Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 5

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Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jakew

I hope I did not overstep my bounds here, but the candidate withdrew, and I was the nominator, and there were two post-withdrawal opinions (one whom self-reverted), so I placed the close tags around it. I apologize if I stepped on any toes. -- Avi 21:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

You did just fine. Once they're withdrawn, they're fair game to tag as closed and remove from WP:RfA. I probably would have reverted the post withdrawal votes/comments too, but since there weren't closing tags on it at the time the comments were made it's a judgement call. There's no major need to do it now. - Taxman ^Talk 22:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/coltsXLI

I've closed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/coltsXLI, seeing as the user was indef blocked while the rfa was in process, and, per a request by some bureaucrat on WT:RFA to mention such things here, I have. In fact, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you guys are okay with it. All I did was add the header and footer, so if there's anything else that needs be done, well, it still needs to be done. Picaroon 17:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, it was deleted. Picaroon 23:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ryulong 3

I would just like to add a note expressing my misgivings about the way this has been closed despite the lack of consensus in the discussion. Catchpole 07:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I have to say I agree with these misgivings. I expected more of a closing reason than "I like" him with a controversial close, and it smacks of caballism. I think that this promotion should be reviewed, and that at the very least a much better reaso should be given to the community. Preferably one that addresses the concerns raised by the oppose "side". Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 08:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Having not participated in the discussion and not known about it had I not had this page on my watchlist I would also like to voice my misgivings that there was not a clear consensus in this case and it therefore in my view should not have been closed as a sucessful RfA. It certainly did not meet the arbitary standard for RfAs these days (80% support) and many if not all of the oppose views were from respected editors expressing their views, not socks/meats or disrupters. Viridae^Talk 08:09, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's keep the ForestFire contained, shall we? There's a relevant thread live and active on WT:RFA. Titoxd^(?!?) 08:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Concur. Good show for Titoxd. What the man said, folks.:-) --Kim Bruning 08:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Apologies, wasnt aware of that discussion. Viridae^Talk 09:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yep. We do not want to give people the impression that having the right friends is more important than having community trust. I'm sure these threads will get ignored anyway though, and it'll happen again next month. >Radiant< 16:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Administrator Lucky_6.9 (talk · contribs)

This administrator has been the subject of numerous complaints regarding inappropriate article deletions, as well as deletions of the complaints themselves. Last month another editor begain a mediation cabal case regarding these deletions, and he deleted that too. Then he protected his own talk page to block further complaints, claiming "wikibreak" yet he never left. Now, in response of a new user conduct RfC I opened regarding him now, he left this blatant attack, and appears to now be volunteering his own resignation, at least as an administrator, here and here and here, and has deleted the entire history of his own talk and user pages. We warn regular users for blanking their talk pages nevermind deleting them. I suppose it is only a matter of whether it is considered binding and gets acted upon, as it certainly settles all the complaints. If I didn't think he'd be back soon, I would suggest not bothering to desysop him, but as this is already the fourth time he's "left the building" (see log) his return is certain. Reswobslc 07:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Unless he has formally requested desysoping, such action would be innapropriate (sans arbcom proceedings). I'm not seeing any request for desysoping...just a some personal attacks against you. alphachimp 08:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Especially when requested by a user who is in dispute with said admin. Guy (Help!) 13:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm puzzled as to why this is even here, considering bureaucrats (a) can't desysop and (b) wouldn't do it on a whim based on the request of one (involved) user anyway. -- Steel 14:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

As am I. dispute resolution is the place to go. Perhaps an admin conduct RfC to see if there is any consensus to take any action. - Taxman ^Talk 14:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I see that Reswobslc has now filed an arbitration case has been filed on this matter. No comment on the merits, but if anyone knows Lucky 6.9, it would be in his interest to respond. Newyorkbrad 14:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Acknowledged - I took this to ArbCom under the advice that this the wrong place for it. (I was under the mistaken impression that bureaucrats can desysop, as in a default installation of the MediaWiki software, that's how it apparently is.) Reswobslc 16:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, a Steward pushes the button to desysop, but will only do so on request of the ArbCom (except in a major emergency). Newyorkbrad 17:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

No, bureaucrats in the English Wikipedia are not the same kind of bureaucrats that come with the default installation of MediaWiki. Bureaucrats in a fresh MediaWiki installation are basically what Stewards are in Wikimedia, as they have access to Special:Userrights. Bureaucrats here have access to Special:Makesysop, which is a rather limited interface that allows users to go "up" the user groups hierarchy, but not down. Titoxd^(?!?) 21:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and in addition, we can only do two kinds of "upward" promotion: from "no special rights" to admin, and admin plus Bureaucrat. This means: we can't make a user with no special access level a Bureaucrat without making him or her also an admin. We can't give any othe rights (checkuser, oversight, developer, boardvote, etc) and we can't remove any rights, not even the ones we do grant. All of those tasks (promotions other than +sysop and +bureaucrat and all removal of access) are done by Stewards. Redux 01:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Bcrats can also set bot flags, as well as rename users. I didn't know that it isn't possible for Bureaucrats to make a Bureaucrat only account (no sysop), interesting. Prodego ^talk 02:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Stewards can do it though. They can grant Bureaucrat access without activating the sysop flag as well. But that's because the "adjust user rights" tool used in the Steward interface if far more complex than the Makesysop used by Bureaucrats. If we checked the "make this user a Bureaucrat" box (and we must write the username in the only field available, in order to inform the system who to promote, be it to adminship or to bureaucratship) when changing the rights for a "regular" account, that would result in a "double promotion". Redux 02:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Seeing as we're discussing it, there are images of the bureaucrat interface and steward interface on Meta. -- Steel 02:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I knew Stewards could, but didn't know about the Bureaucrats. About Special:Userrights (although I believe WMF Stewards actually use Special:Makesysop, but get the full interface) may be more complex, but it sure is uglier. ;-) Prodego ^talk 02:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to note: the image for the bureaucrat interface linked above is the one for Meta. On the English-language Wikipedia (this is not standardized for all projects), the box for bureaucratship reads, as I wrote above, "Make this user a Bureaucrat". And yes, both tools are Special:Makesysop in their root, but the Bcrat flag will yield the link "Make a user into a sysop" on Special Pages, whereas the Steward flag (on Meta) yields "edit user rights". Also, as a curiosity, even if one is a Steward and a Bureaucrat on Meta at the same time, one does not have access to both tools. The Steward flag overrides the Bureaucrat flag for user rights adjustment, and the Bcrat/Steward will only see the Steward tool. Redux 02:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Latin transliterations

Just a note so you are aware of this proposal and may join the discussion here about requiring transliterations if you wish, since you guys are the ones who ultimately deal with usernames. pschemp | talk 15:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Poll on RFA Talk

There's a poll ongoing at Requests for adminship talk, that proposes measures that would reduce bureaucrat discretion, and reduce the strength of consensus. Please review --Kim Bruning 18:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Er, no, it has no effect on bureaucrat discretion and no effect on estimation of consensus. All it asks is that when the raw vote percentage is less than 75% that another bureaucrat be involved in the decision to promote. Bureaucrats still have all the discretion in the world to decide whether to promote or not. It provides no limitations if two bureaucrats want to promote a candidate who had 2 supports and 50000 opposes. Likewise, the reverse. --Durin 22:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Why name changes?

Is there a good reason why bureaucrats are in charge of name changes? It seems like the WP:CHU process is almost entirely technical, aside from the occassional concern over the appropriateness of a new name. Is there any reason a Special:Renameself couldn't be added to Mediawiki to allow most users to change their own username? Technical concerns about database load could be addressed by limiting who could use such a function and how often. Dragons flight 02:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

First of all, Df, welcome back. Special:Renameself would be wayyyy too easy for vandals to abuse to bring the servers to their knees. Allowing any administrator to put a name-change through might be plausible, however, if a need to expand the number of people with access to this function were established (I don't know that it has been). Newyorkbrad 02:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

My general thinking isn't exactly that there is a problem with the current process, but rather that there isn't any compelling reason to burden Bureaucrats with such a role if it could be more widely shared. Server load is a technical problem that seems fairly easily dealt with through technical restrictions. Dragons flight 03:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC) P.S. I'm still mostly on vacation.

[edit-conflict]Good point. However, it may make renames more common, and they can be disruptive, if a well known user, such as yourself, suddenly changed their name, that would be a problem. The same with vandals, since renames mess up logs, you could clear your block log. Plus if they are more common, then the load increases. It might not be a problem to give this (or just the whole renameuser) to admins though. Prodego ^talk 02:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

To my knowledge, we don't actually prohibit well-known users from changing their names, but your point about vandals is a good one. There probably are ways around that too, but maybe it is not worth the effort. Dragons flight 03:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This decision was not made in terms of this Wikipedia. It came from the Foundation, actually. Basically, the access level of Bureaucrat had been created to localize something that used to be done by developers/Stewards: promotions. Renaming users was then a developer task. The decision was then made to have those handled locally as well. As such, access was given to Bureaucrats, which was the position created to take over locally functions that used to be done from a Foundation-wide position. I don't see how it would be feasible, from a practical point of view, to extend this to admins on this Wikipedia particularly. If the tool is "Renameself", then the admins would only be able to rename themselves, something that doesn't serve much of a purpose (admins can rename themselves, while other users can't, and for what special purpose?), and if the ability to rename anyone else was extended to over a thousand admins, this could create a rather chaotic situation, I believe. As Prodego said: renames affect the logs, put strain on the servers, they can make block logs confusing and affect a user's entire Wikipedia identity. It is not something that should be handled by more than a thousand people at once. Redux 03:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Poke Brion about this. He has stated that he wants to make it easier for users to rename themselves as part of the SUL work. Titoxd^(?!?) 07:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Would it put a strain on the servers if, hypothetically, all revsions by users were identified by their User ID number, and then the username only called if a page containing the ID is loaded? Then you could change the master, rather then every one. Of course, the real question is: are history pages, diffs, and logs cached? Prodego ^talk 15:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the first portion of the question, but if I read it correctly, you are asking about storing the user id of the user who made the revision instead of the user name? If that is the case, then certainly, as it would require a separate query to the user table, not just the revision table and the recentchanges table. There is no real reason not to store both the user id of the user and his or her username, though, and I think the developers are considering that for changes to the logging interface. (Again, poke them for confirmation.) As for the second part, the answer is probably, but probably not enough to cause a noticeable reduction in server load. All squid caches store the cached pages in memory, but serve them to anonymous users only. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is it, except what I really mean would it put a prohibitively large load on the server. Are you sure about that only anonymous users receive cached versions of pages? There is an option on the last page of the preferences about that. Prodego ^talk 03:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Prohibitively huge? I'm not sure. It would require twice as much database lookups in pages such as history pages, contributions pages, etcetera. That may not be double our load, but I don't have any way to quantify that (and developers likely don't have any way either, for now). As for the caching, I'm pretty sure about Squid caching; Apache server cache may be a different thing. Ask in WP:VPT about that. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_bureaucratship/Deskana

I've closed this RfB as no-consensus reached, it was quite past due. I hope there are no 'crat objections to my doing so. Somitho 21:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• The general rule of thumb is that non-bureaucrats should not be closing any RfA that has more support than opposition. This RfB falls into that category. I just recommend you constrain such closes to those that have less support than opposition. It's not a hard fast written rule, but it's the rule of thumb that tends to be followed. Also, in closing an RfB or an RfA the "Voice your opinion" link needs to be removed. You did add "Final" which is good. Also, the end time should be corrected to be the time the nomination actually closed, not when it was supposed to close. --Durin 22:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • We shouldn't be shooting someone for being bold, y'know. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• • It's not a question of shooting someone for being bold. First, I thought I was rather polite. Second, the rule of thumb draws the line as noted above. If it isn't noted, where do we draw the line? What do we need bureaucrats for if they aren't the ones to determine consensus but the general Wikipedia public? --Durin 02:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Thank you for the advice. I'll refrain from closing RfB's in the future. I closed this one based on the advice of several sysops. I thank you for closing it properly, and have noted how to do it properly in the future. Somitho 05:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I guessing that the bureaucrats were slow on the draw because Tangobot's report (i.e. the thing at the top of the page) doesn't do RFBs. Dragons flight 23:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• I'd think your right on the money there. :-) Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 23:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Dragon, I've got your bot watchlisted as well :-). I noticed the event on this RfB, and have commented on it on WT:RfA (#Please don't). Redux 14:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Tangobot autocount (moved from talk page)

Given that the Werdna RfA looks like it may be contentious, I thought it worth pointing out here that the Tangobot is miscounting the oppose !votes. This may be very minor (it's only 1 out!) but given the likely furore whichever way you guys handle the conclusion, it's worth sorting this out so it's one less spanner to be inserted spokes-ward. --Dweller 14:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Clarifying, here ([1]) Olve's oppose is number 50, but at the RfA it's number 51. Presumably, there's a little gremlin to be sorted somewhere. --Dweller 14:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The bureaucrats look at the actual RfA (and the actual votes therein) when assessing community consensus, not the count generated by the tracking bots, so there should be no problem with a proper close. NoSeptember 14:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Fixed it. Nae'blis's comment started "# *", so the bot interpreted it as having been struck when it wasn't (I've placed a nowiki around the *sigh* so that it looks the same but doesn't confuse the bot). --ais523 14:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. One less bone for contention. But there may be trouble ahead... --Dweller 15:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that; I usually remember to nowiki those (a holdover from MUDs). -- nae'blis 19:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Flameviper

