Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2021 review/Issues

H. Oppose (disagree)

1. This suggests that the number of active editors (broadly construed) has actually remained surprisingly constant over the past decade, and is still far higher than it was in, say, 2004–2006, when RfA was approving hordes of sysops. While it's certainly not a perfect metric, it's enough to convince me that RfA's issues lie elsewhere. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:23, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. Per Extraordinary Writ and the fact that's clear that there's an abundance of qualified candidates; the issue is just that those candidates aren't running. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:33, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. The stats don't bear this out, see Wikipedia:Time Between Edits. Hut 8.5 13:34, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. If the stats were showing that RFA had dropped from the 2007 peak of 408 new admins back to something like the 2004 crop of 240 new admins then this theory could account for a significant part of the drop. But we had just 17 new admins in 2020, a year when the community was much larger than in 2004. Relative community size can't be a significant factor in the decline. ϢereSpielChequers 08:11, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. We do need to increase our overall number of editors and/or retain the ones we have now better. But there is additionally a problem with RfA. — Bilorv (talk) 17:15, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. These are two separate issues. One might even suggest that the difficulty of becoming an admin discourages participation in the site as a whole.
   -- Calidum 18:53, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
7. I assume this means "Declining number of RfA candidates reflects a declining editor base". I agree with the replies immediately above. It may be one factor but it is not the whole story. Nurg (talk) 02:09, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. That's just not what the data shows. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:12, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. As pointed out by Extraordinary Writ, active editor numbers have been stable. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:41, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. This does not seem to be borne out by the data. I know of more than a few people who would make fine admins, but have indicated they are not interested in filing an RfA. If we could make that process more collaborative and less unpleasant, that might change. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:09, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. I moved my comment down here. I agree with exactly what Levivich said, but that's not a problem with the structure of RfA, it's just a systemic problem for Wikipedia in general. If we recruit more new editors, that won't inherently "fix" RfA. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:39, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. I'm not sure this is borne out by the data. Stifle (talk) 11:29, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
13. There doesn't seem to be a drop in the number of editors. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:28, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
14. Don't think this is the case based on the above stats presented above which disagree with a decline in editors. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 09:43, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
15. Statistically untrue. Risker (talk) 01:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
16. "The problem isn't RfA" overstates it. The problem is, at least, both RfA and recruitment/retention more broadly. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 09:38, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
17. Per Risker.--
    John Cline (talk) 07:52, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
18. We are having problems transitioning active editors to adminship (maybe retaining too), not a "declining" base, per the data. --Izno (talk) 18:52, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
19. The overall editor base can both increase and decrease over time and new editors are joining all the time. Also, I agree that maybe if the overall active editors increase by a huge margin over time, we might get to see some new admins, but I don't think this issue is in any way directly related to RfA. TheGeneralUser (talk) 20:31, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

H. Comments

• The problem is not so much fewer editors, the problem is an increasing number of spammers and POV pushers (including UPE) who have figured out that obscure areas of a top-10 web resource can be edited and the edits would stay under the radar for years.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:57, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed that's a real part of the problem, adminship involves scrutiny that bad actors don't want. But how significant could it be? Maybe I'm naïve, but I don't think that spammers and POV warriors are anything close to the large majority of the community that could explain the RFA problem. ϢereSpielChequers 08:18, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I do not mean spamers run RfA or intend to run RfA, I mean the admin work has significantly increased because of spammers.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:35, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree that spammers have increased in number, but anti vandalism has been partly automated so total admin workloads are similar. My point is that the active community includes some editors who aren't running at RFA because heavy scrutiny might show them to be unpaid editors, or they are here as unpaid editors and see adminship as a distraction that might lead to them being caught. ϢereSpielChequers 13:42, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• It's a complex issue and this is a factor too, but how significant? That requires in-depth studies. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:47, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't understand point H. Does it mean "Declining number of RfA candidates reflects a declining editor base" or something else? Nurg (talk) 10:07, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It used to be far easier to pass RfA however the standards necessary to pass have continued to rise such that only "perfect" candidates will pass now.

I. Support (agree)

1. The standards don't expect candidates to be perfect, but they are far too high and I think that's a large part of the problem. Ideally an experienced non-admin who has done plenty of admin-type work should have an easy time at RfA, at least in a typical case. In practice a lot of such people struggle, I think in particular because of the extremely high content creation standards. Looking at the nominations and answers to the first three questions for the six candidates promoted so far this year four have written multiple GAs, one has written an FL and the remaining candidate has created over 200 articles. Candidates who haven't got that kind of content creation record (e.g. Money emoji) struggle because of it. This kind of standard isn't needed for prospective admins at all. Hut 8.5 13:32, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. Hut 8.5 is correct. The skillset/knowledge required to become an admin does not include the ability to create entire articles or even bring them to GA. It does require enough general editing experience to have a good understanding of sources, NPOV, etc. This includes rewriting articles to remove original research, adding sources and in particular discovering unreliable sources and either replacing them or if there are no reliable sources removing the text. In other words, admin candidates should be able to demonstrate their understanding of our basic policies through their general editing, which doesn't have to involved GAs or creating articles. We aren't appointing admins to demonstrate their writing skills. I can see no reason why the best article writers would automatically be good Admins. Doug Weller talk 13:47, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. Standards have risen. Many very reasonable voters want to see at least some content creation, which I understand -- some of these editors have had interactions with admins who have no experience creating content and felt those admins didn't understand what content creators sometimes have to deal with. And many voters want to see an extremely high level of civility; I'm one of those voters. Those things weren't necessary in 2007. So that part of the statement I agree with. But I'm not sure that means only perfect candidates can pass. —valereee (talk) 14:28, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. Admins shouldn't be expected to be perfect... Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 20:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:30, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. Many prospective candidates decline RfA nomination offers until they have a certain length of tenure (~18 months seems to be the arbitrary minimum these days), a certain amount of edits (or worse, a certain ratio of namespace totals), a certain amount of GAs, a certain amount of AfD participation, a certain amount of project-space participation, a certain period of time without any content disputes, a fleshed-out CSD log, and the ultimate cliche is needing to demonstrate a "need for the tools". Only when a prospective candidate has all of these things do they consider maybe throwing their hat into the ring. I think the reality is that we tend to overemphasize trivial issues at RfA. What's more important are things like temperament and overall good judgment (e.g. can we trust the user not to jump into doing controversial actions right away in areas they don't have as much experience?)—in other words, "not a jerk, has a clue" (from User:TonyBallioni/RfA criteria). Mz7 (talk) 23:50, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. Even if the standards haven't risen overall, there's a perception among potential candidates that they have (and that's as good as the same thing). There's significant doubt among most of the people I've talked to, and it's my opinion as well, that candidates who successfully ran based only on anti-vandalism, copyright, or technical experience 3-5 years ago would not pass if they ran the same RfA today. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:12, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. They do, which is not a bad thing. The problem is that mud sticks. As time goes by, every active editor makes some mistakes and enemies. So actually after a few years, almost every editor will be less likely to meet our standards, as there'll be some 'dirt' on their record. Rising standards are ok, but it's crucial to treat all editors fairly, and right now, experienced, highly active editors are at a disadvantage. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:55, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. Without getting into whether this is a good thing, or what the standards should be, I think it's indisputable that standards have risen since the early days, though they have arguably stayed the same for a half-dozen years. Vanamonde (Talk) 07:42, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. Standards did rise sharply in the early days. In particular after the unbundling of Rollback in early 2008 candidates were no longer able to pass simply on the credentials of being a "good vandalfighter". I'm not convinced that as many !voters today actually spend serious time trawling through a candidates edits, so the real standard today is lower, though there has probably been a small increase in the arbitrary standards such as edit count and tenure. But I'm pretty sure those standards have not risen to the point where an RFA like my sucessful one in 2009 would now fail. What's more of a problem is that people don't want to run until they clearly exceed the tenure requirements and by then in many cases they have moved on to other hobbies instead of getting more involved in this site the way that new admins used to. ϢereSpielChequers 08:27, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. It is indisputable that standards have risen. However, I don't think that is changeable through reform (standards are not codified, and exist in the minds of the voters), and I don't think that is a bad thing (they have likely risen for good reason as Tpdwkouaa argues). — Goszei (talk) 23:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. I was elected to arbcom with (just) under 10k edits. Here is an example of an RfA with people talking about an admin candidate with 10k edits as insufficient. What? Rising standards aren't in and of themselves a problem, but I do think there is (and has been for a long time) a problem with insufficient social disincentive for exaggerated expectations that push the Overton window even if not widely adopted as stated. Opabinia regalis (talk) 16:58, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
13. Yes, there is no set standard, but the community expects near perfection out of potential candidates.
    -- Calidum 18:57, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
14. Yes, and I think this is connected to the lifetime tenure issue. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
15. Per Opabinia - 10k edits is a nonsense. Worm^TT(talk) 15:33, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
16. Admins are expected to be competent in a wide range of situations, even when explicitly stating a specific need. This is counterproductive – even with the rights bundled together the way they currently are. /Julle (talk) 16:43, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
17. If I was a perfect editor right now (which I'm not) and ran for RFA right now (which I wouldn't) I'd likely get shut down on the basis of "only one GA" and "only 13K edits" and "only been here for a year." But in 2000s RfAs, we regularly elected candidates with <5,000 edits, and no content creation. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 11:13, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
18. I'm not sure anyone could disagree that 2000s RfAs had wildly different standards for applicants. There is some merit to increased standards (back in the early years nobody had significant contribution history for the most part) but it has gone entirely too far today. Different community members have different standards for RfA applicants, some bordering on absurd - why is GA or even FA creation so important? You do not need to be an admin to do GA review, or to create GAs. Admins are not involved in the process. As a community, we should really think about what kind of user contributions we look at to determine if someone can be trusted with the mop. GAs and FAs are just one of very many different and important ways one can contribute to the encyclopedia. Yet, a few GAs are more important than making dozens of new articles, major efforts in copyediting or CCI, or other kinds of contributions, in the eyes of some. There's also an arbitrary focus on high edit count, which is an imperfect measure. Just look at my edit history for a perfect example: I have over 2,000 edits, but a large number are from doing assessments and aren't in article space. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:50, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
19. The standards seem unrealistically high so we have fewer editors going through an RfA who are relatively new (less than 3 years of editing). It also can't go without notice that not all experience holds the same value for RfA participants...it is not impossible for an editor who is technically oriented (bots, scripts, templates and such) to pass an RfA but they have much more difficulty than a content creator. Actually, everyone who isn't a big content creator generally has a very rough time. A lack of substantial content creation is a factor that will cause some editors to Oppose, regardless of whether the candidate is otherwise promising. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
20. Yes, it keeps raising and something must be done now, before things gets completely broken. People are on wrong path about "minimum requirements" to be a sysop. Carlosguitar ^{(Yes Executor?)} 00:04, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
21. Trivially true. Stifle (talk) 11:29, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
22. The required standard is unnecessarily high. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:17, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
23. This is true, but not necessarily a bad thing. Given the rise in complexity of our other policies and processes, a large portion of the rise in standards is justified. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:44, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
24. The bar is now ludicrously high. Had I run say 15 years ago, I would likely have been able to run 6 months earlier and also breezed through. But under the modern bar, I ran at the earliest possible time and still barely scraped by. The baseline should be: "Has clue, not a jerk", but for the most part that standard has been left behind in the dust. It feels the same as applying to college today vs. 50 years ago. I think one of the biggest misleading things is tenure and edit count. I definitely inflated my edit count using Huggle in the leadup to my run, thinking that without 10k edits I wouldn't pass. But realistically, I think an editor with even just 5k quality edits should be able to be an admin. As a practical note, there is an xTool out there somewhere that tells you the odds you will pass an RFA, and it includes the 10k edit count as a bar. If someone knows the link to that xtools, ping me would you? I think things like that are very harmful. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:52, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    @CaptainEek: The XTools score is here, with the explanation behind it here. I don't think people take it seriously and given how the score for edit count is calculated, an edit count of 80 seems more than reasonable ... Sdrqaz (talk) 21:33, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

