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== Odd patterns ==


The currently open RfA (]) has unanimous support votes (201/0/0 as of last check). I can observe that such unanimous supported RfAs are often for indviduals who have an ''exceptional'' track in copyright matters, if I remember correctly, since this area tends to be understaffed when it comes to admin capacity, as is the case with the subject of the RfA. Furthermore, for some reason, co nominations tend to be successful and self nominations tend to be unsuccessful (through means of withdrawal, ] e.g ], or ] e.g. ]). These are a few patterns that I could find at RfAs, but I do not see a reason for the latter (co noms better than self noms). ] (]) 20:34, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
<big>Current time: {{FULLDATE|type=wiki}}</big>
:All ill consider RfAs - i.e., someone ignoring all the guidance - are always self nominees. That alone would create a bias towards self nominations being less successful. The other reason is, perhaps, that !voters can't be bothered to review the track record of most candidates so for self noms will either tend to not !vote at all, or if they do !vote oppose, but will happily trust nominators and support. But without surveying !voters, who can say for sure. ] (]) 21:47, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

::I'd say that when the person is qualified and happens to self-nom, they tend to pass. Some relatively recent examples include me, Spicy, and 0xDeadbeef. ] ] 06:20, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

:Why, self-noms are "prima facie evidence of power hunger", of course! /j ] (]) 11:09, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
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:Let me put it differently: If a respected user nominated someone for RfA and that RfA ended as NOTNOW, it means that something went seriously wrong, most likely the nominator did not make proper research. Most nominators do, or at least attempt to do proper research, this is why NOTNOW RfAs tend to be self-nom. ] (]) 11:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

:Nominators also serve as coaches. They often tell the candidates if and when they should run or not run, and provide other very useful advice during the process, helping to avoid common missteps. A respected nominator can also provide a boost in supports, due to folks trusting the nominator. –] <small>(])</small> 17:37, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
== RfB standards ==

Disclaimers: I have no plans to run for anything, I'm not encouraging anyone else to run for anything, and if I did run for something, I would wait until I expected it to be drama-free. We've had exactly 2 promotions to crat in the last 8 months, and RfA has changed a lot in 8 months; has RfB changed? What are the expectations? I can think of 6 or 7 people who I think would make great crats and are likely to get support, but ] about the process might put them off from running. Looking over past successful nominations, it seems to me people are looking for roughly 18 months of admin-quality work (not necessarily as an admin), and roughly the edit count that you'd expect from that (not counting "quick" gains ... there's nothing wrong with quick gains and relatively mindless editing, we need it, but edits that involve taking responsibility for making things work and engaging people count a lot more). Is that about right? What specific skills are we looking for at RfB these days, other than what we're already looking for at RfA? - Dank (]) 16:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:] makes for some interesting reading. It seems the standards for RfB have become slightly less strict over the past several months. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 17:06, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:RfB is more of a popularity contest than RfA. At RfA many of the people who !vote for you don't know you. When you run for RfB, virtually everybody who votes knows you. Thus, it is less about "does he know the policies" and more about "do I like/trust" the guy. Some people have standards, but like all standards, those are subject to whom you are dealin with. The only general standard requirements are that you have to have been an admin for at least a year and have experience at all or most of the 'crat areas.---''']''' '']'' 17:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::I'd say the unwritten one-year rule is less-strictly enforced than it once was; for example, very few of the opposes at ] brought it up. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 17:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:::Adminship is just some extra buttons. All I'm interested in is when someone started acting like an admin. - Dank (]) 18:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
By the way, we definitely need more Bureaucrats, so some nominations would be nice. ] (]) 17:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:I know of two who have asked me for pre-rfb reviews... but both were thinking about the end of summer...---''']''' '']'' 17:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::I divide my time between disagreeing with consensus at RFA and disagreeing with consensus at CSD. As a politician, I'm an idiot. But one of these years, I'll probably settle down, stop making waves, and then I might run for something. - Dank (]) 17:26, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:::Cover? --] ] 17:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

:Could you elaborate on that Kingturtle? I've seen it written quite often that there is no great need. An insider's perspective could be quite instructive. Regards, ] 17:31, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::I believe that we've lost 4 crats since December, and only promoted 1.---''']''' '']'' 17:32, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:::Sounds good to me. Where's the problem? --] ] 17:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:::We've ] ]. :) –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 17:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know it's not an official rule, so I ask, has there ever been a successful promotion to bureaucrat on a user who was not an administrator? ] <sub>(] / ])</sub> 20:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:It is possible to do technically, as OverlordQ found out when a crat clicked the wrong button at his RFA, but no, no user who was not already an administrator has been directly promoted to bureaucrat. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 20:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:No - in the very, very early days the old crats were given the "extra bit" from a developer - they were already admins. There used to be a link to one such conversation on someones talk knocking around. Technically still possible to "go straight to 'crat - do not pass Go" but unlikely. <small><span style="border:1px solid #0000ff;padding:1px;">] : ] </span></small> 20:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:For a while there was a user who was a bureaucrat but not an administrator: ]. He was a developer, and as far as I know, gave himself bureaucrat right for some technical reason. That said, MBisanz is right, no user has ever been promoted to bureaucrat before being an administrator. --], ] 20:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::For the record, here are the RobH log entries . ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 20:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
*I'm also interested as to why Kingturtle states we need more 'crats. I was under the impression the crat backlog had diminished (specifically usernames though I know bot flagging has some hold ups at times)? I guess my fault for making assumptions - when a 'crat makes that kind of statement then surely we need to listen (note - not me - I'd fail RFA let alone RFB but I can think of some who might pass if the appetite is there)<small><span style="border:1px solid #0000ff;padding:1px;">] : ] </span></small> 20:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:I checked the numbers for kicks. RFB candidates currently have a better pass/fail ratio than we've had in five years. In the last twelve months (June '08 - May '09), RFBs have been 6 successful, 6 unsuccessful. The four twelve month periods before that were: 4-21, 2-17, 6-17, and 7-10, respectively. The only other time there has been a 50%+ pass ratio was the pre- 6/2004 period when the bureaucrat position was new. Does this mean that it has become easier to become a bureaucrat? And/or does it mean there have been fewer unqualified individuals submitting RFBs? I also note that it was once common for several editors to RFB in a single month, but there have not been 3+ RFBs in a calendar month in nearly a year and a half. My assessment is that the number of nominations has dropped dramatically. Can/should this be rectified? That seems debatable. ] (]) 21:31, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:*We could always use more 'crats, so the ones we have don't get burnt out (bureaucratship is an extention of adminship, and while not necessarily a challenging job, doing a ton of renames/bot flags over and over again can still wear away ones patience). I'll never buy the argument that we don't need any more 'crats - if somebody is qualified for the position then they should be allowed it, regardless of the circumstances not pertinent to the candidates themselves. Just as a side note; Pedro, I'm curious why you feel you lack the community's confidence should you ever run for bureaucratship. I can't speak for everybody, of course, but were I personally to see you applying for the position, I would support you as having the experience, aptitude, and knowledge to be an effective 'crat. You're one of the first people to come to mind when I think of editors who would be good for that role. ] (]) 21:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:::Generous indded, but "rude to the point of breaching CIVIL", "curt", "doesn't edit the main space even vaguely enough", "opinionated", "tempramental" and "process driven" would be six good arguments against me. Thank you for the kind words though! <small><span style="border:1px solid #0000ff;padding:1px;">] : ] </span></small> 21:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::I definitely see what you mean in those arguments. You aren't afraid to speak your mind and you call a spade a spade. Mainspace editing isn't exactly your biggest foray on Misplaced Pages, process is. People like you are pivotal to the functioning of Misplaced Pages, regardless of what anybody thinks of policy-focused admins. ] (]) 21:57, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:My personal take is that RFB is often seen as "hat collecting" - I seem to recall that one major wikipedia (.es ?) has all admins as crats anyway - probably unworkable here I guess. I think the issue is that ''some'' members of the community view crats as "above" admins on the basis that admins are "above" editors. Pretty distasteful, IMHO, but it is what it is. Many admins close contentious AFD's and are expected to divine consensus - yet RFA is 97% pressing a button. Bot flagging is based on technical advice and renaming / usurption simply following a process. Frankly the +crat flag is way less of a "big deal" than +sysop yet some people {{who}} seem to think it's a holy grail and accordingly set their standards very, very high. <small><span style="border:1px solid #0000ff;padding:1px;">] : ] </span></small> 21:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::Agreed. Bureaucratship is nothing more than a few extra buttons, so I've never understood the nearly unattainable standards that RfB candidates are held to. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 21:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::(ec) I agree with what you've said to a very large extent - I've always thought the +crat flag is seen by many as a badge certifying a very high level of clue. In fact it is (or ideally should be) an add-on to adminship for those who want to do extra work in the area. ] (]) 21:51, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:::You mean those stupid enough to put themselves through a week of abuse just to do more work... :) –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 22:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::Huh. Good point. :) ] (]) 02:56, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
:::::It perhaps isn't justified by the toolset, but Master&Expert does have it right I think - over time, the bureaucrat position has become something of a badge for particularly sensible, diplomatic, and clueful admins. Obviously there are plenty of admins that I greatly respect that have never, and maybe will never, run for crat - but without exception the crats we ''have'' promoted in the last few years are editors I wholly respect the judgment of. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing at all - we don't need all that many bureaucrats, and we may as well be picky about it. Unlike the administrator position (where, within reason, there are always enough backlogs to warrant promoting another one) there aren't that many crat jobs. Sure, we could probably use a few more right now, but I doubt the number required for optimal running is more than another five or so. ~ <font color="#228b22">]</font> <sup>]|]</sup> 10:46, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
::On the topic of being "above" others, the phrase that I consider most relevant to bureaucrats is ]. ] <span style="color: #999;">// ] // ] //</span> 21:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

===Arbitrary break 1===
::I have to agree that the promotion from admin to bureaucrat is considerably less significant than the promotion from normal user to admin - there's not much damage a bad bureaucrat could do that they couldn't already do as an admin, and if a user's trusted enough to use the admin tools, gaining the crat tools as well shouldn't be a seriously arduous achievement. The question, then, is: why do we set the bar for passing RFB so high? As far as I'm aware, it's ''90%'', compared to the mere 70%-ish that we require from prospective adminstrators (despite the fact that being a good bureaucrat is arguably easier than being a good admin). This, more than anything else, is probably the main reason so few people volunteer for RFB. I understand the logic behind the pass requirement for RFB being higher than it is for RFA, but does it need to be ''so much'' higher? Would reducing it to say, 80%, ''really'' bring about the end of Misplaced Pages, or would it simply gain us a few extra crats who otherwise might not have been willing to put themselves forward? ] (]) 03:02, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
:::Afterthought: at the very least, the pass requirement for RFB should be lowered for candidates who are already admins (i.e., pretty much all of them). I'm OK with it remaining at 90% for the hypothetical candidate going straight from ordinary user to bureaucrat. ] (]) 03:06, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
::::Why? --] ] 03:46, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
:::::Assuming you mean 'why am I suggesting this?': because I agree that we have had a lack of users running for bureaucrat, and I think the high level of support - unjustifiably high, in my view - required to pass at RFB might be part of the reason for that. I could be wrong; it could be that we could lower the pass boundary and still no one would put themselves forward. But in that case, no harm done. If it's true that we should have more bureaucrats, what's wrong with this proposal as a way of resolving the problem? ] (]) 19:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
::::::My question was why should the pass mark be lower for admins than non-admins. --] ] 22:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
:::::::Oh, the reason for that is simply that admins, having passed RFA, have already proved they are trusted by the community. I think that granting the bureaucrat tools to an admin is a considerably lesser step than granting them to a non-admin user. ] (]) 03:24, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

