking specifically what happened to the (missed) Elen of the Roads. But I'm not thinking of chucking ArbCom out the window for it.)--Wehwalt (talk) 20:39, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
20. Oppose - I don't think this has much, if any, effect. Even where admin standards are lax (hi, I'm from Commons!) far more admins are lost due to inactivity than to bad behaviour. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:51, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Oppose again because although I support the sentiment, I don't think it's a problem with the process, or rather it is an entirely separate issue. That it's too hard to fire someone isn't a valid criticism of the hiring process. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 00:30, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
22. Process Oppose as this has nothing to do with RfAs.
    Talk • Work 14:40, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
23. Oppose. Indeed, I struggle to think of what sort of logic justifies this position in an RfC that seems to be ostensibly about why we're facing an administrative logistics hell. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:43, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Oppose per Townlake and Jéské Couriano. Gamaliel (talk) 16:34, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. Oppose I feel like the judicial-like investigative process of ARBCOM is actually the fairest way to remove the bit.--Aervanath (talk) 19:17, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Oppose — Adminship is not an "office". It's simply a lifting of security features. The Arbcom already has all the power it needs to removed admins. Making it easier to remove admins would, in my opinion, make many admins fearful of carrying out their responsibilities such as page protection, blocking, etc., as such actions create enemies — who would then have the knives out for the faithful admin. Let's not empower people who have grudges —I fear this proposal leans heavily that way. David Cannon (talk) 12:06, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Oppose As others have stated, the problem is actually at the other end. If the community would agree to stop treating adminship as some office of high power and prestige, which it most certainly is not, it would be easier to get adminship and we wouldn't be so worried about losing the ones we have. It's a culural problem, not a "rules" problem. It would certainly be easier if this were a problem that could be fixed by an RFC, but it just isn't.
    talk) 23:06, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
28. Oppose - as a matter of principal as this point is not related in anyway to the RfA process. Fenix down (talk) 13:16, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Oppose — this is a perennial complaint that's perennially rebuked. It has no business being snuck into discussions about RfA reform, because there's no evidence that the ease or difficulty of removing admins in any way translates to the ease of adding them or increasing the quality of discussion of a candidate. Historically, you could even say it's been quite the opposite: admins were more easily added back when there wasn't even a process of formally removing them. --slakr^\ talk / 08:01, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
30. Oppose The idea that admins are hard to remove is demonstrably false. Nobody has ever been able to provide current examples of admins that need to be desysoped by have not been. HighInBC 16:53, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
31. Yes, changing admin status should be not-too-hard (easy is not good), but the current process mostly works. And I am a firm believer on the merits of representative democracy, any (direct) "community desysoping" I've seen is a variant of mob-rules. - Nabla (talk) 23:52, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Oppose I haven't seen any admins that need to be desysopped still with the tools. ArbCom clearly can respond to cases and it seems those complaining about making it difficult to desysop admins only seem to have that opinion because they fundamentally don't like the person over abuses of the tools. Unless someone can name a few admins that need to be desysopped but cannot because the process is "too hard"? Mkdw^talk 20:38, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on E

• My solution to this is for admins to serve limited terms, say 5 years, after which they would go through a process similar to RfA, but where the passing level would be pretty low, say 45%. (This is to compensate for any accumulated grudges.) For the occasional admin who oversteps his bounds, or approaches their work with a bad attitude, knowing that a re-confirmation process is coming up might be a impetus to behave better. Or, admins who just slip by could serve "probationary" terms of 2-3 years, while those who pass with high percentages perhaps serve 7 years before having to be confirmed. The point is that a lifetime appointment does not seem to me to be a good idea. Certainly it protects the admin from unwarranted reprisals, but it also shields them from the displeasure of the community. BMK (talk) 02:28, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse limited-term adminship, BMK's idea of retention elections is not the best but it is better than we have now. I do like his idea of shorter terms for those who start off with lower support ("admins who just slip by"). I think another Wikipedia (German?) already has fixed-term admin elections. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  If the problem with RfA is that the hostility of the environment makes it too hard to add new admins to the admin corps, the solution to the problem is to now take the existing corps and subject them to the same unwarranted hostility so they can be allowed to continue responding to RFPP requests? And that's going to fix the core problem? --Jayron32 03:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  If you are referring to those elected prior to any change to a term-limit, we would have to handle "grandfathering in" existing admins in some form or fashion. This may mean leaving them with the "lifetime bit," it may mean leaving them with it as long as they remain active as an editor and/or as an admin, or it may just mean "declaring them elected for a full term" so they won't have to worry about running again for awhile. But that's a discussion for another day. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:43, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  Our problem is too few admins, we need to encourage more candidates to run, the last thing we need is to get rid of good experienced admins. Most of our currently active admins have been admins for more than five years, and with RFA so nasty these days, this is a disruptive process that would do a lot of harm for no discernable benefit. ϢereSpielChequers 18:52, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Re Hammersoft's concern: I am not surprised that 97% of admins, if that accurate, don't get kicked out. I hope not, nor do I expect that not to be the case. I don't believe that proponents of making the desysop process easier believe that admins ranks are saturated with bad apples. However, all you need are a few to cause real damage and to create a burden for other editors. Right now at RfArb a case is coming up, still active at last look though probably not to be accepted, revolving around an admin who supposedly abused his tools. Such occasions are tough on all concerned, and should be handled in a less drama-ridden process. Coretheapple (talk) 20:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I've been working on some evidence over the last week. I've been seeing some interesting results. I don't have anything hard at this point, but there seems to be a case to be made that RfA is an extremely poor predictor of later failure of admins that are forced out. This makes me wonder if the inverse, a system to remove admins, would also be a very poor predictor of which admins should be removed. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it's a poor predictor, just as it was in the case of Pastor Theo, Wifione, and some other prominent ones whose names I can't mention because they are still with us and for some reason are still allowed to participate at all. Those who loudly insist that all admins are bad are doing more harm than good and most of their complaints are just righteous indignation and they don't have long lock logs for no reason; that's why although there needs to be a fast track system for making admins more accountable, it doesn't always need to end in a removal of the tools and I'm very much averse to the notion that an easier desysoping process should be used as a witch hunt to whittle out more admins under the flimsiest of accusations. I thought that kind of thing went out with McCarthy. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:29, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I think this has been the basic problem from the start: I think it is because it is so difficult to get rid of abusive admins, that RfA has become so toxic.
• A possibility is to allow new candidates for RfA to *only* have the tools for, say, 3-4-5 years. In such cases I think the community would be more, shall we say, benevolent, as one would know that we could easily get rid of them in 3-4-5 years, if they turn out bad, Huldra (talk) 20:16, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• In videogames, The Super Mario Effect is as follows: When Mario gets a power up that turns him into Super Mario, a mistake that would normally kill him as ordinary Mario simply turns him from Super Mario to ordinary Mario, then he has to make another mistake to be killed. Likewise when an administrator does something that would get an ordinary editor indefinitely blocked, he is desysopped, turning him into an ordinary editor. Then he has to do something else wrong to be actually blocked. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:24, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• That seems a bit too generous, to me, and goes away from the standard assumption that "Admins are just normal editors with access to extra buttons". Imagine if we did this is the real world, where a policeman who commits murder isn't arrested, just loses his job. (This may be what often happens as a practical matter, but at least it's not enshrined in the law.) I agree with what was said earlier about making RfA easier but make staying an Admin harder. As for accumulated grudges, if an Admin is pissing off more people than he is helping (who would presumably support him), then he should not be an Admin. Just speaking with people with respect is a simple skill many of them seem to totally lack. StuRat (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• This is the effect that some people claim to have seen. I'm not sure they are right, or if so, maybe partially right. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 06:45, 27 October 2015 (UTC).[reply]
  

• Strong support I know it is hard to be an admin, but as an experienced editor of some 8 years, I have seen to many incompetent admins, it is shocking The most important improvement to choosing admins, is to make it clear that they can be easily removed! Debresser (talk) 15:44, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Some hospitals will form a medical inquest when patient dies to see if there were any issues that could have been prevented. Various things can happen in these. I'd suggest something along the lines of an admin inquest in addition to what's already here. When questionable comes up a place where other admins can review there actions. To correct their behavior and if necessary to deysopp.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 18:51, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• We already have that in ArbCom. An RfAR contains an evidence collection phase. An RfA like process to remove admin privs would not have that. Any process that does not include an evidence phase is just a (lack of) popularity contest. Any process that does include an evidence phase needs people experienced in sifting through such things to reach appropriate conclusions. Having a process entirely open to anyone to vote removes that. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:51, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Again, there is nothing actually being proposed here. In any case removing admins is not directly related to the RfA process. --Michig (talk) 15:47, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Opposed above, but I think that we should increase accountability and "visibility" (for the lack of a better term). Maybe there should be some form of '(dis)liking' admin actions, and some better statistic than averaging them. Maybe a better logging system. Maybe... amny things I can not think of, but surely we can improve accountability, and thye ease to understand if that one poor judgement we just notice is a one of case, that will get solved easily with a conversation, or if it is part of a pattern of (arrogance, misjudgement, ...). - Nabla (talk) 00:02, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

F: Unbundle the tools

Currently, it is too difficult for candidates to pass because they are being trusted with a large toolset. If we unbundled the tools, candidates could simply apply for the particular right(s) which they would personally find most useful and/or have the most non-admin experience in.