25. The only criterion should be "does the community trust this person?". Being deemed generally trustworthy among a community that has "assume good faith" as one of its central pillars means it should be vanishingly rare for an AfC to fail, and AfCs should be encouraging, rewarding experiences for the candidate, full of people saying how trustworthy the person is! WaggersTALK 14:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
26. I can definitely agree with this. The standards necessary to pass have continued to increase upto such a point that only near perfect candidates normally pass now with a few exceptional cases. No one person can be good or perfect at everything and everyone has a different kind of interest and skill set. A basic criteria is necessary, but every candidate is different and thus needs to be evaluated on their own merit. TheGeneralUser (talk) 20:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I. Oppose (disagree)

1. Given the contemporary prominence of Wikipedia, and the substantially larger userbase and task backlog, I don't see why higher standards should be viewed negatively. I'm also not convinced that they're objectively high, rather than just comparatively to the early days of the website. /Tpdwkouaa (talk) 04:13, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. RfA doesn't have standards; individual voters have standards. And the fact that pretty much every RfA usually rapidly accrues 50-70 unqualified support votes in the first couple of days shows that most people's standards are low. What really determines whether an RfA will succeed is whether those who subsequently raise concerns (if there are any) are persuasive enough to overcome that mass of near-automatic support. The standards of those people vary too much to comment on; certainly they allow for a lot of 'not perfect' candidates to pass. As long as RfA remains an unstructured vote, it is meaningless to talk about its standards and futile to try and change them. – Joe (talk) 04:59, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. Per Joe Roe and others in the "agree" section; I doubt this is that much an issue. I'm far from perfect and got through RfA unopposed, so I doubt any increase in standards post-2010 are, if existent, a bad thing.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:55, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. Agree with Wolfson, above. Chetsford (talk) 23:03, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. I disagree with "the standards necessary to pass have continued to rise". Surely the standards have risen from those of the 2003-2006 timeframe. But they stopped rising years ago. I've actually decreased my tenure recommendation from 24 months of being a "very active editor" to 18 months based on recent RFA results. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:34, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. Quite often potential opposition in an RfA can be predicted and planned for. I've seen candidates keen to try without planning to deal with oppostion they were warned would take place based on their editing habits. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:17, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. My thoughts echo Beeblebrox below. Standards are definitely higher than in the
   no big deal era (that paraphrased message was written in 2003, which is before some active editors today were born), but I thought going through the RfAs that standards did peak years ago and the pendulum's swung back the other way, with (relatively) uncontentious RfAs, with one notable exception. I think some of the candidates this year and last year would have attracted more opposition in different years. Maybe that's because it's become more in vogue to badger opposers and neutrals, or maybe it's because standards have actually fallen slightly. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:02, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
8. Standards have been the same for years when one examines the last 400 or so RfA. Those who are not such frequent voters will not have noticed, but the voters, certainly since the December 2015 reforms, are a fickle and volatile crowd. It just takes one to demand a couple of FAs, or 30,000 edits, or 3 years tenure or some other ridiculous criterion and everyone of the pile-on voter crowd follows suite for a while until it gets out of fashion again. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I. Comments

1. There are two types of standards here, and we should be clear what we're talking about. One is the mentality of !voters, i.e. where the threshold between support and oppose lies when a !voter decides how to !vote. This is a cultural issue and is difficult to change. The other is the !vote threshold, which can be adjusted if beneficial. I think we should do a study of the fate of all successful RfA candidates, with support percentage and tenure as input variables and current status as the output variable. The current status could be: still an admin, desysopped not for cause (e.g. inactivity or voluntary resignation), desysopped for cause (e.g. by Arbcom or resigned under a cloud). If there is no significant negative correlation between support percentage and rate of being desysopped for cause, then we can consider lowering the crat chat range to something like 60-70%. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:16, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   King of Hearts, I consider this an excellent proposal. One could also do a variant on the negative, asking: "Is there a correlation between higher unsuccessful vote % and likelihood of successful re-RfA?" If the answer is yes, in my opinion it would further justify lowering the threshold to make candidates who are going to get the mop eventually jump through fewer hoops.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I threw together a data set of all RfAs from the last RfA reform (2016) until 2020 and also all people who've been desysopped by ArbCom since 2016. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:35, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   Barkeep49, In this set, is the second sheet (ArbCom) the list of admins who have been de-sysop'd for cause since 2016? and in that case, what does "crat?" in that sheet mean? They were de-crat'd by ArbCom? Does the "2nd or more" column indicate those who were de-sysop'd for cause, and had run 2+ RfAs? Thanks — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:29, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   Shibbolethink, I think "ArbCom" is indeed all admins desysopped by ArbCom for cause since 2016; "crat" refers to RfAs that went to a crat chat; "2nd or later" means that the RfA in question was not that editor's first. Cheers. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:37, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   Extraordinary Writ, thank you! I think you're right. And hence why it makes sense that crat chats are universally at the lower end of the RfA % in both sheets. Helpful.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:39, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   EW's explanations are correct. "Advanced" shows if they got CU and/or OS (funct) or were elected to Arbcom (Arb). If boht happened I only noted Arb. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:57, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   Unfortunately I don't think we have nearly a big enough sample size to do that kind of analysis. Or at least to get one, we'd have to go back years and years to when the project was a different place. But the recent case of an admin who passed RfA at 64% (below the current discretionary range), after a controversial crat chat, and was desysopped in an acrimonious arbitration case just two years later, makes me think that dropping the range any lower than it is now would be more trouble than it's worth. You're going to have a rough time as an admin if over a third of your peers don't think you can be trusted with the mop. – Joe (talk) 05:06, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

2. The "you have to have written an FA to pass RfA" thing is a myth, isn't it? RfA votes generally look for a longer editing record than they did a decade ago, sure, but when was the last time one actually failed for lack of high-level content editing? Hut 8.5 cites Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji, but with all respect to Moneytrees (I didn't vote but think they've done an excellent job), the concern there was that he had created one article and made less than 10k edits, not that he hadn't written multiple GAs and FAs and hundreds of articles, and to be honest that's a fair concern. And in the end he did pass. – Joe (talk) 04:48, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   "You must have an FA to pass RfA" isn't correct, but "You must have a GA" isn't far off the mark. As I've noted of the 6 successful candidates so far this year 5 had written at least one GA/FA/FL and the other one had created over 200 articles. Of the 17 successful candidates last year 13 (76%) claimed credit for at least one GA/FA/FL and 10 (59%) claimed credit for more than one. Of the four who didn't claim an FA/GA/FL one was Jackmcbarn (an former admin), one was Hammersoft (who was ludicrously overqualified at 70k edits since 2007), one was QEDK (who got several opposes for lack of content creation experience despite having written several articles) and the last one was Money emoji (who did pass, yes, but by an extremely narrow margin after the longest bureaucrat chat in RfA history). It certainly looks like people expect a typical candidate to have improved at least one article to that level and preferably several. There isn't any good reason for these very stringent content creation requirements, there is no admin job which involves writing content and very few which involve judging content at that level. Hut 8.5 08:57, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I think Joe is right in that it's a bit of a myth. I did a skim through post-2018 RfAs and, since 2018, the only ones to fail for content creation were WP:Requests for adminship/1997kB and WP:Requests for adminship/Jbhunley. Of the successful candidates, many did not have a single GA/FA but still passed. Sure, they gathered some opposes for it, but between 10-20 opposes is a natural fluctuation at RfA for one reason or another, and on avg doesn't cause the support percent to drop below 90%. I don't think minority opinions at RfA indicate any systemic problem. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:17, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I don't agree with that at all. The vast majority of people who pass have either written at least one GA/FA or can point to some other big example of content creation instead. People who haven't got that either don't run, fail, or pass with difficulty. Of the unsuccessful RfAs in 2020/1 L293D and Vami IV could point to multiple GA/FAs, and Guy Macon's nomination describes him as a "tireless content creator". 1997kB and Steel1943 failed with content being one of the main reasons. That just leaves CASSIOPEIA and Chongkian failing for any other reason, and content creation probably would have come up a lot more if the candidates hadn't made more glaring mistakes. Hut 8.5 13:05, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   The former two editors did not fail due to content contributions, so I don't see why that's relevant. Steel's outcome wasn't solely due to content creation, per se. Guy might have had content creation, but the opposes were for other reasons.

   "Creating content" (DYKs, expanding stubs, creating start-class articles, etc) is not the same as the "needs GA/FA". All I'm saying is that the evidence doesn't support the idea that lacking a GA/FA causes an RfA to fail. Only two RfAs in the past three years failed for 'content creation' reasons, and those (AFAICS) had minimal content creation, not just lack of GA/FA. Several have passed without GA/FA: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Izno, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/EvergreenFir, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Johnuniq, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Enterprisey 2, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/JJMC89, etc. They got a few opposes for "fails my criteria"/"no GA/FA" but nothing substantial (Izno passed with 98%).

   Common wisdom being that GA/FA is required probably explains why most successful candidates happen to have some peer-reviewed content. Trialpears started Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of countries by Human Development Index/archive3 after he said he was going for RfA soon, and shortly before his actual RfA, so the nomination was likely part of 'RfA prep'. That doesn't mean his RfA would've failed had he not started the process to get it to FL. Precedent suggests it would've passed anyway, but perhaps with less support than it did. Ultimately, "some people will oppose over X" does not mean "RfA is unpleasant due to X" or "your RfA will fail due to X". As such, I don't think this is really a problem. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:26, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   The first two RfAs are relevant because they show that RfA candidates often have FA/GAs, which in turn suggests that FAs/GAs are seen as a prerequisite for adminship, at least by prospective RfA candidates. People don't file RfAs unless they think they are going to pass. I assume there aren't many examples of failed RfAs where the candidate has recent blocks. That doesn't mean that blocks aren't seen as a problem in an RfA candidate, because people who have been recently blocked know they won't pass and don't apply. Similarly the fact that there aren't that many RfAs which failed for reasons relating to content creation doesn't mean that content creation isn't a problem (although content creation was clearly one of the main problems in the Steel1943 RfA). And yes I absolutely agree that "creating content" doesn't mean GA, FA etc, but there are a fair number of people who want RfA candidates to have that or something similar to qualify as a "content creator". Hut 8.5 14:08, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   @Hut 8.5, the objection isn't that admin jobs require the ability to write/create content. It's that without having created content, admins may not understand what content creators are faced with. Some content creators feel their interactions with admins who've never had to face the problems content creators face have been affected by that lack of experience. —valereee (talk) 13:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Since we don't have a "neutral/mixed" category if people think a "yes compared to 2015, but roughly stable in last 3 years" is a position with caveat that belongs more in "support" or "oppose"? Nosebagbear (talk) 11:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm right about here. Izno (talk) 18:50, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• It seems to me like they fluctuate with time. Before 2007 they were laughably low, and that's what got us a lot of "legacy admins" who have caused a number of problems and been at the center of several arbitration cases. Then standards went up, and up, and up for several years, and seem to me to have relaxed a bit from the peak around 2012-2015. Moving the required percentage to pass also helped.
  talk) 21:54, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• We've been billboarding our high standards for years, what else is new? If the goal was to discourage applicants, well, it's worked. Probably for the best as any qualified applicant running with less than 2,000 edits would be slammed with accusations of sock puppetry since they didn't take long enough to get a clue. wbm1058 (talk) 13:03, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• It's not a myth. It's very real. It just takes one clueless voter to demand a couple of FAs, or 30,000 edits, or 3 years tenure or some other ridiculous criterion and everyone of the pile-on voter crowd follows suit for a while until it gets out of fashion again. But there are two conflicting ideas above: That they influence the outcome, and that they don't influence the outcome. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:07, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are too few candidates. This not only limits the number of new admin we get but also makes it harder to identify other RfA issues because we have such a small sample size.