::::::::FYI, the passing standard for RfB is already 80%. ]] 23:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::::Um, correct me if I'm wrong, perhaps I somehow missed a huge discussion, but I am under the impression that the RFB standard is ~90%. There have been multiple 80%+ RFBs that have ended in no consensus and, if I'm not mistaken, a single sub-90% RFB to pass. ] (]) 23:17, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::::::You missed a huge discussion! See ]. A poll with ~160 participants, with about 75% supporting a lower bar than 90%. Seemingly most, but not all, bureaucrats interpreted that outcome to indicate that the bar for a passing RfB had been lowered. There were a number of discussions on other pages about this at the time, and at least one or two crat chats that dealt with it directly. ]] 13:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::::::Actually, I didn't miss that one, I commented in there that I thought the discretionary range should be moved from 85-90% to 80-85%. However, I didn't think any signifant lowering had actually occurred. The bottom of WP:RFA still states the window is 85-90%. But from what I gather on that talk page, which I hadn't read yet, bureaucrats may now be a little more lenient, if that is the right word, when/if an RFB is on the lower end of that scale. ] (]) 16:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

::The standard needs to be very high because 'crats must be trusted to do very unpopular things from time to time. ]] 03:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::::I see. No doubt you won't be surprised if I say that I think you're completely misguided in that view. As non-administrators never stand at RfB, and would stand no chance if they did, it's difficult to see your suggestion as anything other than a backdoor attempt to lower the RfB pass mark. Not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, just saying. --] ] 19:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Nod, taking a stance on a controversial AFD is one thing, but at the end of the day, most people won't really care. A controversial RfA is a completely different beast---you are talking real emotions and real people.---''']''' '']'' 06:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Still, admins are expected and tasked to make such decisions as well. A controversial RFA close might make feelings run high but the question we ask in that case is not whether people will agree with that close (if it's controversial, a high number of users will not no matter the result) but whether the crat manages to outline their reasoning in a way that both sides will agree to be acceptable. We task crats, like admins, to make their decisions in an unbiased and neutral way. In the end, crats should just be admins where the community has decided that they excel at making their decisions in such a way - not those who manage to make everyone happy (because noone can make everyone happy). Regards ''']]''' 19:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Yes, and some do a better job than others. Some get the admin bit and you loose confidence in their ability to put their personal emotions aside.---''']''' '']'' 19:30, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::Very true. But there are those where you don't loose the confidence and who continue to put their personal emotions aside. Most of them would make great crats and there are imho many such candidates but most are unwilling to stand, mostly because of aforementioned exaggerated standards and personality contest issues. Unfortunately, I cannot think of how to change these problems. Regards ''']]''' 19:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::RfB has become too much of an "IDONTLIKEIT" or "ILIKEIT" IMHO. It is too much of a popularity contest, and unfortunately with all of the little cliques on WP, most people don't want to engage in that.---''']''' '']'' 19:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::::Rather similar to RfA in that respect then. The only difference I see between RfA and RfB is that most successful RfA candidates haven't been around long enough to step on too many toes. --] ] 19:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
:(←) True. We have somehow turned crat status from the mere possibility of having 3 more buttons to some sort of wiki-demigod with requirements of being almost perfect in every way and well-liked by almost any influential group of editors (and many who oppose ] or similar weak "arguments" in RFAs will start using exactly those reasonings when !voting in a RFB). Now we find ourselves with a few crats on pedestals we created for them and wonder why noone is willing to run for that job. Even the most self-confident admins do not dare to try it as failing will tell them that they are "not worthy" of joining such "elite" ranks and as such, they will not even consider trying it, losing us scores of potentially great crats. We have noone to blame but ourselves yet we will continue using these standards on whoever is brave enough to subject themselves to such a "torture". Regards ''']]''' 13:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

*'''Oppose''' too many crats. --] (]) 19:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
**NOTE: I've started a pre-emptive RFC against Hammersoft... we don't need trolls like this around here </sarcasm>---''']''' '']'' 19:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
**Why do you think that there are too many bureaucrats? There are only 31 bureaucrats on this wiki, whereas, on the Spanish Misplaced Pages, which is 6 times smaller, there are 131 bureaucrats. '''<font face="verdana">]</font>''' 19:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
***Difficult to imagine how they all manage to keep themselves occupied. Perhaps it's handed out as a long-service award on Spanish wikipedia? --] ] 19:34, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
****I guess they are just following the idea that all admins should be crats. I'm happy for them if it really works for them but unfortunately I cannot imagine this to work here. Regards ''']]''' 19:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
*****Yes, on eswiki, RfAs last for 15 days, and if they succeed, a user is promoted to administrator and bureaucrat (see ). Although this probably wouldn't work here, I don't see why it should be so difficult for RfBs to succeed. '''<font face="verdana">]</font>''' 20:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
*****Can't imagine it working anywhere, not unless you believe that all administrators are the paragons of all the virtues. Which, needless to say, I don't. --] ] 19:57, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
******Yeah, I know plenty of excellent admins whom I would most likely trust with the bureaucrat tools. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 20:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
*******And none you wouldn't? --] ] 20:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
********If a user cannot be trusted with bureaucrat tools, why should they be trusted with administrator tools? '''<font face="verdana">]</font>''' 20:27, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
*********Good question. Do you have an equally good answer? --] ] 20:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
**********In my opinion, it is odd to allow someone to give a flag to others, when they do not hold said flag themselves. It makes no sense. ]]] 20:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
***********I'm not sure what you mean. Which flag are you talking about? '''<font face="verdana">]</font>''' 20:57, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
<-- I'm talking about passing RfB without passing RfA. ]]] 20:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
*I think I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't really make much sense. Of course technically the bureaucrats make the edit that transforms an admin into a bureaucrat, but who decides that they should? The lowly peons who took the trouble to express an opinion. It's not necessary for the clerk at the counter where you go to have your driving licence upgraded from provisional to full once you've passed your test to be able to drive herself, for instance, she's just following the rules. --] ] 21:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

===Arbitrary break 2===
My concern about the limited number of active Bureaucrats is this...true, there are no backlogs these days - but the number of active Bureaucrats is diminishing, and there's little room for flexibility of our schedules. Over summer months and other holiday seasons there maybe some backlogs because of our overlapping time away. If some of us have extensive offline things to attend to (planned or unplanned), we may find ourselves in great need for new Bureaucrats - but considering how high the standards are to pass RfB, we might not be able to get new Bureaucrats quickly when we suddenly need them. So, I think it is better to address this issue before it becomes an issue, and start now to find some more Bureaucrats.

The other idea I have is to get the active-editing/inactive-cratting Bureaucrats back into cratting action, since they already have the bits and don't need to go through a process to get them. ] (]) 21:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

:I think the problem is not that we do not have dozens of really good candidates, it's that none of them are willing to try it because we created those standards for this job and they will not try running if they already know they will fail. For example, we promoted some very respected admins in the second half of 2008 (as well as people like me^^), but while those admins have quickly made a name for themselves, none of them will try RFB at the moment because a fair number of people will oppose anyone who has been an admin for less than a year, no matter how qualified (some require even longer periods of adminship). But as adminship is something that does in fact burn out most editors pretty quickly, the amount of admins willing to do ''more'' tasks from pre-2008 is virtually nil. Those who are, have usually made enough enemies that they know they will fail for other reasons. While I agree that we need more crats (I think we should promote at least another 2-3 dozen admins to cratship), noone has yet explained how we will make people want to face the request procedure. This unwillingness is the main crux of the matter and all our discussions here have not yet found a solution to that. Regards ''']]''' 21:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

::I think part of the issue (as brought up by others here and elsewhere) is that, for some reason, the standards for becoming a bureaucrat are so much higher than for becoming an admin even though an admin can actually cause far more damage with the additional tools they receive than a bureaucrat could with the few extra buttons they receive. The current request procedure is quite brutal, so I'm not really surprised more people don't want to go through the wringer. ···]<sup>] · <small>]</sup></small> 22:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::::I would contest that admin tools can be more damaging than crat tools. A single admin running havoc with those tools can be stopped relatively easy. A single crat running a script that gives adminship to hundreds of editors (maybe a group of meatpuppets) can cause a hundred times as much damage than a single havoc-running admin can. Yes, it's unlikely to happen but the potential is there. Regards ''']]''' 11:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Well, there is that, but (again) the odds of that happening are extremely low. The 'crats who've had the bits removed (there aren't too many of them) have tended to not be the damage-causing type. I suspect that a 'crat running such a script would be stopped fairly quickly. ···]<sup>] · <small>]</sup></small> 08:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

:::Well, it's obvious to me. The community standards to let someone pass RFA are extraordinarily high, generally allowing only the elite to pass RFA...so the elite of the elite admins....we have 1,660 admins but only 31 bureuacrats, 1.86% of the admin community...with even less of those crats active. And people say we don't need more crats.... <font face="Verdana" color="blue">] <sup>]</sup>'''/'''<sub>]</sub></font> 22:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::I've been contact by 5 different users who intend to (or are thinking about) running sometime this summer wanting a pre crat review. So there are people out there... 4 of the people who have contacted I have positive impressions of, but would be surprised if we promoted more than two of the five.---''']''' '']'' 12:34, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

== DYK ==

This is definitely not in regards to any particular candidate but what is this giant emphasis on DYK with RFAs? I'm not getting the importance. Is it just an area people like to work on? I've never seen it as particularly important. ] (]) 21:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

:The idea, I think, is that DYKs offer some evidence of content building. In some cases they do, but in many case they don't, as there's no quality control at DYK. --] ] 21:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
::There is some... it has to be at least 1500 characters and written in the past few days...---''']''' '']'' 22:05, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

:::That's not quality, it's volume, written rather too rapidly to have time for a spellcheck. --] ] 22:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

:: (ec) And one thing that DYK is ''supposed'' to verify - your "hook" is supposed to referenced with a ]. It at least shows an understanding of the fundamental concept that we are an encyclopedia rather than a blog. Although .. I've seen a few articles ...;) — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 22:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

:::Whatever you say Ched. I suggest that you read a few of them though, before firming up your opinion. --] ] 22:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

