Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 260

• I do support the open-book test viewpoint. I'm pretty neutral on people showing their nominators a considered answer, but only to the degree of "that could be an issue" notice. They shouldn't actually be writing or even heavily influencing them. @Valereee: one issue with that is that 24 hours before a q can be answered could lead to many opposes in that span. I've seen various RfAs where the candidate actually wanted a question asked. I'd oppose any delay lag Nosebagbear (talk) 19:08, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  Maybe we shouldn't allow any voting before the questions have been answered and the community has discussed the candidate. —Kusma (talk) 19:13, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  Such a model has been tried with one or another of the Ironholds noms. It hasn't been seen since. Izno (talk) 19:44, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 241 § Delay before voting is the last substantial discussion I found in a quick search regarding a two-phase process (there was a little discussion later that year; I may have missed more recent discussions). That discussion links to an earlier discussion that goes into a little bit of additional detail and has more analysis. Two key obstacles are that not many people are convinced it will make a difference, and if we're accommodating editors who edit once a week, the RfA period will have to be extended, and there is opposition to this. isaacl (talk) 23:27, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  We could have multiple RFA processes (the current one, delayed voting, straight voting, etc.), let candidates choose among them, and see which model works best. Levivich 05:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  We've had terrible experience with that kind of things in the past. "Oppose, candidate uses an RfA format that I am not intimately familiar with" is the standard answer. Wikipedians are amazingly conservative. —Kusma (talk) 10:27, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  We're having a terrible experience now with just this one system; I'm not sure it could get worse. Stupid opposes are easily fixed, crats can ignore them. "We tried this before" isn't a reason not to try something again. Due to editor turnover, it's a whole new community every few years. Levivich 14:07, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Stupid opposes are easily fixed, crats can ignore them. I don't think they dare to do that unless the RfA falls into the "discretionary zone". —Kusma (talk) 14:18, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  They wouldn't need to discount opposes if it was above the discretionary zone (and below the discretionary zone is exceedingly rare). Anyway, we already have plenty of stupid opposes. I don't see "someone might oppose over it" as a reason not to try something. Levivich 14:33, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Have there been any alternate RfA formats used since 2008, or even in the last ten years? I don't personally think it would be advisable for a candidate to freelance a different format. If the community comes up with a trial alternate format, though, then I don't think we need to worry about reflexive opposes (and as Levivich notes, they only matter if they are the deciding margin, so there is no constraint on bureaucrats discounting them). isaacl (talk) 16:10, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Candidates freelancing RFA formats would be nuts. I'm suggesting the community approve multiple alternative formats (not just one) and letting candidates choose one (rather than non-candidates speculating about which alternative formats would be attractive to candidates). Levivich 21:40, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Levivich, @Isaacl, what kind of formats are we thinking? —valereee (talk) 22:27, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Valereee: some possibilities: the current format (duh), steward-style election, arbcom-style election, delayed voting (questions/discussions first), questions/discussion on the talk page, and I'm sure there are other alternatives that have been proposed or that folks might think of. Levivich 22:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  I linked previously to earlier discussions of a two-phase process. The particular format I proposed is having a vetting phase where participants are determining the abilities and characteristics, and an analysis phase where participants weigh in on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the candidate. However there are other ways to structure the phases (the Ironholds RfA that is often cited when this approach is discussed was just one way). isaacl (talk) 23:55, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Right; I believe what I said is already in line with what you re-stated? isaacl (talk) 23:45, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  My apologies; I just realized I over-nested the post that you responded to. I meant to reply to the preceding commenter. isaacl (talk) 23:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Nosebagbear, I was being (slightly) facetious. I actually thought (and discussed in my own debriefing) that it might have been helpful (or not) if someone had asked a particular question at my RfA. I've asked open-ended questions of candidates to offer them a chance to address opposes. —valereee (talk) 19:17, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate that going back to the inactivity of Wikipedia:Admin coaching, there is a desire for candidates to be genuine in their interactions with the community, and not just echoing what someone has told them to say. Asking for advice, though, is a useful and even desirable action for any editor, including administrators. There's not many scenarios where action has to be taken immediately without access to any other admins with which to discuss matters (vandalism during English Wikipedia's lowest point of activity is all I can think of), and so being an expert in all areas isn't necessary. I do think it is important for the candidate to be well-versed in some areas, so if they become an administrator, they will be able to reduce the overall workload. isaacl (talk) 23:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• I have nominated quite a few candidates in my time, and discussed nominations with many more. My most used medium for conversations with nominees and potential nominees is via Email, and I like to see their draft response to the first three questions before I decide whether I think they are ready to pass now or in a few months. Once the RFA starts I rarely have much email contact unless it is to talk about potential withdrawls. ϢereSpielChequers 16:06, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't really follow

It depends on what you mean by a serious proposal. If you mean a proposal that has a reasonable chance of being accepted and significantly changing the process, well, as many have noted, the lack of agreement amongst the group of people who like to discuss these matters means nothing on the horizon appears likely to gain consensus (consensus just doesn't scale up as a decision-making process). I think it would be more fruitful to address the top-line issues you raised. How do we get people to agree to take on administrative chores for which they will be criticized, with the only benefit being a sense of self-accomplishment? How do we get candidates to participate in a public evaluation of their trustworthiness? With everyone's time being limited, is there a way to encourage more distribution of onerous tasks, freeing people up to do other work they enjoy? Are there more tools that can be built by the community or the Wikimedia Foundation that can make administrative tasks more efficient? isaacl (talk) 00:23, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Tony, I'm puzzled. Talking about it to build consensus is a way to actually accomplish change. I believe you've said that you don't think RfA is broken. Fair enough. There are others, including in this thread, who agree with you. But through talking about it, hopefully some kind of consensus can form around what the issue or issues at RfA are - as I believe you know I've

WT:ADMIN) there is some community sentiment that RESYSOP should be stricter. 3 options (more, less, same) is a lot easier to find consensus with than 12+ options. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:39, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, I suppose the shortest reply (and this is not meant to be read snarkily) is that at some point consensus building becomes collective hand-wringing, and hand-wringing makes people less likely to take valid points seriously. In my view, we’ve long past the point of hand-wringing on RfA. It’s been ~6 years since the last major RfC. Since before either of us were particularly active on this project. People like Kusma below have put forward reasonable non-drastic proposals that have a possibility of passing. People have also put forward less plausiblr suggestions. No one has gone to the community, however, and asked our active user base if their proposal has consensus.