J. Support (agree)

1. I agree that there are too few candidates but this is a result of other issues at RfA rather than being a problem by itself. Candidates aren't running because they don't think they would pass, don't want to go through the process or don't want to be admins. We need to look at those problems instead. Hut 8.5 14:09, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. Agree with both. I'd like to know why good candidates turn down an offer to nominate. When I approach someone who just says, "Not interested", it feels intrusive to follow up with a question about the reason. I figure if they'd wanted to share that, they would have. But it would be good to have actual data rather than making assumptions. Maybe we could ask such candidates if they'd be willing to fill out an anonymous survey? —valereee (talk) 15:02, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. Part of the problem with RfA right now is that there aren't enough candidates, and a diversity of candidates, to get a good grasp on what the community's standards actually are. Almost all of the recent candidates were successful or unsuccessful by a wide margin. Only 7 RfAs in 2020 and 2021 so far have ended even close to the discretionary range, and that's counting 4 that withdrew early. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:19, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. Clearly a symptom, rather than the root of the problem, but as an observation I don't think this is in dispute: furthermore, I'd say there are too few willing candidates, rather than a shortage of qualified candidates. Vanamonde (Talk) 07:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. This is primarily a symptom, but not only such. The issue raised in the question is correct, but I think there's another "fewer candidates ups the review of each". Nosebagbear (talk) 11:30, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. RfA is one of the funnest parts of Wikipedia, IMO. It's such a shame that they have been reduced to a trickle.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:59, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. Agree. Z1720 (talk) 15:08, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. Agree, and I wonder if this isn't a cause and not just a symptom. More thoughts in J. Comments, below. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. Yes, and more. Fewer people running for RfA leads to increased drama at each RfA, because so many !voters, peanut gallery members and crypto-Wikipedians are looking for a fight. Fewer RfAs mean that each candidate has to be more confident in order to think they are worth the inherently big deal that an RfA is. This is not the root cause, but it's half of the vicious circle. — Bilorv (talk) 17:22, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. Concur with Valereee. It's very hard to draw conclusions on such a tiny data set. Six successful RfAs this year out of eight total. A single data point in those eight RfAs can get construed as "Well, in almost 13% of RfAs this issue arose.." Ok nobody's going to say that, but the lack of data undermines analysis. An idea for a survey as Valereee suggests; use Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits as a basis for who receives the request, ensuring that the recipients never ran at RfA, and ask questions about why they aren't running, what obstacles they see, etc. That would be quite useful. There's a potential for well north of a hundred respondents, and possibly hundreds. There's a lot of hand-wringing in sections above about this or that being the problem. Nobody really knows. We need data to know. We don't have it. Without, conjecture such as this section above is just conjecture. You might just as well conclude that the lack of administrators candidates is because we're in a solar minimum. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:23, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. Agree, but I can't think of a solution. Worm^TT(talk) 15:34, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. This is technically correct. I'm not sure it's needed in a consensus statement more than "only admins can view deleted content" would be, but it is correct. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:37, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
13. Yes, but unless we're talking about "not enough new editors" in general (which is a very valid thing to be worried about, but bigger than this thread), there are only too few candidates because the candidates we do have either don't want to go through the process or wouldn't succeed. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:11, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
14. Yes, RfAs are a bit like walking on hot coal by choice to prove your commitment, but I believe we are now at the juncture where the sample size is just too small to say that the RfA atmosphere is the only reason that candidates don't pass, at this point, what we need is for more candidates to run - this won't change the inherent nature of RfAs but my conjecture (feel free to name it after me) at this point is that even half-decent candidates can make it through with half-decent noms. The only requirement, from my perspective is people who haven't done some stupid stuff in recent history,
    WP:BEANS, really. --qedk (t 愛 c) 20:06, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
15. Don't know off the top of my head how many candidates there have been this year but I can say that the number is too low. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:16, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
16. An objective truth, as even the disagree votes mention. With a small sample size, it's hard to conclude much of anything beyond that the sample size is too small. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:51, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
17. Corrosive RfA atmosphere is one of main reasons why there is few candidates. Carlosguitar ^{(Yes Executor?)} 00:16, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
18. Yes, but this is a symptom, not a problem. Stifle (talk) 11:33, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
19. It's fairly obvious that there aren't enough candidates. However I think that we still have enough applicants to draw conclusions. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:31, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
20. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:19, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
21. What Stifle said. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:44, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
22. Largely per Hut 8.5. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
23. I agree both with the statement here and with Ivanvector's comment down the way: having a small sample size is a symptom, not one of the problems. --Izno (talk) 18:12, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
24. Agree with Stifle here. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:26, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
25. I surmise there are two few candidates in part because the processes and environment allow for harassment and incivility. Historically, a significant percentage of the personalities attracted to these types of roles have not been held accountable for ill behavior and the accountability process is yet another pandora's box for harassment and incivility, for which many contributors do not have the time or energy. Hmlarson (talk) 22:45, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
26. This is definitely true. Less and less number of people have been running for RfA since the past several years. Maybe many of them want to become admins, but just do not want to go through the increased scrutiny and the overall process of RfA (mainly the negative aspects of it). We need to find a genuine way to get more people running for RfA and something needs to be done about it. TheGeneralUser (talk) 20:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

J. Oppose (disagree)

1. I'm not disagreeing that there are too few candidates, or the self-evident consequences that it limits the number of new admins and makes for a small sample of candidates. But this is a symptom, not a cause. Even if there were more candidates, you could only learn so much by looking at candidatures (successful and unsuccessful). It's more useful putting the horse before the cart and looking at the reasons why there is a low number of candidates, rather than looking at the consequences of there being a low number. (BTW, I don't know why others who think this is not a cause (only a symptom) are putting their comments in the 'agree' section!) Nurg (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. I don't disagree there are too few candidates. I disagree, however, that "This...makes it harder to identify other RfA issues because we have such a small sample size." What is the point of going through this exercise if that were true?
   -- Calidum 19:00, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]

• 1. This is largely a byproduct of other issues, and not really an issue in its own right. Hog Farm _Talk 02:34, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

     This could be read in different ways. One is "there's not enough qualified editors who would make good admins to form a candidate pool"; that really doesn't seem plausible to me. Another is "the fact that candidacies are so rare means there's more of a spotlight on them and less information to go off of when deciding how to reform. @Barkeep49, it might be worth clarifying. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:26, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

     I have intentionally tried to write these broadly so we didn't end up with many permutations. For this statement I think it encompasses the ideas of "We don't know what to fix at rfa because of low numbers ","We need better recruitment methods", "We need better training/mentoring". Perhaps others as well. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:48, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I have had over a dozen (two dozen?) qualified candidates decline nominations over the last 2-3 years. This is in comparison to the five I have nominated or conominated, who were (eventually) persuaded to accept, sometimes by someone else. Vanamonde (Talk) 07:47, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Does "candidate" here mean a person who runs for RfA, or a person who could run, if only they were willing? Nurg (talk) 10:24, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  It means people who run for RFA. We have lots of editors who would probably pass if they ran. ϢereSpielChequers 12:08, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• If it is true that, as suggested in another section, that today's editing population tends to drift away from Wikipedia before they are both interested in being an administrator and feel confident in making a successful request, then from a supply point of view, we should consider how to get editors to sign up for administrative work while they're still engaged on the site. Giving editors the option to request administrative privileges for a limited period of time (after which they would solicit feedback from the community and mutually decide on continuing with another fixed term, or an open-ended granting of privileges) might be helpful. The community might be more willing to let an editor take on administrative chores knowing that they will be able to review the results, and the editor in question might be more willing to try it out for a brief period, before they decide if they want to continue participating on Wikipedia. isaacl (talk) 15:15, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• At least, in the form of "too few nominations", this could be a part of the problem. Here, I am fully in the realm of speculation, and would be happy to be shut down by those with more experience/evidence. Vanamonde's comment above suggests that they've made something like one nomination per month over the past few years. If only 20% of nominees accept, perhaps we should expect nominators to roughly quintuple their nomination rates? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• If this is a part of the problem, surely it is testable. If each of the 5 admins supporting this above nominated 3 candidates, then a fifteen-candidate tranche would certainly put the question to rest. There are a lot of proposed explanations here but this seems the closest to an actual hypothesis. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:06, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If it were that easy to recruit fifteen candidates, we wouldn't have a problem at all. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:09, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If you doubt this and want to test it look for nominators among those who disagree that we have a shortage of candidates. It is a tad perverse to ask those who are aware of a problem to somehow disprove their own position. ϢereSpielChequers 14:04, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @WereSpielChequers:, Who said I doubted this? Who said "testing" automatically means "testing to dismiss"? Far from being perverse, formulating a hypothesis and testing it is the standard scientific method. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:52, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Testing the proposition that "There are too few candidates" could be done in a couple of ways. People could double check the work that I and others have done to compile Wikipedia:RFA_by_month, which lists both successful RFAs per month, and total candidates per year. Or they could try making the case that we ultimately don't need as many admins. Emailing a bunch of potential candidates and asking them if they'd like to run wouldn't test the too few candidates theory, it would test the hypothesis that one of the reasons why we have too few candidates is that lots of qualified people don't want to run. Running fifteen candidates ignores the discussion as to whether there are too few candidates and why there are too few candidates, including the testimony from various nominators that we have little difficulty finding qualified Wikipedians who would make great candidates, its just that those people mostly don't want to run. It instead tests various theories such as whether the number of questions per RFA is a result of the small number of RFAs per month. ϢereSpielChequers 18:43, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• This isn't a problem with RfA, this is a result of the problems with RfA. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:59, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The number of questions that candidates receive creates substantial extra work for the candidate without benefiting the community as a whole in most cases.