Could a kind bureaucrat please close this? I'm just feeling really bad for the candidate, and it'll never pass the way it's going. His previous request was just as bad, and I don't believe he deserves any more opposes as he is a good faith contributor. Thanks a lot. --Majorly _{(o rly?)} 00:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I would strongly suggest that during closing, the closing bureaucrat take a look at the candidate's recent incivility, personal attacks, and just outright trolling (plus the edit Gwernol points out in discussion), and make a decision on whether it's worth blocking the candidate as well. I certainly do. – Chacor 01:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Chacor, you have to give him credit for Adopt-a-User... I mean, how many users do that now? Still, I don't mind if he's blocked either way. --Majorly _{(o rly?)} 01:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

My comment wasn't so much about credit, and credit will be given where it is due, but his comments - especially that one towards Metros - are just unacceptable. – Chacor 01:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Any admin can look at the edits and decide if a block is warranted. I haven't seen enough yet, but if you'd like to point to particularly onerous diffs, perhaps something would need to be done. The Metros one was unnacceptable, but not really one where a block is the best response in my opinion. I did however close the nomination. - Taxman ^Talk 01:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Renaming question

Legaleagle86 (talk · contribs) has moved his user and usertalk pages to User:Legaleagle, who I don't think exists. I suppose this is a malformed request for renaming but am not very familiar with this area. I thought I should flag it for those who are. Eluchil404 13:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

missing admins

I was just wondering what is the guideline for handling cases of "missing admins?" I speak in specific reference to user:Anonymous editor, who has been inactive for over 6 months. Perhaps it would be prudent to desysopp the acount until his return, so as to avoid potential hijacking as happened with user:HolyRomanEmperor. Rama's arrow 15:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

There are some who have been inactive for more than 2 years as well. Personally, I would strongly support desysopping inactive admins, as they do on Meta, but it's been proposed again and again here and I doubt it'll happen. --Majorly _{(o rly?)} 15:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Meta didn't start out that way. They used to sysop people indefinitely upon request, as long as they were a sysop on another project (which is easy to become on a tiny project). The inactivity standard was adopted in large part to have an excuse to desysop someone they didn't want to remain as a sysop. Of course, that goes back a few years, and we have an active ArbCom here on enwiki, so that motivation to change the policy wouldn't apply here. NoSeptember 15:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

• This has been discussed many times at WT:RFA, check the archives. Opinion remains divided, so we continue with a policy of leaving their admin status alone unless the user requests to be desysopped. I have seen many inactive admins suddenly become active, and I have not seen any inactive admin account hacked and misused, so this seems to be a low priority issue. NoSeptember 15:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

No my point was that the tools should be taken away only "temporarily" just until the missing admin comes back to edit - like how the powers of the current president of Israel were taken away until his court case ends or his term ends. He draws the attention of a b'crat, and he is re-sysopped w/o fuss. The only thing to safeguard is the presence of the buttons in a dormant account, where just a password holds the key for a hijacker. Rama's arrow 16:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Totally agree with ya Rama's arrow. Just not sure anyone else will. --Majorly _{(o rly?)} 16:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Er, I'm not sure how that would fix the (potential) problem you're trying to solve. If someone got a 'dormant' admin's password, they would be able to easily log in, post whatever requests are necessary, and even change their email address to receive any sort of required email confirmations. Anyone who was capable of doing something really damaging (I'll leave those WP:BEANS unspecified) with their hijacked sysop bit would have no difficulty navigating such a process. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Admins have considerable enough powers to wreak havoc on Wikipedia (either a malicious admin himself or somebody having stolen his password). Nothing of the kind has happened so far, and I'd think we better hold off introducing any new rules on dormant accounts until we actually have to. I'd support such a proposal for bureaucrats though, whether missing at all or simply not using their tools. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I have already suggested quite recently in fact; however, the community shrugged it off. --Majorly _{(o rly?)} 21:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I understand - with more than 1,000 admins (and b'crats) to counteract, 1-2 cases may create little difficulty, especially with ArbCom and Jimmy Wales around. Was just pondering, dat's all. Rama's arrow 21:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It's a good idea in principle, but is it really needed? I wasn't around for the HRE incident, so it may have been bigger than I think it is, but it doesn't seem like we have too much of a problem with hijacked accounts. Unfortunately, I think we have a worse problem with misused admin accounts by their rightful owners :-/ -- Renesis (talk) 06:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Adminbots

It was suggested by Taxman on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Cydebot 3 that the RFA mechanism not be used to bestow sysop rights to bot accounts. As this would be a criteria change, would there need to be any restrictions (e.g. granting sysop status to bots not operated by admins) or quorum requirements from WP:BAG (as there are signifigantly less potential BAG's then users that would participate in RFA). ? — xaosflux ^Talk 02:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what exactly would be the new system to decide on whether or not to grant sysop rights to bots, but I don't suppose it could be based on a system wherein only a small, predetermined number of users could participate. I'm basing this on my knowledge that Jimbo himself declined to grant permission for a bot to gain sysop status (I believe it was Tawker's bot), despite his personal liking of the proposal, if it failed to gain community support. The pivotal question to be asked is: would the community at large be prepared to defer to BAG members and/or Bureaucrats the prerrogative to decide whether or not any given bot will be given sysophood? In theory, having a new system, that is not RfA, doesn't mean a new type of suffrage, or the [severe] limiting of the right that each member in good standing of the community has to be heard on whether or not anyone (or in this case, "anything") will become an administrator. Redux 02:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, as your average, bot-clueless community member, I endorse the idea that adminbots are better in your hands. As long as the operator has already been granted admin-status in their own normal rfa, I think its fine for such bot proposals to be between the bot approval group members and the bureaucrats. Picaroon 03:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Looking at an Environmental impact statement, an ugly piece of bureaucracy, I got a few ideas about this. First, before proposing an admin bot, one could ask whether people agree on there being a need for an adminbot in the first place. That would remove one step in the grilling process. If approved, I'd rather have the bots run through RFA after its code was exhaustively reviewed by the BAG (to eliminate issues of "I don't know if the code will work" and "Bots are evil and will kill us all"). Therefore, the only thing left to argue is whether the community trusts the user running the adminbot or not. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• The whole thing would be much easier if there was granularity in the granting of admin rights. If we could split out blocking, deleting, editing protected pages, protecting, etc, we could give just what was needed. I have no idea how hard that would be to code up. On a side note I think that would really solve a lot of other backlogs too. As it is, if we go with a full community input process we might as well just send it to RfA. The only difference with an admin bot and a human is the account is getting admin rights and it's not a person. The technicality there could be solved by simply making it clear that's what RfA would also be for now. I think protection bot would have been successful at RfA largely because it showed a clear need, the BAG basically signed off on it, and the bot's owner was trusted. So the next proposal that met the same criteria would likely be successful too. But that alone doesn't say we should go through the whole rigmarole, and I do think it was clear a large number of people didn't want the bot to go through RfA, they wanted us to handle it. - Taxman ^Talk 03:33, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It is extraordinarily easy to code. It literally is one line. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
    • If it's that easy, I can't see where the resistance to it is. Of course, it's a couple more lines to actually implement (the promotion interface would have to change). - Taxman ^Talk 04:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
      • The developers don't object to it. They only ask to see where the English Wikipedia has decided that such a thing should be done. It is a matter of adjusting LocalSettings.php, and hacking makesysop a little bit to have another check box. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
        • If figured if it was easy the developers wouldn't object. I guess the next step is to gather consensus for granularity. - Taxman ^Talk 15:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• A large number of people do not want these to go through RfA, but a large number of other people do. WP:BN is probably too low profile for this discussion. Let's not neglect to review the long ANI discussion that took place beforehand that ultimately lead to the start of the ProtectionBot RfA (instead of avoiding RfA as was originally proposed). I'm sure there a lot of people who would want to discuss a criteria change before it is implemented. NoSeptember 06:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• I just reviewed all of the relevant discussion I could find, including the ANI discussion, the RFA itself and the talk page and WT:RFA, and there were clearly many more people saying it shouldn't have gone through RfA than those saying it should have. There were only about 6 or 7 people that came out and said it should go through RfA. I was sort of one of them but that was only based on not having a consensus not to go to RfA based on the ANI discussion that was about 50/50 before the RfA. But once it had been run, the comments ran much more strongly to not repeating going through RfA for a bot. That doesn't fully decide the issue, but it does give some data. - Taxman ^Talk 15:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• There was some discussion, but only as a side discussion to a particular ongoing RfA. So, yes, you can use that discussion as some data on the issue, but not as an indication of the consensus that would result from a full community discussion of policy or procedure. So far most people have said nothing about whether bots should go through RfA, they just voted on an RfA that was there. NoSeptember 15:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think Titoxd's approach is correct. We need to achieve a consensus on bots having admin rights in general before we do anything else. Such a discussion could help root out potential problems and help develop a basic structure that all potential admin bots could adhere to. --Durin 14:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Why? Protection bot would likely have been successful, so it seems we've already answered that point. As it stood at the time it ended, it was a consensus to promote. - Taxman ^Talk 15:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Because every admin bot proposal that has come forward has suffered from "we shouldn't have bots as admins". If we first achieve consensus on whether there should be such concerns, they will be minimized. Further, if we bring up the more global issue, we can unearth concerns that would apply to all admin bots and develop answers to those concerns as some of the structure on which all admin bots would be built. --Durin 15:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Just sounds like a lot of discussion that's already been done, for something that wouldn't decide anything more finally anyway. Those people will likely always feel that way. But as above, I think granularity would go a long way to solving the problem. - Taxman ^Talk 15:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• A related proposal was shot down in April of 2006 at Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges. That's 3/4 of a year ago though. --Durin 15:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Identifying conditions or restrictions for adminbots to operate under would handle the concerns many (not all, but many) of the opposers have. And if you satisfy enough, bots will pass through RfA easier than they are now. (ProtectionBot had a compelling usefulness in handling main page vandalism, most bots will not be so compelling) NoSeptember 15:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I've objected to several of the adminbots proposed thus far. But I'm not obstructionist, as I've also said that granularity of user rights would make several of my broadest objections go away. -- nae'blis 16:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Somewhere in the volume of material related to ProtectionBot, several users including one dev objected to modifying Mediawiki if the effect was to create a new user group for the specific case of ProtectionBot. Essentially the objection was 1) changing the software to address unique issues is bad policy, and 2) the restriction would accomplish little since the bot operator already had all the admin tools. In light of this objection, I would suggest that any proposal about granularity aim to address the issue broadly and not be focused on the needs of individual bots. Dragons flight 16:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

What is an admin?

From the protection bot rfa, it seems to me that a large number of the 'dont put this on rfa' camp were those who's argument is that the bot should never be an "administrator", not that the bot should not have the set of "sysop rights". "Administrators" by nature have to be sentient, as their roles deal with a lot more then clicking buttons (e.g. most cases of user-unblock requests, non-vandalistic protection/unprotection debates, the handling of the staggering XFD work.) Idealy I'm all for having the permissions be granted granularly as a concept, but from dealing with rights management IRLm it comes at a high administrative (guess bureaucratic here) cost to manage. In addition to community support, we would likely need to have buy-in from the bulk of crats that running RFRollback, RFDelete, RFviewdeleted, RFblock, RFUnwantedpages, RFMediawiki, RFeditprotected, etc systems would be able to be supported; or that they should be granted ad-hoc without process soley by crat discretion. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course, it wouldn't need to be nearly so complicated. Some of those could be given out only with full admin rights, and others as groups. Deletion and blocking would be the two highest value to split out. Rollback perhaps not so much given how many scripts are out there. The less extra overhead created out of the gates, the more likely it would be supported. - Taxman ^Talk 13:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Granularity has been suggested before, Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges. This was a much simpler proposal, granting only rollback separately, and failed to gain consensus. I don't think full granularity has much chance. the wub "?!" 10:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's the other way around. The full granularity has much more value, and thus may be easier to implement. And we don't need to have separate processes now to dole out the individual rights, but it would be of extreme value to be able to do for bots. Bots can get a large number of edits done and work faster. Then we could decide in the future if we ever decide to have separate processes for the rights, and of course it doesn't need to be as complicated as the above. In addition we have another year of data that admin promotions aren't keeping up with the backlogs. Besides overhead and people wanting to know exactly how the systems would work upfront, I can't think of any significant grounds for opposition. - Taxman ^Talk 13:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, I don't think the inability of Requests for rollback privileges to gain consensus was because so many people were opposed to it in theory. Many of the objections were procedural (instruction creep, bureaucracy creep, developer time) and others were philosophical with the idea of voting on granting rollback privileges (automatic granting, intermediate user level, give them adminship). Only a very small number of objectors actually said that granting non-administrators access to the rollback tool would be a bad thing. -- nae'blis 16:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I was very deeply involved in RFR when it was proposed. In fact, it was brought up in my RFB as a reason for opposition. I dare say that most of the opposition was to the system in which it was going to be handled; there were not that many users opposed to the concept of a separate permissions system. The issue here is figuring out how to assign and revoke privileges, not about how to code it.