Support F

1. Support – Of course. It's inevitable. It's only a question of when. That said, this is tangential to the overall thrust of Biblioworm's RfC, and should probably be dropped as it's a separate topic. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:22, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Strong support. Some candidates could easily be trusted with page-delete/undelete but their past behavior (e.g. interaction bans, short temper, etc.) means they probably can't get 70% support to have the "block user" user-right, and vice-versa. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support, but depends on which tools, and what are the standards, for each. — Cirt (talk) 09:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support AS ALWAYS. It's silly to keep tools bundled beyond the minimum necessary for legal issues. block/protect/delete are different classes of tools and can be meted out through different processes. Protonk (talk) 13:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. Weak support I support unbundling in principle, but I don't think it should be unbundling just for the sake of unbundling. I don't think it would make sense to unbundle something that is almost always used with other admin tools during normal admin duties, but if there are cases where the tool is usually used by itself, then unbundling would be a good option. One example that springs to mind is closing AfD discussions, which normally only requires delete and viewdeleted. Of course, viewdeleted is the right that requires community vetting due to the legal implications for the WMF, but it still may be more attractive for some candidates to run for a deletion-only RfA than to run for the current incarnation of RfA. There may be more scenarios like this that I haven't thought of. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:07, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. Yes, I think that if the tools were unbundled it would make the whole process much easier on everybody concerned. An editor who can recognize and block vandals might not be qualified to engage in intricate sockpuppet investigations or rule on complex ANI complaints. Coretheapple (talk) 15:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   You're correct that being competent at vandal blocking doesn't require competence at ANI and sockpuppetry-related issues, but it does require the same technical tools. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:06, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

7. Delete, block and protect. People might think these are roughly the same level of importance, and therefore that they should be given out together. But, as an example, people often oppose RfAs for reasons relating to how someone deals with deletion (i.e. CSD and AfD), when actually the user just wants to deal with vandal fighting (block, protect, and the occasional delete). Yes, some jobs need mixtures of these tools, but then you can post to the relevant noticeboard—that's what happens anyway when the user has none of the three rights. I would be open to a variety of ideas about how these tools could be given out individually (based on an RfA, some kind of mini-RfA, something closer to requesting rollback etc.), but I definitely support the idea of unbundling them somehow. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. We've had several successful unbundles in the past, and could do more. We need some strong content creators on the DYK queues, and it might probably makes sense to make that a separate right or role similar to the way FA runs. There is a proposal elsewhere on this page to unbundle a very limited delete to everyone. I'd also support unbundling block providing it didn't work on accounts with more than 100 edits. But each unbundling needs to be thought through, not everything can be unbundled ϢereSpielChequers 18:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support Some of the admin rights (suppressredirect, tboverride) have less potential for disruption than rights available to autoconfirmed users or at Requests for permissions, others such as undelete should only be available to users who need them, not just because they are only available bundled together. Peter James (talk) 22:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
10. Support: At the very least, there should be a split between the "people" toolset (block, unblock) and the "pages" toolset (protect, delete, etc.). --Carnildo (talk) 23:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support to the extent that it complies with Wikimedia Policy. The admin tool bundle is huge and many admins really just want to specialize in a few areas (e.g. updating sections on the Main Page). ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:20, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support per Bilorv and WereSpielChequers. Carnildo also makes a good point about categorizing the rights. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 02:59, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support but as any admin who has worked at
    WP:PERM will know, it will add another shelf to the millinery. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
