Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll/Archive 1

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:23, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

• Could this, just maybe, be the one RFA-related page where we don't have unreasonable expectations? I thought this was supposed to be a page that is quick and easy. If you expect them all to read an hour of material before even posting here, it's no longer quick and easy. Rank people on the merits, give a short encouraging comment, but don't demand that they read volumes of policy pages first, that defeats the whole purpose, and creates the exact hostile environment everyone is so worried about. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 13:01, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
• Also, let's be realistic - we're not gonna have all that many 8s and 9s, since very few editors are, since being an 8 or 9 means meeting these kinds of expectations. But having the 4-7 range could lead to future nominations that could succeed. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 13:12, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying that my sense of judgement or evaulation of candidates is any better than yours, Oiyarbepsy, but in my experience over the years, including emails from users, some editors in the, say, under 5 range, at least, are clearly hat collectors or have joined Wikipedia with the express purpose of becoming a sysop. Adminship should be the last thing anyone has in mind when beginning t edit the encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kudpung (talk • contribs) sign added by Jim Carter 15:27, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

They key word there is "some". And there are hat collectors in all ranges. Let's assume good faith. Just maybe there are editors who add their names who honestly just want to find out. Kind feedback and guidance sets them on the path of preparation. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:15, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, Anna, it's your project, and in the beginning I thought it was going to be worth my time to support. I know that you created it with the very best of intentions and indeed I also thought at the time that it was a very good idea. However, with now around 30 entries, it's looking more like a short-and-sweet replacement for the editor review system that was deprecated and that very few indeed of the users on the list have any chance or any genuine intentions of becoming admins. I'm old fashioned , and if I'm still around when some of them (5/10 or less) finally run for adminship, what they are doing here may not weigh in their favour - admins are expected to be people who can read and take advice as well as give it. My concern is to find admin candidates who can run now or in the immediate future, and anyone who is honest will know that under the current climate at RfA, it's very difficult to convince people to run. There are generally two kinds of RfA closures these days: passes with flying colours (100+ supports), and SNOW/NOTNOW, most of whom either end up with egg on their faces, or being subject to very unfriendly comments. Let's not forget that elections are still places where editors can make PA and be ruthlessly uncivil and vindictive with total impunity. It's all wrong of course, very wrong, but the community, for some reason, doesn't want to address it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:58, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung. I appreciate your review of this initiative. My responses:

...vast majority of editors who are being attracted to Optional RfA candidate poll are either not interested in being admins at all any time soon, or never will be, or are just looking for feedback on their work in maintenance areas. I consider these to be a waste of their and our time.

That is a bold statement, my friend. :) Out of 28, 4 or 5 get pretty good numbers plus Sparklism and BethNaught are both excellent and did not say "not anytime soon". For the "not anytime soon" potentials, this could get them thinking about it more seriously. As for SNOWS, feeback for such cases takes a 30-second review and a quick post. I contend that ORCP is useful by preventing a number of these from a SNOW RfA, a far greater waste of time.

To be of any use, Optional RfA candidate poll needs to be populated by editors who are in the 8/10 to 10/10 range...

I disagree. Some is fine and those may become admins. SNOWs on the list are fine too. Better here than RfA. The rest of your comment refers to, it seems, what happens in an actual RfA. You also mention in that paragraph that there is

WP:RRN

for a final evaluation/nomination. Good. They can do that too/instead/after. In fact, ORCP can help find nominators and further off-ORCP evaluation too.

...it's looking more like a short-and-sweet replacement for the editor review system that was deprecated...

If it is deprecated, they why not replace it? If some new sort of mentoring, in-depth review initiative is needed, why not create that as well?

...few indeed of the users on the list have any chance or any genuine intentions of becoming admins...

There is little evidence about "intentions". As for chance, that is fine. It matches the Aug, Sep, Oct actual RfAs in terms of how qualified they were when running.