I guess my point of view is: if there are actually structural issues, given how much discussion there have been and how many different fixes have been proposed, ask the community if the fixes have consensus. Continued public discussion for over half a decade without doing so undermines the argument there is a problem. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:01, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I think it more clearly highlights the weaknesses in consensus decision making. In organizations where consensus isn't expected to drive every step, a group would be tasked with investigating the issue, typically following a problem resolution process like this one, and recommendations would be made. In the English Wikipedia environment, there's a rotating cast of participants, including complete newcomers who are blissfully unware of past proposals and their pros and cons, and editors whose minds have been made up and are reluctant to change them. Unless immediate operational tasks are being blocked, major process changes are stalemated. (It could also be the case that there isn't a significant underlying issue, or an issue that can be addressed given other constraints of the English Wikipedia community, but that's dependent on the highly self-selected population of participants in these discussions.) isaacl (talk) 01:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Sure, consensus based decision making has its flaws. I think we should call RfA a pure vote because it already is one until it gets between 65-75%. You’ll have no arguments from me on that.

But there’s enough consistency and there have been enough informal proposals where if this is actually an issue of concern for the community, someone should propose a solution. As both you and Barkeep know, I’m a fan of the extended consensus building process over 6-18 months for major policy issues, and then just having RfCs to ratify what people already agree on. I think that if there’s actually consensus for change, we’d have reached it by now though. If there’s a problem, let’s have a solution. Discussing it without ever proposing solutions in a way the community can act on them or having a reasonable timeframe within which to propose them isn’t helpful. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:35, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree that generally there's no point in raising an issue repeatedly without trying to bring something new to the discussion. Again, the weakness of consensus is that if several people want to discuss something, there isn't much way to stop it, even if it's rehashing matters for the n-th time. Sometimes we're lucky and something new does pop up. And sometimes community opinions can shift over time enough to form a consensus, and we can only realize this with occasional check-ins. isaacl (talk) 02:00, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't mind people discussing things until consensus is established, but the end goal should be action or documenting that consensus. Like I think I've said on-wiki before, the way to change a major policy is to say your view over and over again for 12-18 months and then propose an RfC when enough people agree with you.

But that last part is key: at some point there should be a check of the community's consensus on matters that raise significant discussion over extended periods of time. We haven't had one on RfA since I've been involved actively on this project, but we keep having the discussion that its broken. If it is broken and it has been ~6 years since we've formally discussed how to fix it, let's give people the opportunity to propose solutions. I don't think continued discussion without a formal process for several more years will accomplish more than we've achieved since 2015. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I would suggest that the conversation has moved forward in appreciable and positive ways following LU's and Money's debriefings. I feel more confident that we're headed towards some consensus than I did a month ago. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

This is my idea, as an ex-admin. If an admin thinks that an editor would make a good admin, they ask a couple of other admins whether they agree. If they agree (and the editor agrees), the proposal is put up on a page for say two weeks for discussion. At the end of two weeks, the three decide whether the objections, if any, are strong enough to deny the appointment, otherwise the person is appointed. Stress discussion not voting. This might work. --Bduke (talk) 23:35, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I am going to take an unpopular opinion here. I think the RfA system is fine. It should be hard. If people ask loaded questions or give silly opposes then just trust that our 'crats are not stupid and know how to handle this. My first RfA was extremely negative and while I passed my second I certainly had some opposes. Certain people found those opposes to be frivolous or pointy, but I gained valuable criticism from them.

Any admin that actually does their job is going to be harassed, unfairly judged, and held to unobtainable standards. The current RfA system is an excellent microcosm of the job itself. An admin needs to be able to handle these things, and handle them with ease.

I am sure people will disagree but that is my point of view. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 23:39, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@HighInBC, your first RfA wasn't really reasonable. Your second RfA received 3 questions, a single reasonable oppose, no discussion, and no questions after the first two days. Exactly how hard was that for you? :D —valereee (talk) 12:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Did someone say "snark"? :) — Ched (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Guilty as charged. —valereee (talk) 01:07, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Simple proposal to reduce stress? Move the "questions" to the talk page, along with all discussion. No discussion on the vote page (this also means no rationales).

Simple proposal to make RfA better at the job of producing new admins? Reduce the promotion threshold.

Alternative proposal to produce more admins: Make it more like the ArbCom elections. Twice per year, hold elections and promote the 20 candidates with the highest support percentage, as long as it is above 50%. —Kusma (talk) 23:52, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I disagree. RfA is not supposed to be a vote. Discussion is crucial to the process. I think we should rather encourage people to discuss more. This constant accusation of badgering done whenever an oppose or support is challenged is in my opinion a problem. People should be willing and able to support their !vote, and if they do not then the 'crats should consider that when weighing it.

As for having a bunch of RfAs twice a year, I don't see what that would solve. Can you elaborate? HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 23:58, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

We lose admins every month. If we fill 40 slots per year with the best candidates, that is three times as many as currently. —Kusma (talk) 00:10, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the best candidates is a good enough standard. They need to have the support of the community. 50% is a very low bar. I also don't think we should judge someone's ability to be an admin by comparing them to who is running at the same time, but rather on individual merits. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 02:16, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

It works for arbcom. How do you suggest to improve numbers? —Kusma (talk) 05:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Arbcom is one thing, but being an admin is serious business. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 08:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

? ... as opposed to being an arbitrator? I don't quite understand the thrust of your input in this thread. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:36, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Again, HighinBC, you're saying discussion is essential, but your RfA had none that I can find. Why has discussion become essential since then? No big deal, right? —valereee (talk) 12:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

That was what 16 years ago? Things were different back then. I am talking about today. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 12:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Starting to wonder if I'm being trolled here lol...—valereee (talk) 13:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a hot take in that I have not thought about it for longer than it took to type up this comment. At the very least, these outlandish ideas might kickstart something sane.

1. Crats may grant adminship like admins may grant template editor access. The community creates some guideline criteria for granting, and trusts that everyone is sane. The risk of a rogue crat already exists, and this won't really increase that. We can tack on other stuff to build consensus and address concerns. Maybe the proposal comes with a desysop process for community oversight, or if enough editors challenge a crat's decision we have an old-fashioned RfA. Idk, I'm spitballing here.
2. In meatspace, organizations have nominating committees, and we have one too given the recurring names in nominator statements. Instead of a shadow council, we form a NomCom, seat it, and give it teeth. Off the top of my head, a process could look like this: anyone can throw a name at NomCom (secretly?) who looks into it and once a month (quarter?) they put out a short list of candidates. The short list might have some minimum number to incentivize bringing up edge cases. Maybe we vote on them, maybe we use idea 1 to have crats just flip their bit, maybe we ask Jimbo, there are lots of ways to do the next step.
3. Grant sysop rights like StackExchange does and like we grant the move button, AC, and extended confirmed. At some (very high) level of engagement an editor just gets access to the block delete and protect buttons. Just as an example, say that it's 20,000 edits over minimum two years with at least 100 edits across 8 namespaces. I literally made these numbers up, so don't take them too seriously. We could add in a similar oversight method as the first idea where controversial grants fall back to an RfA.