By the way, from the title of the thread: "What is an admin"? It is to MediaWiki an account with the ability to perform certain tasks not allowed for anyone. MediaWiki doesn't care if it is a human or not. I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords... Titoxd^(?!?) 18:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like to observe two things:

1. The typical RFA voter doesn't understand bots -- who writes them, how they are managed, how much effort is involved, how they benefit the project. The burden of educating the RFA voter base is great given the extensive drive-by voting that forum suffers and the lack of opportunity to discuss an RFA prior to opening it for votes.
2. I believe that it is grossly unfair to the bot writers to expect them to follow the lengthy process to develop a bot and get it approved only to find that the necessary rights to have it run effectively aren't granted due to politicization of the matter at RFA.

I believe we need some sort of policy on this because of the increasing importance of bots to the project and the ever-growing ratio of editors to admins (when casual editors are included). The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Hmm... too many "we need a policy", but we need some actual ideas, and ideas on how to implement the ideas, put on the table... what should the process be? Titoxd^(?!?) 04:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Run it much the same way as AfD, closed by a 'crat on balance of arguments. No-consensus would be a default promote, but arguments that don't give reasons, or which repeat other reasons given, can be given less regard than others because they don't bring anything new to the discussion (this is basically the same as AfD). --ais523 09:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Usurpation backlog

I suppose Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations has backlog. All the requests from January 31 are waiting for a bureaucrat's response. I am not sure if they require time before accepting by a bureaucrat. In addition to that, I was just curious about usurpation, does usurpation could be done on other projects, specially Meta. Regards, Shyam ^(T/C) 08:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• By definition, usurpation will always have at least a 30 day backlog, assuming attempts has been made to contact all accounts to be usurped owners. --Durin 13:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for clarifying, Durin. I did not notice that point earlier. The page also quoted, Requests listed here will be filled no earlier than March 3, 2007. I am in doubt is usurpation policy only for Wikipedia or other sister projects also have the same policy. If they have then could someone point out the link for the meta. The link for changing username seems to be broken, Regards, Shyam ^(T/C) 14:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Meta does not have an infrastructure specific for dealing with this (Requests for Permissions is used mainly for requests pertaining to other projects where there are no local Bureaucrats). Meta Bureaucrats and Stewards handle it on demand. Ordinarily, post on m:Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat. If you have a request regarding your account on Meta, you can also post on my talk page there, and I'll look into it. Redux 00:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Redux, I have made a request on your talk page on meta. Please take an appropriate action to the request. Regards, Shyam ^(T/C) 06:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Speedy name changes

I'm very active over at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names. If we decide a username is inappropriate, they'll be blocked (big surprise, I know).

In one case, I had a user (User:Dirrtychristian), who was blocked (the first to guess why wins... uh, a pony, I guess). They summarily requested an unblock so they could change their username, which I granted. However, there was a bit of a delay (nine days), when the user was still editing.

I raised a question at Wikipedia talk:Changing username, which Luna Satin found interesting and suggested I bring here. Is there a way to "speedy" such policy-dictated name changes? These are different from "change 'Random editor' to 'Random Editor'"-type requests. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Need more bureaucrats I think, or get the inactive ones to help out in changing usernames. --Majorly _{(o rly?)} 20:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's certainly a straight-forward answer. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Or reduce the number of requests. I know others don't necessarily agree, but I just don't see the value in username changes to the project's goals. I would prefer we adjusted the wording and allowed reasons for changing usernames to reduce the number of requests. If we explain the reasons politely I think most people would understand and not be upset. We're here to build an encyclopedia, and nothing else. - Taxman ^Talk 21:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I commented there that an express lane for these types of requests is probably a good idea. If noone disagrees, we can start one. - Taxman ^Talk 21:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

RfA closing date issue

As can be seen from the page history and talkpage, an issue has arisen concerning when Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Amarkov should close. Apparently a few editors !voted Support before the page was finalized and listed on WP:RfA, so some editors are disputing when the seven-day period should start and hence when the RfA is due to close. Given the current count situation, it is not a critical matter either way, but a bureaucrat's review and input could assist in minimizing any controversy. Newyorkbrad 01:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Only one person voted support in that time, and the instructions clearly state that the acceptance is the first step in finishing a nomination; not the time the RFA starts. No RFA can be considered running unless it is transcluded... anything else just doesn't make sense. (If a large number of voters participated before it was transcluded, this could create a controversy, but that did not happen here). -- Renesis (talk)

Indeed, if only one user !voted Support before the RfA was posted, I agree this was immaterial and the candidate should get the full seven days from that time. Newyorkbrad 01:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Moot now, candidate is withdrawing. Newyorkbrad 02:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but for future reference: the seven-day period starts from when the candidate (nominee) accepts the nomination (not applicable if it's a self-nom) and lists it on the main RfA page. Both have to take place, and any !votes cast before that are cancelled, since the page must be reset — it is ok, of course, to inform people, who may well have participated in good faith, that their input has been removed because the RfA was not yet active. Comments made before the RfA was properly started may be moved to the RfA's talk page, instead of being simply deleted altogether. Redux 13:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's basically what I would have said. The enthusiasm is good, but people should save it until the nomination has actually started. Unless there's a decent amount of time discrepancy and a number of participants, there's no pressing need to do anything, but once it's multiple hours and multiple votes that would be a problem if not dealt with. - Taxman ^Talk 13:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Taxman (and to Redux to the extent his comments are not inconsistent with Taxman's). Major issues with over-early support (or opposition) should be addressed, but it would exalt form over substance to strike !votes if there are a couple of early supports registered, typically from nominators or co-noms, before the RfA has been officially opened. Newyorkbrad 13:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

User rename log

I see this log only goes back to 22 July 2005. Is there a page showing the log prior to this date? (similar to Wikipedia:Bureaucrat log which shows older rights changes) NoSeptember 11:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the SVN repository, the Renameuser extension was added Sun Jun 26 10:19:06 2005 UTC, so it is likely that all bureaucrat renames are recorded in Special:Log/rename. Prior to that, if any renames were done, they would have been done by developers directly in the database, and would not have generated a log. Wikipedia:Changing username/Archive1 shows requests that predate the automatic log, and to my knowledge, all those responding to the requests are developers, suggesting that my assumption is correct. Essjay (Talk) 12:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. NoSeptember 12:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Delldot

Any chance one of you lot could give Delldot the mop? Shes desperate to get started! RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 01:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Heh, thanks Ryan, but I'm just puttering around AFC anyway right now, so it's cool :) delldot | talk 01:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I've closed the RfA. Thanks for the note. Redux 03:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Redesigning adminship

Redesigning adminship: Initial comments

On the wikiEN-l mailing list, as some of you may know, there's been a lot of discussion the past day or so about how we're selecting admins as a community. The general opinion there seems to be very strong that the current system is broken and, as I would characterize it, equal parts too bloated and too stringent.

I'm approaching the bureaucrats specifically because they regularly evaluate requests for adminship, and are thus best placed to evaluate the system. I think if the bureaucrats can produce a reasonable consensus for change among themselves, it may be possible to enlist wider community support for it.

Let's assume you were collectively assigned to redesign the system. This should not attempt to alter the nature of adminship (values like trust and "no big deal"), only the process by which it is handed out. You can redesign from scratch if necessary, with the primary condition that adminship should not come simply at your whim. What parts of the system would you keep? What parts would you scrap? What information do you as bureaucrats need in order to recognize that a candidate is qualified and has community support? What kind of system would more effectively provide you with that information? --Michael Snow 03:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe such discussion belongs on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship where the audience is much wider, than on the mailing list. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

There has been plenty of discussion there that's never gotten anywhere. A smaller audience can actually be more productive, that's part of why I'm addressing the bureaucrats directly. --Michael Snow 06:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

People have been saying RfA is broken for years, and discussions on how to "fix" it have consumed megabyte after megabyte of space on talk pages... but the net change in the past two years? The questions are at the top of the template now, instead of the bottom... nothing else has changed, other than the people involved in individual RfAs. I'm just saying, I know people mean well, but these "drastic changes needed to RfA immediately" things are basically much ado about nothing. --W.marsh 05:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

In theory, I agree with Michael: RfA could use some revamping. From a pragmatic point of view, however, marsh is right. And I should know, I proposed numerous alternatives and ideas to redesign RfA in the past, none of which came to fruition. And I wasn't the only one either. All that has been done really are a few structural rearrangements (as mentioned: questions at the top) and a few rewordings (mainly in the header: "voice your opinion", "scheduled to end") designed to better illustrate the nature of RfA. The Bureaucrats are always attentive to community feeling and the changes brought by it, but so far the only changes that we've seen have been in interpreting the existing system. We've been nowhere near a place where we could effectively restructure RfA in any way.
That being said, I don't believe any of the Bureaucrats would oppose making changes in RfA, especially since our job (specifically as Bureaucrats) is not to rule, or control, the process, but rather to operate it. Redux 11:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Redesigning adminship: the issue of scale

• As many people have observed, and a number of graphs I have produced have shown, standards at RfA have and continue to slowly rise over time. Similarly, there are frequent complaints of people using strange rationale for opposing such as the recent debate about namespace balance as a basis for oppose. These sorts of concerns keep arising. The reality is there is no ready way to prevent such problems from arising in any open system where any passerby can comment on an RfA. Yet, a non-open system is antithetical to the wiki way.
• The root problem though is not really open vs. non-open system. That's a consequence of the current environment. That environment has generated because of scale issues. When RfA regulars were a smaller set of people, gaining consensus and focusing a group towards sets of standards was considerably easier. Cohesion was achievable, standards stayed low. Now, there's been more than 300 people who have been active contributors to WT:RFA just in the last 3 months alone. I don't know what the number of unique people who are voters on RfAs in the last three months has been, but I strongly suspect it is higher. Now, there are simply too many people in the process to get the group to move in a direction, regardless of how good or bad that direction is. As noted by another above, the changes in recent history have been incremental, not substantial.
• Two things that are very worth reading in regards to this core problem; Dunbar's Number and http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html. In particular when reading this, think of their relevance to RfA (many thanks to Kim Bruning for bringing these to my attention). I think most of you will be amazed at the strong correlation between these and RfA. The latter reference is long, but very worth the read. Without readings like this, we're down in the forest complaining about "well this is wrong" and others saying "no it isn't" and nothing ever happening. With such readings, more global understanding of the core nature of the problem begins to evolve.
• en.wikipedia is a trailblazer vs. other language wikipedias. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the chief reasons is that this language wikipedia runs into the scale problems long before any other language does. There's small and obvious examples of this, such as the division of orphaned fair use images into dated categories to more rapidly identify those that have exceeded the seven day limit. There also happen to be considerably more subtle but quite large examples. RfA happens to be one of them. There are other areas at this language wikipedia that suffer from similar problems.
• In sum, it is highly unlikely that whatever problems RfA has can be cured by the group working towards a group solution. Every proposal that has been made has been shot down, some multiple times. WP:DFA is one such example. My gut feeling on how to reform RfA had been that we needed to focus on determining what is wrong with RfA, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses before we ever considered revamping it. Without such effort, we could just as easily cause harm (in fact I think more easily) than good. Since reading the above noted things, my opinion has changed. Even though such a process would be good, it would not work. The outcome of it, even if perfect in evolving RfA, would never be accepted.
• This is a big problem. Recent studies have shown that admin load (as shown by number of admin actions per admin per day) has doubled in the last two years. See WT:RFA#Charts_on_admin_activity. This is confirmed also by statistics kept by me showing that the number of edits made by all editors as a ratio to the number of admins has also doubled during the same time period. A number of tools have come online in the two year time period to help contend with these increases, but these are bandaids. They are not cures for the problem.
• To go even deeper into the "RfA" is broken problem, the core problem lies in the ability to effectively manage Wikipedia. As time goes on and Wikipedia continues to increase in popularity (we're now breaking into the top ten of all websites), our ability to manage is eroding. There's simply too much going on for the tools we currently have available. Something will have to change. Whether it be now or two years from now, it will change if only because it will become so apparent the system is broken that it must change in order to survive.
• en.wikipedia will be (and is) the first to run into these problems. What we do here is pivotal to the success of the project. RfA is but a symptom of the problem. What solutions we apply here, if they are going to be relatively permanent fixes, must address the scalability issue. The system will need to be able to work when there are thousands of people participating in RfA. The current system is failing because of a lack of scalability. Standards continue to rise, but due to the size of the group there is no effective way to reverse that trend. --Durin 13:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Very well said, Durin. The path to solve this, however, is not mysterious, just unpopular. At least to the larger portion of the community — although more experienced users usually understand and accept it.
There is a widespread misconception that nobody is running Wikipedia save for consensus. That is not true. There are people who ultimately run this project, and whose word will, if made necessary, be final. I'm not one of them, but one of them is rather obvious, it's Jimbo — and quoting from his user page, right after he states his principles: I should point out that these are my principles, such that I am the final judge of them. This does not mean that I will not listen to you, but it does mean that at some ultimate, fundamental level, this is how Wikipedia will be run. (I bolded that passage). Other people who do have power of decision: members of the Board of Trustees (Wikimedia-wide, which includes this Wikipedia) and, on enwiki specifically: Danny (when using WP:OFFICE prerrogatives) and arbitrators (as a group that makes binding decisions in a number of instances).
If we accept Durin's argument that the environment has become (or will become) unmanageable due to scale, ultimately we would need to ask some of these people, as a group or even individually (if it's Jimbo), to decide if something needs to be fixed regarding RfA — and if he/they say "no", then the discussion is over — and, if he/they say "yes", then decide what needs changing and how. And that would be final.
There's no need to tell me how unsavory this sounds, but ultimately there might be no alternative. And it has happened before: Jimbo implemented the 3RR by means of an executive decision. If the 3RR, an established policy, were put up for discussion today, as something new, it would have the same fate as "Requests for Rollback Privileges", that is, neverending discussions that yield no consensus, much like it has happened to every suggestion to revamp RfA.
I know nobody wants to hear that, but it needed to be said. Redux 14:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed. But, if we suggest a revamp of RfA that is not agreed upon by the group, we might as well slather ourselves in gasoline, string ourselves to an unlit bonfire and hand WT:RFA the match :) Witnessed what happened to Linuxbeak and Ilyanep when they tried to implement a version of WP:DFA without running it through WT:RFA first. --Durin 14:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't expect that there wouldn't be any discontent voices — as I said: the concept is not at all appealing — but noticing that I mentioned certain, very specific people who would have legitimacy to make a binding decision as a group; or individually, if it is Jimbo. A Bureaucrat, or even a group of Bureaucrats, does not have such legitimacy, which is why what happened to Linuxbeak and Ilyanep came to pass. But if Jimbo were to declare something like "this is how new administrators are to be selected from now on", then this would be final, and this would be how RfA would be run from then on. Jimbo is extremely genereous in listening to the community, and factoring community feeling into his decisions (hence the "benevolent dictator" thing), but ultimately his decision will stand. That would clearly not be the case if I, Redux, were to say suddenly: "this is how things will go". I'm a member of the community just like everybody else, whereas Jimbo is...well...he is Jimbo! ;-) Redux 15:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Despite the trend we are currently in, I think we should stick with the system we have, as there is no consensus to change it. If/when we find ourselves in a true crisis of a lack of admins, people will rush to nominate and approve more admins. Doing something to help avoid unsuccessful admin candidates from being totally battered, which has led some to leave the project, would be useful though. NoSeptember 15:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The point made by Durin, rather truthfully, is that regardless of whether or not there is a need for a change (which would mean that there would be something wrong with the current system, at least on some level), the evergrowing scale of the project makes consensus impossible to attain. And this means that we are forever stuck in the process of a group of people constantly claiming "there's something wrong, and we need to do something about it asap", and another group that always replies "no, there's nothing wrong with it" — and even those who think that there's something wrong can't even agree on what it is exactly that is wrong, and what to do about it. It's a vicious circle, made perpetual by the unmanageability of the environment. Redux 16:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Whatever our system was, we would always have some saying "there's something wrong" and others saying "there's nothing wrong". I hear the same division of opinion about the US Presidential process, and I'm sure the same is said in just about every other country with an electoral system of some sort too (and talk about scaling - these countries have millions of voters). There will never be a perfect solution. Having what in the final analysis is a simple process is not so bad. And if you boil it down, our process is very simple... you pass if you get a supermajority of support, all the additional guidelines and procedures are just bells and whistles. A simple process is flexible because nothing is stopping the participants from changing the basis of when they will support a candidate. So the new consensus will come from below instead of imposed from above. If we truly need more admins, the consensus from below to promote will suddenly develop, and our simple process allows for that to happen. NoSeptember 16:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