I hear claims that "ORCP does not do this. ORCP does not do that.". I think this is either unsubstantiated or premature. I have also seen no refutations of the 11 points I made in the above collapsebox. To me, this is a case of pros vs. cons.

Here again, are the possible benefits:

• May prevents SNOWs
• May confirm viablity of actual RfA for those considering it
• May eliminate fear, a final obstacle for strong candidates
• May produce usertalk posts detailing what is still needed to be RfA worthy
• May prompt unqualified potentials to fill in the gaps and become qualified
• May prompt unqualified potentials to start reading up
• May match candidates with pre-RfA mentors
• May match nominators and candidates
• Gives a taste of the !voting experience
• May produce revealing statistics that spark new ideas
• May increase the ratio at "Latest XfAs table", a table which often has so few "successful"s which might be deterring people from running

This does not fix problems at RfA and is not designed to. It is mainly meant to get a toe into the cold water, to help produce a few admins that otherwise would not be, and to divert a bunch of SNOWs from the record of unsuccessfuls. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:48, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

All valid counter arguments. I always thought I had a lot to offer RfA issues. Obviously this is one area where I was wrong. I suppose I was just looking for reasons not to continue to comment on these users. You have provided them. I'll concentrate on my years-long campaign to get the actual RfA process cleaned up.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:57, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, my friend. You have a termendous amount to offer RfA, and you know that. You are free to participate or not at this poll. Cleaning up the RfA process needs you, of course.

I am not saying you are not wrong here. You just have different views. Maybe I'm wrong. And who can best tell of the worth of ORCP? The community, and time. Maybe this will be a mini admin factory, or maybe MfD fodder with every entry being SNOW DELETE - Get this abomination off the project, and fast! What was Anna thinking?? Ban! Ban! Ban! SNOW ban! The first SNOW ban ever! :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:14, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

It's no longer active, but I think there was at least one "snow ban" under different wording somewhere in the edit history of this deletion page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:23, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, OK,

WP:RFAADVICE page takes hours to read is not particularly encouraging. It only takes 20 minutes and 49 seconds. I consider that to be an absolute minimum time for anyone to invest in their quest for adminship before coming to this poll, especially as that advice already answers most of their questions if the readers are intelligent enough to do some honest self-evaluation. Edit stats are fine, but a great deal of success at RfA depends on how compelling the candidate can convince the community that they are capable of sound judgement. There are no metrics for that - only gut feeling, and the better they can do it, the less likely are they to be lambs for the slaughter. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk

) 05:50, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

FWIW Kudpung, I think your input here at ORCP is valuable too, since you're an excellent barometer for the pressures of RfA. And Anna, I've personally found this page to be very useful, and I agree with all of the points in your 'pro' column :) — sparklism ^hey! 08:26, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, — sparklism. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Kudpung: With all due respect to you and to any possible attempt at humor on your part (precisely 1249 seconds? really? What if I'm distracted 1182 seconds into reading OHLOOKASQIRREL oh drat where was I *checks time, 15 minutes have passed* oh yeah, what if I'm distracted 1182 seconds into reading it?), it may take most people with a good grasp of English well under 25 minutes to read and understand the page, but people with certain learning disabilities or attention disorders will need quite a bit longer to read and digest it. The same is true for people whose English-language comprehension is 1 or 2 steps below "native" on the {{babel}} scale. Some of those very same people may make good admins. In other words, I get your point - with rare exceptions most people who would have any chance at passing AFD will be able to read and digest that page in under 30 minutes, and the few remaining ones already know that it may take them much longer than average person to read and digest stuff like this and they won't be put off by a statement like "this page is written so almost all successful admin candidates will be able to read and understand it in under 25 minutes." I guess what I'm asking is that the phrase "20 minutes 49 seconds" be replaced with something softer, like "this page was designed so most people can read and understand it in less than half an hour." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:29, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

David, you're turning this into a discussion that really belongs on the talk page of that essay, but here goes:

• 18 words: "this page was designed so most people can read and understand it in less than half an hour." is better than 9 when 9 will do? Well, in fact 29 minutes is psychologically perceived as shorter than half an hour; based on the proven example that 99p sounds cheaper than a quid.
• In text, figures stand out among words.
• Figures, being a word image, are more quickly interpreted and analysed by the brain, are cross-lingual, and multilingual.
• Most people can retain their concentration long enough to read something for 30 minutes. For that essay, 20 minutes is roughly the average. Most academic readers and people used to having to absorb a lot of written information quickly will get through it in less without out resorting to scanning and missing anything vital. Many perfectly competent readers will take a bit longer.
• People with
  dislexia (actually the de.Wiki article
  is better), a cognitive disorder, not a problem with intelligence, will read somewhat slower still.
• Non-native speakers are the group of Wikipedia editors who may have the greatest difficulty in reading English. Relatively easy to learn to speak due to its simplified grammar and pronunciation compared to most Latin alphabet and Cyrillic languages, its lack of inflection and its (somewhat) unusual syntax make it harder to learn for reading for other than light recreational purposes.
• Possibly, not all non-native speakers of English will be able to adequately defend the role of admin. People from the regions of
  Romance language
  regions will find English more of a challenge and that is why we probably have fewer French, Italian, and Spanish natives among our admins.

To learn more about all this, you may wish to start here, which together with Applied Foreign Languages, was a major component of my field of study. I know you'll probably say I'm sounding patronising, but it wasn't my intention, and language and communication are what make me tick and are some of the reasons why I (sometimes) enjoy working on Wikipedia. Anyway, in deference to your suggestions, I've knocked the seconds off the time. My sincere apologies if I have bored you - or anyone else who has just waded through all this while watching the wildlife in their garden. It took you 2 minutes and 34 seconds to read - if you're an average reader. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:59, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Kudpung:, you make a good point about "gut feeling". Maybe responders here may not know or comment on that, but hopefully potential nominators can. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

David, I really don't understand what you are trying to do at Wikipedia:Advice for RfA candidates. Did you actually read what I posted above? IFirst you complain about my text, now you are trying to put people off reading it completely? Is that constructive? More to the point, are you trying to put me off contributing to Wikipedia? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:36, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Your undo of minor text changes, which I can only interpret as being a useful measure in making the "big ugly red heading" slightly more descriptive than prescriptive was a poor effort Kudpung. Tread more softly next time, please. FWIW I'd support removing the whole thing. Pedro :  Chat  23:46, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Kudpung: You were correct in your edit summary of the revert when you said I had not read your recent remarks when I changed the big red text near the top of WP:Advice for RfA candidates from "YOU" and "20 MINUTES" to "MOST PEOPLE" and "20-25 MINUTES." I won't object to changing it back for now (and, to be fair, my estimate of a 200wpm average adult reading speed may be on the low side - I've done some quickie-research since making that edit and "200-250wpm" may be closer to average, making "20 minutes" very realistic, but I would still prefer "20-25" to err on the side of caution). However, we need to discuss the best way to alert editors that reading that page won't take up much of their time and that they are expected to read it. I will let you do the honors of picking the place to do that (you suggested Wikipedia talk:Advice for RfA candidates above, but here is probably okay too). @Pedro: I am not offended by Kudpung's comment that you replied to, especially since his edit summary where he reverted my change clearly stated the reason for the revert: That there was information I had not yet seen (granted, he couldn't read my mind but the odds of me making that edit without also replying to his comments were so low that it was a near-sure-fire bet that his assumption was correct). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:12, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, we have Pedro suggesting now that the whole article should go. I don't care really - I have spent literally 1,000s of hours and $$ on Wikipdia, so the loss of a couple of hours work doesn't bother me so much as the crap that goes on at RfA and admins just sit back and allow it to be the one venue where they and other editors can be as disingenuous and hateful as they like with total impunity. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:21, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