These sound insane because they probably are, but I think Tony makes a good point that we're spinning our wheels. The ideas we have either don't work or have been shot down so many times that positions are entrenched. We should think outside the box, and that means suggesting things that seem unthinkable. Don't get me wrong, calling the proposals half-baked is too generous, but hopefully it helps us get out of the intellectual rut we've found ourselves in. — Wug·a·po·des​ 03:05, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Respectively: could work, sure, probably no. In the spirit of spitballing: NomCom posts the candidates and the community gets a week/month/whatever to come up with concerns, after which three random crats (or NomCom) make a decision. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:40, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Given how many names in this list are currently indef'd, I think #3 would be an absolute disaster. – Joe (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: StackExchange has much finer tools to measure quality engagement than our edit count. We'd need to look at more than one number. —Kusma (talk) 09:32, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

What other numbers do we have? – Joe (talk) 09:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

We could collect some: speedies, AIV reports that were acted on, block log, you name it. I'm not saying that going by numbers is without problems, but it doesn't seem more insane than what we do right now. —Kusma (talk) 10:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I think there's a difference between real world scrutiny examples, like professors getting class evaluations, and RfA. I also don't think it's necessarily the case that getting feedback is hard. I don't think most people mind a reasonable tip left on their talk page, for example. If the point of RfA is to either provide feedback on editor improvement, or say "all OK" if there is nothing substantial, then I'm not sure it's the best process for the job. Even with feedback processes in the real world, there are dozens of different methods to do them, and some provide more actionable feedback than others. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:20, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I think both giving feedback constructively and receiving it positively are hard. The key word in your example is "reasonable": if the recipient disagrees with the reasonableness, or the feedback wasn't given in what the recipient feels to be a reasonable way, then they may react reflexively. As I've raised before, I don't think the current RfA process is efficiently structured, but I appreciate that it's what many people who like to discuss these matters want out of a discussion-based process. The libertarian roots of Wikipedia that dislikes hierarchy makes it tricky to have a gatekeeping group (be it the bureaucrats or a nominating committee), but maybe it can be structured in a way to overcome objections. (Perhaps it can be in addition to a community discussion-based approval method.) isaacl (talk) 14:03, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I think 1 or 2 could totally work. I like the idea of needing some opposition to be made before an RfA is required. —valereee (talk) 13:28, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Hm, I could see 3 working, too, per Kusma. I see all of these as potential alternatives to RfA. For someone who doesn't qualify for an alt sysopping, they could go the traditional route. I think we'd need to require that for anyone sysopped via an alt route, we have either a time limit (maybe a year?) or a desysopping process via the same group. That is, if a crat makes a sysop, a crat should be authorized to desysopp, etc. —valereee (talk) 16:42, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Just noting that WMF Legal has effectively vetoed any sort of automatic adminship: see, e.g.,

Extraordinary Writ (talk) 16:54, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

We could start from the "automatic" list and perform the minimal amount of scrutiny necessary to satisfy WMF Legal. —Kusma (talk) 17:04, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Based on what the WMF has said previously, there has to be a significant winnowing of the candidate list, as when content is removed due to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice, it has to be removed from public view. If administrative privileges are given out on a loose enough basis where large numbers of the editing population are able to see deleted article versions, then the site won't be compliant with the DMCA. isaacl (talk) 20:18, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I have added the crat granting against a PERM standard as a variant to the list of reforms I have collected. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:20, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

As I said on Discord: quantitative, 0/10. RfA is bad when it gets quantitative. RfA is bad when people look at "you need two years to be an admin" and take them seriously. RfA as PERM? PERM is a checklist. Hell, we should replace PERM with qualitative !votes. Vaticidalprophet 01:01, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• My quick take on RfA is that it forms only one part (albeit sometimes a very challenging part) of a much larger and more important journey from experienced editor to experienced administrator, and it's a journey where we probably are not being seen to be offering enough of a helping hand to those interested in undertaking it, or guiding and supporting them onwards on that journey once they've got it. So here are a few ideas:

1. Ensure the
   WP:ORFA
   process is maintained in a spirit of helpfulness and encouragement. Arrange follow-up discussion and encouragement of candidates after 6/12 months, as appropriate to show that the community is still interested and grateful for their interest in standing.
2. Create an obvious mentorship process for aspiring administrators (no need to tell me it's been done before; I see no issue about trying something along those lines again)
3. Make RfA !voting open only to extended confirmed editors. They are the ones with enough understanding of our processes to be able to judge 'admin' suitability; having newly auto-confirmed users chiming in on admin suitability doesn't seem that sensible to me. It's like giving under-age voters the vote; wait until they've gained enough life experience to make sensible decisions - hence the XC cut-off)
4. Have some form of RfA committee which can strike through inappropriate/irrelevant posts from questioners (would probably need a structured set of criteria of what is/isn't appropriate. TBANs to very troublesome/irksome !voters could occasionally be deployed if repeated inappropriate undermining of candidates was been seen to take place.
5. If weaknesses or concerns are identified in a candidate's background experience, a post-RfA system should be clearly present to support new admins, and help them move into new areas. (I, for one, feel there are many administrative areas I'm concerned about moving into through lack of experience, and there will come a time when I'm no longer seen as a new admin, so 'ought to know the ropes' when I clearly won't. Now, if I feel that and it doesn't bother me, that's fine. But maybe the fear of making mistakes once one does become an admin could itself put other people off from trying to run. Supporting them before, during and after RfA would seem to be the right way to treat our staff volunteer admins)
6. I had considered suggesting that we allow candidates who have doubts or concerns about their skillset to opt for, say, a 6-month trial adminship, under the watch of one of their nominating admins, with an ability to pullout and defer/re-run later. But I think that could possibly cause more harm and stress than it would do good. So I won't. But maybe a trial period, confirmed by an RfA committee for borderline CratChat decisions could be offered, much like we have when we take on new staff for probationary periods. Or maybe it would be far fairer to apply a 6 month - 1 year probationary period for 'every' successful candidate, confirmed (or discussed with the new admin) during and at the end of that time-period to identify any concerns/offer support and assistance.