K. Support (agree)

1. It's not the number of questions so much as the number of unhelpful/ridiculous questions. Levivich 07:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. What Levivich said. —valereee (talk) 12:46, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. Agree. I think part of the issue is how many editors end up asking redundant/unhelpful questions, just to ask. Sometimes I think community vetting of questions might be helpful, but that just adds more bureaucracy... Maybe a shorter question period?— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:54, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. Two dozen questions per RFA is a sympton of the lack of RFAs. Asking questions at RFA is a phase that many potential admins go through and there being few RFAs for such questions. If we were back in the era of a couple of dozen RFAs per month then the number of questions per RFA would fall, even if the average number of RFA questions per month was many times higher. The bigger problem is that few are spending the time to seriously scrutinise the candidodate and ask the sort of diff supported question that makes RFA work. It would be good sometimes to ask questioners why they are asking that specific question of that specific candidate. But again, if there were multiple candidates per week it would become obvious when people ask questions without first spending half an hour looking at the candiate's contributions. ϢereSpielChequers 12:17, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. Agree with Lev. Too many contrived hypotheticals, idiosyncratic quizzes, personal bugbears, and roundabout expressions of disapproval. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:10, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. The candidate's body of work is much more meaningful than questions; per User:Valereee/RfA questions as well. Spencer^T•C 22:43, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. Joining the chorus agreeing with Levivich. Many questions can be trivial, off-topic, or absurd. There should be better standards for what questions are considered appropriate. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:53, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. Absolutely agree. Rhododendrites said it very well. It is off-putting even to many voters. I usually stop reading after five questions.--Darwinek (talk) 23:55, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. Yes, but really only a minor point. Stifle (talk) 11:34, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. Yes, there are too many questions. Indeed I think that some questioners asks questions only to make themselves look clever. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:35, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. I think this is perhaps a bit more important than people realise; it is part of what drives the "you must be always available throughout the RFA" mindset, and most of them do not help voters reach a decision. Risker (talk) 01:17, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. Per
    WP:RFA2012, I put together a catalogue of around 200 of the most ridiculous and/or inappropriate questions. That section of the research never got discussed. I think because too many of the people following the research were embarrassed at seeing their own questions in the list. Some silly or superfluous questions even get asked by admins. I can't understand why. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:26, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
13. Another +1 for the fact it's not just the quantity, but the quality of questions that is an issue here. WaggersTALK 14:46, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

K. Oppose (disagree)

1. If you want the responsibility of the tools, you should be willing to put in a bit of work to answer some questions. It's not a huge burden. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:12, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I was asked a question at my RfA for which I probably spent 2+ hours researching and composing an answer. Not one of them did I spit out an answer off the top of my head and hit publish. I was lucky in that I got only 13 questions; some recently have gotten 27. I don't think it's accurate to dismiss this as not burdensome. —valereee (talk) 21:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I will echo Valeree here. There was at least one or two questions on my RFA that I took inordinate time to answer and I am similarly thankful I had only the 16. Many questions are clearly asked from "what the asker cares about" (and/or what the asker is pushing a POV about at any given time) and not necessarily what the candidate needs to answer. --Izno (talk) 18:10, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

2. Most recent RfA's that I've seen have at least one or two questions that go unanswered, usually those later in the process. I've never seen anyone take issue with this, so it seems that nominees have sufficient leeway regarding this "extra work". Besides, the answers are typically the most immediate indicator as to the legitimacy of the nominee's case for the mop. /Tpdwkouaa (talk) 04:09, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   @Tpdwkouaa, just six months ago three people commented negatively because the candidate hadn't answered quickly enough a question from an account that turned out to be a sockpuppet. —valereee (talk) 12:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

3. I think the questions are what you make of them and aren't the problem in and of themselves. I quite enjoyed answering questions in my RFA, felt they offered an opportunity to explain myself and show what I thought. I'd argue bad questions can be answered quickly and aren't that big of a deal. Perhaps a shift in RFA culture where it's acceptable to not answer all questions would be helpful, but it's not the question's themselves that's the issue there, it's the atmosphere. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 21:18, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. I think back to when it was common to see UAA or copyright quizzes at RfA. Or questions about a candidate's opinion on a particular hot topic policy/guideline question. Those questions were truly over the top. As far as bad questions go, candidates are always free to not answer questions they don't wish to dignify with an answer. However, admins often get plenty of "dumb questions" and how they respond to them can be quite telling. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. I've chatted to various others of the 2018-onwards RfA crowd, and question numbers seem pretty low down the list of issues. For a start, given that we have a de-facto requirement on the candidate not to speak during an RfA, the questions are the only way for them to voice. As such, more questions is good. And with the loss of UAA quizzes and so on, the idiotic questions usually aren't too time-consuming. Beyond that, as a !voter, I have actually picked out helpful knowledge on how they handle them. I oppose both the idea there are too many questions, and that significant limitations on their topics compared to 2020-onwards should be done. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. It's not the number of questions, although that's very high, so much as the nature of the questions. There are people who come to RfA to act like the interviewer in a job interview. Asking a trap question at RfA should be grounds for a topic ban.—S Marshall T/C 16:58, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. I don't see any problem with a high number of questions. On the contrary, the way that a candidate chooses to respond (or not respond) to "dumb", redundant, or unhelpful questions speaks greatly on their disposition and even-headedness. There should be no banned questions, outside of our regular protections on harassment/trolling/etc. — Goszei (talk) 23:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. I think we've seen actions to address this, including the two question limit and the work Valereee regularly does in challenging questions that shouldn't have been asked. I don't think the question section is where the most critical problem is. A bad question is something you can at least dispute the premise of in your answer (and people can do this without getting opposed for it), whereas a bad oppose is something you absolutely cannot reply to or you'll get hit with 10 immediate opposes for breaking a social convention. — Bilorv (talk) 17:27, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. I have never seen the number of questions as a problem. They are a place the candidate can actually address issues, without "badgering". An RfA is something that requires some actual attention, just as, say an article review would be. Being able to show where you're competent (or not) by answering questions is just what we need. Worm^TT(talk) 15:36, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. Neither the number nor nature of the questions is a problem. Actual admins will have to respond to loaded questions and the like, not to mention some pretty silly and ill-founded requests. Someone who lacks the temperament to do that even for a brief period lacks the temperament to be an admin, and often a candidate's skillful handling of such a situation can actually reflect very well on them. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:03, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. I think this situation was improved a lot when the 2 question limit was imposed. Looking at past RfAs, things in the past could get very excessive but the limit has helped. I'll note though that "questions" vary quite a lot from easy questions that encourage a candidate to explain their position on policies to ones that seem designed as "gotcha" questions that focus on a candidate's weaknesses. I don't see a solution to this but RfA participants vary in how much importance they attach to questions and answers. For some participants, a candidate's answers can affect their vote (almost always negatively) but it's clear that other participants don't pay them much attention at all. As an aside, I don't think I've ever seen a candidate who ignored questions pass an RfA so it is important for a candidate to stay on top of them, at least for the first few days of the RfA. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} — Preceding undated comment added 02:45, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. No, this isn't a problem. Nobody goes to a job interview and is given the job without any interaction with the interviewer, nor with rehearsed answers to softball questions they've gotten in advance. We've gotten a lot better at clerking away truly ridiculous questions, but otherwise, if you don't want to answer questions, you're not suited to be an administrator. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:02, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
13. I'd say the bigger issue are the content of the questions rather than the quantity of them. There are many, many questions asked where there is no right answer and not in a good way: however the candidate answers them, they will either get opposed by the questioner or opposed by another editor. There are even more where the question being asked is more about axe-grinding than actual scrutiny of the candidate's suitability, such as the infobox question on Oshwah's RfA. All that being said, administrators have to deal with questions all the time
    to be accountable, regardless of how bad-faith they may be. I agree with those above that how a candidate answers "bad" questions (or better still, recognise when it is appropriate to decline answering) is valuable for assessing a candidate's suitability; in my opinion they are more important than nomination statements, which are full of puffery. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:19, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
14. I've seen some terrible questions, but I am not sure what we could do to stop them. I support the two question limit, and actions by existing admins to push back on bad questions. I want to add some attention to Nosebagbear's point that this doesn't seem to be a frequent complaint of those who've gone through the process. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:33, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
15. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
16. Questions are a key vetting tool. The issue isn't that there are too many, its about what the questions are, and that a single question can make or break you. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:47, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
17. I agree that the number of questions is not the issue (since the limit was imposed). Their content is often the issue. --Izno (talk) 18:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
18. Perhaps there are too many questions, but IMO with the 2 question limit this usually isn't an issue. I would agree that the content of said questions is often the issue at hand. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

K. Comments

• How do these questions help anyone decide whether a candidate should get the mop? Most are silly: What possible answer to "Why do you think people enjoy editing Wikipedia?" would tip the balance for someone undecided about whether to support or oppose? Some are just pointy/rhetorical: what candidate is going to answer "Would you ever block an admin, when necessary, and would your process for doing so be the same process as blocking a non-admin? If not, what would you do differently?" with, "Oh, no, I'd never block an admin, and if I did, I'd definitely use a different process than with non-admins. I'd try talking to them first. Becuz, you know, I'm one of them." Two recent RfAs had 27 questions. 27! —valereee (talk) 20:50, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Valereee, This to me is a lot like how supreme court justices are confirmed. We ask all these questions that no one would ever sincerely answer anyway, and all it ends up doing is testing the candidate's ability to correctly mirror what we want them to say.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:48, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree with Shibbolethink that such questions are shibboleths (heh); some are intended to be a crude "select-out" with a right answer to test a candidate on "objective" measures. At the very least they're not quite at the level of the infamous recall question.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:18, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  rimshot^ⓘ — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:53, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• talk) 01:45, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  It's like we have this myth of a George Washington-type candidate who is only running because they've been asked to (and to serve) despite not really wanting to. If the candidate actively (and publicly) goes out of their way to advance the process on their own accord (ie participating in the actual discussion), it's a deviation from that illusion.

  To continue the earlier comparison, in American politics is was historically seen as improper for a presidential candidate to actually personally campaign for the office (a tradition started by Washington). People didn't like it when someone actually acted like they wanted the job; the logic was they were supposed to be above petty things like campaigning. It wasn't until

  FDR that a candidate even publicly accepted a nomination for president. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:11, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  To be fair, that tradition extends across the Anglosphere; the Speaker of the House of Commons has to be nominally dragged to the chair. I think it might even have Roman roots with Consuls et al.. The idea is that, like adminship, political offices are supposed to be chores/mops, and any positive effects/prestige are the result of grift and/or attract the wrong type of people.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I think the standard explanation for the Speaker tradition was that it had a relatively high mortality rate, as it involved standing up for the House's supremacy against the monarch. Most people taking up the post (at least in the early days) were genuinely unwilling to take it rather than this feigned modesty. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:24, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  That is indeed a factor, but I think its continuance, and the "aw shucks" tradition in general, is based on the observation/meme that the people who actually want power (which is what adminship, de facto, is) the most are the people who should have it the least. That's also why people with "I want to be an admin someday" userboxes rarely ever become admins.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:30, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm inclined to agree with you (for clarity, my sentence was still on that Speaker tangent). There will always be opposes based on self-nominations or because they were too eager. There should really be a disclaimer that accompanies that userbox, given the side-glances its use gets. An interesting thing I heard from a PERM admin was that they generally tolerated hat-collectors and

  WP:MMORPG editors because their work in getting to the "grand prize" of adminship meant that lots of work got done. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Don't think that's true at all. Plenty of admins probably embodied the philosophy of the "I want to be an admin someday" userbox, they were just smarter in their approach and knew it's a bad idea to display it. Same as GN's comment on the talk page just now about potential candidates not wanting to comment in this RfC for the sake of their future RfA.