14. Unbundling the tools will reduce the need for admin privileges, but for more controversial actions (e.g. deleting, blocking), confirmation by another user with the same right should be required. Esquivalience ^t 20:20, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. Support: There are tools related to wikignoming tasks related to article and project content that would be very nice for trusted content creators to have, particularly regarding article protection, moves, deletion and so on. The other set of tools, and in my own experience the source of the drama, are those with the ability to block users. Split the content from the behavior. I sometimes wish —desperately—that I could protect, delete, undelete or move articles over redirect (and load DYK, ITN and so on). Though trolls are annoying, AIV actually is a pretty fast process for the truly harmful or dangerous users most of the time. I wanted the wikignoming set, could live without the banhammer if I could simply do my content work with fewer hassles. Montanabw^(talk) 01:55, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support in principle, but it remains to be seen if any specific tools are suitable for unbundling. RO^(talk) 18:05, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. Support especially for IP-blocking, seeing deleted pages, and placing articles under semi-protection. Collect (talk) 23:08, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Support - If this were separated from the rest as an action item, it seems like something that might actually be doable. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:07, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
19. Support: All too sensible, even if similar proposals have generally failed. It would certainly cut off a bunch of RfA habitual opposers at the knees for those candidates who don't intend to practice in the areas of their hobby horses. Ravenswing 20:15, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support. The world did not end when we unbundled rollback. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:27, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Support on principle. It should be possible to get any bundled admin tool separately, which will allow new people to more gradually advance through the tool set. Not sure what it has to do with the RfA process, though, because it's really orthogonal - we'll still have a bunch of existing people with the bundle, and people who we as a community want to enlist^Wencourage to take up the whole bundle. -Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:42, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support this really is a no-brainer. Many potential candidates wouldn't even want all the tools. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:06, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support You can do alot with this. You could give a user blocking rights for instance but you could limit them to blocking people where there is a consensus to do so such as AN or ANI. You might allow them to do so under certain other circumstances. Make no exceptions to these rules that are set.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:29, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Support While I understand the argument against, un-bundling would really fix the problem. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:27, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support. Different tools require different skill sets, different knowledge, and different levels of trust. Editors who can narrow their focus to one type of admin work will be better at that work (on average) than all purpose admins. Deli nk (talk) 17:48, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support If this idea gets enough support, obviously there will then be an RFC about what to unbundle and what new bundles to create. But I think it's a great idea.--Aervanath (talk) 19:22, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Strong support. Promote focused artisans rather than fail to find universal geniuses.-- Elmidae (talk) 19:29, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support I would like to see this happen and perhaps tools be added by need and experience. AlbinoFerret 22:50, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Qualified support — it's a good idea in principle. I would, in principle, support doing away with the whole "admin/sysop" class and letting users apply for whatever tools they want. Having said that, I would also want anybody opposing the granting of a particular tool to have VERY good, demonstrable reasons. After a minimum period of time and a minimum number of edits, most tools should automatically be made available to any active user, with a clean record, who wants them. David Cannon (talk) 12:10, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
30. Strong support - Elves aren't enforcers. There are people who DO NOT WANT and WILL NOT ACCEPT powers like the ability to block other editors, but would still be willing to help out with more mundane tasks. Darmokand (talk) 13:06, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
31. Support. Article tools should be separated from user tools. Binksternet (talk) 06:33, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Yes, this is clearly a good idea, and it clearly will not happen. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:48, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
33. Support - Agree with Tryptofish. My view - as long as admins are allowed to !vote on proposals that affect their status, we will have no reform in this direction. Jusdafax 16:20, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
34. Support. It's 2015, not 1968. Centralized, hierarchical management is about as relevant as a pet rock and a lava lamp. And like pet rocks and lava lamps, our current batch of admins do close to nothing. Unbundle the tools, and you distribute needed tasks in a decentralized approach that enforces power sharing and democratic solutions. Of course, this is what the Guardians fear the most. The current RfA process is a good example of what happens when right-wing libertarian ideas are allowed to thrive. You get Somalia run by warlords who think they have the divine right of kings. End RfA now. Viriditas (talk) 05:26, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