These are clearly just quick thoughts (feel free to shoot me down), but felt I ought to put something down by way of a contribution before I head off for a week. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:47, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

The optional RfA candidate poll was initially designed as a quick checkpoint for candidates to get a feel for their chances at passing RfA. However that doesn't preclude it from acting as a potential entry point to a revived Wikipedia:Admin coaching initiative (or something similar). I think a post-RfA support system could be helpful: somewhere where administrators could provide advice to each other and potentially co-ordinate on workload distribution. Encouraging admins to try new areas would help make Wikipedia more resilient to admins leaving. isaacl (talk) 23:32, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

So I agree with ideas 1, 2, & 5 by @Nick Moyes:. I partially agree with ideas 3 & 4. Much like with the akin-post to youth voting, such a non-nuanced system inherently hits an appreciable number of people who would "know enough to vote". Idea 4, I could agree with the concept, but I'd want a limited scope of what was not permitted, with everything else being included. In the event it's not clear, it remains a question, with clarification to be done post the RfA. Those striking out questions can't participate in the RfA. I firmly disagree with idea 6 (both variants) - it would just make the process more arduous. If you wanted it to instead be a form of "admin feedback" where they'd look over concerns raised, without the chance of being (de facto) desysopped, then that could be possible. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:26, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I just saw this so still chewing on it, but my gut says these are great ideas Nick Moyes. I'll pick on @Nosebagbear: what would you think of a combo of my #1 and Nick's #5. Like my #1 crats can grant adminship like TPE, but like Nick's #5 the grant is temporary and requires a community discussion at expiry (if candidate wants to continue). As for the other parts, I think 1, 2, and 4 could work well together. I'd be interested in workshopping how we could move those forward. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:42, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: - I'd still be very firmly against it - as these individuals would still be admins without direct Community agreement and vetting, even if they wouldn't ultimately remain that way. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:50, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

• I would also disagree with all three ideas proposed by 'podes. 3 because I don't think you could craft a form that wouldn't exclude some useful souls who could reasonably apply as-is while simultaneously not including an appreciable number who shouldn't be. 1 because I want admins to have a direct Community link in their permissions process. Anything that reduces that is a no-go. 2, with additional criteria comes with likely additional negatives (not enough people apply, so edge cases get in, and the number of abrasive RfAs goes up, driving the pool down) and without things like that, are better off with the current flexibility of being able to arrange or not arrange flights of candidates as desired. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:32, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• I don't actually think there's anything wrong with the RfA process, even though it can be a harsh experience - we're vetting users for trust, and that can be a difficult process. I'd prefer the creation of an Optional RfA workshop where a couple volunteers help a candidate answer a few questions, check for any red flags, and make a recommendation for what experience might be needed in order to successfully run a RfA (similar to the admin coaching above, the comment of which I hadn't read before jumping in here.) I'm thinking something along the lines of a checklist than can be worked through. The Optional RfA candidate workshop doesn't give good enough feedback and might not expose any red flags. SportingFlyer T·C 09:44, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

It has been asked of me that I do a debrief of my RfA. I understand this sentiment, and think I now have some excellent advice to offer to potential candidates. I cannot at this time write a debrief, however, because my RfA has left me with knots in my stomach and quite hurt. The nicest things ever said about me were said in the Support column, but some of the worst things ever said about me were said in the General comments and on the talk page. It has been expressed to me by several people, supporters and opposers, that this RfA was "brutal" and a disaster. It certainly has been in the short-term for my emotional state. I have a lot to say, but at the moment, very little confidence in myself.

So, please, do not ask me for a debrief just yet. I need time to recover, reread the RfA, its talk, and the bloodbaths surrounding it, and to parse. If I do produce a debrief, it will likely be an essay. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 07:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

In my view, some of the nastiest comments came from those holding advanced permissions, including one who’s been asked to advise on the Universal Code of Conduct, which has a real risk of becoming Wikipedia’s Newspeak. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:29, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

One wonders who that might be. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 10:42, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I am so sorry :( No one should have to endure the sort of attacks that you did. ^{!ɘM γɿɘυϘ}⅃ϘƧ 11:58, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

In order to make sure we don't lose debriefings which aren't put on their own page (and thus can't be added to the category) I have started Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Debriefs. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:27, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

I added a link to it from Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship and Wikipedia:RFA reform, for future reference. isaacl (talk) 20:43, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Although I discovered Wikipedia around 2003 and started editing with an account in 2005, I didn't discover the "back end" of the site until 2011. I never particularly wanted to be an administrator; indeed in January 2012 I wrote I'd "no desire to be an Administrator and thinks good work here is done for the good of the community, rather than an attempt to brag about barnstars". I think part of that was a reaction to people getting barnstars for reverting vandalism and blocking sockpuppets, rather than doing lots of good writing, and I'd been a moderator on various internet forums since the mid 90s at that point anyway, and had been there, done that, and thought I was too old to go through it again. In the summer of 2012, having had lots of spare time on my hands (maybe I should have watched the Olympics), I got involved in "serious" writing and started working out exactly what was required to get an article to GA status, which led to more and more people noticing what I was doing.

By 2015, established editors were starting to enquire about adminship, and in March, I said, "What's stopping me from being an admin? Well, I have a few skellies (I believe I told an admin to fuck off once), a lot of my experiences aren't logged (it would be interested to capture AFD / CSD "saves" though) and I need extra work and responsibility like a hole in the head." I had a general sense that being an admin was kind of a "consolation prize" for not getting an article through FAC single-handedly (something which I still haven't done). I also had a strong sense of "being right over being popular" which occasionally upsets people, and said things like "I silently cheer from the sidelines when Wikipediocracy fires both barrels at an admin doing silly things." which isn't exactly the greatest thing you can say when looking at a potential adminship.

In the event, the RfA was pretty stress-free, I think partly because I wasn't particularly bothered if I got the tools or not, and I expected about 25-30 opposes like "civility is an important pillar and giving Eric Corbett a free pass is not acceptable" and only got a handful. What was far more stressful was the GA review of West Pier which by complete co-incidence ran for pretty much the same duration as the RfA, and featured some disruption from a long-term abuse case (cf. "There appears to be a sockpuppet persistently changing the lede, but that's not a serious issue, since the article can be semi-protected if the socking persists.", also see Talk:West Pier#Lead) which spilled over to the RfA. I wonder if my relatively calm and disinterested handling of that (I didn't answer Q15) is what gave confidence to people who were unsure whether I could do the job or not.

In summary, I wouldn't take anything from my RfA as best practice or advice, it's a bit of a wild card. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:31, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

• Rschen7754 was curiously prescient  :)
  Serial 10:44, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
• Wikipedia's more fun than the Olympics. I reread that RfA a couple days ago, and it's an interesting thought about the sheer unpredictability of RfA. There are RfAs derailed by opposes similar to the ones you and many other people pass with flying colours with. If I were insane, I'd try to calculate if this is a function of the RfA reforms and particularly watchlisting, which lets random people click directly into drama storms about strangers, but I'm not insane enough to try collect the stats for an era where RfAs ran several at a time; I'm also uncertain it's actually true, as you can just-so story exactly as well the other way (diluting the pool of people who hunt those things). (I had a general sense that being an admin was kind of a "consolation prize" for not getting an article through FAC single-handedly is darkly hilarious, and ties in with a lot you can say about the broader tendency of Wikipedia-as-community to sometimes forget it's an appendix to an encyclopedia.) Vaticidalprophet 11:37, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

There was a discussion a while ago about tweaking {{User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report}} to expand the abbreviations. It seemingly came to the conclusion that one way to resolve the issue would be to switch to using {{RFX report}}, and add the expanded abbreviations in there. I've made the relevant tweaks to a sandbox version of the module & template (with apologies to Trialpears for using their RfA in my testing, I do hope you won't mind!) - {{RFX_report/sandbox}}.