  Yours is an argument that anyone ambitious is unsuitable for positions of power, except in the real world (which is the analogy being used here) almost everyone in a position of power has/had high ambition. Nobody falls into the role of POTUS without actually wanting to be POTUS, for example. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:57, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm aware that most people actually having power tend to the be the very ambitious, as is anyone not living under a rock. What I'm saying is that the Anglo/Western tradition views that "

  power corrupts", meaning that the people who really want it without really caring about the "servant" part of "civil servant" are exactly the people who shouldn't have it, but often unfortunately do. It's a very Whiggish way of looking at things, and to what extent this is actually true depends on your politics and who in fact rules; it's really easy to make the case in America and Britain, at the very least. As such, it's considered unsightly to actively say "I want to be the President because I want prestige" (not even Trump expressly said that), as well as earlier taboos described above. Although RfA is far less important, people who want the mop because of its aura and don't know what it really entails, as evidenced by the userbox, are precisely the people who we don't want. In an earlier account I had as a child/young teenager I displayed the userbox, but I had wisened up by the time I created this account in 2018 and, without trying for it in my first year, eventually got the mop.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:13, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  I don't think that's the case, and, if it is, that it's a bad thing. I think the tradition is that candidates are discouraged only from directly rebutting opposes, the thinking being that any truly-bad oppose can be dismissed by other !voters and that good/acceptable opposes shouldn't be badgered. Of course, directly thanking supports comes across as needy and slightly pathetic, so I think that means that candidates can still participate in general discussion. If it is the case that candidates shouldn't go out of the question area, I think that's actually a bit of cool purdah that creates a sense of solemnity, so I don't think it needs any reevaluation.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • @XOR'easter: absolutely, in the sense that it was never formally agreed, and just "is the way things are". However, on occasions where candidates have started speaking more, it's almost always gone badly - partly because the Community doesn't like it, but also because it makes already acrimonious areas become outright fireballs. When we get to phase 2, perhaps propose we should have a standardised 4th question that is left blank to start but can be answered at any time - "what question would you like to have been asked? Answer it" Nosebagbear (talk) 13:28, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @
      talk) 18:28, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      • @XOR'easter: well in a big sense, RfA is not like any other discussion. It's not akin to, say, the proposer of an RfC doing lots of talking. It would be more akin to the proposal doing lots of talking. While ACE is split across lots of individuals, an RfA is functionally unique in being a "let's discuss this editor, generally" - it's not even like the specific example(s) of behaviour within an ANI or ARBCOM thread in that sense. I still make no note as to whether it should be like this, or not, but that it being different to everywhere else is not, fundamentally, an indication of flawed status quo. I do note that whatever the outcomes of Phase 1 and Phase 2, this process can't just change the mindset of the Community by a close. Hence working within it to mitigate the issues in execution, as I mention above. I absolutely do agree that it does add one more component to the difficulty in getting candidates to run in the first place. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:52, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • As Nosebagbear states, it's a peculiar custom because RfA and RfB are themselves peculiar. They're the only discussions where we judge people, not articles or proposals (ArbCom elections are more straight votes, and not discussions in the same way). Think of it like American Idol; it's unseemly for the contestant to talk back to Simon Cowell/Louie/Paula Abdul/etc., and it is likewise unseemly for the candidate to "talk back" to !voters outside of questionspace. I do find that the "what question would you like to be/have been asked" question might alleviate some stress, so long as it's strictly optional. RfA is indeed supposed to be a bit stressful/solemn as a WikiRiteOfPassage, even if as the discussions show it's too much.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:02, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • This might point to a fundamental issue. I've seen too many bad processes justified on "rite of passage" grounds to trust the idea. It's hard for me, personally, to find the wisdom of thinking about a process as a "rite of passage" when the point is to decide whether or not someone is suitable for a volunteer position. It's basically like saying, "We need a hazing ritual before we will contemplate trusting you." And if that's the mindset "the Community" is generally locked into, then RfA will never change, and the applicant pool will stay small, as people who could do the work smell the hazing ritual and stay the hell away.
          talk) 20:23, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
          ]
• I disagree with the premise that candidates are expected to only respond to questions. Generally speaking, I believe the community wants to see that the candidate is receptive to feedback, and willing to explain their actions and reasoning without becoming overly defensive. It's commonplace for admins to need to respond to upset editors in a way that affirms their commitment to collaboration and to correcting missteps as needed. Candidates need to be able to do the same during a request for administrative privileges, and figure out the best way to respond to feedback positively. isaacl (talk) 02:50, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• A question should generally be about the candidate's suitability as an admin and regarding any aspect of editing on Wikipedia. I don't think that the issue is with too many questions because there is already a 2 question limit per editor which can be asked at an RfA (previously there was none). The issue is with frivolous, unimportant and rhetorical questions that are sometimes asked by people who want to ask such questions just for the sake of asking. We need a solution for that. TheGeneralUser (talk) 22:41, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The kind of editors who participate in RfA are ill-suited for the task.

L. Support (agree)

1. The kind of people who participate in Wikipedia are ill-suited for the task. I would know, I'm one of them. :-) I would say this: it's important that we honestly assess our own limitations when it comes to vetting editors for adminship, and try to create a system that compensates for those limitations. Levivich 07:27, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. As a non-admin, I do not have the full picture of what admins do, and therefore do not have a full idea of who should be an admin. The selection of admins should not be an open community process. Instead, it should be given to a trusted group of editors who have experience as admins and have to go through community scrutiny, such as
   WP:ARBCOM members. Z1720 (talk) 14:57, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. RfA is a thunderdome, and none of the arguing helps anyone. Least of all the candidate that has to watch all of the arguing around and about them in silence. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 03:59, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. For permission to vote, I think voters should be subject to the same criteria they demand of the candidates. So fix a set if crieria for adminship, and hold the voters to it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:32, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. Completely agree with this. Get that bloody stupid thing off the watchlist. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 08:54, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. I like the fact it's open to the whole community to participate in - but the people who actually do participate are generally not representative of the community as a whole. I'm not sure how to remedy this though - it's not as if we can put a random/representative subsection of the community on AfC duty like a kind of jury service, or how we would go about working out what really is "representative" among a community of anonymous internet users. So this is a low priority for me - we should focus on problems we can solve. WaggersTALK 14:56, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

L. Oppose (disagree)

1. This is a somewhat odd topic to me. I mean, writing an encyclopedia is a task to which the vast majority of us, bluntly, would be considered ill-suited. Thus too, admin review. Admins receiving Community review is fundamental, so the question should be less "RfA (!)voters are good/bad" and more "Are they a good cross-section of the community". I mean, I'd be fine with some level of protection, but I also don't think that more than a few % in any given RfA are genuinely problematic reviewers. That does mean, that in some of the problematic cases, editors I'd (and I believe, we'd) consider reasonable participators are being dragged into the morass. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. Per Nosebagbear. You go to RfA with the !voters you have, not the ones you want.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:15, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. I think a pretty broad section of the community participates in RfA !voting. Occasionally there can be issues with bad opposes from editors who have had some disagreement with the candidate, but that's a somewhat separate issue. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:24, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. Strong oppose. I can't imagine who would be better suited to conducting this process than a broad spectrum of active editors, including both admins and non-admins. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:39, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. No, I don't think that's the problem. Worm^TT(talk) 10:36, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. While I think that more voters should participate in the process, I don't think there's an inherent problem with the people who participate now. I also agree with the comments of Nosebagbear. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:55, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. Many RfAs receive over a hundred participants. That's a pretty reasonable cross section of the community, and many are experienced at reviewing candidates. Regardless, we must have the community's approval for those who will be admins in it; no admin would be legitimate absent that. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:59, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. The sort of editor who participates at RfA is the sort of editor who is interested in community governance, frankly a boring and pretty niche backroom topic that has no visible impact whatsoever on the vast majority of Wikipedia users. What would be better, a mix of editors somehow forced to participate who don't know the policies and also don't care? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:09, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. Everyone who wants to !vote should be allowed to. (Otherwise what's next? Request for Votership?) Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:47, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:20, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. While I wouldn't be averse to a very mild restriction in participation (e.g., restricting to editors who meet the "extended-confirmed" threshold), I don't really think this is all that significant an issue. Risker (talk) 01:15, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. We should encourage as much participation in RfA as possible and continue to advertise on watchlists. I do support heavier moderation/clerking of RfAs. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:42, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
13. The answer here is basically "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried". Unless the community itself has direct control over selecting admins, all sorts of other issues, worse issues, will present themselves, especially contempt for a "dictatorial" admin corps. The current RfA is on track to be one of the highest-attended in Wikipedia history, and that's a good thing. I agree with Risker that some sort of limited suffrage requirement (whether that's extended-confirmed or even auto-confirmed) might be useful, but I'm under no illusion that it would alleviate any of RfA's problems. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:58, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
14. Per Risker. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
15. I think making it less democratic is unlikely to help, which is what would happen if we removed certain editors from voting as a fix to this statement. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
16. Editing and building an encyclopedia needs an open and collaborative environment and so does many other areas of Wikipedia (including RfA). Except for obvious trolls and LTA's, every user should be free to voice their opinion, cast their vote and participate in an RfA as they see fit. It would be unfair, impractical and a partiality to exclude anyone from RfA. TheGeneralUser (talk) 21:16, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

L. Comments

• I think this problem is at least partially caused by advertising on watchlists. It's not that I don't find it a handy notification myself, but over the course of a week I'd see an announcement at Centralized Discussions. The downsides seem greater than the upsides. —valereee (talk) 20:29, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I've seen this be raised as a potential problem elsewhere, but I don't agree personally. At the end of the day, RfA (as it currently exists) is an election about 'community' trust. This means it cannot be dominated or gatekeeped by a clique of RfA regulars, even if that would lead to better results (however that could be measured). Still, IIRC I read that watchlist advertising only began a few years ago, but RfA's output has been more or less the same since 2012, and people have been complaining about RfA since 2006 and maybe even earlier. So I don't think wider advertisement is a cause of problems, since they already existed before. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:10, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah, we tried not advertising RfA widely, and it didn't work. Wikipedia:2015_administrator_election_reform/Phase_I/RfC#D:_More_participants AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:29, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Is this question about the people who comment in RfAs, or run in them, or both? — Bilorv (talk) 17:31, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I find this an odd question to answer because I don't think you can generalize about who participates in an RfA. There are the regulars who you see at every RfA but the majority of people voting in an RfA are editors I've never encountered in my 8 years of regularly editing the project. I'm not sure that there is a "type". I do think it's important that there is a minimum level of experience that is needed to vote...I can't recall what it is but I think it is a pretty low bar. It's not unheard of for outside forums to publicize RfAs so I think it's important that brand new accounts & IP accounts are not eligible to participate. I don't think I'm paranoid as there have been attempts to sabotage RfAs in the past and that should be discouraged. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:53, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that mud sticks. It is much harder for a veteran contributor to become an admin, compared to a fresh editor with one or two years of history, since usually the latter has a much more pristine record than the former.