35. Tentative support as a matter of general principle, but whether I would support a particular unbundling plan depends very much on the specifics. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 14:48, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
36. Support blocking, applying user rights and deleting content are seperate sets of tools, that I have rarely ever needed to use in tandem. It would be useful to unbundle, simply to un-concentrate the demand for Admins, Sadads (talk) 16:47, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
37. Strong support. That's the only reasonable way to go forward. The project has grown and continues to become increasingly complex, and it is crazy that the admin system has not changed accordingly. I would rather grant specialized permissions to deal with specific tasks to users who have demonstrated competency in a particular area (e.g. deleting images, dealing with copyvio issues are good examples of areas requiring specialized skills) then to continue the current "all or nothing" system. Nsk92 (talk) 03:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
38. Strong support. I'm not saying that every single tool needs to be unbundled and handed out like candy on Halloween, but certainly there are non-admin types that have demonstrated a commitment to the project who can be trusted to use the tools correctly. (In the interests of brevity, I'm going to respond to some of the specific oppose votes in the comments section below.) Etamni | ✉ | ✓  21:19, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose F

1. Nope. Any level of trust required to grant one of the tools would be required for all of them. If I trust a user to block someone, I'd also trust them to delete an article. If I don't trust them with the ability to block someone correctly, I also wouldn't trust them to use protection correctly. --Jayron32 02:53, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2. Admin tools are for Admins. We currently have some of the unbundled tools and that is sufficient. Unbundling all of 'em will lead to more chaos and confusions. Regards—
   Talk 05:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. Oppose I think, we give the admin bits on the basis of competence and trust. A candidate applying for a single tool must have both, as well as a candidate applying for a complete tool set. Simply in the latter case, it is AGFed (based on trust) that the candidate won't use the tools in which he is incompetent haphazardly. Secondly, all the tools are needed in tandem, unbundling will be chaotic as more semi admins would be required to take on an IP hopping vandal, moving and vandalizing pages. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 05:05, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. Oppose I think the ones that are worth unbundling have been. Delete, block, protect, etc, if you can be trusted with one of those you can be trusted with the others. We've been through this far too many times anyway to no avail, let's focus on other solutions to improve the RfA process — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
5. Oppose - if you believe RFA has problems, proposing replacing it with multiple RFAs is, frankly, stupid. WilyD 12:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
6. Oppose, vandal fighters need block and protect and delete and viewdeleted to work properly, speedy patrollers need delete and block. RFPP patrollers need block and protect. I can't think of a major admin area where people with access to only one of the three key tools would be all that helpful. —Kusma (t·c) 12:41, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. Oppose - One of the main areas we need more admins for is deleting. And with deleting comes undeleting (necessary to allow a user to undo his/her actions), and we run into an issue where the Wikimedia Foundation has said absolutely not. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. Oppose - No need to unbundle - If you wanna delete, block, whatever then become an admin .... –Davey2010^Talk 00:50, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. I'd only support this if every current admin also had to re-stand for their police powers, and that ain't happening.
   Townlake (talk) 02:15, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
   ]
10. The main areas of contention seem to be block, delete, protect. Often an admin uses 2 out of three of these on any given case. I think ungrouping these three would be an ineffective use of resources (editors), if someone can delete a recreated page, but then has to go to RFPP to request its protection (for example). I can't think of any other commonly used tools I have as an administrator that would be worth unbundling, not to say there isn't. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 15:14, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
11. Be careful for what you wish. I think this adds complexity without solving the problem. Except for technical admins, I use the same judgments for the tools. If you rate one, then you rate them all. Someone who can close an AfD can also recognize vandals. Glrx (talk) 18:27, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
12. Oppose – I remain open minded about this, but I think the tools most suited for unbundling (rollback, file moving etc.) have already been unbundled, and at best, this can only play a small part in resolving the problems with RfA. The main admin tools (block, delete, and protect) are often used together in situations admins deal with, and unbundling them could result in an inefficient use of resources, and would needlessly complicate things by requiring mini-RfAs and the like.