Thoughts? firefly ( t · c ) 13:12, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Using the <abbr> element is convenient for those who can hover over the headings. For those on devices that don't support hovering, and readers who have difficulty with fine motor control, it's still desirable to have a legend. (On an implementation note, rather than use frame:expandTemplate, I believe it would be more efficient to use the mw.html Lua API.) isaacl (talk) 16:46, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Isaacl, you're probably right about the implementation, I can change that easily enough. If we did add a key, where would it go, below the table I assume? firefly ( t · c ) 16:50, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

This being a short table, I think below it is fine. As previously discussed, it could be displayed only when an appropriate parameter is provided to the template, so users who have transcluded the template elsewhere won't see any difference. isaacl (talk) 16:55, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd support using {{Abbr}}. The fact it doesn't work on all devices is absolutely a problem, but we shouldn't run from it by avoiding using it in circumstances like this where it's perfectly suited; the future-facing thing to do is use it anyways, and then go politely-but-firmly tell the WMF developers that it'd be really really nice to resolve T130011. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:29, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Sure, no one has said not to use the <abbr> element. Providing alternate methods of displaying the information for a variety of different scenarios (screen readers being a third scenario) is a best practice for web content. isaacl (talk) 06:57, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Just FYI to all, I've swapped the CyberBot table here, on the WP:RFA header and at WP:BN to {{

At Special:PermanentLink/1031861313, editors GeneralNotability and User:Sdrqaz came to a conclusion that RfA candidates were "required" to disclose alternate accounts (if any) and whether or not they have edited for pay and that "both disclosures are required by our policies on administrators and on sockpuppetry". I find this to be an odd reading of these policies because clean starts exist and wp:clean start explicitly allows runs for adminship after a clean start. What is then the consensus policy when it comes to an unpopular editor taking up a clean start, passing RfA a few months later, and then publicly rehabilitating their old username, perhaps to the extent of requesting that the admin bit be flipped for the old username instead of the current one? 209.166.108.205 (talk) 03:44, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

IP editor, I believe the part about the "policy on sockpuppetry" is to ensure that

WP:ADMINSOCK is not being violated. I know of admins who were clean starts; generally they said something like "my past accounts have been disclosed to ArbCom and are no longer in use". GeneralNotability (talk) 03:56, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I had written what I did because of the section just above ADMINSOCK: "Deceptively seeking positions of community trust". I think in the scenario you describe, the administrator would come under significant pressure to resign and bureaucrats would probably refuse, as it is certainly against the spirit of that section and wouldn't even be a legitimate clean start, given that the old account is being revived. The clean start policy is inconsistently applied in my opinion: it requires old accounts to not have any sanctions active against it. A (successful) candidate a couple of years ago had been blocked as a vandal under another account. Assuming the block was indefinite, that administrator is technically a block-evading sockpuppet. In similar situations, accounts have been blocked and people told to appeal their blocks under their old accounts, even if they had forgotten the password. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you GeneralNotability and User:Sdrqaz. I had not previously thought about the point of view where the clean start would be less legitimate, rather than more legitimate, because of the eventual disclosure of the old account. Such a thing could happen, I suppose. 209.166.108.205 (talk) 11:24, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

I have started a 2021 RfA review and accompanying RfC to identify what issues, if any, there are with RfA. Interested editors are invited to participate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:40, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Should post this in other places.....just admins responding.--Moxy- 00:26, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

@

WP:VPR. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:02, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Best, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:09, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

It's a wee bit concerning how close a globally banned editor came to passing an RFA with Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Eostrix looking like it was going to pass with flying colors in a couple of days. Are admin candidates checkusered as a matter of due diligence or is that just not on the table here? nableezy - 03:41, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:54, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

The prohibitions against fishing are probably still plausible but I have wonder how much the checkuser tools have changed and/or been refined since 2008. MarnetteD|Talk 04:06, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

No, RfA candidates are not routinely checked "as a matter of due diligence". As Extraordinary Writ notes, all checks require reasons to suspect abusive use of multiple accounts. This was a special situation where for some time there had been reasonable suspicion based on private evidence that Eostrix was a possible sockpuppet of Icewhiz, but because of the complex manner in which Eostrix attempted to evade detection, the matter was not fully investigated until this RfA gave greater urgency to it. Mz7 (talk) 08:02, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

When I ran, IIRC I had to prove my identity by providing a scan of my passport to the WMF. Unsure if there were any checks made on the back of that, technical or otherwise... GiantSnowman 08:59, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

You almost certainly didn't,

in 2011, the last of the bumper years for the production of industrious admins before the intake halved and adminship went on to become less and less apealling. None of us had to. You are probably confusing the requirement with some functionary jobs. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:43, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Well I have definitely provided my passport to WMF for some purpose... GiantSnowman 20:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

I've never had to do anything like that, and in as far as I know the WMF and ArbCom have no idea who I actually am. Usually AFAIK that kind of personal check is only made for elevation to positions with more of a legal responsibility than simple adminship, such as ArbCom membership, CheckUser or Oversighting. Regarding the original question, according to the discussion following the banning of Eostrix, the Checkusers had decided there was insufficient evidence to link them with Icewhiz, so a check of that nature wouldn't actually have helped in this instance. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:21, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

At no point did I have to give information about myself for an RfA. There isn't much in the admin toolset that would really warrant you to be checked, and the only thing a CU would look for is socking. If we started to implement checks on users who want advanced roles, there is nothing preventing the limit from going down and down to less advanced roles, and then potentially doing it on a whim. We do really want some evidence of potential socking before reaching for the checkuser. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:05, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Just for the record, it did indeed used to be the case that you had to send in a photo ID to the WMF in order to access nonpublic user information like CheckUser data, but this is not the case anymore. The only requirement these days is a simple electronic form. Mz7 (talk) 06:04, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Eostrix was not checked with regards to the RfA, he was on the committee's radar and the RfA brought things to the forefront. Admin candidates are not CUd as a matter of due diligence, nor should they be. Worm^TT(talk) 10:22, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I dont really understand the nor should they be part of this. Once upon a time adminship was "no big deal", but, as a result of ArbCom decisions, an "uninvolved admin" wields enormous power in some of our most heated topic areas. Imagine Icewhiz having the ability to impose sanctions "at his discretion" in either of his chosen topic areas. I dont think that should be treated as "no big deal" and not worthy of some special care. nableezy - 12:28, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