@Pedro: can you clarify what you meant by "the whole thing" in your comment above dated 23:46, 27 November 2015 (UTC)? I'm hoping you just meant the big red sentenced above "The process of becoming an administrator is described....", not the whole essay. I for one want to keep the essay. I also think we need some kind of verbiage that gets the same point across that the big red text gets across, but I'm very open to what that wording should be and what font/color it should be. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:31, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Fairly obviously "the whole thing" is the "big ugly red heading" and not the entire article. @Kudpung: needs to let go of his hatred towards me, which is clearly clouding his ability to parse sentences. Pedro :  Chat  19:53, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Huh? I do recall that you supported my RfA but apart from that I can't recall our paths ever crossing until extremely recently. If you have a problem with me you are welcome to discuss it by email or on my talk page, but not here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I have a problem with you either deliberately misinterpreting my comments or not been able to parse that I was clearly referring to the red box and not the article, yes. And I think we all know where this stems from, but perhaps *you* would prefer to enlighten the peanut gallery. Pedro :  Chat  20:31, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I've not been watching this page particularly closely so I wasn't quite sure how to go about this, but I've closed a poll here. Is there an archive page for this? Or should it be removed completely after a period of time? — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 16:38, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

• (not addressing this specifically at you Bilorv) You know, when the optional RfA poll page came up, I thought it looked great. Lightweight, easy to understand, no fuss no muss. Looked great. But already it's getting the trappings of bureaucracy built into it. Now we have two toolboxes for every pollee. Soon we'll have archiving of requests, and some kind of indexing system so people can see if a candidate has done this before or not. Onwards and onwards the bureaucracy will creep, and soon we'll have another system just like RfA. <sigh> --Hammersoft (talk) 16:49, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
  • I suggest removing posts when they're finished; this process should be kept simple and it's more for the candidates than us. There's no reason to keep them around. I removed the archived poll just now. — Earwig ^talk 17:56, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

    I also agree that polls should be deleted when they're finished, as the process is supposed to be lightweight. People can always look through the history if they're looking for a specific poll.

    talk!

    ) 18:48, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

My only concern here is how to we determine when a poll is "finished"?... The obvious answer is when a candidate here files a candidacy for RfA. Another justification for a poll removal is for clear "Not Now" cases (though I'm not sure the one that was removed actually qualifies as a "Not Now", considering they were asking effectively "What are my RfA chances in one year's time?" (emphasis mine) ). I suggest that we establish some "ground rules" for this process:

1. Polls should run for a specific length of time. I would suggest at least one week, but I think two weeks would be better.
2. If a poll candidate files their RfA in the middle of the polling process here, their poll should be immediately removed from this page.
3. Questions about "future" RfA suitability should not be allowed – all polls must be answering the basic question "What are my chances if I ran in an RfA right now?" (Thus, any poll about "future RfA suitability" should be immediately removed from the page.)
4. "
   WP:NOTNOW
   " poll candidates can have their polls removed before the specified poll length runs its course, but whoever removes such a poll should be required to leave a message on that user's Talk page explaining why their poll was removed.

I think these basic "ground rules" should work to "regularize" this process. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:02, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

My views in numbered point form for ease of responding:

• 1. I agree with Hammersoft that this page should be kept lightweight and bureaucracy creep should be avoided.

• 2. The comments are getting longer and longer. It should not appear like an RfA. Can we say "x words or less" or something? Some rule here might be important.

• 3. I think archiving is important. As I said below, "...This poll page might change RfA figures one day in terms of how many run, or the successful/unsuccessful ratio, etc. An archive of entries might be useful for stats....".

• 4. I don't agree about a length of time. Rules need reasons. Why not just archive when activity stops. It may take time for others to dig before weighing in, which is encouraged.

• 5. I agree that if a candidate files an RfA during, immediately archive.

• 6. Asking about future RfA suitability should be allowed. Why not? Rules need reasons.

• 7. The same individual can add their name periodically. Why not?