::::Read em? .. ahh hell, I'd rather write em. No, seriously Mall, I think I understand what you're saying, and I agree - a DYK is far from being our top notch stuff. In a sense it's audited content - I mean, someone can't just submit a DYK, and then approve it themselves - another editor is supposed to review it. I admit, I've read through a few DYK articles, and some have really made me scratch my head in regards to quality. But that's what we have FAC and GAC for, it's kind of a beginners ride for editors. — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 22:27, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::I'm not sure that you do understand what I'm saying. DYKs are in no sense "audited", and are often as a consequence an embarrassment. Just take a look at this advertorial featured on today's main page for instance, ]. --] ] 23:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

::::::DYKs are at least slightly "audited". Before they make it onto the main page, at least a handful of other editors look at them, and once they make it on the main page, they tend to get at least 1k views. This is a lot more attention and "auditing" than your average article gets. Sure, the average DYK isn't great (and some are truly abominable), but I'd say that your average DYK is still better than your average article. Try hitting the "Random article" link a few times, and you get an awful lot of one sentence stubs. You at least don't get that at DYK. ] (]) 00:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::::You use the word "audited" in a sense that I don't understand. Does this "audit" involve actually reading the article? All of it? Or just enough of it to verify the hook? --] ] 01:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::::: Well, some articles from DYK get deleted after their main page appearance, so someone must read them. ] 01:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

::::::::: At least personally, I never verify a hook without reading the whole article. It's possible that other reviewers don't even do that, but I'm fairly certain that just about all DYKs have at least been read by an experienced editor. Sure some DYKs look like , but others look like . ] (]) 02:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

::::::::::So you're quite relaxed at seeing stuff like on the main page? --] ] 02:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::::::::Other than the enormous unsourced list of customers, I don't see a big problem with that, but yes of course some bad things make it onto the main page via DYK, but if we're talking about this in the context of RfA, I don't see a problem. I think it's a big plus for a candidate to have some involvement with good DYKs. Naturally, if someone who regularly submits garbage to DYK is at RfA that's another issue entirely. The mere fact that some DYK articles are bad doesn't mean that others aren't good. ] (]) 03:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

::::::::::::Ah well, we'll have to agree to disagree then, 'cos that article is a clear advertorial. I suggest thst you take a critical look at today's DYKs and see if you find any basic spelling or grammar errors. --] ] 03:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::::::::It's definitely better than average. A lot of very basic articles can make it, but click on random page.... ''']''' ('']'') 04:43, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::::::::::DYK has its issues, like plagiarism, poor writing quality, and incomplete research, but it's better than nothing. At the very least, they usually don't have that ugly stub tag... –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 04:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::Well, given the issues you've enumerated, I'd say that DYK isn't better than nothing. :) ] <sub>(] / ])</sub> 05:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
I can safely say that DYK is one area of Misplaced Pages that I care absolutely nothing about, and consequently, it would never impact my decision at RfA. In fact, I typically ignore it. ] <sub>(] / ])</sub> 00:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

:I think we all ought to care about it, as it occupies a very significant amount of the main page. --] ] 01:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
::Well, good point. I agree with Wisdom, and dislike DYK - most of the hooks are trivia at best. Uninteresting trivia, at that. I would rather simply see a "newest articles" section. However, I don't feel that strongly about this, and I seem to remember previous discussions that ended in hung juries. In the end, I just tolerate it without comment and disregard any support/oppose mentions of DYK (although sometimes it's a useful indicator of article creation/building, which I will then review further). ] &#124; ] 01:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
::Disagreed; something can be important but still not be cared about by every individual editor. Everyone has their focus, which is important to them but likely unimportant to everyone else. ] <span style="color: #999;">// ] // ] //</span> 05:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
:::You appear to have either misread or misunderstood the point being made here. As a matter of interest, which was the last DYK hook you read that made you think other than "Who gives a shit?" --] ] 05:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::You could say that about 99% of wiki content as a whole. In fact, I could say it about almost all the featured FA's, because I almost never feel interested enough to click on the link and read the article.
:::::An encyclopedia is not a magazine, aimed at getting the maximum number of people to buy. It's an ''information source'', and naturally most of the information contained in an encyclopedia will be of little interest to the average reader.
:::::For the record however, I constantly see interesting DYK hooks, although many of them - such as the regular building hooks for example, are of no interest to me. And I still remember the time I complained about the intrinsically boring nature of articles about roads and highways - which instantly drew a bunch of responses from people who ''like'' reading about highway routes. People have different interests, and there is no accounting for taste. ] (]) 14:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
::::That sentence could have ended after "hook you read". ;) ] <span style="color: #999;">// ] // ] //</span> 15:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::You dissing my ?&nbsp;–&nbsp;<font color="#E45E05">]</font><font color="#C1118C">]</font> 15:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be getting away from the point originally made in this section, which seems to be that DYK is overemphasised in RfA (possibly because there's an element of metric to it; some quantifiable somewhat-standardised output). Apposite questions would be (a) how prominent is it (b) is that too prominent, given factors such as quality control and how many prospective admins get involved with it. Comparing DYKs with articles turned up by the Random Article button seems a very long way from this RfA issue. ] <sup>]</sup> 12:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
:I have yet to see, '''oppose''' not enough DYK's.---''']''' '']'' 13:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
::*'''Oppose''' - Not enough DYKs or participation in the MediaWiki talk namespace. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 19:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

* DYKs only matter to me when people express interest either in working at DYK or they mention it and I want to see if what they have done actually matches what they claim. ] (]) 16:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
There are two reasons why DYK is relevant. Firstly, admins are needed to move hooks from unprotected pages at DYK to protected pages, and also to edit the protected pages, and secondly, because participation at DYK shows a community-minded editor who is willing to help other people get their stuff featured. ] (]) 14:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Anyone think it's possible that this emphasis on DYK is actually contributing to poor quality? If someone gets into DYK because it's on some checklist of things to do before leveling up, they're probably not the best person for working on DYK, right? Wouldn't we rather see DYK populated by people who care about getting it right, rather than people who care about ticking off an item on a list? ] ] 14:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
:You could say the same about any process though. If someone is seeking adminship as a trophy, they are going to start participating in areas that will get them some attention, whether it is at DYK or somewhere else. ] (]) 14:53, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm, this thread turned out to have a lot more thoughtful responses and discussion than I would have hoped for. I still think it is over-emphasized, but now I understand why. Thanks. ] (]) 20:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

From today's front page: "DYK... that the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct was disbanded in 1999 despite only having started work in April 1991?" This is a perfect illustration of why DYK is useless and serves to ''depress'' Misplaced Pages's credibility. ] &#124; ] 20:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:Hey Tan - check out the Misplaced Pages entry on ] - you'll be amazed to discover that America doesn't comprise the whole of it. <small><span style="border:1px solid #0000ff;padding:1px;">] : ] </span></small> 20:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::Pedro, I know that somewhere along the way you lost your respect for me - and believe you me, the feeling is completely mutual - but this could happen in any country and I'd feel the same. I could have Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee in my den, and it still doesn't make it interesting or significant that the committee was around for eight years. Who cares. Keep your ill-founded insinuations to yourself, please. ] &#124; ] 21:00, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:::I guess I should have put a smiley at the end of my comment (or indeed not made it at all) - it was a playful knee in the ribs Tan and sorry it came across any other way. FWIW I've no issue with you at all and sorry to hear you have with me. Still, this is not the venue so best dropped. <small><span style="border:1px solid #0000ff;padding:1px;">] : ] </span></small> 21:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
*It is a mistake to categorically assert the quality of DYKs. I know more than a few that went on to become FAs maybe two or three weeks later. I know more than a few that didn't amount to anything much at all. DYKs are like all new articles: very varied. So to make catchall judgements is like making catchall judgements on all of WP's new articles – which is quite a meaningless thing to do. And, for the record, quality control there has improved drastically over the past year. &mdash;<strong>]</strong>] 13:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

== Ageism ==

Note: I've now moved it to the Misplaced Pages space with the short cut ]---''']''' '']'' 20:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I wrote an essay on one of our eternal debates here ]... looking for thoughts/feedback/criticism/suggestions.---''']''' '']'' 17:14, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:Seem like a very nice piece, I made a couple of fixes (typo stuff), please check they were all correct :). My main complaint would be that much of it is related to maturity levels, and only at the end does it talk about the possibility that the "teenager reading" may be an "exception". But maybe you think that's a better way to lay it out *shrug*. Like I said, good piece - ]<sup>]</sup> (]) 17:29, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::Thanks, I always appreciate people catching my gaffs.---''']''' '']'' 17:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:Not what I expected when I saw the heading, but IMHO very good. On the other hand I haven't seen 18 in quite a while so take it for what it's worth. One sugestion though, you need to pipe this ] in the proper spot.--] (]) 17:34, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::Amen. Great essay. ] &#124; ] 17:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

:You motivated me a bit to add a question to my ]: ''"Are you over or under the ]?"''? <font color="0D670D" face="Georgia, Helvetica">]</font> (<font color="#156917">]</font>)(<font color="#156917">]</font>) 17:56, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::I personally find that question inappropriate. I would encourage a minor (or adult) not to answer that.---''']''' '']'' 18:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:::What is inappropriate about that question? As we only know a person's nation if they choose to disclose it, and they can say whatever they want in any event, it gives nothing away unless they choose to. If they don't answer, that is their prerogative, of course. <font color="0D670D" face="Georgia, Helvetica">]</font> (<font color="#156917">]</font>)(<font color="#156917">]</font>) 18:07, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::::I look at it as a question where it might be self incriminating and don't feel that people should be put in that position.---''']''' '']'' 18:09, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::You must not like some of my ], especially the current fourth and fifth ones. <font color="0D670D" face="Georgia, Helvetica">]</font> (<font color="#156917">]</font>)(<font color="#156917">]</font>) 18:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Asking an RfA candidate's age is as inappropriate as asking the candidate's ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs or sexual preference. Candidates should be judged on their Misplaced Pages experience and actions, their understanding of policies and procedures, their ability to stay cool, and their ability to resolve conflicts. ] (]) 18:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:Well, I haven't asked it, yet. I do wonder though about the potential situations of access to deleted content in some situations where age of majority and legal liability may come into play, and if it has any relevance. Is opposing or supporting based on previously disclosed age appropriate? <font color="0D670D" face="Georgia, Helvetica">]</font> (<font color="#156917">]</font>)(<font color="#156917">]</font>) 18:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::see ]... ---''']''' '']'' 18:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:I don't like the idea that a candidate might feel obliged to answer a question on their age. Having said that, if that information is known, then there should be no prohibition on considering it as a factor. As I've said before: Ignoring a candidate's age is crazy; judging them based on age ''alone'' is insane. <font color="006622">]</font><sup><small><b>]</b></small></sup> 18:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::That's exactly my thinking; that's why I also didn't formulate the question as "What is your age?", which would be wrong like Kingturtle said as saying "A/S/L?" for a question. In some countries, 'majority' is 25 years old, in some it's 14 years old. It's a simple binary yes/no question that is open ended. I tried to open-end all my questions like that; it's up to the candidates to do with them what they will. Can they think on their feet like admins have to? <font color="0D670D" face="Georgia, Helvetica">]</font> (<font color="#156917">]</font>)(<font color="#156917">]</font>) 18:29, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