M. Support (agree)

1. It's not biased in the RfA you see on the page, but in the declined RfAs that never come into existence. Longer-term editors are more likely to decline RfA when approached because they have several times the number of embarrassing moments that could get dragged up in RfA. (At least, I can only extrapolate this from people who are open about not wanting to run and why, as I'm of course not privvy to private conversations that don't involve me.) This relates to what I said under F about scrutiny being random and disproportionate. It's not really so simple as bias against longer-term editors and towards shorter-term ones, but bias against some types of longer-term editors that don't exist towards newer ones. — Bilorv (talk) 17:36, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. Largely per above.
   -- Calidum 18:55, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. I think Bilorv is correct - it could be argued either way in terms of those who progress to being candidates in the last 4/5 years, but it's definitely holding back multiple good candidates on this basis. In some of those cases I think that concern is not warranted, in others, it may be - and that's just the ones I'm aware of! Nosebagbear (talk) 21:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. Such is survivorship bias, unfortunately.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:53, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. The community as a whole, and specifically the people who routinely vote in RfA, should be more willing to forgive users for mistakes they made long ago. There's a reason statutes of limitations exist in the off-wiki world, perhaps we need something similar on-wiki as well? Forgive the imperfect metaphor, but when a university looks at an applicant's high school transcript, they tend to put more weight on their more recent years (junior and what they have for senior) as opposed to sophomore and especially freshman - but in RfA, it feels like a mistake you made in grade school will be viewed as little different than one you made two weeks before you applied for college. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:01, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. I agree that RfA is biased against a large contingent of well qualified long-term editors whose greatest trespass was editing with courage, conviction, and clue.--
   John Cline (talk) 02:38, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
7. I think RFA should be more forgiving and understanding in general. RFA often feels like a "holier-than-thou" competition, which is hypocritical. I lack a clear idea of how to fix this beyond cultural changes though. Wikipedia and the world at large are increasingly critical of the smallest mistake, which I think is really counterproductive. We are not gods, we are people, and thus we make mistakes. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. Yip, it is biased. I have seen many suitable candidates put off by being shown examples of their work, comments they have made and so on, often in the deep past, that often didn't reflect their behaviour now. They grew and evolved. If they're was two comments at different times where the candidate e.g. lost their temper or called somebody a name, then the chances of being even nominated was reduced to nill. scope_creep^Talk 10:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. Strong support. Too many people are interested in the "perfect" candidate. Our national elections clearly show us that even with huge stakes on the line, there is no such animal. Buffs (talk) 20:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

M. Oppose (disagree)

1. Long term editors only have a problem at RFA if they have a longterm problem that hasn't been addressed. There is a myth that people go back and dredge up ancient grievances, but in the rare occasion where people do it does not get traction in the oppose section unless they can demonstrate that it is still a current concern. That might be true of character issues, it won't be of skill issues. ϢereSpielChequers 12:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. Per WSC, I think opposes based on issues from multiple years ago won't sink an RFA unless the issue is, as they say, "still a current concern" Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 13:24, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. Disagree, it is much harder for a new editor to pass an RfA. True, a longtime editor can have more baggage but they also have the benefit of observing and participating in lots of RfAs and have more realistic expectations of the process than a less experienced editor. Do we really have a big problem with editors who've been active for 10 or 15 years being afraid of putting themselves through an RfA? I would think they were interested, they would have tried it during their first 5 years of editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:59, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. I haven't noticed this as a problem. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:51, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. No. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. Potentially, but not in an actionable sense. In practice, mud from several years ago doesn't stick that much; my RfA was a good (if embarrassing) example of that. I had a lapse of judgment when I was a young teenager; some opposed on that basis, but only a couple. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:47, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. --Izno (talk) 17:23, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. Partly Per
   WP:ORCP and told how wrong they are. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:40, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]

• Potentially, but I would like to see the data. Specifically, months of active editing per admin before successfully passing an RfA. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:27, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• This is a terrible estimator, a detailed analysis of months of active editing as PR says would be much more useful, but FWIW unless I'm making some silly error: 2020-2021 successful candidates on average made their first edit in 2013. Unsuccessful candidates (removing 3 SNOWish candidates) on average made their first edit in 2012. —valereee (talk) 12:59, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I don’t think the issue is sinking a RFA, but having to go through the process of having those edits brought up. It doesn’t help that there is no real way to defend yourself in a RFA, without sinking it for badgering (maybe there needs to be an accepted way for candidates to respond to !votes like a dedicated section). Aircorn (talk) 18:41, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  The more sympathetic questioners will routinely ask a question that gets to a particular objection. I don't know how I'd feel about preemptive responses. Izno (talk) 17:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• This is one truth that won't bear out by analysis of past RfAs. The reason is that these long-term editors, who know of this "bias", would never put themselves through RfA for the hell that they know it would be.--
  John Cline (talk) 01:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• I agree with
  John Cline. I will note, however, that perception (on the part of experienced editors) may not be borne out by evidence. I'd like to see some data here. Risker (talk) 01:13, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• I'd like to see some data too, but my perception is there's a pretty even tradeoff between opposition based on relative lack of experience for relatively new editors, and opposition based on old disagreements for old editors. Vanamonde (Talk) 12:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Agreed, I too would like to see a proper data on this before proposals and solutions can be formed and planned. TheGeneralUser (talk) 23:07, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

N. Support (agree)

1. Over the years I have come to realise this is the cause of two of RFAs biggest problems. Much of the rancour within RFAs is over what the criteria should be rather than whether the candidate meets the criteria, and much of the difficulty in recruiting people to run is that they aren't sure if they meet the unwritten criteria (hence the few who run usually run a year or more after they could have passed). Some of the criteria could be agreed by consensus, and that would detoxify RFA and focus it on the bits where we do want to maintain judgement. ϢereSpielChequers 12:45, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. The unwritten evolution of criteria is one of the difficulties of RfA. Do candidates need FAs/edit summaries/copyright experience? If different criteria go in and out fashion, it should be possible to agree on these by consensus. Some of the most important criteria (good judgment) may prove harder to evaluate than others (editcount, experience in admin related areas). —Kusma (talk) 13:21, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. Agree lack of consensus on what qualifies someone to be an admin is a problem. We have
   WP:ITNCRIT and many others but no WP:RFACRIT. (Also, lifetime appointments make some editors criteria very strict, but that's another question.) We would benefit if we were all judging candidates against some standard criteria rather than everyone coming up with their own. Levivich 13:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
4. Yes, but like some others, I don't think it's an area where there's much to be done. We could create clearer criteria, but because so many people approach RfA with their own ideas of "what an admin must be," there wouldn't be consensus for anything beyond broad guidelines that admit personal judgment in some form anyway. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:06, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. Actually, I think there might be something in this. We don't have "set criteria" and I think that the whole process could work a lot better if there was. In my head, the top question is "Is this person suitable for adminship?". I'd be really interested in an RfC on "community criteria" for what qualifies people to positively answer that question. We have a lot of "personal criteria" essays all over the place, which could be the basis for the RfC. It would give people a starting point in discussions, and could help bureaucrats discount votes that go way outside community norms. Equally, it need not take away from the general issues people may have. Worm^TT(talk) 10:45, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. I agree with the issue as stated. With that said, I do not think it is reasonable or possible to force editors to follow an objective criteria, because if we do so, why even have a process at all as opposed to just granting sysop to anyone who asks and meets the criteria? I would like to see some guidelines, with the caveat that while they represent a community consensus, they are not binding. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:04, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. Absolutely yes. The only official criteria is "can pass RfA", but each person's RfA ends up having different criteria depending on who shows up. That's a problem for RfA but it's a bigger problem for desysopping, because if we haven't agreed on standard criteria for adminship then we have no reference point for when an admin has fallen short of those standards, and this also has follow-on effects for the RfA scrutiny question on this page. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:27, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. Yes this. Stifle (talk) 12:17, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. It would be handy to have shortcut-linked community consensus against certain common but bad support/oppose arguments, a la WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. Even if not enforced as rules, repeated reference to the norms can help with culture change. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:57, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. I would be very interested to see what Isaacl's proposal would lead to regarding soft requirements rather than the hard requirements one might associate with, of all things, autopatrolled permission. --Izno (talk) 17:21, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. Absolutely. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:42, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

N. Oppose (disagree)

1. I don't think this is so much a problem as others are making out.
   RFPERM or even much beyond the current "formal" criteria; this is especially true if RfA remains a discussion and doesn't become more a formal vote as was proposed and defeated back in 2019. It's best to just get a feel for the place and a good nom.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
2. I don't believe having a set criteria would alleviate the issues with the RfA process. The tools and responsibilities a sysop has are many and varied, so the set of criterias would be either too broad to cover all the aspects, or not broad enough. Even for other more straigthfoward permissions (or processes, such as GAN), the criterias are sometimes the absolute minimum an editor or article should meet, and they still need to be vetoed by an acting administrator or editor in good standing, who has to comb through their contributions or history to see if there are any pending issues to be solved. Isabelle ^🔔 16:52, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. While i think some people have truly insane personal criteria, codifying standard criteria is a terrible idea. I wouldn't mind seeing "spam every RFA with the exact same question in an effort to make it de facto standard question" banned, (i.e. the recall questions that have caused much drama for no real return) but that'd probably be a tough thing to get consensus for.
   talk) 21:59, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
4. Each editor is free, and should be free, to make up their own requirements for adminship. Whether voters are working off a detailed and specific checklist (even if that checklist is insane), or just feel good about a particular candidate, is not relevant in a democratic system. Furthermore, we should have a secret ballot to avoid dog-pilling on editors who oppose for reasons that other editors disagree with, which contributes to the toxic atmosphere at RfA and discourages opposes. — Goszei (talk) 23:15, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. If the purpose of RfA is to determine whether the community trusts a candidate, it's necessary to give the community a pretty wide berth in expressing its views. Unless editors are using completely unreasonable criteria (in which case the crats will quite appropriately give their !votes little weight), they should be allowed to explain frankly why they don't trust a given candidate, even if their reasoning seems unpersuasive to the majority. Taking away that right would likely result in contrived reasons to oppose, and regardless wouldn't improve the RfA atmosphere: the most controversial RfAs don't involve disputes about the criteria themselves, but instead disputes about whether the editor meets various uncontroversial criteria (e.g. civility). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 17:34, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. I'm mixed on this, there is no agreed upon criteria but I'm not sure if that is a big problem. Candidates vary, greatly, in their editing background. I think that is a benefit as we have admins with different talents. I know when I have a technical problem, there are admins I can go to for help. I wouldn't expect them to be writing Featured Articles. If there were accepted criteria, they would have to be so general and unspecific as to not be particularly useful. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:04, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. It's okay for !voters to have different criteria. (Bureaucrats should filter out the truly irrational !votes anyway.) Moreover, it would be impossible for the RfA crowd to hammer out a set of criteria that would have consensus approval. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:56, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. Surprised to find myself disagreeing with WSC, WTT, and IvanVector, but so it goes...I really don't think this is a problem. I agree with WSC that a considerable amount of the argument at any given RFA has to do with what the criteria should be, and not about whether the candidate meets them; this is particularly evident in the unpleasantness that habitually follows the handful of opposition, based on very stringent criteria, that is expressed at RFAs for candidates that patently has the community's support. However, I don't think this is a concern with respect to RFAs that could have passed but didn't, or qualified candidates who chose not to run. Close RFA are frequently close because one or two incidents are seen as evidence of not passing a given criterion by a good fraction of the community, and not by the rest. And such RFAs, I think, are far more discouraging to potential candidates than ones that pass with a token opposition based on stringent criteria. Vanamonde (Talk) 12:36, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. Per Extraordinary Writ. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:48, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. Nah. Its good for different folks to have different criteria. That way the criteria can change to meet the needs. It also means that folks who run should be well acquainted with the voterbase by reading past RfA's and know what will be expected. I found it very personally enlightening to know that some voters cared about XfD, that a few folks felt an FA was mandatory, that some folks were mostly focused on CLUE. Even if we created a set criteria, voters would still subconsciously use their own criteria. People remain people. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:39, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. I'm not sure that this is a major part of the problem. At the end of the day, RfA is a way to gain the consensus of the community in regards to whether the community trusts a editor to become an administrator. By setting arbitrary criteria this is likely to cause more issues, as people who don't meet the criteria may be fully trusted but those who might meet it could still have some issue which leads to no trust. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:31, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. Having any hard fixed criteria will just be arbitrary and will become a numbers game. Even if the criteria is evolving (through changing community consensus), it will just reinforce the already high unwritten standards and expectations most people have of RfA candidates. Trust, credibility, good judgement and ability to learn from one's mistakes are more important things than having X number of edits, AfD votes, X number of created articles, etc. TheGeneralUser (talk) 22:50, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