• 8. NOTNOWs should only not be archived unless the person wishes so. Pile-ons should be avoided out of courtesy. NOTNOWs help others see if they are also a NOTNOW and could help curb NOTNOWs.

• 9. Keep it simple. Keep it open. Avoid rules whenever possible.

I started the thread below without seeing this. Feel free to discuss or delete the archive.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:10, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

• 10. I'm not sure about that unconventional archive section at the bottom. It unduly publicizes past items. A conventional archive system and link seems the right way. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:16, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

  I agree that a conventional archive system is better but your privacy issue is so urgent that I temporarily put that section in a "hidden" block pending the results of this discussion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:53, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

  I agree with just doing it like every other discussion page: place each discussion under a second-level heading, and configure a bot to do the archiving. isaacl (talk) 06:39, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I like that. If the bot is set to arch anything over a few weeks or something, there's no fuss about being too early or late. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 07:56, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

OK, if there are no further comments, I can set up the archiving. isaacl (talk) 04:32, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

• @Isaacl:How do you intend on setting up archiving? One of the bots? Are we gonna catalog the archives by user (as we have so far?) Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:50, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Yes, as I mentioned, using a bot, just like most talk pages. The bot will move sections below second-level headings to an archive page once no comments have been added for a period of time. Sections intended to stay permanently will be flagged so the bot won't archive them. isaacl (talk) 05:46, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

If there's no objection, I'd like to try and set up Lowercase sigmabot III auto-archiving of the poll page by this weekend. I'll probably set the archiving time to 30 days to be safe, though we can set it to 15 days if there's consensus for that. Thoughts? --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:08, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I've been waiting for any further comments. If you'd prefer to set it up rather than me, though, that's fine; otherwise, I can do it later today. (Personally, my preferred archiving bot is ClueBot III.) isaacl (talk) 17:31, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

@Isaacl: I say go for it. (On my end, I wasn't even sure if Lowercase sigmabot III would work on a non-Talk page anyway...). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:44, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good IJBall and isaacl. Sure. Go ahead. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:39, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I've set up archiving. I changed the format of the page a bit so all polls are under level-2 headings. In theory the archiving bot can archive level-3 headings, but I thought it would be simplest to just use its default behaviour, to make it easier for anyone who comes later and tries to understand how the archiving is done. ClueBot III maintains a master index of all archived threads, so once it has run once to create the index, I will remove the "Archives" section at the end. isaacl (talk) 01:34, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

An editor disabled the generation of a master index. Is there a general consensus to forgo a master index? isaacl (talk) 03:13, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

talk!

) 04:07, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right: some how I got confused as to how the index generation is done. Thanks! isaacl (talk) 04:24, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Is the archiving working?

Is the archiving working properly? – By my count, the Yash! thread should already have been archived (as it's >30 days old...). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:45, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

• Cluebot archives based on page history, and not based on signatures. For a while, there were a lot of people messing around with heading and section format and the like, which would put page history on those sections even if there were no comments at the time. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 22:37, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
• I manually archived Yash's discussion. BTW, don't use OneClickArchiver on the page, since it puts the archive at the wrong page. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 22:59, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I've archived more of it recently and shrunk the number of days where it would archive. Vincent60030 (talk) 07:16, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

I made a

APerson, does it sign and timestamp the rating, as the archiving bot relies on this? isaacl (talk) 03:02, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

talk!

) 19:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! isaacl (talk) 19:38, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

It is good and helpful

APerson, although it might need to have clearer instructions. Anna Frodesiak (talk

) 11:36, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

talk!

) 14:04, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I also set it to keep a minimum of 5 threads so this talk page won't "shrink to nothing" if we go 3 months without discussion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:42, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

91 days seems a bit too long; I'd prefer 30 days, because it doesn't seem like any one of these polls is still drawing comments after that time.

talk!

) 01:54, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

91 days is for this talk page. The project page, where the polls are, already archives every 720 hours (30 days). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:01, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh, whoops. Nevermind, then.

talk!