To reply to Redux way above, I so much doubt Jimbo will step in to reform the RfA. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

There's something I've been thinking of asking Jimbo for some time now: Does he still believe adminship is no big deal? He made that much quoted comment years ago, a lot has changed since then. There is a lot of disagreement over how big a deal adminship is - knowing Jimbo's opinion (and his reasons for it) would probably settle a lot of those arguments. I think asking Jimbo that specific question would be better than asking him a general "is RFA broken?" style question. --Tango 12:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Redesigning adminsip: Alternatives

Maybe not. Or maybe Jimbo could say "I don't see any need for a reform in RfA" (which means: no changes are needed), or maybe he'd defer the decision to a think tank formed by some of those people I mentioned way above. The point is not necessarily to reform RfA, but rather to break the vicious circle. And this would respond to one of NoSeptember's points: yes, there will always be people that are dissatisfied with whichever system, but ultimately we wouldn't need to write 11 pages worth of comments in order to get the same old result: "no consensus to do anything". We'd be able to say "this issue has been addressed and resolved", something we are utterly unable to do at this point.
Our ordinary process of consensus-building discussions hasn't been working for the larger issues, those that get the attention of a larger morcel of the group — I'm not talking about the consensus-building discussions within any given RfA, but rather I'm referring to the discussions on the topic of whether or not RfA needs a reform. I'm not defending either at this point. With over 300 people participating in RfA and RfA talk (as Durin said), we will not be able to work up to consensus on anything that is controverted to a certain degree. It will always come down to a "no consensus to do anything" situation, which, in a way, may be conceding control of the system to a group that doesn't necessarily represents the larger community, but is populous enough to always split the discussion to a point where consensus, which isn't the process of ascertaining a simple majority, will not be possible.
I'm not saying that those in favor of the status quo are wrong: I'm not advocating for either side at this point. But it is relevant to point out that there is no possible resolution through ordinary community discussion. We will just find ourselves writing pages and pages to no avail again (how long is this thread already??). So again, it is not the best prospect to contemplate, but there simply may not be an alternative to resolve this situation: someone (or a group of people) with legitimacy might just have to make a binding decision. And if they say "let's change nothing", then we will ask that people stop posting every now and then to propose changes in the process, at least for some time, until context again changes to a point where revision becomes prement.
In closing, notice how other high-profile decisions made by the community (enwiki or Wikimedia) are actually votes — such as Board elections, Steward elections or ArbCom elections, and not by a consensus-building discussion — they'd be unmanageable as well. One might say "so let's decide whether or not RfA needs change by means of a vote", but then we'd need to get consensus in order to decide whether or not this should be decided with a vote, and then we are righ back to square 1...
This is not about changing the wiki way: articles have a much lower traffic, sometimes only a handful of users. The system works just fine on them, and there's no reason to imagine that this will change in the forseeable future. And articles are in fact the essence of this project. Redux 21:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The steward elections are pretty similar to RfA, everyone over a certain percentage passed, similar to the supermajority of RfA. Even ArbCom isn't much different, although with a fixed number of seats (well sort of, depending on Jimbo's choice of the number) the cutoff is not predefined, but Jimbo again pretty much passed those with the highest percentages. All of these processes are supermajority processes now, whether we call them elections or consensus building exercises. Btw, I am not an advocate of the current system per se to the exclusion of new alternatives, I just think we will find that a new system will have just as many complaints and endless discussion as the current one does. I am always game to try them though. NoSeptember 23:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• RfA was and is, at least supposed to be, a consensus building mechanism. However, in the current environment much of what happens is driven by the declaration of a supermajority, whether there is consensus or no. The current reality is that RfAs themselves routinely exceed the upper bounds of Dunbar's number. The notion that such RfAs really adhere to any sort of consensus is fairly flawed; people aren't agreeing that a candidate is such-and-such. People are just voting. Few people openly declare any particular statement when making supporting votes. Consensus is what evolves from discussion. It is not what evolves from a vote. As a voting mechanism, RfA works in so far as it derives a metric by which we say yes or no to nominees. As a consensus mechanism, RfA is currently fatally flawed. It just doesn't work very well as a consensus building operation. Consensus can readily evolve in groups of 10-20. In groups or 150-200, which is hardly uncommon on RfAs any more, the notion of consensus is inconceivable in reality. People aren't reaching a joint decision on the character of a candidate. They're just voting. We keep dancing around this issue over and over again at WT:RFA. Some Wikipedias have simply given up on it and just work on a strict voting basis. But, such a system has its shortcomings too.
• What is the goal of RfA? On the surface, to approve/disapprove of candidates for adminship. But, that's just one goal. Another goal is to ensure that enough admins are promoted to properly maintain Wikipedia. Yet another is to ensure, in as much as possible, that no harm come to the project from the giving of admin privileges. There may be other goals as well, but those are the biggies I think. To the second goal, that of promoting sufficient admins, we can apply metrics. We've done a few of late and shown that admin load has doubled in two years. If that pattern persists, in another two years it will have been a quadrupling of admin load in four years. At some point, we will have to step back and say "we need more admins" or "we need alternative tools or processes that reduce the load per admin" (or both). As RfA continues to promote fewer and fewer candidates and continues to raise standards of acceptable candidates, it is likely that "we need more admins" will become a signficantly loud concern. Yet, as I noted above...WT:RFA is, I believe, incapable of responding to this concern.
• Many times, people refer back to Jimbo's comment from 2003 that adminship should be no big deal. That concept still exists and is quite pertinent here. At core, there really isn't anything that's developed that changes that concept. In fact, quite the opposite. All admin functions are reversible now. All of them. So, where is the harm in giving admin tools? People say they would reduce their standards if it were easier to de-admin people. But, the reality is, whether a person is an admin or not they can have a very negative effect on the project. Being an admin has really little do with that. In fact, if there is anything that makes it have more to do with it, it is the perception that admins are a special class of user. They really aren't. It's just some extra tools, and that is all. Eventually, as the standards keep rising at RfA and the need for more admins becomes more and more apparent, there IS going to be change decreed from above. This is starkly unavoidable for reasons noted before; standards keep rising, promotions keep decreasing, and consensus to change is impossible to achieve. Eventually, there will be a decree from above. We can choose to do something about it now, to be better prepared for that decree and help contribute to what that decree says, or instead have no say in it in any way. Regardless, the decree is coming.
• I'm not saying "the sky is falling!". I think when the decree happens (and it will), there will be huge complaints about it for ~2 weeks. Objections will die down when people grow weary of complaining about the change and nothing happens to reverse the change. ~2-3 months after the change, it will be accepted as old hat...the way we do things now. RfA will then percolate along with little trouble. Admins will be made and wikilife will go on as before. --Durin 04:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Redesigning adminship: The community can fix this

• You say:
  >"WT:RFA is... incapable of responding to this concern" (of "we need more admins"). and,
  >"Eventually, there will be a decree from above".
  I disagree. The community can respond when the need to change becomes obvious to more people in the community. Nothing is stopping us from nominating and deciding to promote more admins. And no decree will be needed to make us do so. Just this past week there was an effort to find and nominate overlooked candidates, and the result of that effort can be seen in the current list of candidates. The truth is, while we talk about how short of admins we are, as long as the admin-tool only backlogs are as low and as managable as they are, it is hard to sell that to some people. For example, we talk about a CSD backlog, yet every 2 days or so we run the list down to 0. If we can consistently run the list down to 0, it is hard to say we have a "real" backlog problem. We may be burning out some of our active admins in the process, but we are not really enduring a too-big backlog as long as admins are stepping up and clearing them. We haven't got to the point where our admins can't handle it, and this gives an excuse for tend-to-oppose voters to be selective about who they will support. When a true crisis of a shortage of admins comes, the votes to pass more admins will be there, because fundamentally the people who vote at RfA (including the frequent opposers) do value the best interests of the project. It doesn't need to be done by decree, we just haven't come to the moment of true crisis that will sway the community to act.
  Don't get me wrong, I too would like to solve this before we get to a true shortage crisis, but I also know that our current system will handle it when it comes, without Jimbo's intervention. NoSeptember 11:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • A little interesting addendum to this: Radiant's recent comment to WT:RFA making a relevant observation. --Durin 18:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
    • The community can respond when the need to change becomes obvious to more people in the community - I can't believe that someone could read the suggested readings by Durin (Dunbar's Number and http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html) and still make this argument. The second reading is full of examples of communities that failed - of communities that didn't scale and couldn't agree within themselves on how to change themselves so they didn't fail. Failure - at least failure by the community to fix itself - is an option; it's quite possibly the most likely option.
    • If nothing else, the "community" is an ever-changing (as well as ever-increasing) group of people. It's simply an assertion of faith that somehow a "community" that hasn't been able to agree on any change to the RfA process in the past two years (except to move the chairs around on the upper deck, so to speak) is going to act differently in the future. Wikipedia policies are capable of incremental changes. But even something as minor as reusing old accounts with zero edits (see Wikipedia:Usurpation) took, what, a 'crat to grab everyone by their scruffs and force the process along? Suffrage, for example, is something that many, if not most of the other major language Wikipedias use, and something that might help this Wikipedia with RfAs, even though only for year or two of time before increasing scale again takes its toll - but I doubt that it could ever get any serious consideration here. Rather, I think it's pretty clear it would have to be something that Jimbo mandates, if its going to happen at all. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:22, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
      • NoSeptember is a rational person, with a very significant involvement in WP:RFA. He and I have differing opinions on the ability of the community to respond to the question and issue of reform. I think he is wrong, and my stance is right. But, it doesn't really matter. Looking at the long view of this, I think it is inevitable that the pressures on RfA will become so apparent that a stance that RfA is not fatally broken and that the community can effectively respond to this problem will be untenable. We are not there yet. In that sense, NoSeptember is right. But, in the long view, that position is untenable.
      • The process for RfA was put in place to manage RfA when it began in June of 2003 and has been largely unchanged since. This process has undergone cosmetic changes during the three and a half years since, but the essential process is the same; nominees are put forth, they are supported and opposed, and someone evaluates whether that person is considered acceptable or not. The metrics have changed somewhat, but the process has not. Take a look at what it looked like in June of 2004, just a year after creation [2]. That's basically what we have now. Sure, we transclude RfAs now, and the headers for each RfA are different. But, other than that, what's changed? Nothing really. Meanwhile, we've had ideas of reform dating back at least to March of 2004 when the idea of no self nominations was proposed [3]. Since then, there's been a huge number of calls for reform, reform proposals, discussions of reforms, polls and surveys, and more. Yet, nothing has changed. As the RfA community, we've never been able to agree on any significant change.
      • Now, it could readily be argued that the process hasn't been changed because it is as close to perfect as we can expect to achieve. That might be a reasonable argument. However, given the seemingly ever increasing debate on how to reform RfA, this position seems increasingly untenable. I myself held this position for quite some time. My opinion (and true, it is an opinion) has since changed. See my comments on scalability issues earlier on this page. While RfA remained small, the problems it had were also small. As it grows, as standards increase (see Image:AverageEditCountatRfA-2006.png, as admin load increases (see Image:Actionsperadmin.png, the pressures on RfA to achieve its goals will continue to mount. It's inability to meet the goals will become increasingly apparent. It's simply a matter of time. --Durin 19:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Redesigning adminship: Suggestions