:::*Are you over or under the age of majority?
::::*'''A:''' "I'm as old as my gums and a little older than my teeth" –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 18:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Even if I had some brilliant argument for why whites deserve more respect than blacks, I'd have more sense that to go argue it in front of ]. We have at least one crat under 16, and I wouldn't be surprised even a little bit if we promote two more this year. What do you suppose their reaction will be to this line of thinking in an RFA in a crat chat? - Dank (]) 18:52, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:: Dan, you should at least be aware that some people who are victims of actual discrimination find comparing that discrimination to "ageism" very offensive and ignorant. White people were not all born black and after twenty years became white. --] (]) 22:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Hypothetically, if someone were to imply that I was ignorant, offensive or racist, I would invite them to talk with me about my 26 years of service to the black community of North Carolina through donations of time and money to the ACLU. Our relatively small organization has done as much as any to redress legal, legislative and social inequalities. - Dank (]) 23:11, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:::: I have absolutely no doubt that you're a wonderful person in real life. I nonetheless think it's important to remind people not to compare ageism to racism because the comparison is one to which, rightly or wrongly, some people take offense. Some people don't care if other people get offended by their words, because of whatever mitigating factors, and that's certainly one's prerogative. But even the best of people can inadvertently be insensitive, and often welcome the reminder because they certainly don't intend to be. --] (]) 23:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Dan, I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure of what your point was in the original post here. I think you were saying people should pick their battles, but I'm not sure... but I do agree with Jay that your analogy came up short.---''']''' '']'' 00:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
*Very nicely done Spartacus! .. commented on talk page. — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 19:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
*Y'know, I've been ponderng this for a while. There seems to be a perenial "kiddie admin" thing going on, both here and at Misplaced Pages Review and how this is the death knell of civilisation - yet every time we have these threads I see yet more editors mentioning that they've got six kids, just celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary, remember the ] etc. etc. etc. The thought is slowly occuring that perhaps a lot of editors on this site are '''not''' in fact under 18 or even 21 - (I refer to chronoligcal age of course..!). <small><span style="border:1px solid #0000ff;padding:1px;">] : ] </span></small> 20:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
**Anybody who has kids will tell you that despite their best intentions, they are only as old as their youngest child... I mean, why else will you see a grown man playing peek-a-boo and enjoy it.---''']''' '']'' 20:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Train the kids to edit Misplaced Pages ........... :) <small><span style="border:1px solid #0000ff;padding:1px;">] : ] </span></small> 20:39, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::::... must be easier than programming bots ... ] (]) 21:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Which raises the old question... given an infinite number of monkeys sitting behind an infinite number of keyboards, how long would it take them to rewrite Misplaced Pages?---''']''' '']'' 21:31, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
See ]. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 21:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:This is actually the most mature, civilized discussion of ageism I've ever seen on this page. It's quite refreshing and enlightening. And, Spartacus!, I found the essay to be very well written. ] (]) 22:37, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::My goal is to have an essay that A) explains why debating the issue is futile B) why Ageism is a valid argument C) why the proper recourse to the ageism debate is to focus on the individual. If the debate centers around the use of age, then it is one that IMO will be lost. Too much scientific/historical/cultural evidence stands against it. BUT if the debate is brought down to the indivdiual, it changes the parameters. Don't worry about the META debate, focus on the individual.---''']''' '']'' 22:42, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Heavens! Whatever would happen to the fate of Misplaced Pages (or the entire internet for that matter) if not for the precocious teenagers? ] (]) 23:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Well, we'd have far fewer lulz to deal with. ;) ···]<sup>] · <small>]</sup></small> 00:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Precisely! You say that like it's a good thing... :-) ] (]) 01:34, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::Guess it depends on how lulz-happy you are, I guess. ···]<sup>] · <small>]</sup></small> 01:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::Sometimes I can get a headache from the self-facepalms due to the lulz - but it is a nice break in the action. ;) — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 03:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::::Half the action I see on RFA makes me say ] <font color="0D670D" face="Georgia, Helvetica">]</font> (<font color="#156917">]</font>)(<font color="#156917">]</font>) 15:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::::{{User:X!/facepalm}} <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 02:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::::::Posting twelve questions to someone's RfA directly before supporting them makes me facepalm myself. ] &#124; ] 15:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
* I actually missed out on ''this''? I guess I have some catching up to do! :P - ] 23:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
::As you can see, this was a relatively benign discussion... people actually seemed to agree.---''']''' '']'' 00:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

== Where was the discussion about RfB's needing 90% to pass? ==

Anybody have a link to it? I'd like to read the discussion. <small><span style="border:1px solid #4B0082;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ]] </span></small> 17:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:There's ], but for further combined reading, perhaps also try ] (but that's an incomplete work in progress). ] (]) 17:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::Jeez, that's stuff from over 3-5 years ago. Are there any recent discussions about it? I find that 90% for a few extra buttons is over-the-top. 80% seems reasonable to me, not 90%. <small><span style="border:1px solid #465945;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ]] </span></small> 17:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::That discussion could not possibly have resulted in an increased support percentage requirement to be promoted to a bureaucrat. I really hope there has been a more recent discussion that resulted in an actual consensus to raise the bar for RfBs. ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 17:42, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Let's see, ] was semi-recent. I'll see what else I can find. ] (]) 17:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Thats over a year ago, and from that it looks like the consensus was leaning on 80% ... <small><span style="border:1px solid #007BA7;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ]] </span></small> 17:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::Yeah, from the archives it looks like the 90% was from several years ago and all of the more recent discussions related to that have been attempts to lower that bar. ] (]) 17:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::Yes, but there must be something somewhere if it's still 90%. <small><span style="border:1px solid #007BA7;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ]] </span></small> 17:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::::Not necessarily. If the decision was 90% in year 200X, and then in 200Y and 200Z there were failed discussions to lower the bar, the 90% is still implied; no need for a further discussion to reconfirm the 90%. ] (]) 18:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::::I haven't kept up on the most recent RfB standards, but I remember in March 2008, ] seemed to be the minimum. ]<sup>]</sup>] 18:26, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::::You are also correct, the 70-75% for RFA is roughly translated to 85-90% for RFB. However, if I recall correctly, the lowest passing percentage for an RFB is 86.7%. ] (]) 18:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
←I always thought it was because, when you're picking someone to make an occasional call on who gets to be a crat or an admin, it's not enough for them to be good at it, people have to be willing to accept their judgment. But I don't see why that would apply to CHU or turning on bots, or other potential crat-tasks, such as appointing people to Flagged Revisions tasks (Brion will get a test going by August, supposedly) or handing out abusefilter rights. - Dank (]) 18:03, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The links above are from over a year ago. There have been a few threads lately about needing new 'crats. More volunteers might appear if the percentage needed to pass went down to 80 or 85%. Recently, the bar is set at 90% to pass. <small><span style="border:1px solid #4B0082;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ]] </span></small> 18:30, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:IMatt, you're changing colors ... camouflage? - Dank (]) 18:34, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::Haha, it's in my signature script-thingy. :) <small><span style="border:1px solid #960018;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ]] </span></small> 18:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::If there are new ideas on new crat-tasks, and if we can get any consensus on that, then it would become easier to talk about whether the RFA/RFB skill set is a completely different skill set, and if we could get consensus on that, then it would be easier to tackle the question of whether the percentage for getting one ought to be lower than the other. <small><small>tweaked</small></small> - Dank (]) 19:04, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:The links are from a year ago, but that doesn't mean the consensus in them is automatically invalid. In fact it's more like the last demonstration of consensus is the best thing to go with unless a change is demonstrated. Previously the 90% bar had been traditional. ] ] ] of ] a substantial number of people felt that the bar should be somewhat lower without a specific number being agreed on. I would say that's the best guideline we have for the current consensus. I think that answers what you were looking for, but if you want the literal meaning of your question, where the actual discussion around the 90% guideline was, you'd have to do some serious reading to find that. It certainly wasn't a big poll or anything, it just kind of solidified in various places and discussions. But given the most current discussions, I think that's mostly irrelevant anyway. - ] <sup><small>]</small></sup> 19:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the current consensus ''is'' 90%. As you seen from the RfB bar discussion linked above, compared to lower measures the 90% level had only minority support. What leads you (iMatthew) to conclude that 90% is the current level despite the outcome of that poll? ]] 19:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:I've been talking to many people on IRC, they all said it was 90%. <small><span style="border:1px solid #4B0082;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ]] </span></small> 19:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::Strange, saying as I had it in my head that the "magic number" (if we were restricted to such things) was 80%. Bureaucrat cabal > IRC cabal, 'natch! ] <span style="color: #999;">// ] // ] //</span> 19:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I still have not seen any consensus to put the threshold at 90%, yet it is at that. In RfBs, the community automatically holds candidates to higher standards than RfA candidates. Therefore, there is no need for a higher "threshold for consensus" number than RfAs. It just limits the number of good candidates that are promoted. This 90% number really should be lowered to a sort of baseline, the RfA level, as it doesn't seem justified. Then, the community needs to come up with a threshold number through actual consensus. My guess is it would be lower than 90%. ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 23:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::If you can get a solid community consensus to lower it, we can lower it.<span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> — ] • ] • </span> 23:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

:::At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the fact is that we have a solid consensus for lowering the percentage. It's frustrating that people seem to have completely forgotten the outcome of the RfB Bar discussion, especially bureaucrats. We may not have had consensus on the specific percentage it should be lowered to, but certainly we had consensus that 90% was too high. That does not mean we're stuck at 90%, it means the percentage is lower and just how much lower is left to the crats (to interpret the poll outcome). ]] 23:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::::The results of rfa bar were spread all over the place, that's not a consensus. <span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> — ] • ] • </span> 00:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::Rlevse, can you confirm that you have read ] section, and specifically this comment left by Kingturtle: "This poll is closed. We have over 170 editors voice their opinions on this issue. Depending on how you interpret the data, 75.5% support lower the bar; 65% of the supports support "80%" as the new bar. The average of the opinions is 82.9%. "80%" is the median. I am interpreting this poll as an indication that Bureaucrats should use 80% as the new bar. Once a new policy is agreed on, I think we should re-assess the policy in one year. Kingturtle (talk) 3:02 pm, 16 March 2008, Sunday" I'm interested in whether you disagree with this interpretation, or if you were just unaware of it. Thanks, ]] 02:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