N. Comments

• In the 2015 review of the requests for administrative privileges process, I made a proposal to focus the discussion on the candidate's pros and cons, and to establish the relative importance between them. In a comment I wrote: Regarding implementation concerns: from the participants' perspective, basically the same discussion would take place as today, but with less repetition, since the threads would be organized by topic, and not in response to votes. The bureaucrats would have to organize their closure process a little differently, but one advantage is that the community's consensus view on the relative weights for a candidate's characteristics is largely reusable from one RfA to another. Thus once a few RfAs were completed, there would be a good baseline, and discussion would be expedited. In essence this would establish a common view on what characteristics the community wishes to see its administrators. I think many people think of numeric cutoffs when the idea of criteria is raised, but they can be more qualitative as well, guiding those with the desired behaviours towards signing up to do chores for the community. isaacl (talk) 15:00, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  To clarify, my comments on qualitative criteria were in context of this RfC, and in particular don't apply for auto-granted permissions. Note many editors have published qualitative criteria in their lists of things they look for when deciding to grant administrative privileges, so it's not a novelty. isaacl (talk) 20:43, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I shortened the title of this section from "N. Unlike other userrights RFA does not have an agreed criteria and the lack of this is a major part of the problem" — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:11, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• It shouldn't be too difficult to draw up a proposed set of criteria then hold an RfC to gain consensus for it. Some RfC pass , some don't - it's a question of 'Nothing ventured; nothing gained'. There is a wealth of criteria to be drawn on here from regular voters who take the process seriously. It just needs researching and doing. Meeting such a set of criteria would absolutely not qualify an automatic pass at RfA. It is strictly only the basic minium to run for office without wasting the community's time and inviting trollish votes and criteria. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:29, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

O. Support (agree)

1. Once an active editor has those extra buttons they are likely to use them, and that's especially true for active content creators who can then be asked to do things such as assess newish editors for rights such as autopatrolled ϢereSpielChequers 12:56, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. Agree. I know the argument about security, but we've got hundreds of inactive admins out there with the rights; they certainly have no need for the tools, so that argument feels like an excuse to me. If we're worried about security, let's fix the security issue. Require 2FA for any candidate who can't "demonstrate a need for the tools" or whatever lessens that issue. I never thought I'd be doing half the admin stuff I do, but I started to see places I could help. Adminship for every trusted, experienced, clueful, and unfailingly civil user! —valereee (talk) 13:06, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. People who need the tools (you only truly need the tools if you want to do things that you can't convince other people to do) should not be admins. Wikipedia needs people willing to use the tools to help. —Kusma (talk) 13:24, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. No one needs the tools. It's the other way around: the community needs editors with the tools (admins). AGFing, when people talk about "needs the tools," they're using the wrong words, and what they mean is something else, like "likely to actually use the tools" or "competent with the tools." If we had a standard rfa criteria, "need" should not be part of it. Levivich 13:38, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. I think this might be one of the main bottlenecks of the others are correct. I could see changing Q1 in some way to make it less onerous on someone.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 01:08, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. Nobody "needs" the tools, some people use them for this and that, some more than others. So what? This should never be an objection. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:28, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
7. Most certainly. It might be true that a "need for the tools" is not a common reason for RFAs to fail, but I know from experience it's a common reason for otherwise suitable candidates to be overlooked and/or decline nominations. There are many aspects of admin work that do not require technical expertise, but where content experience is exceptionally helpful: dispute resolution in particular, but also main-page work, etc. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:05, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. I've always thought the main consideration for adminship should be whether the editor can be trusted not to misuse the tools, and that most other criteria, questions etc should be aimed at elucidating whether the nominee can be trusted. If "need for the tools" is a significant de facto consideration, it should be mentioned at Wikipedia:Administrators, but it's not. Nurg (talk) 05:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. I don't think it's a good reason to oppose. But, if we take a stand against such rationales, it will just be a game of Whac-A-Mole. Over time, there's always been in-vogue reasons to oppose RfA. This is one of them. The core issue from my perspective for an RfA candidate is one of trust. Do we trust the candidate will use the tools appropriately when they use them? If they're not certain about how to use a tool in a given situation, will they seek assistance? If the answer to those questions is 'yes', the need for the tools is superfluous. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:30, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I think we should take a stand against such rationales until we figure out the ones that we as a community agree are reasonable (or rather, have constrained the set such that we know all the ones we don't like :^). I do think the consensus is still out on this one though because of our lax interface administrator user group request process as well as the view deleted permission, which do have a legitimate security aspect to them. Izno (talk) 06:40, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

10. Supporting that it's not a good reason for opposing, but I figure "no need for the tools" just omits the implied "and I have reservations about granting them to this person" so don't think there's much to be done beyond acknowledging it's a bad reason for opposing. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:04, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. per above comments on "set criteria" - this would be the sort of thing I'd like to see the community agree / disagree is a valid concern. Worm^TT(talk) 10:46, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. Per Valereee. I believe there is a large group of trusted content creators who would use admin rights only occasionally, but who may discover they enjoy admin work or be willing to help out with more urgent backlogs once in a while. The expectation to use admin tools often may form a barrier for potential candidates to put themselves forward; it is for me.
    talk) 16:24, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
13. "No need for the tools" is a terrible argument in my book. Admins do not necessarily use their tools constantly or even daily. Admin tools are varied, and some admins may never use some of them. Being an admin also means that the community has placed a level of trust in you, which can be an asset in and of itself. And there will always be tasks needing admin attention, I find it incredibly hard to believe that too many admins will mean some of them get bored or never use their tools. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:23, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
14. We don't have a limit to the number of admins we can have, so people who can be trusted with the tools should have them. Even if they only use them occasionally, that's one less thing someone else has to deal with. The question is "Can this editor be trusted with the tools?", not "Will they use them constantly?". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:53, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
15. There are admins like me who rarely actually use the tools unless a situation arises where using the tools helps solve it. If a user has our trust, give them the tools that let them use their judgement when to use them. As long as they remember to read guidelines constantly and try to follow them when making admin actions, they'll be fine and do good for the project. Jason Quinn (talk) 01:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
16. "Need" is imho not a relevant criterion. One action an experienced editor is able to do themselves instead of having to ask for help is already a net positive for the project. I rather have a thousand admins only doing one admin action a month than one admin having to do a thousand actions. "No need" might not have yet lead to an RFA failing but it probably stopped a number of qualified candidates from running. We should instead encourage them even if they don't see much need for the tools. Regards SoWhy 19:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
17. This is one part of a catch-22 pendulum: users who haven't "built up enough experience in admin areas" have "no need for the tools", but too much experience and you're hat-collecting; either way there will be at least one voter who thinks this makes a candidate unsuitable. These are silly criteria anyway - nobody has experience with the tools before they pass RfA. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:33, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Lots of people have experience with the tools before they pass RfA, but the experience usually comes from other wikis (where the tools are the same but the rules and social expectations are quite different). —Kusma (talk) 23:25, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I am not sure I've seen a recent "you're a hat collector" oppose at RFA itself. (I do not know if that's survivor bias.) I can think of one editor who no longer edits much here who might have been seen as one if he had run at the time he was super-active but he has since moved on to bigger and better things within the movement.

    I think most of us think hat collecting isn't just the appreciable gain of permissions, it's doing so quickly and/or without regard for concerns when raised.

    As for no experience, indeed as Kusma says, I had experience at other wikis before getting my tools here. Indeed, the delete and protect buttons do not change appreciably with even just non-zero review of relevant deletion policies, and the block button changes only in social acceptability regarding non-vandals. Izno (talk) 06:35, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

18. Yes. One reason for new admins, amongst many, is to ensure existing admins can be relieved. Stifle (talk) 12:18, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
19. No individual person "needs" the tools. The statement seems to be shorthand for "The applicant is unlikely to use the tools". Yet given that Question 1 explicitly asks "What administrative work do you intend to take part in?", it is odd that a !voter might think that an applicant won't use the tools. Axl ¤ [Talk] 00:03, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
20. Now, more than ever, we need more administrators. After being stable for three years, our number of active administrators is quickly dropping. Having a "need for the tools" is simply this: to help the other administrators with the work. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 10:34, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
21. Most editors who I trust enough to have the tools will find important admin work just by being around wielding the tools, even if they're "content-focused". KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:49, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
22. Quite evidently. Redundancy is important. MER-C 19:08, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
23. Strongly agree. I think this encourages folks to be less than truthful about how they would use the tools, or to stretch what they would actually do with them. Nobody actually knows what tools they will like using until they get them. I had never been a sock detector before RFA, but afterwards found it quite engaging. I thought I would work ANI a lot, and it turns out I now mostly avoid ANI. I thought I would do RFPP, but found the actual button pressing boring. For the practical implication, I think it is time to reform or change RFA question 1. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:24, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
24. It's always been dumb reasoning. Having admin tools just makes editing easier. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 08:47, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
25. Agreed with Levivich + just because someone is doesn't ascribe to your personal views doesn't mean they would abuse the tools (such as blocking someone with a disagreement). More and more, people are assuming the worst of people without evidence to support such an assertion. Example, I supported Trump over Biden. I have friends who supported Biden over Trump. Just because either of us voted for "the guy" doesn't mean we support everything they do or that you worry they might do. Too many are willing to believe prejudice over facts/demonstrated behavior and RfA is one of those places where it's highlighted. Buffs (talk) 20:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
26. I think so. The need for the tools to be given to more editors is why RfA needs more candidates. However, "no need for the tools" can often mean no experience in admin areas, which IMO isn't a poor argument but also shouldn't be seen as a automatic deal breaker IMO.
27. Agreed. No administrator is ever required to use the admin tools in any way. Admins take administrative actions and decisions as a volunteer just like editing the articles. A sudden increase in administrative backlog can happen in any area of Wikipedia at anytime and it is always a good idea to have extra admins who can get the required work done whenever it comes up as it decreases the overall pressure on all the other admins. TheGeneralUser (talk) 21:47, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

O. Oppose (disagree)

1. I don't think the data actually supports the idea that "need for the tools" is a reason why RfAs fail. Many RfAs that pass are from editors with a scant or dubious "need for tools", or where their subsequent use of tools did not correspond with their Q1 answer (or their pre-RfA behaviour, for that matter). Happy to elaborate with more systematic evidence if anyone wants (I was trying not to clog up the discussion too much, if it's not of interest to anyone). More generally, I think a lot of "RfA conventional wisdom" is poorly supported by the data. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:03, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. I think the underlying concept here is sound, however, "we can find work" for admins presupposes they can be assigned duties like the day shift at Best Buy. Chetsford (talk) 23:00, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   No, obviously not assigned duties, but involved in areas with backlogs would be able to request help. I'm sure I'm not the only admin whose admin actions are often in areas I had not thought I would get involved in in my RFA in 2009. ϢereSpielChequers 13:55, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

3. I don't see the problem with requiring people who plan to become admins to make requests for admin actions (in some form or another) before gaining to ability to do it themselves, and that's all need for the tools really means. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:11, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. It's over-used as a canard, but it is a reasonable response to certain answers to RFA Q1 (What administrative work do you intend to take part in?). User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:42, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
5. While "no need for the tools" isn't a particularly strong rational for opposing a candidate at RfA, it's not exactly frivolous and I don't think we could (or even should attempt to) disallow its use. In my opinion, a well articulated answer to Q1 is a much better preemptive measure.--
   John Cline (talk) 20:58, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
6. I'm in the minority here, but "No need for the tools" often has an underlying reason behind it: the candidate has not demonstrated any aptitude in the areas in which they want to work. If a candidate says they want to work at UAA and AIV and have made zero edits to those noticeboards, while opposition may be superficially because they have no need for the tools, the real reason is that they have zero demonstrated experience in those fields. Would an editor who requests autoreviewer at PERM receive it if they had no article creations? Would someone requesting templateeditor receive it if they had zero experience with templates? No, and for good reason. As for the surface-level reason of "No need for the tools", I'm mildly sympathetic to it because if you're going to make ~200 editors look through your edit history and examine you for seven days, it sure feels like a waste of time if all you use the tools for is deleting pages in your userspace or protecting articles you've written. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:39, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I agree with this comment... which still leaves "no need for the tools" as somewhat problematic.