) 15:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I would say 90 days is too long. I would set it to 45 ok? ;) Vincent60030 (talk) 11:56, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

I have been posting at various high-traffic wikiprojects to draw attention to this polling page. My intention is to put the idea of adminship into the thoughts of editors who never think of RfA but may have the right stuff. Is this sort of advertising appropriate? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:49, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I think it's fine. Have you submitted a story for The Signpost? It seems like the kind of thing they'd be interested in. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:15, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Agreed that the Signpost would be a good place to advertise this page.

talk!

) 14:05, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

A noble suggestion but ... editors who never think of RfA but may have the right stuff may just increase the number of the type of the majority of users of the system so far, which mught be providing them with feedback but is hardly relevant at all to their future plans for adminship. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:12, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

You may have a point there Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, although I am not 100% clear on what you mean. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:08, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

What it basically means is that advertising it may simply attract more of the wrong kind of users to the Optional RfA candidate poll . 'Wrong' in the sense of my interpretation that people should not join Wikipedia with a primary objective of undertaking maintenance tasks or becoming admins. Nor should anyone who is very new or who has a very low edit count be even contemplating adminship for a long while. While I support your project here, I do kind of find that it is nonsense to be giving advice to editors who won't be ready for adminship for a very long time, and that's why I believe they should read all the other other advice pages first - after all, admins should know how to give and take advice and read instructions. Sorry if my ideology sounds old-fashioned, but I work on a basis of calculating a net benefit for my engagement. Also, while I am heavily engaged in locating suitable candidates for adminship and addressing the reasons why they are reluctant to come forward, I don't encourage those who are not ready. I get more emails a week from prospective admin candidates than this project does; possibly because I figure

this essay and many others like it, some won't take a polite and helpful 'no' for an answer, and shop around every available corner hoping for a more positive opinion. MelanieN and Ritchie333 can tell you more, and will even tell you if they think I'm on the wrong track - I don't mind. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk

) 07:58, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello Kudpung กุดผึ้ง. :) I understand now. But there must be ordinary editors who work lots of areas and never had the notion of an RfA suggested to them. Sure it attracts the unqualified too, but they too could work to someday become good candidates. This poll could plant the seed, like astronauts who give talks at schools. They plant the seed for some students. Years later, students become astronauts and find themselves tumbling end over end in space cursing that astronaut until their air runs out.

Plus, although it is too early to tell, this poll could be diverting SNOWS from RfAs. Instead of being rejected and defeated, they may instead be reading up and working the right areas for an eventual, successful RfA. No matter what, it draws everyone to the essential reading, and that cannot be bad.

But I am the wrong person to defend this poll. I am subjective. I should stay out of the business of commenting on its worth. Others should share their views instead of me. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:01, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Anna, it's your projecr and it's a good project and that's why I'm concerned for it, otherwise I wouldn't be commenting here. I just don't want to see it being abused by people who are wasting their own and our time. SNOW and NOTNOW closures are almost a thing of the past already - a graph I asked Opabinia to make demonstrated that they have decreased in exactly the same proportions as all RfAs. Sowing seeds i sound like a good idea, but actively preparing people for adminship has been demonstrated not to be such a good idea and that's why the admin mentoring and the editor review programmes have been deprecated. I'm sure some people will disagree, but I think a 'Roll up, roll up! Get your free adminship evaluation here!' message in Signpost is going to make for a lot more unnecessary work. I may be wrong of course. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:10, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree that a simple blurb in the Signpost may not be the most effective approach. I suggest finding an admin who can be persuaded to write a "Day in the life of" article that can also cover some advice to help editors understand if they may be ready to take on adminship duties. The article can then point to the poll as one way to get some quick feedback. The article could be written by a non-admin, but I think an account of how the role works in practice would be very useful to get some editors to realize that it's an administrative job, not a badge of seniority or recognition. isaacl (talk) 15:41, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung กุดผึ้ง. You do make good sense. Broad advertising in the Signpost may not be best from the "roll up..." point of view. But, rating newcomers with no chance is a sinch. A click on edit count and AfD !votes takes a second. And, I suspect raters at this page don't see rating as a chore or work. In fact, lets ask.... :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Is rating candidates at this page a chore? Work? Easy? Annoying? A pleasure? Maddening? Please say. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I, personally, like it a lot. It isn't a chore at all, especially with (shameless plug alert) the

talk!