←I can think of some things that might go wrong if we just lowered the discretionary range to 80-85 and made no other changes, although I think separating RFA/RFB-enabled crats from regular crats would avoid these problems. For one thing, you'd have a lot of admins running for cratship. Either a lot of them would fail, wasting time and burning morale, or a lot of them would pass. So far, people haven't "revolted" against crat-reign (which is a good thing); even for the people who don't like RFA, they still accept that they have to live with the system we've got (or not). What would happen if we had 50 crats, many without much experience at RFA, apparently deciding who was promoted? I suspect people would lose faith in the basic workability of the system. If the RfB voters reacted to this by requiring high participation at RFA/RFB of all candidates, then RFA/RFB would fill up with people with crat aspirations. I actually think RFA is reasonably functional, given the alternatives, but for people who think RFA is a cesspit ... just wait until it fills up with people who are there to pad their resume/CV for a crat run. Yikes. I like the 85%-90% discretionary range, for people making the call at RFA and RFB, because the system won't work unless just about everyone buys into it, so you really need very wide support for crats. Again, I see no problem with lowering the passing percentage for crats who will be doing the other crat tasks. - Dank (]) 00:09, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

:<big>'''↑'''</big> What he said. The average RFB gets about 100 votes; if 15 people think there's something seriously wrong with you, you can guarantee there'll be needless drama down the line. It's not as if the current crats are rushed off their feet dealing with the average one or two RFA closures and bot requests per day and at most half-a-dozen renames they're needed for.&nbsp;–&nbsp;<font color="#E45E05">]</font><font color="#C1118C">]</font> 00:18, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
::Hmm. Those are good points you two made. Nevertheless, consensus was not to have the threshold at 90%, and that really disturbs me. ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 00:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

===Pretty easy to figure out where consensus is today===
You know, it would be pretty easy to sort out, since it's all just basic math. Start a discussion asking everyone's opinion very simply on what their low-end range is for the discretionary range. Very simple; it's a number, it's subjective. RFA is what--75%-79% usually? There have only been a tiny handful of 80% RFAs that never passed. Everyone call out their preferred minimum, and then a simple poll based on the discussion's responses--there can only be so many responses, realistically, since the range is not up to the crats themselves, and we're done. Since it's an actual numerical value (not a policy/procedure--that already exists, it's RFB itself) we're after, once we see what the average low end is, it's a simple advertised poll and we're done. Discussion -> lock in consensus. For example:

* Everyone say their preference and why, etc.
* "What should the discretionary range for RFB be?"
::* 75%-80%
::* 80%-85%
::* 85%-90%
::* 90%-95%

Realisticaly, it'd be a pretty vanilla discussion/vote, since it's not like we're swimming in options here. It just needs formalizing. Since what the discretionary range ''is'' isn't something the crats themselves decide upon, we just need enough people (a very healthy sample) to say what their preference is, and whatever is the overwhelming favorite or the mathematical average of their selections is it--simple.

This doesn't exactly come up often, so it's not like we need a big to-do. Discuss, pick possible options, pick the best of the options, go do some article work. <font color="0D670D" face="Georgia, Helvetica">]</font> (<font color="#156917">]</font>)(<font color="#156917">]</font>) 00:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
:Excellent point that it isn't usually this simple, so we can be more optimistic than usual. <s>Tell me if I'm pushing a new-ish idea too hard, but I really think the discussion about potential crat tasks should come before the vote on the discretionary range, so that people will know what they're voting on. Abusefilter permissions is brand-new, and probably needs very skilled hands with wide community approval, and ... I hate to open up the can of Flagged Revisions, except to say that whatever it morphs into, again, skilled hands, wide community approval. And CHU may not take that much time, but getting it exactly right is really hard, and the skill set is very close to the skill set for UAA; if the discretionary range were lowered just a little, the RfB voters would have more candidates to choose from, and they could pick hard-working, competent crats to spend more time overseeing both areas. Likewise, bot flagging has been trivial ... but it doesn't have to be; with a bigger candidate pool, RfB voters could pick a candidate that has broad support at BAG and could use their bot-flagging power as license to say "Tell me how this works again?" - Dank (]) 01:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)</s><small><small>insufficient support for this idea at this time - Dank (]) 14:12, 7 June 2009 (UTC)</s></s>

:I'd support 80–85%, but I fully agree with Dank in that we'd need to reconfirm the role of bureaucrats. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 01:17, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
*85%-90% discretionary. Any higher and you let the few cranks that you invariably piss off derail the process; any lower and any controversial call is open to challenge. As I say above, it's not like we're suffering a desperate shortage of crats; we got on perfectly well last year when at one point we only had two active.&nbsp;–&nbsp;<font color="#E45E05">]</font><font color="#C1118C">]</font> 01:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
*80%-90% works for me. Also replying to the above comment: We got on perfectly well, but the two active 'crats must have felt a lot of pressure put on them. <small><span style="border:1px solid #960018;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ] </span></small> 01:27, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
*80%-85%. What we have now is too high, but I don't think we need to go as low as what's used for RfAs. Also, two active crats is a very small amount, and I'm sure they did feel a lot of pressure. There aren't many processes requiring bureaucratic action, but I think there are enough that they would require more than two active crats to run smoothly. ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 01:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Sheesh. Rootology, have you seen ]? It is precisely what you describe above. If you think the results of that identical poll need to be updated, fine, but your comment seems to imply that there are no original results. ]] 02:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

:Indeed, my own vote remains unchanged since then: ''"Trust the bureaucrats"'' (no fixed percentage range of discretion). I do seem to remember that a lot of votes in that poll were cast after the semi-controversial closing of an RFB as unsuccessful (85.8% support). See ]. Due to possible additional motivation by some of the candidate's 237 supporters to pitch in at the time (myself included), the poll might well be systemically biased. <s>(The bureaucrats' discussion says the lowest passing percentage was ], by the way).</s> ---] ] 02:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Actually, Quadell's RFB was unsuccessful. ] (]) 03:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Oh dear. Bedtime. Thanks for pointing out that error. ---] ] 04:02, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
::I'm not dead-set against 80%, but before I could agree, I'd need to hear how we plan to anticipate and deal with the potential problems I mentioned. If the problems can't be avoided, then I'd favor a new role, maybe "technocrat", meaning bureaucrat permissions minus RFA/RFB. - Dank (]) 03:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

::Well, a bit more context is that Riana's RfB (and a number of others around the same time) were prefaced by a fair amount of discussion on how more 'crats were needed. That discussion and the sudden proliferation of RfBs probably have a lot more to do with the poll participation and its outcome than any single RfB. Even if the presence of a live RfB biased the outcome in some way, a poll without a similar high profile draw is unlikely to involve nearly the same number of editors. ]] 03:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

:::Good point. People normally don't care that much. :-) ---] ] 03:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

←Although I agree with Rootology that we want to keep the vote simple, let's lay some groundwork first here and on talk pages. The vote tends to be split between 80-85% and 85-90%, and I'm not happy with just trying to get "consensus" on this, I think we want a super-consensus, otherwise someone might wind up being or feeling disenfranchised at RFA. I made an argument for 85-90% above, here's the counterargument:
*We could instruct the crats to use 80-85% as a discretionary range and go slow. The worst that could happen would be that it doesn't work and we go back to 85-90%.
*At RFA, when we say the discretionary range is 70-75%, crats have always taken that to mean that they can easily push the discretionary range to 80% if something "special" (such as canvassing) is going on, so we could say the range is 80-85% with the same understanding.
*We could add to the instructions: even if a candidate gets 85%, we still feel you should not promote if the rationales from the 15% suggest that some group will wind up being disenfranchised and feeling alienated from the RFA process.
*We need to be vigilant at RFA to make sure people aren't trying to make a name for themselves to help with crat runs. It shouldn't be hard to stop (just speak up if someone is saying something foolish, which usually happens anyway), and if someone talks a lot of nonsense at RFA and then runs for RFB, tell them about it at the RFB. People will probably figure out what will and won't work over time.
*<s>If the crats would be a little bit more open about who participates in crat chats, and</s> If the crats would state that they understand that crats who haven't been involved much in RFA shouldn't be making contentious calls solo ... and I think the record shows plainly that they do understand this ... then I think that would help people be less nervous about promoting crat candidates, especially candidates who aren't currently active at RFA. - Dank (]) 12:42, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
**So, should we have like a reconfirmation poll on this? <small><span style="border:1px solid #960018;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ] </span></small> 12:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
:::We should talk with each other publicly and privately first to see if there's any position that can gain a super-consensus, then have the poll. - Dank (]) 14:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

nathan, the quote of mine you refer to was the beginning of a discussion, not the end of one. the general agreement of that discussion supported the following wording: "Whilst RfB is not a vote, it is generally expected that RfBs with more than 90% will be successful, whereas those with less than 80% will not be. Bureaucrats should assess the level of consensus bearing in mind the high levels of community trust expected for appointment." I thought it was pretty clear that this was the current thinking. ] (]) 04:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

:Oh I know, and I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression - the two comments don't conflict, really, because both statements give 80% as the cut-off. The benefit of your initial comment is that it also sums up the outcome. ]] 12:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

:It's already ], with the final statement quoted above by Kingturtle. And please lets not put up a ] with discretionary ranges of 5% that will inevitably fail to take into account the significant community opinion that there are other options (wider ranges, not using strict percentages, going more on the stength of the arguments, etc.) - ] <sup><small>]</small></sup> 18:04, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

::Okay, now I see what you're saying, I didn't see the point clearly on my talk page. (Btw, people, I suggest some calm discussion on the very real concerns before the poll, for reasons that old hands will all understand already. I left talkback notices with everyone who commented in this section to discuss this stuff on my talk page, and my subjective impression is that we've only covered about half of the things that are potentially worrying people so far; more discussion would be very welcome.) I completely support your idea, Taxman, that we want to send a very clear message that shifting the range from 80-90 (or whatever it is) to 80-85 will not "solve" anything; it's only the very start of a series of changes and discussions that's likely to take a long time. I would welcome discussion on your other questions, but only if we can get a clear vote that a different presumed discretionary range is desirable. Think how long RFA has taken to evolve, and that's with more than 10 times the amount of regular discussion. Rootology's point, which I support, is that when tackling a question that might get mired down, it's important to start with the most trivial, yes/no part first. If you can't get anywhere with that, then you know it's pointless to proceed with the more important but more subtle questions. And btw, when I say "proceed", it seems to me that what's happened in individual RFAs has had at least 10 times more impact on the RFA process than discussions about RFA here and other places; that doesn't mean we're wasting our time, it just means that the best use of time is to focus on one candidate and one question at a time, and I suspect that's true for RfB as well. Finally, on your point that we just discussed this 15 months ago ... how much overlap is there between the people who participated at RFA/RFB 15 months ago vs. now? And how much has changed at RFA? This isn't a question of "consensus can change", this is a question of "we know consensus has changed, now what does that mean for RfB?" - Dank (]) 18:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

== A fake RFA ==

OK I have too much time to spare. I just created ]. Feel free to add to it. Hope you like :) ''']''' ] 19:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:<nowiki>*giggle*</nowiki> ] <span style="color: #999;">// ] // ] //</span> 19:32, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::Ev, can you do a check user on him... I think we now have enough to suspect that Majorly might in fact be a sockpuppet of another user... I present, ] as evidence!---''']''' '']'' 23:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Everybody should love my vote. ^_^ ] <sup>]</sup> 23:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
::::It's not really funny. :P <small><span style="border:1px solid #007BA7;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ] </span></small> 00:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::I like it :} — ]] 00:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
:Oppose, user spends too much time in own userspace instead of editing the encyclopedia. ]<small>]</small> 00:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
(unindent)Very funny. <strong>]</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;] 08:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
: Three letters: UAA! don't speak of ''credit'' these days, don't even think of it. What's next, ]? ]? ] (]) 13:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
:That RfA is oddly realistic. ]<sup>]</sup> 02:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
::''Only'' 20 questions? You guys can do better than that :) ] (]) 02:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I knew that there would be someone copying DougsTech on there :)--] (]) 16:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
:]. ]<sup>]</sup><sub>]</sub> 00:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::That joke was a lot funnier before the subpage was deleted, trust me ;-) ]<sup>]</sup><sub>]</sub> 13:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:Counting As, Bs and so forth as separate questions there are still only 33, but the number of answers is even lower. '']]<span style="color:DarkOrange">Chequers''</span> 12:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

== Applying ==

If you want to apply, do you just add yourself to the list of candidates? --] (]) 20:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
:First, you'll have to get a Misplaced Pages account. You may either submit your own request for adminship (a self-nomination) or be nominated by another user. Please be familiar with the ], ], and ] before submitting your request. Best of luck, ] (]) 20:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
: And it's a rather long journey I would add. - ] 23:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

== Hardly anyone running for adminship ==

Is this the end of all Misplaced Pages??? What will happen? Haven't most of the desysoped admins had a chance to create new accounts so they could run again a la Sam Blacketer? Or are they already resysoped and waiting for the next Arbcom election?