CU is an invasion of privacy (a permanent one, actually, since the results of a check are seemingly stored forever). One generally shouldn't be required to consent to an invasion of privacy when offering to do more maintenance tasks for free (unless necessary for the role, e.g. working with kids). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:34, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Thats an interesting way of framing it, offering to do more maintenance tasks for free. I prefer attempting to gain the power to further influence the world's 13th most visited website. nableezy - 12:59, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

For every sockpuppet running because they want to further their influence, there are hundreds who do it presumably because they believe in the project. Deleting stale cats or blocking vandals hardly furthers ones influence. We shouldn't set policy on the basis of the former group, especially at the expense of the latter. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:02, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

For every hijacker boarding a plane to commit an act of terrorism, there are millions who board a plane to get from point a to point b. We shouldnt create laws on the basis of the former group, especially at the expense of the latter. nableezy - 13:32, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Running systematic checks on candidates is unlikely yield useful results as it is fairly straightforward to evade a blanket check like is proposed. One would be lucky to catch an alt for public connections in this way. Maxim_(talk) 12:40, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow your logic. If I want to volunteer at a local school to read to kids or mentor their robotics team for free, I have to consent to an invasion of privacy in the form of a background check. Same thing if I want to volunteer to assist with disaster relive or blood drives with the Red Cross for free, or if I want to volunteer with the Park Service to clear trails for free. Asking for an IP address check, which is WAY less invasive than the full background check run for other volunteering opportunities, before being put in a position of power on a website that gets a quarter of a billion pageviews per day seems perfectly reasonable. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:34, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, as I said: (unless necessary for the role, e.g. working with kids), which is kinda true for all of your examples except blood drives (which, locally for me anyway, do not include background checks). Most volunteering roles do not include background checks. On top of that, Wikipedia is a pseudonymous community, whereas most volunteer roles you do in your real name. People expect a higher level of privacy here, as generally the only information available about you is what you give out yourself. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:27, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

As noted below, every voter in the ArbCom election has their CU information shared to at least three people. We already CU people without any suspicion of socking. And those people are just voting for who holds more power, not actually becoming people who hold more power. nableezy - 15:43, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

And there aren't kids on Wikipedia? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:40, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Checkuser as a tool should be used only when there is suspicion of misbehaviour, not proactively. As much I disagree with Proc on the "stored forever" point, they are Proc is right that it is an invasion of privacy. The use of checkuser must stay within the Privacy policy, as well as within our ethical and moral frameworks, all of which push for it to be used as little as possible. Proactive "fishing" checks are absolutely the wrong way to go forward. Worm^TT(talk) 12:55, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

That may well be true, but the effort to do so may deter some, the information on evasion may also be useful (wouldnt the voters like to know if a potential admin is editing through anonymizing proxies?_. That the best security we have doesnt provide complete security shouldnt deter us from trying to provide some, should it? Or try to come up with a way to provide more? nableezy - 12:58, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

wouldnt the voters like to know if a potential admin is editing through anonymizing proxies? Unless the candidate is IP block exempt, they aren't likely to be editing through anonymizing proxies. —Kusma (talk) 13:01, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Kusma Depends on your definition of 'editing through anonymizing proxies'. Did I "edit through an anonymizing proxy" if I used the wifi on a train, where someone else was detected using a P2P proxy? SQL^{Query Me!} 13:07, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned Let's be honest with ourselves here. At least a part of a checkuser request is for sure 'stored forever' as things stand right now via the checkuser log. The UA is not. The IP is generally speaking trivial to tie to the account for which it was run. SQL^{Query Me!} 13:00, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Point taken, hadn't considered that aspect. Worm^TT(talk) 13:49, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I said it at ACN, and I will say it here: I completely oppose this proposal as a kneejerk overreaction and I think it is more likely to do harm (false sense of security) than good (actually ferreting out an LTA). This will just be security theater. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:17, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I won't say how per

I won't say how, per my obligations of confidentiality as an arb, but if this had been policy (and to be clear the we'd have to war with the foundation as this policy would be in violation of the Global policy on CU) it on its own would not have helped us in this situation. As noted by Beeblebrox this had been on a radar for quite some time, although it obviously acquired a sense of urgency when the account ran for adminship. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

If it weren't easy to evade for those devious enough I would support this – I'm sure this would be quite a reasonable exception to NOTFISHING – but as said above this wouldn't work, and this seems to be only a once-in-a-decade-and-a-half occurrence anyway.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:41, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

• I'd also note that this idea may not be compatible with the global policy on use of Checkuser. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
• I'm very far from an expert on how CU works, but here's my perspective from the CU comments that I have read, via an analogy. It is my understanding that in some crime investigations involving DNA evidence, you might have enough DNA that there's only a 1 in 10,000 chance that someone would share that same DNA information, but no better chance (with more DNA, you can be overwhelmingly sure no-one on the planet shares the same information). A crime database might hold a million people on it, so you can't search it speculatively: there'll be too many false positives (about 100), and in the case of a true positive you still have insufficient evidence to take action. However, you can use this database if you first consult other forms of evidence and have a specific suspect in mind (there's only a 1 in 10,000 chance of a false positive). Here, a speculative CU seems of no use: it'll produce a very random set of suspect users, and even if that set includes the actual sockmaster it's still not enough evidence to block. What you can do is use CU when you have suspicions of a current RFA candidate being controlled by a specific sockmaster. It seems that that is literally what happened here. As one last point: the analogy with DNA evidences is actually overly favourable to the suggestion, as it seems CU is much easier to deliberately evade. — Bilorv (talk) 17:10, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

  This is a great analogy and a good way to conceptualize the bayesian process by which non-obvious adjudication occurs. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 17:16, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