) 01:46, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• Nothing I do on Wikipedia is a chore. Volunteers for anything don't do chores, otherwise they wouldn't volunteer. Volunteer work always is a hobby or comes from a sense of social necessity. I have neutral emotions to the work I do on this or any page; as as one of the longest and loudest campaigners for better admins and a serious improvement of the electoral process, I feel moraly compelled to offer my ratings whether I think the page is on the right track or not. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

  (off-topic) I do "chores" at Wikipedia, but they almost always fall under the "sense of social necessity" category. That doesn't make them any less of a chore though. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:26, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Could we add some language for potential candidates to link previous RFAs they've undergone (if any) and add in a spot for them to list them when creating a new entry? Mkdw^talk 20:03, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

• It's already there. If they exist, a link to them will be present. See implementation of {{User-orcp}}. Example found at #Armbrust. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:10, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

• Yeah I've seen it in the template there, but it's fairly obscure. I think it should be more prominent like it is at RFA. Just a suggestion as it would help the reviewers. Mkdw^talk 20:47, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

• I think that's a fair critique. I've changed the wording at {{User-orcp}} from "RfAs" to "previous RfAs" to make that last link stand out a little more. But something more may be in order here... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:46, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• @IJBall: It might be nice for the template to display "no prior RfAs" if there are none. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• I don't think I know how to do that... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:36, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• I added the response if there are no prior RfAs. More information on #ifexist is at mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:51, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Can I just chime in to say - this poll is a really great idea! We should hopefully soon have our first (?) poll candidate who responded to their rating (plus a large amount of pestering!) and passed RfA -- samtar ^whisper 09:47, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Hurrah! :) — sparklism ^hey! 10:11, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi again all, just for the sake of transparency I'm doing a very small sample size survey over here - as they're free text questions, I'll have to analyse them and provide some results next month. The data should give an insight into the influence the poll has on candidates, and how they would improve the process. Any thoughts/objections, or suggestions for questions? -- samtar ^whisper 12:37, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I suggest waiting a month; it will be after the holidays and three months after the creation of this page, allowing for a bit more time to gain perspective. isaacl (talk) 13:48, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I've sent a couple out already, but I'll stop for now and take your advice -- samtar ^whisper 13:57, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I noted above how bureaucracy will continue to creep into this process, and soon we will have another RfA. This was supposed to be a lightweight process. But, it's beyond that now. I don't mean to call out any individual editor in this as several hands have found their way on to this overall process. But, a recent example of the bureaucracy creep is the addition of color coding to the archiving. We now have red/yellow/green coloring being applied to the archived polls. I don't know what the colors mean; I'm sure there will be instructions added for that shortly. We also now have aggregate "scores" being added to the closes, even with a standard deviation value on sample sets as small as 5! I get people like this process, and have enthusiasm for it. But what was wonderful about this process was that it was so lightweight. The enthusiasm to make it 'better' is crushing it. We must actively defend this process in the form that it was; lightweight. As is now, it is an additional RfA process. All it takes now is for people to begin opposing people at RfA for not running in this poll first, something which can easily be checked by looking at the archive. This will happen soon I spoke too soon; it's already happened; see question 4, where an archived poll is being linked and a question being asked about it. Soon, we will see an addition to {{RfA toolbox}} that will create a link of some kind to archived polls for the candidate. This will of course be seen as helpful. Jesus wept. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:26, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed, because I expected no one would alter an archive page, as per usual conventions in English Wikipedia. I suggest that the archive pages be left alone, and any analysis be done on a separate subpage. (Although I appreciate the desire to keep this a lightweight activity, of course everyone is free to decide for themselves how they'd like to invest their time.) I also don't see much need to formally close the polls; the point of setting up automatic archiving is so they'd essentially self-close after inactivity. The poll subjects, in my opinion, can interpret the results for themselves, without a need for a summary statement. isaacl (talk) 17:53, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Starting to see more activity on the talk page than actual pre-candidate guidance, which is a bit concerning.