Seriously, I'm concerned. I mean I've seen good nominees be turned away as unsuccessful over whatever drama opposers could create, but certainly there are more editors with no content contributions and lots of automated reversions that we can promote??? Aren't there??? ] (]) 00:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:I don't understand the necessity to get people to run for adminship, as if a pause in nominations will indicate, per this post, the end of Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages will end when editors stop adding to and maintaining articles.--] (]) 01:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::Maybe we have a comfortable number of admins, and don't need a constant supply of new ones. -]<sup>(])</sup> 01:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Stats show we're losing admins faster than +sysop ing them for the last 18 months or so. We need more new ones, not less or the same number.<span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> — ] • ] • </span> 01:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Well, there you go. Maybe becoming an admin is seen as less desirable than it has been previously? -]<sup>(])</sup> 01:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::In my experience, being an admin can be boring, stressful, and time-consuming, so I'd buy that theory. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 01:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::In my experience, it's only as time-consuming as I want it to be. It's not like I keep regular office-hours here or something. As for stressful... yeah, it can be that. Yeah. -]<sup>(])</sup> 01:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::It's merely standard laws of growth, an enterprise starts slow, catches on, grows fast, then slows down and stabilizes out, which is where we are now. The depends on if wiki interest grows or not. <span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> — ] • ] • </span> 01:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Today there are 927 active admins. 9 Dec 2007 (18 months ago) there were 984 active admins - that's a drop of 5.8%? Today there are 13 active bureaucrats; 9 Dec 2007 there were 15 - that's a drop of 13.3%? Am I doing my math right? Meanwhile, ] about 2,908,000 articles, while on 2008-01-01 there were about 2,153,000, up 35%? We need more admins, and we need more crats. ] (]) 02:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:I've also noticed a decrease in the amount of people who are using automated tools such as Huggle. As the encyclopedia gets bigger, we need more vandalism patrollers as well as anti-vandalism admins. I think I'll start using Huggle again. <font face="Papyrus">'''<font color=#9966CC>-</font>]] <font color=#7B68EE>׀</font> ]'''</font> 02:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::Do you have some stats on that, Download? I'd be interested to see 'em since, having been in a similar position elsewhere, I have always been consistently impressed these past four years with the amount of work done by non-admins. It's nice to see someone with 15k edits and be a rollbacker, not sysop; you know they've not strayed. ~ <font color="#FF0099">Amory</font><font color="#555555"><small> ''(] • ] • ])''</small></font> 03:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Sorry, I don't have stats. However, I've noticed that while I'm using Huggle that I used to have a lot of competition at reverting vandalism before everyone else. I no longer have that problem as much as it seems like there's less people. As for admins doing the reverting, I still think there's a few; take J.delanoy for example. <font face="Papyrus">'''<font color=#9966CC>-</font>]] <font color=#7B68EE>׀</font> ]'''</font> 04:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
*'''Great News!!!''' I stand ready to run for Admin again and to help fill the void. I trust I can count on all of you for strong '''support'''. I'm looking at you GTB & Rlevse. :) ] (]) 02:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::(ec, r to Kingturtle) Interesting data, but another way to think about it is that we need more ''active'' admins, since I think there are something like 1600 (??) total. Apparently well over a third of those are non-active, though I don't know what the definition of that is. Then you have additional admins who are not especially active (I'd put myself there), which cuts the number down further. One solution is more folks running at RfA, but another is trying to get some of the folks who already have the bit to contribute more, or at the least to try to figure out some of the reasons why they do not. It might actually be interesting to survey admins that have voluntarily stopped editing or at least radically reduced their level of contribution and see some of the reasons why they do so. Perhaps there's a fairly consistent burnout rate/reason(s) for burnout among admins, and it seems that's the kind of information that would probably be useful. Probably someone has thought of this before though. --] <small>| ] | ]</small> 02:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::you're posting at ]; ''everything'' has been thought of before :P --<font color="#cc6600">]</font><sup> <nowiki>(</nowiki><small><font color="#993300">]</font></small><nowiki>)</nowiki></sup> 02:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::...including your comment that everything has been thought of before.... hee. ] | ] 02:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::....and thus we continue the Great Circular Discussion that is WT:RFA. Can't... break... free.... *strain* --<font color="#cc6600">]</font><sup> <nowiki>(</nowiki><small><font color="#993300">]</font></small><nowiki>)</nowiki></sup> 02:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::Where does ] redirect? My nifty "show preview" tool says....no where! Anyone up for some Beans? ] | ] 02:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
]'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 04:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)]]

Are there any particular tasks that are "most understaffed" due to the dearth of active admins? Which ones? -]<sup>(])</sup> 02:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:A germane question! (relative shock) I believe that the image maintenance categories are perennially understaffed, particularly the NFCC reduced size one (sorry I don't have the actual link, I'll hunt for it or someone cleverer than I just add it). --<font color="#cc6600">]</font><sup> <nowiki>(</nowiki><small><font color="#993300">]</font></small><nowiki>)</nowiki></sup> 02:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::Just out of curiosity, and I guess this is directed at David Fuchs primarily, was there actually an effort to gather data from non-active admins, or was this just something that was bandied about? --] <small>| ] | ]</small> 02:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::No idea. There's been a billion "we need more admins" threads, and probably just as many "where have all the admins gone?" threads. But as to any hard metrics? Beats me. --<font color="#cc6600">]</font><sup> <nowiki>(</nowiki><small><font color="#993300">]</font></small><nowiki>)</nowiki></sup> 03:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Uhh, okay. I guess I was under the mistaken impression that you were responding at least semi-seriously to my previous comment. But if everything has been thought of before here at WT:RFA, then I guess we may as well save some time by deleting this page and then salting it against recreation. I know I know, surely that's been thought of as well, but I'm afraid I can't spare any more brain cells for this place than I have already. I'm pretty certain I clicked on the wrong button to even end up here in the first place. --] <small>| ] | ]</small> 03:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::In response to GTBacchus, ] is definitely another one of those understaffed areas - there are frequently over 100 candidates for speedy del. -<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS">''']'''</span> <sup><span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS">]</span></sup> 03:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:: is the category with the mother of all backlogs referred to above that a number of us have been battling with for a few days now since it got brought up on AN. ] (]) 03:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

::] would be another one. ] 05:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. ] <span style="color: #999;">// ] // ] //</span> 04:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:PANIC---''']''' '']'' 04:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::LOL I think we'll survive. But I am wondering about early Aug. when Flagged Revs. hit town. Any ideas on what it will do to the admin. workload? — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 05:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like I need to start nomming people again if the wells are this dry.. ] 05:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:Wizardman coming out of retirement? Sweet! :D ]]] 05:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
We are short admins. I probably wouldn't pass an RFA today. I think the standards and questions at RFA have gone up, and it means people are unsuccessful or don't even go for adminship for bad reasons. This is going to get worse when flagged revisions come. ] (]) 14:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The flipside to the question/concern about a slowdown in new, successful admin candidates is: why are we losing admins at a rate faster than we are getting new ones? It's too bad there is no reliable record of when and how we "lose" an administrator, to see if it's a matter of simple attrition (I have been somewhat less than active of late myself due to RL workloads) or if there is some other issue going on. If admins are being chased away from the position for some other, specific reason, it would be equally helpful - perhaps more useful, even - to try and tackle that issue as well. After all, retaining a seasoned administrator is every bit as helpful as promoting a new one. ]<b><font color="#6060BF">]</font></b> 14:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

: I think we will continue to lose admins as long as the community does not back people up who try to resolve problems. Who'd want to be an admin when all adminship does is give people the right to abuse you, assume bad faith, scream admin abuse and then drag you through endless process. It's a hard, thankless job. If you have any sense, do not apply. ] <sup>]</sup> 14:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:: I agree 100%. If we are going to put someone through the ringer of RfA and they come out still standing, we should reward them with some measure of trust and community confidence - not scrutinizing their actions at every turn. ]<b><font color="#6060BF">]</font></b> 14:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:Why would anyone bother? It is not worth the effort. If your niche is admin related areas, then you can't garner enough support. ]] 12:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
::My RfA was defeated by editors who don't like my outspokenness. You couldn't pay me enough to run again. I have found that I can be as effective as a peon, as I could as an admin - and maybe ''more so''. And by not being an admin, I'm less likely to be targeted by other internet sites seeking revenge against wikipedia admins for having indef'd some belligerent user. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 12:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Look, when I ran, I told everyone I was going to keep concentrating on content issues. I now and then will do something adminly, usually on request. However, WP has six more featured articles than it had before I became an admin, thanks to me (and others). I don't feel guilty; I'm not paid and there is no shortage of mops. Deal with it.--] (]) 13:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
::::The theory behind the concern expressed is that the "population" is growing while the number of "cops" is shrinking. Whether it's anywhere near a "crisis" is certainly debatable. But some proactive concern is good. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 13:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Well, I did vote for you!--] (]) 13:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

:A few thoughts - the sad thing is that they're not new, but have not previously been mentioned in this thread:
:*There's been a lot of cricitism of actions by admins in the last few months, possibly longer. In the biggest recent case I know of, and admin blocked someone for a week and then rescinded the block within an hour - at least one of these actions was ill-considered. The incident that triggered this involved 3 admins piling on to one person (who admittedly had done something questionable).
:*There's a related perception that "admins stick together". In particular they vehemently oppose proposals for a system to recall admins who act improperly
:*Non-admin users don't know or care about most of the "housekeeping" tasks, they care about the risk of abuse of power, of being unjustly or over-harshly blocked, and about XfD. If they can't contest actions they consider unjust, they'd rather lose a potential good admin than promote a potential bad one.
:These are all well-documented. I also ''guess'' that some policies and guidelines that admins have to uphold are out of step with with the views of typical editors - not the vandals and long-term POV-pushers, but people who just want to to get on with editing articles on subjects that interest them. Perhaps admins should identify the policies and guidelines that cause the most disputes and act to align them better with the views of those who do not spend large amounts of time at policy and guideline Talk pages. --] (]) 13:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