   That said, there is at least one or two admins from the past 5 years who have not in fact used their tools much if at all. Should they really have them? Izno (talk) 06:17, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I personally see it as an issue of framing rather than any real substantive difference. As harsh as it may be, I don't see the point in their having the tools. Virtually all of what they do in terms of administrative actions can be covered by using suppressredirect when moving pages (instead of creating a redirect and deleting it) or perhaps not violating INVOLVED when protecting pages. Sdrqaz (talk) 16:25, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

7. I really think this is more of a myth than anything else. Take an RfA like that of Ealdgyth: a content creator with little administrative experience whose own nominators had to preëmptively rebut the "no need for the tools" argument. She passed 250/0/2. To be sure, other similar RfAs have been more controversial, but I agree with Sdrqaz that this generally stems from concerns about experience. Even Ergo Sum's RfA passed, and he had practically zero administrative involvement. While there were a few "no need for the tools" comments, most of the opposes referenced valid questions about a lack of experience. So even if we were to outlaw no-need-for-the-tools opposes (which I think is also a bad idea on principle, per my response to part N), they would simply be parlayed into "lacks experience" opposes, which leaves us no better off than when we started. Additionally, I trust that the crats would discount unpersuasive opposes. As is often the case with RfA, the issue here is more with perception than with reality. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:48, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

   I think such a parlay would be OK. It shifts the statement from "I don't trust you" to "you haven't done anything to be trustworthy" (at least in my head), the second of which can be accepted or rejected by the rest of the community regarding general expectation for trust. Izno (talk) 06:19, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

O. Comments

* Agree that it's a stupid reason to fail an RfA, disagree that it's an actual problem in practice per ProcrastinatingReader.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:07, 30 August 2021 (UTC) (Striking; see "Agree" column)  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 01:08, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• It's a reason RfAs aren't run. I've looked at candidates who are civil, experienced, clueful content creators but the work they do seldom requires requests for admin help, and decided not to approach them. If anyone who thinks that's them wants to be the test case, email me. —valereee (talk) 16:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I have shortened the title of this section from "O. Though "No need for the tools" is a reason why RFA are likely to fail, it is a poor reason as we can find work for new admins to do" — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:12, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• "Doesn't show a need for the tools" is an argument that I was sure would come up against me the last time it was suggested I put myself through RfA.
  talk) 20:19, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• On one hand, it's a terrible reason to Oppose a candidate because people change what they focus on. Right now, I'm dealing with expiring drafts and restoring requested ones, an activity that I never did before the pandemic. I need the tools now in a way that I didn't when I first became an admin. However, when I look at Admin Stats I can't help but notice that we have quite a few admins who, over many years, seem to have few logged in admin actions. I know not every administrator action is logged but I have to wonder if some of these folks really have any need for the tools. So, while I think it's a valid question to ask, I also think it's impossible to know today what activity an RfA candidate will be doing in the future and be able to predict who will and who won't "need the tools". Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:11, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Question, out of curiosity, for admins elected during the time that ~"what will you do with the tools?" has been obligatory: how closely has your admin activity tracked with your response to that question? This gets at both the role of "need" and the relative value of the standard questions. That question in particular strikes me as primarily an invitation to identify the area where the candidate wants an extraordinary amount of scrutiny. We do not unbundle, nor hold people to that statement, not frown on admins taking on additional work, so why can't we assume "a little of this; a little of that" by default without falling into "no need?" — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:44, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Mine has tracked at a higher level as part of my work on TemplateStyling everything.

  I have spent non-zero time at AIV even though that forum was specifically on the list of things I campaign-promised I wouldn't do.

  Conversely, I have spent non-zero but not-appreciable time at requests for history merge (just the backlog, because Anthony seems to get everything else). Izno (talk) 06:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• In addition to my !vote above, I'd comment that adminship is sometimes treated as a natural stepping stone by some candidates, after you've been here for long enough and have enough FAs/GAs/DYKs. Someone who is less prone to assume good faith may call that
  hat-collecting. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:44, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Given that almost every administrator who has passed RFA having explained what they'll do with those tools actually moves on and does completely different things, it's been a dumb question for a very long time. There are almost no 2+ year admins who still only do what they said they'd do at RFA. Risker (talk) 01:07, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is a large gap between the permissions an editor can obtain and the admin toolset. This brings increased scrutiny for RFA candidates, as editors evaluate their feasibility in lots of areas. The community should have an

P. Support (agree)

1. . As proposer. Z1720 (talk) 14:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
2. I know it's a perennial but mark me down for supporting the unbundling of delete/viewdeleted (which requires an RFA per WMF legal, I believe), and block/protect (which would not, I believe). I see the logic in bundling block and protect together, but I don't see the logic in bundling delete/viewdeleted with block and protect. Levivich 18:45, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. Right. Some are not controversial, some are. There are people I'd trust with deletion help, but not with blocking (due to temper or whatever, for example). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
4. A curveball: I don't think technical unbundling can go any further (you need to see revdelled edits sometimes to make accurate blocks/unblocks), but we could have social unbundlings where you can only use the tools for certain circumstances. It's insane that someone who wants the tools just for copyright, just for CSD/AFD or just for blocking obvious
   involved block of usually productive editors who are edit warring. If you had a rule along the lines of "someone with the tools for X reason is prevented from ever blocking someone who has made at least 100 edits" then they could do 99% of what they want to with the tools, an improvement on 0%, and enforcement of violations would be completely obvious and straightforward (if the crats were willing to desysop). — Bilorv (talk) 17:48, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
5. Bilorv's words exactly. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:39, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
6. Per Bilorv. I don't see such a strong nexus between between deletion and blocking that they necessarily have to be tied together. This may be a perennial proposal, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider it moving forward.
   -- Calidum 19:59, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply
   ]
7. I think Bilorv has a great idea here. I am an admin and don't really get involved in any high-drama areas because I'm not interested in it. I bet there are others like me who could do a great job and don't need mega-scrutiny. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:00, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
8. I specifically would like the "viewdeleted" privilege unbundled from the admin toolkit. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
9. There are plenty of people who see the various rights as too interrelated to justify giving someone one tool when they couldn't be trusted with another... but that means those people would be opposing a regular RfA anyway, and there are enough people who are willing to consider granting unbundled rights that this may make a nontrivial difference. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:02, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
10. Indeed, I am actually pretty disappointed by the perception (which is always cited during the ArbCom desysop case, but is also relevant for RfA) that an admin should not have limitation on tools. This is counterproductive.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:05, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
11. Agreed that we should consider some more unbundling, though I am somewhat conservative on what permissions might be unbundled. The more we unbundle, the more bureaucracy and red tape and processes we create. There is something to be said for having many tools under the single admin process. With that said, there are certainly some admin tasks that would require much more trust than others, and those that are on the lower end of trust needed should be considered for unbundling. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:27, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
12. The block tool and the delete/undelete/view deleted revisions tool are different and should be evaluated separately. Whether to empower a user to block/unblock is a decision about their temperament and judgment in social issues and matters of user conduct. Whether to empower them to delete/undelete/view deleted revisions is a decision about their editorial judgment in matters of content. The only overlaps are the basic trust threshold and ability to gauge community consensus. I can't follow the objection to unbundling those two, and I can see clear benefits to doing so. What this means is that I feel that bundled adminship should still exist and be the norm but users ought to be able to apply for unbundled VDR (view deleted revisions), unbundled full access to the delete/undelete tool, and unbundled full access to the block tool, separately. Non-admin blockers would not be allowed to unblock where a sysop has indicated that they've blocked because of now-deleted edits, except in the case of a positive community consensus to unblock.
    Addendum: both of these would be RFA-like processes with a community discussion and vote, not ask-a-sysop permissions. DRV regulars are examples of the people who would need VDR only.—S Marshall T/C 08:57, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
13. I am a big fan of unbundling tools. The tools that have been unbundled so far have proven the worthwhile workability of this approach. In my opinion, the only ability that should be reserved for admins alone is the ability to add or remove the unbundled tools to users when good cause exists I could be convinced otherwise but I'd definitely support seeing this advanced to phase 2 for further discussion.--
    John Cline (talk) 17:40, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
14. Unbundle. I actually don't fully agree with Bilorv: if block/unblock is unbundled, sure, a user who is a blocker but can't view revdelled edits may not always be able to place a block. On the other hand: this is also true for admins as they can't always place a block without looking at checkuser data. Obvious vandals and NOTHERE can be blocked without any need to check out revdelled edits. But the other side is more interesting: if a user applies for admin-without-block, they won't be scrutinized over whether they wouldn't incorrectly block someone. (and yes, on another project I know both admins who are likely fine with block/unblock but shouldn't have delete and admins who are generally fine with delete but should definitely have block taken away from them) Both blockers and non-block admins arguably need the right to protect pages, but since protect can be undone without much drama or difficulty (unlike a block or deletion) I wouldn't expect that to be much of a problem. The opposition always brings the same argument: "if I can't trust them with one I can't trust them with the other". By that logic every admin should be a superadmin: bureaucrat, checkuser, interface admin, Arbcom member, steward and member of Jimmy's secret book group. If you are right (you're not, but if), unbundling would have zero effect on the outcome of an RfA. No harm, so the only reason not to try is because you think it won't help. And if we never try, it can never be proven to work. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    The expectation is that unbundling will make it harder to become a full admin, as you need to obtain several of the unbundled permissions one by one, so there is clear harm in trying. —Kusma (talk) 23:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't understand why you say that a potential admin candidate would have to acquire the unbundled tools one by one before becoming an admin? I would certainly oppose any such requirement should it come up in phase 2 (if this unbundling provision achieves consensus to advance). I don't see what would prevent a candidate from RfA whether they had any of the unbundled tools or not. What have I misunderstood regarding your comment above? Best regards.--

    John Cline (talk) 13:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply

    ]

    More and more de fact requirements have been added to RfA over the years, so I expect this one will also be added (people mentioning that they might do some deletions will be asked why they haven't applied for the unbundled version already). Additionally, unbundling reduces pressure on the community to pass enough admins. I think the templateeditor right has made us lose dozens of admin candidates already. —Kusma (talk) 20:47, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you

    John Cline (talk) 07:58, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply

    ]

15. I doubt it'll work, but I'm not dismissing it out of hand. Stifle (talk) 12:20, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
16. Yes. Good editors already know consensus, and how to find consensus as well as any administrator. Good editors already in effect protect pages (protecting good work is part of the editorial job), and good editors already in effect block the doings of poor editing and vandalism (otherwise, the pedia would be even more of a mess, and we even have a bot that does that), and of course editors in good standing already decide deletion. Good editors already cure copyright problems, etc. Since these tasks are already done by good editors, we should make it possible for those who want an extra button to do a task, and if someone wants all those buttons go for it, just like now. And just like now, when one messes up with a permission, call the user account. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:42, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
17. Block, Protect and Delete form the core administrator rights and it is very unlikely that they will be unbundled. However, I am open to reviewing unbundling of other userights which are currently available only to administrators on a case by case basis. TheGeneralUser (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]