  An excellent analogy, which I had intended to use myself, but thought it was more important to focus on the privacy aspect! Worm^TT(talk) 08:02, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• Missed this and not familiar with the CU data, but CUing people who have any chance at RfA isn't useful in the overwhelming majority of circumstances unless they have active socks running. The policy arguments here are circular—the community is in charge of the CU policy to some extent and the CU data of every voter in an ArbCom election is revealed to three stewards. It's hard to imagine there'd be an office action banning this if the global community decided it was warranted since the equivalent is revealed for thousands of people each year in an election. We could very likely change the policy to allow this if we wanted (subject to the privacy policy and any number of other asterisks which add to the reasons why it isn't a great idea.)
  It's a bad idea though. We don't need any more Alex Shih's — gatekeepers who think that they are right to the point where they are willing to abuse the trust the community has placed in them. Involving CU as a matter of course with something as political as RfA invites that. Yes, there are cases when it is okay to CU someone in an RfA. But CUing the candidate as a matter of course invites abuse. TonyBallioni (talk) 07:19, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
• I was initially in support of the idea of a routine CU for anyone standing for RfA but, having read all the above, I've changed my mind. Nevertheless, I assume we could expect to see Icewhiz/Eostrix coming back to try again in a year or two to hoodwink two different nominators, and maybe next time garnering more than 123 RfA 'support' votes, before finally being uncovered. Personally, I feel the responsibility to protect Wikipedia from bad faith actors wanting to lie and insinuate themselves as administrators for life could, in future, merit some additional check on anyone standing at RfA. Maybe that time isn't here right now, but we should always keep an open mind on how best to protect this encyclopaedia from those wanting to manipulate it to their ends, and for the actions we take to be commensurate with the threats. Nick Moyes (talk) 09:47, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
• The 1,000s of voters at ACE get systematically CU'd. How is that compatible with the global policy on use of Checkuser? It doesn't discourage them from voting. I see it coming as a certainty, maybe not right now but in the foreseeable future, when RfA candidates will have to submit to CU. If they've got nothing to hide, it won't bother them, will it? It looks to me as if Eostrix was lying through his back teeth with his 'I have not registered any additional accounts on Wikipedia', and at least Arbcom seems to think so. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

I think RfAs that get minimal participation before being withdrawn/closed (as in the case of clearly non-suitable RfAs) should be deletable upon request of the candidate. We certainly shouldn't just delete them without that, nor for RfAs that simply fail. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:45, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

“Admin abuse”? I didn’t write that. I wrote “G6 abuse”. I could write: “arbitrary excercise of the privileged admins to slap down an upstart who dares to think he is worthy”. It’s a power perspective thing. The slapped down user doesn’t even have access to the records of what happened.

If it should be deleted, there are other CSD criteria or mfd. To put it back into the user’s hands, userfy it for them, where they can CSD#U1 it even if they can’t G7 it.

If a special CSD criterion needs to apply (note

WP:NEWCSD), then the documentation belongs at WP:CSD. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:58, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The other option, in the case of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Harimua Thailand, would be to revert HJ Mitchell as an out-of-process action and run the RfA as requested by the candidate. I did this at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Chongkian, which was withdrawn 24 hours later on 2 support, 8 oppose, 4 neutral. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:20, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

• I see no harm and only benefit from leaving these in place. My first RfA was snow closed as too soon, and it was referenced extensively in my second successful RfA. If it was poorly transcluded or immediately closed and as a result had no participation then fine. But it does nobody any service to remove opinions gave in good faith by users at the time. Perhaps the wording RfAs that are closed before any !votes are cast may be deleted per such and such criteria.

Trying for RfA too soon can show an eagerness to serve or a lack of judgement. Either way it may be relevant for future RfAs, and the opinions given in a too soon RfA certainly are relevant. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 10:05, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

• @
  WP:Requests for adminiship and see a few instances of where this was used (but many more where it wasn't). My opinion is that being able to delete RfAs when the editor doesn't have a shot at even getting one support vote would probably be for the best. If the user decides to run legitimately down the line, the page can always be restored or discussed in a question. Anarchyte (talk) 10:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

  If the page is going to be restored if they run for an RfA down the line, what's the point in deleting the page? If they choose not to run again, keeping the page is not that big a deal. Sdrqaz (talk) 10:36, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

  The benefit is in avoiding the

  WP:BITE effect of the harsh oppose votes that often come with premature RfAs. We want to invite premature RfA candidates to continue contributing to the encyclopedia, and leaving public the comments of multiple editors vilifying the newcomer for offering to help administratively is much more counterproductive to that end than hiding the content. Mz7 (talk) 21:53, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

  I'm all for closing RfAs that won't succeed early. But deleting NOTNOW RfAs always struck me as more of an IAR thing rather than something truly covered by G6. If this custom is to be formalised into policy, I'd rather it were done so properly in an RfC at WT:CSD. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:17, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

  • I believe my comment covered the case where an RfA has no comments and closed immediately. Frankly I don't see what is gained by deleting and restoring the page later either. What is wrong with an accurate record of what happened? I doubt anyone would hold it against an experienced RfA candidate that they applied on their first week without knowing better. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 10:48, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Back to the original topic. I don't think for a second it has anything to do with admin abuse, not sure what that is about other than being a red herring. I do however agree that if it should fall under CSD then it should be defined on the CSD policy page not here. G6 makes no sense to me, that seems like a misuse of the criteria for a purpose it was never intended for. If the applicant wants it deleted and there were no significant contributions from other editors then G7 would apply. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 11:05, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

There was no “admin abuse”, it was “G6 abuse”, anthropomorphising the catchall CSD criterion G6. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:37, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Okay, fine. Then I don't think for a second it has anything to do with admin bullying, not sure what that is about other than being a red herring. Agree it is a misuse of G6. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 11:49, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Allowing any admin to call NOTNOW and G6 a user’s RfA page, which is what the clause did, hypothetically allows an admin to bully the upstart user. “Misuse” is a better word choice. SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:21, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Go ahead and think that. I disagree and it is not really relevant to the discussion at hand. I maintain that it is a distraction. If you haven't noticed while I disagree with your reasoning I agree with the end result. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 12:30, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

What happens if a user is nominated for an RFA and declines? Are those pages deleted under G6 or are they kept, with MfD the only option to get rid of them? A malformatted RFA which is never formally accepted like the recent one that sparked this discussion should probably be dealt with the same way. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 14:42, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

My recollection matches that of Anarchyte. I recall there being a discussion regarding new editors who volunteer for administrative work without understanding the community expectations for becoming an administrator, and that courtesy deletion to save the editors future embarrassment was desirable. At present I haven't formed a view on whether or not this warrants a speedy deletion, nor if or how this practice should be documented. (Note the edit in question left a sentence fragment, which should be removed as well if there is agreement to reverse the original change.) isaacl (talk) 15:26, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The triggering discussion for the original change appears to be Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 240 § An RFA to be deleted (deleted). I may have been thinking of another discussion regarding courtesy deletion, as this one didn't get into this aspect. isaacl (talk) 15:49, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

• The common practice for years now has been to delete obvious
  WP:NOTNOW RfAs as a courtesy to the candidate who applied prematurely. I disagree with the view that it creates an opportunity for "admin bullying": have we ever seen this in practice? The only times I've seen premature RfAs deleted is when it is already clear that an RfA has no chance of passing, and there are already multiple oppose votes excoriating the candidate for daring to apply for adminship with only a few months' tenure. Keeping the biting criticism of RfA up for all to see is much more of a "bullying" opportunity than the act of hiding it. Mz7 (talk) 21:53, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

  Deleting the RfA page due to excoriating comments? That’s side stepping the responsibility to respond to those who made excoriating comments. Are you really protecting the newcomer enthusiast, or those who make excoriating comments.