    CT Cooper · talk 21:56, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
13. Oppose. While a limited and not terribly important groupd of individual might might appropriate to "unbundle", the key administrative tools all require demonstration of a high level of competence and community trust. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 16:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
14. Oppose Either someone is trustworthy or not. Either they have the knowledge and experience to be an admin, or not. Seems a waste of time and confusing for the remainder of the community to have to figure out which admins have which tools. SusunW (talk) 17:20, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15. Oppose Simple reason (and nothing to do with trust), you will need more than one tool sometimes, better you have a full toolkit in case you need a given tool than have a screwdriver but find you need a hammer to solve the second part of a problem. The idea is far from bad, just that the possession of one tool often involves the use of another at some point.
    tutterMouse (talk) 19:03, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
16. Oppose There is no tool that I would trust someone with unless I could trust them with the others.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:59, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
17. Oppose - like my other oppose comments, I don't see this as a problem with the process, and like several above me have said, the selection process for various unbundled tools would look very much like the current selection process for all of them. That would in fact make it much harder to select admins, because we would need multiple RfA-like processes. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 00:32, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
18. Oppose The tools are bundled for good reason. I often had to block spammers or VOAs after deleting spam and vandalism, or protect pages after blocking vandals and socks. INeverCry 03:47, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
19. Process Oppose as this has nothing to do with the RfA process. I would be happy to consider specific proposals on this, however. I myself would like to use a few of the tools without becoming a full admin as I really don't want that unpaid job.
    Talk • Work 16:50, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
20. Oppose. Achieving a goal, such as dealing with vandalism, editing a popular template, or dealing with a tricky merge, require a variety of tools, and the toolkit required is constantly changing. This will leave regular editors with enhanced tools stuck in the middle of achieving a goal because the list of tools changed since the last time the editor did it. This is why a reasonably comprehensive set of tools must be made available to trustworthy editors with one request. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:06, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
21. Oppose;
    cop badges and rollback on the grounds that those are available to non-admins in the first place.) —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:47, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
22. Oppose A recipe for more bureaucracy and procedures. Gamaliel (talk) 16:34, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
23. Oppose per CT Cooper. Essentially all of what can be unbundled logically has been already. Spencer^T♦C 21:16, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
24. Oppose - the tools (and the usage thereof) are too interdependant for this. This should onlly be done as parrt of a "package" of tools. But let's cut through the obscurity. The two main packages repeatedly asked for are blocker/vandal patroller (behavioural-related admin tools) and gnome/moderator (content-related admin tools). Neither of which seem to get out of committee... - jc37 22:50, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
25. Oppose - many tools (rollback, ipblockexempt, account creator etc) have already been unbundled over the last few years. I see little use in further unbundling. Deryck C. 12:19, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
26. Oppose - as fundamentally adding to beaurucracy. There are enough unbundled tools available now anyway. Additionally I think this would create a more diffcult RfA process if an editor applies for toolsets A, B and C with some respondants only wanting to grant A and B whilst others want to grant B and C. just don't see how this makes things simpler. Fenix down (talk) 13:18, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
27. Oppose — Admins are needed for things like
    oversight. --slakr^\ talk / 08:13, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
28. Oppose while I have contemplated this idea for some time, I believe the right place is to keep them primarily unbundled. Those elements that can be trusted discretely such as file mover, account creator, etc., have already been broken out. Many of the balance of the tools such as blocking and deleting are such broad tools, that even for someone with a focus on vandalism, still should undergo the full RfA as the block tools have more implications than simply resolving "simple vandalism". Tiggerjay (talk) 16:10, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
29. Admins need the full range of tools, or, when faced with a problem, will resolve it – not necessarily the most effective way possible – with the limited tools they possess.
    ping in reply) 03:55, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
30. OpposeTrilobitealive (talk) 01:47, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
31. Oppose Ironholds (talk) 06:25, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
32. Oppose It should be all or nothing - that's trust. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (intone) 10:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
33. Oppose Unbundling was a good idea but it has already gone as far as it can go without compromising safety. Account creator, IPBE, rollbacker, file mover, and template editor cover all of the admin acts that don't require a higher level of trust. Blocking, unblocked, deleting, and restoring all require the ability to read deleted content, deleted content often contains sensitive information. We need to establish a high level of trust before giving out the remaining tools. HighInBC 16:56, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
34. Do we trust <editor> to ban but not to delete, or to delete but not to ban. C'mon, it is hard enough to make a sound bet on a good/bad admin prospect, how will we chose in advance if X is ok for tool "T1" bit not tool "T2". Instead, we surely should grant adminship to someone that wants to and looks ok to do one thing (say, fight vandals - revert/block) but we are not sure if they are good at another (say, deletions). If they then start deleting at random, we can desysop - Nabla (talk) 00:08, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]