== Amount of questions ==

Lately as most of you have seen, the amount of RfA questions has shot up. Maybe we should step back and determine which of them have anything to do with becoming an administrator, rather than "Let me ask him/her a question because I can." Wizardman noted on the current RfA, that it seems we are playing 20 questions with the candidates. The questions mean a lot to some people in an RfA, and I can't image it's very easy to complete 20 questions with well-thought out answers in just two days. <small><span style="border:1px solid #960018;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ] </span></small> 01:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:But of those, there are only 6 askers. If you have a bunch of stock RFA questions, try not to unleash them all at once! –<font face="verdana" color="black">]</font>] 01:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:Good thing, then, that candidates have up to seven days to answer questions. I agree that the amount of questions have only increased, and it can be daunting to answer them all, but every question is important to the person asking it. My recent question (#19) on the current RfA, for example, may seem silly and far-fetched to many editors, but it has importance to me; the answer may determine if I support or not. I'm not, however, going to oppose if the question isn't answered within two days, or at all... and I doubt there are many (or any?) who would. -] (]) 01:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::The problem is some would. You are asking your question which may help determine your !vote. The silly thing is when some people !vote, then come back later and ask a question or two. <small><span style="border:1px solid #960018;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ] </span></small> 01:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Some candidates don't answer all 12 questions from one voter, which is probably a good strategy. We can always suggest this in the Guide. - Dank (]) 01:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Just for a bit of historical reference, at ] over a year ago my nominator (and then bureaucrat) WJBscribe on this very issue, so this is an ongoing concern (which also ties in with the thread above). He noted in part: "There is an increasingly held view that candidates are feeling overloaded with questions and that this is putting people off applying, which is a problem. A steady flow of new admins is important to a project that continues to increase in size - already we have the lowest ration of admins to users/pages of all Wikimedia projects I believe. Lets try to encourage candidates - if there's information you haven't been able to glean from what the candidate's contributions and what has been said already that you think is needed to decide whether they are trusted/competent to use to tools go on and ask. Otherwise, it's just adding extra burden to the process. Candidates shouldn't be here to jump through everyone's collective hoops - just to help people decide if they can be trusted with the additional user right."

::::Personally I did not really mind the extra questions (including one or two frivolous ones), but I do agree with the general point that this adds burden to an already burdensome and, I would argue, fairly dysfunctional process. Avoiding questions that are not going to tell us all that much about whether a candidate will be a good admin or not is probably a good idea. In the current ] RFA I see several questions that almost certainly will not tell us more than a quick perusal of a user's contributions would. It's a fine balance obviously since some questions are going to be needed, but perhaps we're erring too much on the side of too many questions and need to dial it back as apparently was happening a year ago (at least in my RFA, but perhaps some others as well). --] <small>| ] | ]</small> 02:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:I think the bigger issue is timing. 20 questions isn't so bad if you have seven days (that's a measely three questions a day, ''not'' hard to pull off) but as is noted above, a candidate really only has a few. Today was the perfect example. had his open for what, 55 minutes? And he had 2 Supports (one from nom) and 8 Opposes before even answering a single question, or anyone posing any extra. You can't compete against that kind of rush. If there were a more reasonable "Pose Questions and Comment" period followed by "Vote and add additional comments," it might be a lot more favorable. ~ <font color="#FF0099">Amory</font><font color="#555555"><small> ''(] • ] • ])''</small></font> 02:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::Sometimes it's not a tough call. - Dank (]) 02:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:If I were in charge I would ban generic questions from individual editors. Questions that apply to everyone should be part of the standard questions that everyone is asked and should be added to that list by consensus. Custom questions should be limited to questions relevant to that specific candidate and not to everyone. --] (]) 03:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
A couple days ago, I was looking at a certain person's stock questions list that they are planning on posting to RfAs, and I was shocked. I saw almost 20 questions from ''one user''. That is, really, a little excessive. <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 04:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::In my opinion, some of the questions asked these days are also quite inappropriate. Asking about someone's polical views or other views has almost ''nothing'' to do with building an encyclopedia, as long as the candidate has no problems with POV or COI. <font face="Papyrus">'''<font color=#9966CC>-</font>]] <font color=#7B68EE>׀</font> ]'''</font> 04:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::I agree with Tango and Download. Side note: if a user has undergone previous RfAs, it's probably reasonable to assume that you can draw conclusions from their answers there. This does not apply in all cases, but it seems silly to have to answer similar questions again and again. Furthermore, as mentioned above, I believe the person asking the question should have a personal stake in it. In other words, the answer to the question should affect the questioner's !vote. Opposing and then throwing up multiple tricky questions that are designed to trap the candidate is unfair, in my opinion. If the answer matters to you, then I would recommend not pre-judging. ]<sup>]</sup> 05:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Okay, do we have support here for adding advice to the Guide that if one voter asks you a lot of questions, it would probably be wise to only answer a few of them at first, so that other voters won't feel bad about asking additional questions, and then come back to the ones you didn't answer later, if you have time? - Dank (]) 12:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::Perhaps uninvolved parties should just start removing everything after say, the third question, asked by the same person. –<font face="verdana" color="black">]</font>] 15:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Doubtless it has been discussed at some point in the past, but perhaps some of the concerns about the "question crush" could be alleviated by some kind of Q&A period ''prior'' to opening the RfA up to general discussion/!voting? As stated above, a significant number of people !vote in an RfA after is has only been up a few hours (or even minutes!) and remain unchanged even after a dozen or more new question have been asked. While this would necessarily lengthen the process, it would allow participants in the discussion more time to consider a candidate's qualifications and answers, as well as allow the candidate ample time to provide thoughtful answers to the questions. Just a thought! ]<b><font color="#6060BF">]</font></b> 14:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::]. It didn't turn out well. I guess so many people wanted to test the process that they asked dozens of questions... <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 03:25, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Of course that went overboard with 50+ questions. However not only is that seemingly an isolated example, but it's a pretty bad one. It was the ''fourth'' RfA for that user, who had also had the issue of having switched accounts. Let's ''please'' not damn the idea of "discussion before !voting" based on this single example. I agree though that some measures to limit the number of questions may be helpful. One possibility would be for questions to be proposed on the talk page first, and developed collaboratively - reducing the number of very similar questions. ] (]) 13:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:There is a Q&A period before the process starts, when you create your RFA it is preloaded with questions 1 - 3 and there should be no time pressure at all about answering them before you Transclude. If anyone has generic questions that they are going to ask of every candidate then I would suggest they make a proposal here for them to be added to the three standard questions. But I suspect that the current perception of a glut of questions is really a symptom of our shortage of candidates; As the number of RFA questions being asked per week is actually unusually low, but with so few RFA candidates the number of questions per candidate is quite high. However a lot of questions do look like they are generic and not based on a review of the candidates contributions, so one change we could make would be to require non standard questions to be supported by diffs. '']]<span style="color:DarkOrange">Chequers''</span> 15:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

* How about press conference style, "One question per person"? - ] 14:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
**I support that idea. ] (]) 14:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:Not a bad idea. I wonder if people look at questions already asked. I submit a pretty thorough battery and remove questions about areas already asked. Also, I see little value in questions about areas outside the candidate's requested area. A person can be a net positive if they stick to an area that they like and understand instead of trying to please everyone in all areas. I for one pretty well stick to CSD and AIV. Cheers, ]] 15:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:I like that idea as well. ] <span style="color: #999;">// ] // ] //</span> 15:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:I strongly support that. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 17:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
::I don't and I'm one of the more vocal critics of too many questions. The problem is that when there are legit questions, there are legit questions. Legit questions should not be hampered, it's the stock questions that are asked of every candidate regardless of whom it is... it is the questions wherein a single person has decided that they have the right to ask a dozen stock questions despite the community frowning upon that action.---''']''' '']'' 15:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:::I also like the idea of one question per candidate. They have to be relevant to the candidate, though. <small><span style="border:1px solid #007BA7;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ] </span></small> 17:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:::I agree - questions should be allowed or disallowed based on their own merits, not on who asked them. --] (]) 17:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:::A valid concern, but I think it would offset by the fact that people would be more inclined to make their one question "count."<br />Also, I'm definitely only seeing this "restriction" (for lack of a better phrase) as being on Rf''A''s; RfBs tend to have numerous questions, but there are less superfluous ones there. ] <span style="color: #999;">// ] // ] //</span> 17:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, so I can't help wondering if this aimed in part at my battery (which I just shortened, by the way). It's mostly stock stuff, I think. Maybe if there was a way to pre-announce pending RFAs as "open for questions"? <font color="0D670D" face="Georgia, Helvetica">]</font> (<font color="#156917">]</font>)(<font color="#156917">]</font>) 17:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:You might also consider not asking the questions if you plan to support anyway, Root. Just a thought :-) ] &#124; ] 17:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

== New Q4 Standard question ==
::Given that a lot of the "non-standard questions" have become pretty standard lately, I believe this is a reasonable suggestion. ]<b><font color="#6060BF">]</font></b> 15:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::OK but what would be a good question 4? I'm not sure that any of the questions I've read recently would be relevant to every RFA. '']]<span style="color:DarkOrange">Chequers''</span> 16:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::'''Question''' Are there any policies or guidelines that you are involved with, work with, or have any concerns about? — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 16:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::I think this question would serve 2 functions: 1.) It would allow a candidate to present his/her strong suits in regards to understanding a policy or guideline. 2.)In a sense it would allow a candidate the opportunity to "opt out" of items they felt they were weaker in, and acknowledge the fact that we can't all be great at every aspect of the 'pedia. (Just a thought) — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 16:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::OK I agree that policy would make a good q4, but I don't see we have a problem with admins who want to change particular policies, as long as they will administer according to current policy. How about:
:::::'''''Question''' Are there any policies or guidelines that you disagree with to the point of not being willing to enforce them as an administrator, if so how would you handle situations where such policies were being breached?'' '']]<span style="color:DarkOrange">Chequers''</span> 16:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::hmmmm...Yes, better I think. I know we seem to have a lot of things in a state of flux right now: WP:BIO, WP:PLAGIARISM, WP:NOT (well, that's an all the time thing there), ...Seems ... not quite NPOV enough. Let me think on this a bit. — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 16:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::I don't know that WP:PLAGIARISM is going to change much (if at all) as that's a legal issue and mostly controlled by the foundation. If someone plagiarizes, the content gets removed, and if they continue to do so, they get blocked. Really simple. ···]<sup>] · <small>]</sup></small> 18:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The solution to boilerplate question-inflation is more boilerplate questions? What problem is this intended to solve? ] 19:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