talk

) 19:12, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• Well, maybe it's time to archive this to the archive of the archive archive, make sure we establish rules for when things can be archived via this method, ensure we have a procedure for color coding each subsection of the archive archive, some nifty templates to help guide in answering requests before we get to archiving to the archive archive, and under no circumstances ever let someone remove their questions. I jest, but I'm also dreadfully close to the truth. :/ --Hammersoft (talk) 19:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
• Personally, I don't see that. The number of comments added is definitely considerably higher on the poll page over say the last month, and I believe by number of words as well. Unfortunately, there isn't a good way to encourage people to invest less time in overhead that doesn't involve some discussion. isaacl (talk) 20:42, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• Hrm. Well, let's start a poll on whether the poll is more active or the talk page is more active ;) --Hammersoft (talk) 21:21, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• Isaacl's subpage suggestion may be a good idea. For right now, I'm noting who ends up running for RfA at the Archive page, because there's no other place to do that, but I can easily self-revert if someone wants to set up a subpage for that. But I definitely think it would be good for the ORCP project if we kept track of which poll participants run for RfA (and how they do over there...). In terms of the "average score data", I actually think keeping track of that might be a good project in its own right, but perhaps it should be kept in Userspace, perhaps at a subpage of Esquivalience's if he's interested in keeping track of that data (personally, I'd probably be interested in it too, even if no one else is...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 00:45, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Please feel free to set up a new sub page. Since it is conventional to not modify archive pages, I think it is better not to do so (and I have no desire to put archive pages on my watchlist). isaacl (talk) 18:46, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

• If Esquivalience doesn't beat me to it, I'll try to set one up. But I may not get to it before next week... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

(

talk!

) 19:34, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I think the instructions for participants are pretty clear. Like most discussions in English Wikipedia, for better or worse, people do what they want to do. isaacl (talk) 20:36, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, obviously I have ideas about this. I know that Anna F. had a specific vision for this, but I think a "rating" without much in the way of comments are not useful to candidates. And I'm going to want to say something when I rate. Yes, I know "please leave detailed feedback on the user's talk page", but personally I haven't "hit the limit" yet where what I want to say is long enough that it should be moved to a user's Talk page yet. I do try to keep comments short, but I'm generally finding that I can't say anything meaningful in less than about 3 sentences. Bottom line: The process needs to be both informative to candidates, as well as relatively easy for poll participants – the minute we start instituting "rules" that poll participants can't do "this or that" is the minute this starts becoming more like "homework" and will die off just as WP:Editor review did before it. Anyway, that's my $0.02... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 00:57, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Although (as can be seen from my comments in earlier discussions) I personally agree on emphasizing thoughtful comments over a score, most other participants have expressed a desire to keep comments minimal. (I believe they feel it's more like homework to have lengthy comments than not.) Thus for now, anyway, I don't see consensus favouring a change. isaacl (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Very good points, Hammersoft. I strongly suggest removing all that colouring and aggregate "scores" from the archives. People can see what they want to see in it, especially considering how inaccurate this all may be. As for the RfA Supdiop link, that is an odd case. I do not foresee problems with poll-related questions coming up in RfAs. I mean, so what if they didn't take a poll? As for rating plus a comment, I think that is fine. This poll should be kept optional, free to one's own interpretation, and lightweight, lightweight, lightweight. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:22, 16 December 2015 (UTC)