I have some suggestions:

1. Adopt specific numerical minimum requirements for edit counts and duration of involvement to prevent the constant inflation of standards.
2. Require objective, high minimum standards for voters. I would be in favor of limiting voting to only those Wikipedians who have themselves been admins for at least three months, because it would break up the now-overinfluential caucus of upcoming and recently promoted admin candidates. Absent such a change, I would still be in favor of limiting voting to only those Wikipedians who have, for example, 1000 edits and three months' participation.
3. Split the RFA process into a "discussion" and a "voting" stage similar to that proposed at "discussions for adminship."
4. Encourage the bureaucrats to utilize a more liberal standard than the current 75%/80% one for promotion when large numbers of votes have been cast, using a sliding scale. For example, the ratios could be lowered to 70%/75% when over 50 votes are present and to 65/70% when over 100 votes are present.

Any combination of these would help, and I believe we would benefit from implementing them all. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 22:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

None of these take the scaling issues that Durin has pointed out into account, so mileage may vary.

The article namespace generally works well, because people are typically split into small groups (true for perhaps 90% of articles.)

Try to think of ways to have people split up into small groups, perhaps to discuss aspects of the candidate, and have these small groups somehow come together and reach some conclusion. If people don't notice the split happening, all the better :-)

Well designed lightweight consensus processes are typically faster and more pleasant to work with than comparable committee or majority based systems, so adoption isn't the biggest problem. Finding a good, clean, simple and elegant design, and especially taking scalability into account... that's the tricky part.

--Kim Bruning 00:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree in very strong terms with attempts to introduce suffrage requirements for voting in RfAs. Also, edit count inflation is a problem, but explicitly invalidating oppose votes because their rationale is based on an overinflated edit count expecation is a not a good idea I would think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I mostly agree. Except where extremely tough suffrage would push back scaling issues for a while. (Like if only 1 in 10 people could still participate, it might take a while for RfA to go out of control again). --Kim Bruning 13:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Redesigning adminship: Overhaul

I agree with Michael that the sytem needs an overhaul. Nothing concrete has materialised in the past few months quite a number of people have something or the other against a new system being set up. Agreed, no system is perfect, but I strongly feel some of the problems facing RFAs such as editcountitis should be cleared up. One way to deal with it is for bureaucrats to tune in to good suggestions made by the community, and then collectively (the 'crats) debate and come to a consensus regarding the proposal. If consensus has been reached, it could be perhaps be referred to Jimbo/Arbcom for an endorsement. For example I would like to see the editcountitis issue be dealt with once and for all. Also it could reinforce the concept that adminiship is based on the aptitude, experience and skillset of the candidate, not superfluous parameters such as high editcounts, excessive RFA patrol, and daily AFD participation. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Trial adminship was discussed earlier last month. It raises hackles for some people but may be worth considering. At any rate, if the problem is too few passing nominations and/or too stringent standards, an obvious solution would be to lower the requirement. It seems we're already doing that; I seem to recall that it used to be "about 80%", then it became "75%-80%" and now it's more like "70%-80%". Of course, changing the bounds will give the appearance of not being impartial - but, note that the English Wikipedia is the only one that doesn't simply have a cutoff point. A simple statement like "starting tomorrow, all RFAs with 67% or more support shall pass (discounting socks)" should easily resolve the problems of (1) too few people passing, and (2) the general ruckus any time a decision is in doubt. >Radiant< 09:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Radiant: How does this address the scaling issues that Durin has put forth? I think all the proposals put forth have failed, because they do not scale? --Kim Bruning 13:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The current RFA method tends to "throw away" most of the data collected in an RFA, and also does not manage to develop as much information. When less people were participating, more of the information got incorporated in the final decision. In short, RFA has not been scaling very well, as far as efficiency goes. Any proposal for "fixing" RFA should try to find a solution for the scaling problem. --Kim Bruning 14:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Redesigning adminship: All-in-one expectations

I think another problem with RFA participants is expecting admin-candidates to be "All-in-Ones" expecting them to take care of vandalism, AFDs, blocks and what not. One may prefer to edit articles, and as such his usage of the tools will differ. So, one way of breaking the scaling issue is to make sure that a person seeking admin privileges (as per his outline for justification of tools), does not result people !voting against a niche rather than a jack-of-all trades user. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure this has to do with scaling? (scaling is typically when a you grow a small thing into something very large, see: ummm Scale (computing) or Scalability, which are close enough, though in this case we're talking about scaling in social networks.) Even so, a good point wrt requirements: you think admins should specialize more?. --Kim Bruning 16:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think (correct me if I'm wrong) what Nichalp is getting at is that RfA contributors are expecting nominees to be jack-of-all-trades type admins. Reality is there is no one size fits all editor or admin. But, equal reality is that if you don't cover all the bases, you're chances of passing RfA go down. --Durin 17:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually it has indirect dealings with scalings. The moment we do away with the requirement that admins should be all-in-ones, lesser people will participate in the !vote. People who do choose to participate would take a closer look at how the candidate has performed as AFD-admin and accordingly vote. To answer Durin's question on touching bases, I agree yes, the candidate should have a fair understanding on basic adminship duties policies before seeking adminship. This can also be tested through AFD questioning. After all all candidates must go though a manual before applying, don't they? =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

There's still going to be a portion of the RFA population thinking, "Well, he said that he won't {delete|protect|block|edit the interface}, but he still has the technical ability to do it, so I'm opposing until he shows at least some regularity with those processes." That brings us back to the point of granularity in user permissions. Titoxd^(?!?) 21:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Redesigning adminship: rolling vote

in the german wikipedia there was one year trial of continuous evaluation, or "evaluate instead of vote", originally named "abolish voting". 20% of the admins participated.

taking this as base and eliminating the "non scaleable part", continuous voting, or rolling vote was born. i tried to translate it into english, see User:ThurnerRupert/Rolling Vote.

--ThurnerRupert 22:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Bot counts of !vote

Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but why doesn't my neutral vote in Crum375's RFA show up in the summary above? I checked and it is formatted correctly. Obviously, this particular !vote doesn't really matter all that much, but if the bot could be miscounting or failing to find duplicates elsewhere, that could matter. --BigDT 05:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

You should probably ask Tangotango directly about that. And, everyone should remember, we use the bot summary as a convenience, a reminder of what RFAs are due to need closing, and a general idea of how they are doing. When actually closing an RFA, we look at the actual !votes on the actual page, so it never matters what the bot reports. Essjay (Talk) 05:25, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the ::: at the start of Crum375's reply confused it. I've fixed the markup there to #: (not only to unconfuse the bot, but so that any future neutral votes will be correctly numbered), and the bot recognizes the vote now according to the 'details' link (so your vote should show up next update). Hope that helps! --ais523 09:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense ... and just now I noticed and fixed the same thing in another RFA ... there was a comment after the lone oppose vote that was missing the # mark and the autocounter was showing zero opposes. Thanks to both. --BigDT 23:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Offensive username dilemma

Please see User talk:Deadaphaia. The user in question is remarkably similar to a blocked user on ja:wp with the same name who was blocked there shortly before this account as created. The ja user was obviously trolling and hoping to offend ja:User:Aphaia, a user who left en:wp not long ago for a different class of username reasons (see User:Aphaia).

After rebuffing a few requests by different people to change username, the user is currently stalling. I would recommend a temporary namechange until the user decides on a new name; hoping the user is not a troll but expecting that s/he may be and not wanting to waste more time.

See Wikipedia:Changing_username#Deadaphaia_.E2.86.92_Lifelessatropos for the specific change request... the user could request a new name if this is not acceptable and they actually want to contribute. +sj + 16:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It all appears to add up, and it is an innapropriate name. It's not so egregious that we couldn't wait a couple days after notifying them that it is indeed going to happen very soon unless they pick another name themselves. Can you note that on the user's talkpage and the CHU request? - Taxman ^Talk 17:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't get why this is a rename issue. If the user is not willing to undergo a rename, and the username is inappropriate, block them. They will either decide to undergo the rename and be unblocked, or will remain blocked; either way, the probelm is solved. It's the same process we've been using for years, and I don't see any reason for setting a bad precedent of performing renames without the user's consent. The tool for enforcing Wikipedia:Username is Special:Blockip not Special:Renameuser. Essjay (Talk) 17:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. And tag the userpage with the appropriate message, so that it is crystal clear to all why that user was blocked and, if it's the case, has remained blocked indefinitely. Problem solved. Redux 19:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Note that there was once a forced username change (User:Trollderella) that met with very significant dissent. Ultimately, the forced username change was undone. --Durin 20:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

There actually is one instance in which we can rename accounts forcibly, and there's been precedent. I won't be spilling the BEANS here, but I suppose that the Bureaucrats active in user rename, and users that have been following WP:CHU for the last year or so would remember that. Redux 20:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Of course the log would hold the... Really you need a developer. Prodego ^talk 21:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Adminstrative right to vanish

I have raised my concerns with the adminstrative right to vanish and return with bit at the Wikipedia:Village pump (news). Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Recent sysopping

Since people will be wondering: regarding my recent sysopping of the account NYC JD. This time there is no need for special procedures. This is an admin that had given up his sysophood voluntarily, due to burnout, and has decided to return to editing. Via e-mail, I asked for a null post to my talk page to confirm his identity. It was done immediately. In order to prevent further stalking ensuing from his previous identity, he asked that I didn't spell out the old username when confirming his identity publicly. So please go to the history page of my talk page and see the edit from 03:49, 22 February 2007. This is the admin returning to work after prior, uncontroverted resignation and whose new account has been sysopped per request. Redux 04:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Loaded questions

Could a bureaucrat or uninvolved admin take a look at Albatross2147 (talk · contribs)'s questions on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rlevse 2 and his other interactions there? His questions are rather loaded. Asking Rlevse his "attitude" about something I said is odd. Question #9 is a polemic against the Boy Scouts of America. Question #8 has loaded language ("at least as you perceive it", "How do you justify your claim", etc). Could a bureaucrat or uninvolved admin keep an eye on things and possibly consider speaking with this user about civility? Thanks. --BigDT 03:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:CHU

Backlog. Will clear it tomorrow. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

14 usurpation requests for tommorrow as well. :) Shyam ^(T/C) 18:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I've completed the CHU requests but have suspended the ursurpations as the previous requests have not been carried out according to the guidelines. Once that is fixed, it will be carried out. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:45, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

New archiving bot

Now that EssjayBotII has been taken offline, this forum is without a bot to archive old threads automatically. It would be good to find a replacement. I'm thinking of assigning it to Werdnabot, unless someone has another idea. Redux 15:29, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Misza13 already has it covered. Check out Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MiszaBot II. It should start archiving this page fairly soon. alphachimp 15:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep! It will be MiszaBot for now however (and it is set up already; to 5 day old threads), until MiszaBot II gets old enough to count as autoconfirmed. Миша13 20:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Bot-flagged accounts are automatically autoconfirmed, even if they are less than 4 days old. Or at least that's the case by default last time I checked. Tizio 22:57, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Good to know - I didn't check that after they were flagged. In that case, MiszaBot II takes over right now. Thanks for the info. MiszaBot III 23:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Wait, bots can't speak... – Steel 23:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I was just clearing the bots' "new messages" and forgot to login as me again, if anyone wonders... :D Миша13 23:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you all, and especially thanks to Misza for providing the bot. :-) Cheers, Redux 23:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Another overdue RfA