*There are a few good questions being asked. Considering they are asked on basically every RfA, why don't we discuss adding some of those questions to the standard list, and getting rid of the ones that are irrelevant to adminship? <small><span style="border:1px solid #007BA7;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ] </span></small> 19:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:*I can think of several questions I'd like to ban off the top of my head: age of majority, other accounts, activities off-wiki, strong beliefs, Misplaced Pages review, and Wikipedians' rights. I also would not object to a ban of any questions not directly relating to a candidate's previous actions. The community should be able to determine if they will support or oppose based on the candidate's editing history, his interactions with other editors, and his answers to the first three questions. ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 19:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:::I agree with Timmeh that there are some very inappropriate questions being asked at RFA and I'm not sure that I'd describe any of the current boilerplate questions as good, IMHO even the best of them are not relevant to some candidates, and some of them seem to be subverting policies such as ]. But I do think RFA would be a little more daunting for woefully underqualified candidates and more manageable for others if more questions could be answered before the RFA is transcluded. Turning some of the currently common questions into standard questions 4, 5 or even 6 risks fossilising current RFA fads into a permanent RFA overhead, but here's an alternative that anyone whose thinking of running in the future could try out. Perhaps we should add this to the guidance notes: ''"As well as questions 1,2 and 3, many other questions may be asked in your RFA, some of which will probably be asked of most candidates who run in the same month as you. To save yourself time during your RFA week you might consider copying in questions from other recent RFAs and answering them at your leisure before you transclude your RFA. You can do this in the format:''
:::<nowiki>:'''4.''' </nowiki> Copy commonly asked question here. ''this question copied from a recent RFA where it was asked by'' <nowiki>]</nowiki>
:::<nowiki> ::'''A:''' </nowiki>
:::I dare anyone whose about to take the plunge to test this out in their RFA! '']]<span style="color:DarkOrange">Chequers''</span> 20:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

::::Here's an idea. Maybe we could allow only a certain number of questions, and everyone is allowed only one question. Then, whoever the first x number of people are to post questions are the only ones who get to ask them for that RfA. It would solve the problem of an overwhelming amount of questions and allow a variety of different questions. I'm not sure how it would be enforced, but it seems to work well in theory. ;) ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 20:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::That's a great idea. Only one question per user. Use it wisely. And no proxies. ] (]) 20:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::Anything's better than what we have now. I'd favor this, or 2 per person, or you can ask as many questions as you want, but we advise the candidate to pick only the one (or 2) per person they like best and answer those. I wouldn't mind experimenting with insisting on a diff of some kind, and I don't have any idea whether we'd wind up liking the results or not. - Dank (]) 21:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::I have no problem with somebody asking 10 questions if they are unique to the candidate in question. The problem is that people have gotten into their heads that there are certain questions they would like to have answered and they think those questions are one's the rest of the community wants; despite the repeated cries that there are too many stock questions.---''']''' '']'' 21:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::I'm surprised more people don't do that. If you're self-nominating, it seems the logical choice. What really surprises me is that more people don't answer yes or no - most of the "stock" questions boil down to simple "Yes or No" scenarios. Hence the lack of value. ~ <font color="#FF0099">Amory</font><font color="#555555"><small> ''(] • ] • ])''</small></font> 22:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::*Hey Timmeh, would it be safe to say this is a ] that you'd like to see banned?---''']''' '']'' 21:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::*Let me first say that I'm not trying to insult Rootology or his ability to formulate RfA questions. There are a few there that look acceptable, but I do not like more than half of them. ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 21:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::*I don't like any of them. IMO questions should only be asked if you are trying to obtain clarification from a specific individual about a specific issue/criteria. Otherwise, you should be able to look at the candidates history and derive the answers. Stock questions lead to stock answers. And it's not just Rootology, it's everybody who has gotten into the habit of asking the same question(s) of every candidate. I've always hated the notion of one stock questions. I also don't like the idea of one person essentially imposing their will upon the RfA community by asking the same stock questions over and over again. If there was consensus to add these questions to to the RfA process, then fine, add them. But as there is none, these stock questions circumvent the community... the one thing we as a community have agreed upon is that there are too many questions. If you have a specific question for a specific candidate based upon a review of said candidate, fine go ahead and ask your question. Ask 10 for all I care, but make them about the candidate. Asking them what zoological sign they are is a waste of time. This has been a pet peeve of mine for over a year now...---''']''' '']'' 21:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::*I don't feel as strongly about the questions relevant to administrator work, such as, "what would you do in this scenario", but like I said above, I would likely support a measure to ban any questions that have nothing to do with the candidate or his/her past actions. ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 21:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::::If the first questioner had asked 10 questions in my RFA, then I would have picked the two that I wanted to answer the most, and added something like: "Most voters ask questions because they really want to know the answers; if I let the first guy be the star of my show by ], then someone else will want to be the star too, and by the time I've answered 20 questions, most voters won't want to add any questions to that ... which means that I miss out on my chance to deal with their concerns and gain their vote." If we point this out in the Guide, we may not need to make any new rules; candidates will stop answering a lot of questions because it's in their own interest. - Dank (]) 21:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::I must agree with you guys (Timmeh and Spartacus) - if the questions aren't individually tailored to help voters try to figure out where they stand on the candidate, then they shouldn't be asked, pure and simple. If you know how you're going to vote, then vote and discuss, don't ask. ~ <font color="#FF0099">Amory</font><font color="#555555"><small> ''(] • ] • ])''</small></font> 22:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
::::::I also agree with Timmeh ad Spartacus: questions should be individually tailored to find out information specific to a particular candidate. Now if someone wanted to have a page of questions they noticed they were asking frequently, and then choose from them based on what s/he wanted to know about a particular candidate, I don't see a problem with that. I don't think we really need more standard questions, though. ···]<sup>] · <small>]</sup></small> 17:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
←Well, I wasn't around for the "" RfA days, I've always seen those 3 questions, or I'd likely feel much like Spartacus toward "stock questions" in general. I do think the number of questions gets to be too much sometimes, and agree they should reflect on the individual candidate. I don't know if there is a good "stock question" in that policy area or not, but I may follow-up with WSC one day on it. One other item did pop into that little thing I like to call my mind though - alt. accounts. Other than an occasional ] thing, I would not object to asking if a candidate had other accounts that we should be, or could be, looking at. Just a thought. — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 14:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:About the alternate accounts, if a candidate had accounts whose edit histories could harm his chances at being promoted, he probably wouldn't disclose them anywhere, let alone in a public area such as RfA. ]]]<sub>(])</sub> 15:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
::You've got an extremely good point Timmeth. And not one I hadn't considered ;). Personally, if a person requesting RfA (the tools) were to avoid answering the question, it would draw questions. If a person was honest, and said "I ''had'' an account ... but prefer it not be part of this RfA because I don't use it anymore - I might be inclined to accept that. If however, a person stated flat out that they did not have another account - and it came to light at a later time that they did indeed have such an account, I would be inclined to think that it could be a reasonable justification to seek a de-sysop. The reason being, if someone lied about having an account, then my (our) '''Support''' would also be invalid. Hence, the RfA would be invalid. Just a thought. — <small><span style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:1px;"><b>]</b> : ]</span></small> 17:37, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

== Acceptable? ==

Is it acceptable to ask the following questions on RfAs?


== Requested move at ] ==
#Do you have any strongly held beliefs or affiliations, "In real life", and would you be willing to disclose those here? Would you be willing or able to permanently recuse from using your admin tools on those areas?
#Are you engaged currently, or were previously, in any activities off-wiki which (under your "real name", or your online "handle") which, if made public, could potentially bring Misplaced Pages into disrepute?
] There is a requested move discussion at ] that may be of interest to you. —usernamekiran ] 04:47, 3 January 2025 (UTC)


==Discussion at ]==
Regards, —&nbsp;]<span style="color: #999;">&nbsp;//&nbsp;</span>] 17:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
]&nbsp;You are invited to join the discussion at ]. –] <small>(])</small> 10:16, 7 January 2025 (UTC)<!-- ] -->
:The second one is a legitimate question, but the first is too personal, I think. –''']'''&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;] 17:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:Agreed. God knows what sort of answer you'd get to #2 other than "No", though. - ] <sup>(], ])</sup> 17:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
::There are two sections above regarding the appropriateness of a lot of these questions. The first one is pretty personal, like Julian said. But I don't think the second one is very bad. <small><span style="border:1px solid #960018;padding:1px;">&nbsp;] : ] </span></small> 17:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:::{{ec}} @iMatthew: My apologies, but I did not read those sections before starting this one. Sorry. —&nbsp;]<span style="color: #999;">&nbsp;//&nbsp;</span>] 18:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
:Agreed. --] (]) 17:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 15:07, 16 January 2025

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    Odd patterns

    The currently open RfA (Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Sennecaster) has unanimous support votes (201/0/0 as of last check). I can observe that such unanimous supported RfAs are often for indviduals who have an exceptional track in copyright matters, if I remember correctly, since this area tends to be understaffed when it comes to admin capacity, as is the case with the subject of the RfA. Furthermore, for some reason, co nominations tend to be successful and self nominations tend to be unsuccessful (through means of withdrawal, WP:NOTNOW e.g wp:Requests for adminship/ToadetteEdit, or wp:SNOW e.g. wp:Requests for adminship/Numberguy6). These are a few patterns that I could find at RfAs, but I do not see a reason for the latter (co noms better than self noms). ToadetteEdit (talk) 20:34, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

    All ill consider RfAs - i.e., someone ignoring all the guidance - are always self nominees. That alone would create a bias towards self nominations being less successful. The other reason is, perhaps, that !voters can't be bothered to review the track record of most candidates so for self noms will either tend to not !vote at all, or if they do !vote oppose, but will happily trust nominators and support. But without surveying !voters, who can say for sure. MarcGarver (talk) 21:47, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'd say that when the person is qualified and happens to self-nom, they tend to pass. Some relatively recent examples include me, Spicy, and 0xDeadbeef. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 06:20, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Why, self-noms are "prima facie evidence of power hunger", of course! /j GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 11:09, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Let me put it differently: If a respected user nominated someone for RfA and that RfA ended as NOTNOW, it means that something went seriously wrong, most likely the nominator did not make proper research. Most nominators do, or at least attempt to do proper research, this is why NOTNOW RfAs tend to be self-nom. Ymblanter (talk) 11:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Nominators also serve as coaches. They often tell the candidates if and when they should run or not run, and provide other very useful advice during the process, helping to avoid common missteps. A respected nominator can also provide a boost in supports, due to folks trusting the nominator. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:37, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

    Requested move at Misplaced Pages talk:RFA reform#Requested move 22 December 2024

    There is a requested move discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:RFA reform#Requested move 22 December 2024 that may be of interest to you. —usernamekiran (talk) 04:47, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

    Discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator elections

     You are invited to join the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator elections. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:16, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for adminship: Difference between revisions Add topic