  Bullying? Have you ever seen bullying at RfA? Do you know what the effects of bullying look like? The bullied quietly go away. As do the bystanders. An admin G6-ing a page displaying excoriating comments made to an enthusiastic newcomer, what is the message to all involved? They were bullied, and this in charge quietly approved and hid all evidence. I put the bully enablers next to the bullies. Hiding evidence of bullying enables the bullying and so is part of the bullying.

  No, the answer is not to G6 the RfA. The answer is to chastise those who made comments that are an embarrassment to the community, and to give the enthusiastic newcomer the option of having their RfA deleted. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:22, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

  Mm, I think I wrote my original comment above too hastily, without fully considering the nuances of the situation here. For example, I would withdraw the idea that the presence of excoriating comments is only time I've seen premature RfAs deleted—you are absolutely correct that we should chastise those who bite newcomers harshly, but to clarify my view, there doesn't need to be this level of harshness to justify deleting a premature RfA. I think what I was trying to say was the general experience of failing RfA is a relatively mortifying one—harsh oppose votes obviously don't help, but I think the experience is still a bit mortifying to a newcomer even if all of the oppose votes are encouraging and sympathetic in tone. It's like failing a job interview: sure, the interviewer thanks you for your time, and the rejection letter wishes you luck for the future—but it often still hurts a bit.

  The hypothetical you've described here is a valid possibility, and as an response, I would agree that your suggested approach of offering deletion to the newcomer (as opposed to deleting without consulting with the user) is a reasonable adjustment to our practice and would help the newcomer move past the experience and continue contributing. I think where we might differ is that, if the candidate agrees to the deletion offer, I do not see it as inherently problematic if an administrator performs the deletion on an

  WP:IAR basis (i.e. outside of the usual CSD, including G6), but I wouldn't be opposed to some kind of RfC to ensure that the policies document our practices. Mz7 (talk) 20:27, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

• Most RfA that get nipped in the bud before the community even notices, are from users who don't have a clue what they are doing.
  ORCP should be taken into policy and made a mandatory process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:00, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
• I cannot see any benefits at all to ever deleting an RFA page other than at the request of the candidate. The only time G6 could apply would be if the page was unambiguously created in error - which can only be the case here if the creator says it was (and if G7 doesn't apply it shouldn't be deleted) or deleting redirects created when moving the page to fix a typo or similar. Thryduulf (talk) 10:53, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Following a discussion with over 100 editors, 8 issues were identified with Requests for Adminship (RfA). Phase 2 has begun and will use the following timeline:

• 10/24: Editors may submit proposals for changing/modifying RfA
• 10/31: The 30 day discussion period has begun (where we are)
• 11/7: Deadline for submitting proposals to give the community adequate time to discuss any proposals
• 11/30: 30 day discussion period ends

All interested editors are invited to participate in Phase 2. Thanks and best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:55, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

There was a recent change to Advice for RfA candidates that replaced four items with one labeled "Avoid responding to !votes." I have started a discussion on this edit. Feedback is welcome. isaacl (talk) 15:32, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Hatted. Primefac (talk) 16:39, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to launch an RFA at 0000GMT tomorrow. The (non-sockpuppet) person who creates the page for me gets to be the nominator. If nobody does it by then, I'll nominate myself. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:00, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

What is the intent of this exercise? Is there a concrete improvement to the RFA process that you think this strange “new precedent” would accomplish? Mz7 (talk) 04:28, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

If you know the results of an exercise before you start, you have no new results at all. We shall find out what the precedent is together. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:31, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

More seriously: the recent "RFA reform" RFC did nothing other than scare candidates away from RFA for 3 months. (Although, hopefully

WP:XRV will be nice.) This approach literally can not possibly do worse. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 04:32, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Aha. No matter how this goes (and I don't expect it to succeed if it is very unconventional) it should be an interesting gauge of the community.

Courtesy link. — J947 ‡ ^{message ⁓ edits} 05:10, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 2 now exists (though it possibly should be Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力停 or Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 (2)). I would recommend future applicants adjust the "or I will nominate myself in X hours" clause if they try this -- specifically, it should be an "I will accept any nominations for X hours" clause. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 05:20, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

• I think I am missing something here. How a random editor support to nominate a random candidate on such short notices? Is the nominator supposed to praise the candidate with garden-variety compliments (civil, polite, level headed, knows policy, and so on). Or is the candidate supposed to have a nomination handy to be sent by email to the nominator? In any case, why not simply go with self-nom? I'm not sure what's supposed to be achieved here. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 11:21, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support: I find the opposes unconvincing.
  Serial 15:38, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bureaucrat note: I have moved the page per the guidance for RFA (second run, add "2" etc) and changed the link in 力's 05:20 comment accordingly. Primefac (talk) 20:46, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

• Request Speedy Close The RFA is closed and talk about its nominations is moot. I have made a statement at
  WT:RFA" is permitted or forbidden has been superseded by other forums. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Now I'm back at a keyboard (Christmas RfAs, man...), it seems worth noting

If I have bucked tradition, then I have no issue with restoring the "status quo" of a hard reset on the counter. However, the question was brought up by the nominee, and is also specified in the RFA instructions (step 2 for self-noms, step 7 for nominating others) that subsequent runs should include the number as qualifier. In other words, I was following our written protocols in response to an indirect question about naming, and if these are no longer our protocols then they should be updated. Primefac (talk) 13:27, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't want to decide anything here, and was very happy that bureaucrats saw this thread and determined what they felt the correct application of policy is. Beyond that, I feel this topic is too trivial for me to have an opinion, but you should feel free to talk about me as an example your discussion. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:40, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the page definitely should not have been moved. Especially when it was just to create a redirect. The numbers are there because you can't have two pages at the same title, not to add a 2 just for show. Naleksuh (talk) 19:43, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

This had nothing to do with my oppose of the most recent nomination, but a valid point was otherwise brought up about this. That being, that if the alphabet or symbols of an English Wikipedia admin's name is not on the English keyboard, then in most cases, the admin cannot be pinged except via copy and paste, at best. And if a user has any issue with an admin whose name is not composed of the English keyboard letters, numbers or symbols, then a user cannot adequately open a talk thread about that admin - not at Arbcom, any of the notice boards, or general talk pages. And what that means, is that it would be difficult to hold an admin accountable for anything, if the average user cannot input their name. Perhaps it would be best to address this issue now, and have it in writing somewhere. — Maile (talk) 01:28, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

@

WT:ADMIN would be the venue to discuss that. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:37, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I'll take it there. — Maile (talk) 01:52, 28 December 2021 (UTC)