Just being helpful. --Dweller 12:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Closed now. Thanks. --Dweller 13:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Another borderline RfA badly past due

Please close it or extend or something - don't let it sit there. - NYC JD (make a motion) 14:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Fear not. We have enough bureaucrats. --Durin 14:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Closed. Thanks for the note. Redux 15:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Badly past due is, in my mind, over 3 days. Relax. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

But we can't have a problem if you define it like that. - Taxman ^Talk 02:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

We can if he says: "Badly past due is in my mind. Over 3 days." It's all in the punctuation. Splash - tk 23:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Essjay's bots

Hi. According to Essjay's talk page, he requested the removal of the bot flags from his bots but User:EssjayBot, User:EssjayBot III and User:EssjayBot IV still have bot flag as can be seen here. Please remove the flags of bots as Essjay requested. Thank you. --Meno25 08:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Done, as you can now confirm by the same link. Thanks for the heads up. - Taxman ^Talk 16:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

They had been blocked already, just no one had thought about removing the flag. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Protection of talk page of failed nomination

The talk page of Chacor's failed nomination - Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Chacor 2 - has been the location of some minor soapboxing this evening. The talk page of a failed RFA is not the place to continue the discussion nor is it an open forum to be used as a soapbox. Would anyone see a problem with removing the thread in question, which was added several days after the RFA was closed, and protecting the page? I'm going to be bold and remove the thread myself ... but I don't want to step out of line on protecting the page. --BigDT 04:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Protected. Viridae^Talk 06:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Aha! Now I see how you guys just HAPPENED to coordinate the fact that it was blanked and protected within seconds without it LOOKING improper. If you read WHAT I ACTUALLY WROTE, it in no way constituted "soapboxing"--at least not as represented by the Wikipedia page on the matter. I made it clear that all I wanted to be able to do was make my thoughts on the nom--and any future noms--for this user known, which violates no policy whatsoever. It was tag-team blanked, putting me at risk of 3RR had I reverted the inappropriate blanking, while--conveniently--allowing the ones doing the blanking to not be under any similar risk. Oh well. You all have enforced your censorship of a perfectly reasonable comment. Well-played. I'd still be interested to know the specific part of the soapboxing guideline I violated with my comments.K. Scott Bailey 09:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You violated this. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You link to an ESSAY entitled "Don't be a dick", as some kind of "proof"? And you're an admin?!? Wow. that's amazingly boorish behavior, especially for someone who has been entrusted by the community with the tools.K. Scott Bailey 17:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The title isn't meant to be taken so literally. I know that SlimVirgin wasn't calling you a name. The point is be nice, and your comments on a closed RfA's talk page were hard to construe as constructive. They were essentially kicking a guy while he's down. Please do refrain from similar in the future, and don't take my comments below as an endorsement. It's just that the removing your comments wasn't the best idea either. - Taxman ^Talk 17:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually the talk page of the failed nom is the place to continue conversation about that nom. The talk page should be unprotected and the user's comments replaced. If and when the conversation gets out of hand, turns into personal attacks or worse, then it should be protected. But this did not rise to that level. Just because you disagree with someone's comments does not mean you should remove them and prevent them from being made. I won't revert the protection and blanking of the comments without discussion, but if there is no discussion I will after some time for review. Now Mr. Bailey, you should also work to keep your comments as constructive as possible. - Taxman ^Talk 12:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the comments shouldn't have been deleted, but I also don't see how they can be kept "constructive" if the page is unprotected. To be constructive, criticism needs to promote positive development or somehow advance the situation. Since the RfA is closed, there is no further development. There are no further advances to be made. And saying that he'll never support Chacor in a future RfA (the crux of the statement) can't possibly be twisted into anything constructive. He wasn't there to discuss anything; he was there to make a declaration. But he already had his chance to speak his piece, here. Nothing constructive can possibly come from further piling on. Kafziel ^Talk 16:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

That's hardly a chance to "speak my piece", Kafziel. It was simply a one sentence statement of my opposition. After further review, I wished to extend my remarks, but as the RfA was closed, I extended them through the discussion page, as per protocol. I was then tag-teamed (intentionally or not) and put at risk of 3RR if I had simply readded my completely appropriate comments, while those tag-teaming me, conveniently had only one reversion each. Then, the page was reverted once more, immediately protected via a request placed here, disallowing any further discussion on a page DESIGNED for such discussion. Whether you consider it a "declaration" or whatever, it was my right to publish it there. The page protection was inappropriate, given the facts at hand, and should be reversed, even if the famous SlimVirgin thinks I'm a "dick."K. Scott Bailey 17:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You didn't need to be at risk of violating 3RR. Your position is much stronger if you simply stop and discuss instead of reverting. And don't say you were because you could have not reverted the material in and discussed it's removal there or elsewhere instead. - Taxman ^Talk 17:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure where I could have "discussed" it--or even how--as the thread I would have done so in was being blanked, which was the source of the mini-controversy. They reverted it until I had no reversions remaining before I would have stood in violation of 3RR.K. Scott Bailey 17:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This page or WT:RFA could have been a place to discuss it. Still, the comments were hardly constuctive imo. I'm sure Chacor saw them, was no doubt upset at the result of the request and I don't think it really matters so much it needs to be discussed. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 18:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You're simply wrong. The discussion page is the place that an RfA is discussed after the RfA is closed. My comments were not inflammatory, but were simply expanding on my initial one sentence statement in opposition to the RfA of Chacor, a completely appropriate thread topic for a RfA discussion page, your opinion notwithstanding.K. Scott Bailey 18:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you could have put the comment in whilst it was running, or left a note with Chacor. Either way, it's hardly anything to worry about, I don't suppose he'll be running again anytime soon. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 18:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

"I'm not sure where I could have "discussed" it". To avoid any revert war, go to the talk page. To avoid one on a talk page, discuss the reverting in a calm manner, not the original issue. If that doesn't work, take it to someone's talk page. - Taxman ^Talk 19:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried those things. I tried asking them not to delete it on their talk pages. They simply ignored it, and someone else conveniently blanked it. At that point, I should have realized I was up against a group that was bigger than me, and simply walked away. That's what I've chose to do now. You all win. I lose. People can blank legit threads to their heart's content.K. Scott Bailey 00:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Two things, in response

1. I was NOT "kicking someone while they were down." I was explaining further my opposition, and detailing why I would not be supporting any future nominations. The discussion page is the place for that type of thing.
2. How can you defend SV's one sentence potshot, while accusing me of "kicking a guy while he was down"? SV's driveby was completely inappropriate for this discussion, and his accusation that I was "being a dick" (per the text of the linked essay, nothing less can be concluded), was out of line for a high-profile admin.K. Scott Bailey 18:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Because it wasn't a potshot. - Taxman ^Talk 19:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

How is posting a one sentence reply saying I "violated" an ESSAY (which is impossible to do, as Wiki's have no bearing on anything WP, other than the author's views) entitled "Don't be a dick" not a pot shot? As I am getting the distinct sense that I'm up against a pretty well-organized clique here, I'll withdraw my complaint, for fear of being venge-banned by one of the admins in the apparent clique. I'd be interested in hearing what was so patently offensive about my initial thread that it merited deletion, but if no one chooses to respond, that's fine. I back down. You all win. Blank legitimate threads that you disagree with to your hearts content.K. Scott Bailey 00:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:TINC. Viridae^Talk 01:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Post all the internal links you want. There ARE cliques on WP, and everyone knows that. Clearly I pissed off the wrong one, which is why I've conceded the debate to the group currently piling on. It's interesting to me that such a benign thread, simply expressing my views about potential future Chacor RfAs has inspired such a firestorm. Interesting.K. Scott Bailey 02:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Good grief, there's no vast conspiracy against you. I didn't !vote in the RFA, because it was closed by the time I got around to it and if I would have, I would have opposed for the same obvious reasons that you opposed and 40-something other people opposed. Nobody reverting you was working together ... nobody is a part of a clique. I can't speak for any of the others involved, but I noticed your comment because the RFA was on my watchlist. There was no conspiracy - we all independently felt your comments were inappropriate. After reverting, I was inclined to protect the talkpage, but I posted a message here asking for a second set of eyes to validate that decision. The RFA is over - further posturing serves no purpose. If you would like to be sure to be able to oppose any future RFAs, add Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Chacor 3 to your watchlist. (You can watch pages that don't exist yet.) That way, if this page is ever created, you will be notified and will be able to offer your opinions. But as of right now, there is no RFA. There is no controversey over the manner in which this one was closed. In short, there's nothing to discuss. With all due respect to Taxman, I disagree with his view that discussion on talk pages of closed RFAs is appropriate. Unless there is some kind of meta-RFA issue to discuss (improper closure, sockpuppets, whatever), it's just a bad idea. Once an RFA is over, it's over. Rehashing the arguments serves no purpose except to create unneeded drama and get people upset. Wikipedia is not a battleground. --BigDT 03:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MiddleEastern

This RfA should probably be closed early. Thanks for taking a look, Gwernol 15:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Closed =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Gwernol 15:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Applying for Adminship

Shouldnt there be some sort of mechanism set in place to stop editors whose Edit count is less then a 1000 from applying because in the last couple of weeks there has atleast been six such cases..--Cometstyles 19:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• The standards at RfA are ever increasing. They never stop increasing. You put it at 1000 now, and people will go around making random AWB (or other scripted) edits to pump up over 1000. Any time you put in a bar, it's going to go up. Put it in now, and two years from now you'll be seeing complaints about why the bar isn't at 5000. Edit counts are meaningless. --Durin 21:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

  The question must be asked: is anyone, anyone at all, harmed or seriously inconvenienced by letting RfA's that are going to snowball anyways stay up for a few hours? No. If 100-edit RfAs are really such a terrible sight, I've got some backlogs for you that can take your mind off of them. Picaroon 23:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• I also do not believe that is a good idea, users should always be able to apply. The only formal requirements for an adminship candidate is that said candidate has an account. Cbrown1023 talk 21:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:BAG request

I need Shadowbot3 given a bot flag since it is a Werdnabot clone. It is operated by shadow1, I need this replacement since Werdnabot malfunctioned and Werdna is MIA. And NolBot also needs a flag see the WP:BRFA Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 21:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Flagged both =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

2 RfAs that probably need early closes

There are a couple of RfAs at the moment by pretty inexperienced users that probably should be closed early out of kindness to the candidates:

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/BlakeCS
• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Darkest Hour

-- WjBscribe 06:50, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see Nichalp has noticed already. Never mind. WjBscribe 06:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Bot deflagging

Hi - I'm not sure whether it's possible for 'crats to do this (I hope it is :)), but could the bot flag please be removed from User:MediationBot1, so that edits will appear on people's watchlists, considering that it often makes edits (listing new cases, for example) which are of great interest to mediators and others? I understand the the pevious MediationBot, operated by Essjay, was also operated flagless, and as the use the same code.... :) Martinp23 20:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, bureaucrats can do this. They can flag and de-flag them. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 21:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

 Done. :) - Taxman ^Talk 21:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Please limit this bot's edits to no more than 2-3/min to prevent flooding without a flag. Thanks! — xaosflux ^Talk 04:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Certainly Martinp23 17:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't bot edits automatically appear on people's watchlist? =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes they do, forgot about that. All the flag does is take it off recent changes. - Taxman ^Talk 12:47, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

So why does the flag need to be taken off? =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Bot edits can be turned off in watchlists (although they're on by default). Also, minor bot edits to usertalk pages don't trigger new-messages flags, although I don't think that's relevant here. --ais523 14:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure of exactly why the bot should be defalgged, except that I have been informed that the old mediation bot was. I suspect that many users, after a while, turn off bot edits in their watchlists, but mediators in particular often take great interest in the edits made by the bot to both case pages and the listing pages. I suspect that the underlying reason is that the bot is doing the job of an editor, and that its edits are often important to people when they see them on the watchlist (especially as it should be the only editor to the pending cases page, where new cases are stored). Martinp23 17:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The bot's page states that it is operated by the Mediaton Committee. I take it from that that the MC makes concerted decisions regarding the bot's functions. So the question would be: does the MC wants this to be left without a flag? If someone specific is responsible for operating the bot, then the question is directed to whomever it may be. This is only limited by one aspect: as Xaosflux mentioned above, if this is going to be left without a bot flag, then the pace of editing has to be limited. If this would not be desirable, then the bot would have to be flagged, unless some kind of understanding can be reached with the BAG, which are the people responsible for the technical decisions regarding bots. The fact that the previous bot was not flagged would not seem like sufficient reason, especially since MC members can still view bot edits on their watchlists simply by adjusting their preferences, unless they would like to see only this particular bot's edits, but not any others' (which doesn't seem like something that would cover every single member). If that were to be the case, we would just have to reconcile the individual preferences with the technical/policy-related limitations. But the decision can be very much of a practical nature. Redux 19:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I personally operate the bot, for the mediation committee. Personally, I have no problem with there being a bot falg in place, but have requested that it be removed on the request of the committee's chair, ^demon. To get a wider consensus from the mediators on the issue, I'll make a post on the mailing list, pointing here to the valid points raised. The bot does have a fairly low edit frequency, and is throttled by the pywikipedia framework, so it is easy to restrict the edit rate, especially as the tasks are not really time critical. Martinp23 19:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The reason we ran the original without a flag was because of that very issue, some people do have bot changes hidden on their preferences. Now, as to the speed of the bot...the bot is only set to run at various intervals, it's not running constantly, so the issue of "x number of edits within a minute" is rather irrelevant. The bot might make 5-6 edits max within a 2 minute period, then not edit for a good number of hours, if not a day or so. I had brought up the point of flagging the original MedBot with Essjay at some point, and that was his justification. If consensus is against what we have done previously, and the BAG does not agree to this, then we can flag it, but I would prefer leaving it unflagged, if at all possible. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 19:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

De-flagging this bot seems like a good idea to me. The MediationBots aren't very active, from what I have seen, but do spread important announcements around from time to time. Also needs to be corrected sometimes.  : ) Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 01:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that being the case, unless the BAG would have any objections, which I don't see happening, we can leave things as is. Cheers, Redux 02:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

A belated note that I agree with ^demon on this. I haven't heard any objection from a MedCommer, either onwiki or onlist, so I presume it's OK. Cheers, Daniel Bryant 06:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Psst

Time to close one RFA... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

User:Dannyisme

Since Danny has resigned from his position, what shall become of this office account? It's still a bureaucrat and admin, and if Danny no longer works for Wikimedia, would the process be to remove its status? Apparently consensus is needed here before the removal is requested on Meta. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 23:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucrats can't desysop; you need a steward. You can request this at meta:Requests for permissions#Removal of access. Prodego ^talk 23:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, got to read. *bangs head* I would say not in this case, and certainly not on the Bureaucrats' noticeboard. Prodego ^talk 23:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with the bureaucrat's noticeboard? It's as good a place as any, and there was a quick response too. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 23:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

What does this have to do with Bureaucrats? Prodego ^talk 23:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Several bureaucrats have steward rights. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 23:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

True, some do. Prodego ^talk 23:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, 4 do :P Majorly _{(o rly?)} 23:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the rights from his Dannyisme account. I presume he simply forgot it when removing his various other rights. — Dan | talk 23:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• And for those of us that missed the memo... what exactly happened? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

This happened. – Steel 23:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• [edit-conflict]No idea, Danny just removed all his rights. Brad Patrick created a Former staff page with Danny on it about 12 hours later. Prodego ^talk 23:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a question. What happens to the office protected pages now he is gone, hate for them to sit there rusting and uneditable? Viridae^Talk 23:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo will appoint someone else. I already asked him. Prodego ^talk 23:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• N.B. I've listed other projects of his on meta RFP. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• Just a point in respect of office protected pages: we have some pretty clear guidance that we can proceed with due caution, as long as we make sure Foundation is kept informed. It's expected that people will be extra conservative with changes, and that the articles remain protected at least for now, but if we can expand an article within policy and the expansion is unassailably correct, then we can do so. This is not to be undertaken lightly, though, and I agree it's difficult when you can't contact the original office protector. You can find that your work is undone. But as long as the change is made in good faith, and from the very best sources, there is no reason not to proceed with rewriting. Or at least that's what Jimbo told me. Guy (Help!) 18:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Another bot deflagging

Relevant discussion at

→ Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Approvals_group#Betacommand

It seems that the approval for BetacommandBot has been removed: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot 3. (The bot's first approved task (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot#BetacommandBot New task) and second approved task (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot 2) were both temporary and seem to have been discontinued; for the bot's other tasks, approval was withdrawn for one (see above) and never granted in the first place for the other Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot, and the bot has also been used for unapproved tasks). As the bot is no longer approved, could its bot flag be removed? --ais523 09:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Just for everyone's information, here are permalinks to the controversy:

• Betacommand's talk page showing users who wanted him to stop editing. (Shows the controversy in detail)
• Mets501 Talk Page discussing why the approval was removed.
• AN/I where users asked for immediate intervention. There are a number of threads on this page.
• Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Approvals_group - There was some discussion about removing Betacommand as a member of BAG. Any interested parties can discuss that issue on this page.

Hopefully those links are helpful to any interested parties. -- RM 13:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a serious breach of process. BetacommandBot has many different task, and they are ongoing, the only task to be "withdrawn" is the newest task and that BRFA was done so due to an error in communication. the only "unapproved" task is the one that had a pending BRFA and that task was limited to WP:WPSPAM subpages. revoking the flag is un called for. BCBot has over 80,000 edits and every issue that has been brought up with the bots actions have been addressed rapidly and effectively. My edits are not linked to the bots task. I did not run anything unauthorized under User:BetacommandBot check its contribs or its talk page. there have been no real issues with it other than very minor errors on WP:SUBST or at categorization error in a wikiproject tagging run I ask that BetacommandBot be given its flag and alwoed to contiune with what it has been approved for, and if there is a request for a de-flagging we have a discussion about it. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 15:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Where are the approvals for the tasks I haven't linked above (substing templates, for instance?) They aren't on any of the pages that follow the usual BRFA naming conventions. --ais523 15:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

How different are the tasks? If they are vastly different, could you instead create two bot accounts? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Ill pull a link out but BCbot predates the current format, my first BRFA is what actually inspired me to push for the new format and better organization and me becoming a member of BAG. Give me a few minutes to retrieve a link. all the task are minor and there is no need for seperate accounts as their have been no real issues with BCBot. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 15:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

request for flag [4]

first bot request [5]

Here's a link to BRFA on 17 May 2006: [6]. I notice that you started to run it for interwikis (which weren't mentioned in the application) on the 16th. Here's a link for the 26th: [7]. You still haven't got approval, but it's been mentioned that you can use the bot account to run in semi-auto mode (which is presumably what you were doing with those substs; this is pretty much what you've linked above as the Archive2 link). The Archive3 link you give is still only approval for a semi-auto bot. Will you confirm that all your edits with the bot, apart from those approved in the three newer BRFAs (including the approval-withdrawn one, because it was approved at the time), were semi-automatic? (I notice that none of the approvals so far seem to mention User:Betacommand/Log, which seems to be for AIV-related work, but as that's in your userspace it doesn't matter so much.) Also, where was the approval for edits such as this (which are presumably uncontroversial, but which still should have been approved). --ais523 16:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, I agree that the flag should remain for semi-auto substings (I can just-about believe that you can subst at 10/min in semi-auto mode) which still seem to be approved; maybe you could link the bot's approvals on its userpage to stop this sort of thing happening in future? --ais523 16:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Im not even sure why BCBot was brought up none of its actions warranted such actions. My substitutions are auto and that IP link was just a simple substution for replaceing an IP for an actual address. All my tasking is on going. I get request for wikiproject tagging regulaly. and BCBots edits were never in question. so Im not sure why the issue of de-flagging ever came up. But in regard BCbots edits are within approval the /Log page was in direct response to a RFC that was filed, since it was in my userspace I did not think a need for a BRFA was called for. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 16:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

And this is another sort of edit that doesn't seem to fit into any of the approvals for the bot I've seen yet. (By the way, I'm sure that 51 edits per minute is higher than the recommended rate; robots.txt used to specify a limit of 1 read per second, and you're writing almost that fast.) --ais523 16:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

that infoboxneeded I thought was covered under the approval for wikiproject tagging as that is almost the exact same thing. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 16:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC) PS wikitagging approval [8]

(edit conflict) "this and any other requst that is similar just adding {{Wikiproject...}} to the talk page of the pages" was what you said in the approval (which I knew about; in fact I linked it above); I'd say {{infoboxneeded}} is somewhat different in nature because you have to check if there's an infobox on the page already (that's one extra read hit per page, isn't it, and that might make a difference to an approval, although I agree it won't in this case). Anyway, I'll agree that restoring the flag is probably technically correct, and this conversation should be held somewhere other than WP:BN. --ais523 16:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

in regard to list of templates I had the same number of reads as I generated the list from what transcludes here and used that as a filter, the exact same method I use for wikiproject tagging. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 16:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Please give this bot back its flag, it has tasks that can use it. Betacommand, I would advise you to put a link to all your approvals on the bots page, that might make things clearer for future cases. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 16:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone from the WP:BAG group has to approve it first. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

the bot was never un approved. there was a task proposal that was denied but there was never a question about approval for the bot (Im BAG too) Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 17:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Errr wait, we can remove flags without bag intervention? I believe that it has been clarified that this bot has a use for a flag, and that the removal has been in error. Sounds like a case of WP:IAR, but we can wait on bag to state something if need be. The bot has existing tasks that can use the flag to operate, those tasks have not been unapproved. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 17:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The flag can be removed if the bot has no remaining tasks that need a flag, surely (but you're right that it should be flagged at the moment, I missed the Archive3 request for semi-auto substing, because it wasn't linked anywhere relevant to the bot). The fact that the bot's been operating outside its approval is probably irrelevant to the flagging, and should be taken up somewhere else (such as WT:BRFA or WP:BONB). --ais523 17:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Uh... I think a clarification from user:Mets501 would help cause he put it up for 'approval'. See this. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

A request has been made to restore the bot flag. I have been watching this flurry of activity and trying to help make sense of it. Temporarily blocking a bot and/or removing its flag seemed like a resonable thing to do at the time, and it's not that serious. There is apparently a misunderstanding as to what tasks the bot was approved to do, and some others made the good faith assumption that since the latest task was not denied that the bot no longer had any approved tasks. Given the above discussion, that is apparently not the case. I have not taken the time to look into it deeply (lack of time mainly), but the arguments on the surface seem reasonable. That said, the correct result of the controversial actions by Betacommand should have been to block Betacommand's main user account (and as a result also the bot) under bot policy. If anything, Betacommand was given a lighter reprimand by only having his bot disabled. At the moment I'm not willing to unilaterally authorize the restoration of the flag unless another BAG member agrees that it is a good idea. Taking some extra time to review the previous approvals will not hurt anything. The current bot tasks are not mission critical. As I have time I'll review the evidence and perhaps change my somewhat neutral position. -- RM 17:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict; this comment is in reply to Nichalp's) I think the point is that the bot was approved for more than one task (only one of which has been unapproved; there's still an approval for semi-auto substing), and was also running some unapproved tasks that also need a bot flag (such as full-auto substing). So to answer your question above, yes, the bot's doing lots of different things. --ais523 17:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict x2; comment in reply to Nichalp) I think it is quite clear that he has withdrawn approval of that tasking, not the bot, see discussion at User_talk:Mets501#Betacommandbot_3. Regardless, would you like me to drop a message? —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 17:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)In reply to RM, that seems rather punitive, I currently don't see what this is preventing anyway. He has never abused the bot as far as I know of. As far as I know, betacommand stopped his controversial activity upon request, I don't think he is going to do that again. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 17:51, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict; this reply was aimed at Ram-Man to aid research, but also serves to answer Eagle 101 as it happens) A summary of my research into the last month's and early contribs of BetacommandBot suggests that the bot has been used with approval to add WikiProject tags, stretching its approval to add {{infobox needed}}, with now-withdrawn approval to update subpages of WP:SPAM, without approval to update User:Betacommand/Log, without approval to update external links to Google's IP, and to subst templates automatically when the bot was only approved for semi-auto substing. (I'm not sure whether the CSD work was approved or not.) The bot also exceeded edit rates (managing 51 in a minute at one point). --ais523 17:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

(ec)And at the moment I am unclear as to whether those various tasks that bot are currently doing are all approved. But in any case, the link that Nichalp shown does suggest that approval for the entire bot was removed, not just for that task, however, yes, asking would be appropriate here. I did not authorize the removal of the bot flag and will not authorize its reinstatement either. But the fact is, the main user account was editing very fast, bot like, and under bot policy should have been blocked immediately. If a main user account gets blocked, we always block its associated bots. The fact that only the bot got blocked (which was a mistake in my opinion) was less punitive. -- RM 17:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The bot is currently not blocked as far as I know, hence why I'm wondering about this whole removal of bot flags. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 17:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The bot was blocked for a short time. But whether the flag is removed or it is blocked is essentially the same thing: It is not authorized to run. If it does run without approval, it will be blocked. Now, the post above clearly indicates an allegation of the bot having acted without approval. As a result, temporarily deauthorizing a bot while we research the allegation is a perfectly reasonable and normal thing to do. The flag was removed because User:Mets501 appeared to have totally deauthorized the bot (not the task). Perhaps this was mispoken, but we don't know that at the moment. Correction: the block was for a different date. I didn't notice that. Incidentally looking through the block log, it seems that he unblocked his own bot once recently with no explanation! -- RM 17:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict x2) Right, I have dropped a message at User_talk:Mets501#Bot_deflagging, asking for clarification. Regardless I think this whole Betacommandbot issues was a mistake. The bot has done nothing unathorized, betacommand has ceased and detested his activity on the main account. :) —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 18:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict x2) For the record and in case someone needs to say this explicitly: I believe User:BetacommandBot has been making unapproved edits and editing too fast within the last month (although not necessarily very recently), and would like the BAG to look into the matter. --ais523 18:06, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict with the comment below) (By the way, I think the unauthorized edits are sufficiently old that a block could only be punitive on this ground (but might be appropriate based on Mets501's actions; I'm not sure), but still need investigating.) --ais523 18:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

With the above discussion in mind, I will authorize that the bot flag be restore but only if the bot is immediately blocked, since blocking is the more appropriate solution in this state and any administrator can remove the block when this problem is resolved. The fact of the matter is that both betacommand and the bot should have been blocked, and the main account only restored when Betacommand ceased his activities (which as Eagle 101 pointed out has been done). So if policy had been followed, the main account would be unblocked and the bot still blocked pending review. The bot should not be unblocked until the concerns raised by ais523 and Mets501 are addressed. -- RM 18:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, since Mets501 may have totally deauthorized the bot, the block is justified as a replacement to removing the bot flag until he clarifies his action. Proceduraly, blocking is also more appropriate than removing the bot flag, since any administrator can reverse it. -- RM 18:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think the original deflagging was based on incomplete information on my part (Nichalp came to the same conclusion as me based on my original evidence, but may have come to a different decision based on the evidence available now). As for whether it's still appropriate, that would depend on different concerns than the original deflag. --ais523 18:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

As I see it, a block would be justified without your additional concerns over unapproved operation, but with both issues, it is more than justified. The bot flag should be restored, but practically it doesn't make much difference, since Mets is not around at the moment to comment. -- RM 18:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict x1) Interesting, I guess all we can do is wait on Mets, unless another BAG member is willing to do something :). —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 18:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Err, yeah or we can do RM's idea. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 18:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

To clarify things: Mets had posted this notice [9]. There he had mentioned that the bot needed a flag. However Essjay had already flagged the bot [10], and I had initally assumed that it was an oversight on Mets part. After ais523 posted the message to unflag the bot here (first thread of this section 09:18, 22 March 2007), I had assumed that Mets could not have possibly approved the bot, and instead he probably wanted it revoked, and it was a typo on his part. And so I unflagged it. The re-flagging can alway be done if needed. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked this bot for now as a formal bureaucrat action. Please do not unblock till all bot issues are resolved. To resolve this dispute, I would like at least *three* BAG members to have a look at the bot's working and confirm if it needs a flag or not. As for blocking Betacommand, that could be posted on WP:ANI, but I'm against it for now so that he can reply to posts here. I'm logging off for now, and will be offline for the next 10 hours or so. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to keep everyone waiting for so long for clarification. When I made the edit unapproving the bot, I was in fact only unapproving edits related to suspected spam and link removal. I do support the blocking of this bot for now, until all issues are worked out. I am going to go through the history of Betacommandbot's edits now and compile a list of all the problems I can find with it that need to be resolved. —METS501 (talk) 18:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not in favour of blocking Betacommand; that would be punishment not damage prevention. His bot is a different matter. However, there are obviously several issues which need to be addressed fairly urgently (approval of his other bots, approval of clones for the fairly uncontroversial task of simply listing possible spam, BAG membership). I prefer to keep wiki business on-wiki ordinarily, but I've emailed some other members of BAG to point out the issues we need to deal with and to make some suggestions; at least one of them is a little sensitive. Just to say we are discussing it and will report back soon. --kingboyk 18:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Relevant discussion at

→ Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Approvals_group#Betacommand

Would a kind bureacrat please look at the BAG debate and if s/he sees consensus, close the debate? I can't do it myself as if any proposal has reached consensus it's mine. --kingboyk 13:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

 Done =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Request for de-administration

Hello. Please would one of you remove administrator rights from my account? I shall no longer be contributing. --RobertG ♬ talk 07:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

We don't have the deflag rights. You would need to contact a m:steward on meta. Rdsmith4 and Redux might help since they are stewards too. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Done as requested. Sorry to see you go. — Dan | talk 14:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Snowballed RfA

I snowball closed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mewtwowimmer - not the hardest of decisions. Just making note here per someone's request to, well, make notes here. Picaroon 00:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a related thread on ANI - here. – Chacor 02:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

User:Qxz

In the interests of clarity, I removed Qxz comments from multiple RfAs — not sure about the impetus, but they all look like this. Thanks. El_C 02:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Related thread on ANI - here. – Chacor 02:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Note on recent action

In order to dissipate any doubts, I would like to clarify my recent sysopping of the account User:D. Recorder. This is DVD R W, who decided to abandon his account and start fresh on a new one. He contacted me in order to get the process going. He has also posted a confirmation/public announcement of his decision here. In light of that, I first desysopped his original account, and then sysopped his new account. The succession is hence made public, and there should be no fuss about it. Cheers, Redux 23:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Hum, maybe I'm being overzealous about this, but I just noticed that a part of my statement above could be confusing to less experienced users who may happen upon it. I would just like to clarify, for those who don't already know it, that the Bureaucrats on the English-language Wikipedia cannot desysop anyone. I was only able to do it because I happen to be a Steward as well. Just thought I'd make this clear, since we have been contacted in the past about desysopping procedures, which is not part of this role. :) Redux 23:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you could also update WP:LA and add a note on the sucessful RFA that the user has changed his name. Just to avoid future confusion. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Done and done.--Chaser - T 19:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#Waggers overdue

This nomination looks like it should be approved, please review it and decide. Thank you, Anynobody 00:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Ooh looks like a pass :P Majorly _{(o rly?)} 00:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt attention Majorly _{(o rly?)}, I must give kudos to Waggers for his/her patience too. Anynobody 04:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wooyi's RfA

Could someone please pull it? Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 16:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I just did, it didn't have a chance of passing. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 16:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 19:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sysop Inactivity

Hello. It seems that this user, Sango123, is not being very active as a sysop for more than 6 months. She might probably retired from editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. If possible, please desysop Sango123 because of her inactivity. Thank you.

This message was sent by Wikipedian, — zero » 23:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Admins don't get desyopped for inactivity. And there are admins who have been gone much longer than Sango, not quite sure why you picked her out. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 00:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, z.e.r.o., that is not helpful. To the contrary, there are no policies and there probably will never be polices to support that. Cbrown1023 talk 00:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

z.e.r.o. — what purpose would it serve to desysop inactive admins? It's not like we have a limited number of accounts we can give the tools to. Plus, if someone hacks into her account and abuses the tools, it's a quick fix. This is just excessive process. — Deckiller 01:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

No one has given a good reason why inactive administrators should be desysopped. Why exactly should she be? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not for removing sysop tools from inactive users, but is there any way the number of inactive sysops could be tracked? The reason I'm applying is because there seems to be a big need for new admins. Maybe if regular users had a way of knowing lots of admin were inactive they might self nominate on the WP:RFA. I'm pretty sure my nomination isn't going through, but there could be editors who would but aren't trying because they don't see the need. Thanks, Anynobody 04:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Inactive admins are listed at WP:LA. A script is run by Rick Block every 2 months or so which picks up all admins without edits for 3 months (inactive) and all with fewer than 30 edits in the last 3 months (semi-active). NoSeptember 05:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, NoSeptember this list is exactly what I was hoping for. Anynobody 05:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

FYI: There was a straw poll about this a few years ago, and it did not achieve consensus. TML 06:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Additionally it comes up at least once a month on the village pump or WT:RFA. See WP:PEREN for details. >Radiant< 08:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Disqualified?

Hello, I'm sorry to have to bring this up but a rather ugly situation has developed proximate to my WP:RFA. To save your time I think the fairest way to sum up the issues in as brief a manner as possible would be to say: The accumulation of concern for Justanother's behavior on the part of myself and several others causes me to worry about whether or not it is appropriate for me to continue my RFA. I realize my approval looks pretty dismal as it is, but I had planned on letting it run it's course because things could change in the next couple of days. Thank you, and again I'm sorry to be the cause of any trouble. Anynobody 08:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that, unfortunately, it's too far gone to succeed. Xiner (talk, email) 23:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess my question was more about whether the conflict between myself and Justanother is something that has created an unusual situation. I know it might look like stubbornness but unless the whole community has voted, there is no reason to give up until time runs out because there is a slight chance of a change. (Of course I won't give an overdue reminder in that eventuality, I'll remove it then myself.) Anynobody 01:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Inactive Bureaurats

There is precedence for removing the Bureaucratic tag for inactivity. On Wikipedia:Bureaucrats, the list does not distinguish who actually uses Bureaucratic tools and who does not. There are the users who are semi-active editors or active editors, who have not used their bureaucratic tools in a very long time. Some 'crats are inactive altogether, and some have almost never used their tools. Below are the inactive 'crats from the list.

• Cprompt (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — Does not appear to have ever used tools, and user has less than 100 edits across two years
• Stan Shebs (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — One of the first crats, one logged Bureaucratic action
• Cimon Avaro (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — Ten logged actions since receiving rights early 2004; last action 24 August 2006
• TUF-KAT (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — Last action Mar 17, 2004
• Kingturtle (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — May 23, 2004
• Infrogmation (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — One action in three years
• UninvitedCompany (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — Once in the past year
• Secretlondon (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — January 18, 2006
• Jwrosenzweig (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — April 16, 2006
• Ilyanep (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — May 8, 2006
• Tim Starling (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — July 19, 2006
• Pakaran (talk · contribs · rights · renames) Last action October 8, 2006; last promotion 11 December 2005
• Bcorr (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — Has not edited since December 16, 2006; last action August 2006
• Linuxbeak (talk · contribs · rights · renames) — Has not edited since January 19, 2007; last action December 2006

Bureaucratship has always been an extraordinarily difficult thing for a user to achieve. Yet more than half with the tag never use the tools after getting them. There should be some standard, like with stewardship, that if you do not use it, you loose it. The last time I broached the subject, fifteen months ago, certain inactive crats complained that they are never around when an RFA closes. But there is always a small backlog at WP:CHU that needs work. I really believe inactive crats, like those above, should have the tag removed. One could argue that it doesn't hurt to have the tag and not use it, but that doesn't work with Stewards and it should not apply to Crats either. Thoughts? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 12:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I would agree to this. It does not make any sense that they have the tools, yet never use them. It's different to administrators because admin tools tend to be given out more freely than 'crat tools, and bureaucrats require extra trust than admins in general. However, I suggested this in January, but it wasn't taken well. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 12:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

We have thousands of articles that suck (some libellously), worrying about de-crating inactive crats is just bollocks, it is a solution to one of the few problems we DON'T have. Go sort out some POV somewhere.--Doc^g 13:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

De-crating inactive crats doesn't take long, so there being other more important things is irrelevant. --Tango 13:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I would support de-crating anyone who hasn't used the tools in over a year. It gives a false impression of how many crats we have, perhaps de-crating the inactive ones would encourage people to support new candidates more. --Tango 13:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Waaaah, noo, those are all the sane people! I need them for when I stage my revolution to take over wikip..., I mean, I mean... oh heck, you caught me. <tries to look innocent at the last moment> --Kim Bruning 14:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused as to what this accomplishes. There is no limit to the number of people who can hold a bureaucrat flag; these people are trustworthy and the community has at some point decided they deserve one. Who benefits by the removal of the flag? — Dan | talk 14:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the original six weren't decided by the community. And the other early ones were, but not by this community. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 14:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a meaningless distinction; when do we know when we have a new community? Do you suggest that we review all the decisions made by the en.wiki community before a certain date to be sure they didn't screw anything up? If not, your observation is irrelevant, and my question still stands. — Dan | talk 14:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no way to tell. But certainly, the first six, all who still have the flag except Eloquence were hand-picked, not by community, but by Eloquence. We benefit that we have bureaucrats who are active in community discussions - certainly a 'crat inactive since 2004 would be astounded at WP:100 RfAs, but they are a regular thing. They also hold powers that could be used more efficiently by someone else, who would actually use them to benefit everyone else. It just seems odd to hold such powers and not use them. If they are of no use to the user, I'm sure they would be willing to give them up. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 15:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be missing the point that to say "they also hold powers that could be used more efficiently by someone else" makes no sense. This is not a zero-sum game; if we trusted every user to be a bureaucrat, the software could make it so. Having some bureaucrats is not an impediment to choosing more. — Dan | talk 15:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I know crats handing out bot flags is fairly new, how long have they been able to rename users? If there are crats that haven't done anything since those 2 abilities were added, then they likely are not familiar with the relevant policies. Trust doesn't just mean we're sure they aren't malicious, it also means we're sure they know what they're doing. A lot of these inactive crats probably don't. --Tango 15:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Point me to the problem, and I'll contemplate your solutions. Where has our failure to desysop a crat caused a problem?--Doc^g 15:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. These are intelligent people; they can read policy pages like every new bureaucrat does. This is a non-issue, a manufactured complaint. — Dan | talk 15:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

On reading this, I was frankly surprised by how many bureaucrats we have that I've not only never encountered, but never heard of (or only heard of within the last month when a few 'crats who had not been using the 'crat tools seem to have gotten more active again). Notwithstanding that, I generally agree with the comments in this thread to the effect that this is not a big problem. To me, the greater problem—perhaps the biggest problem we have—is not that bureaucrats and administrators stop using their tools, but that they leave the project and stop contributing altogether. Turnover is normal in any web project as in any part of life, but the rate at which we burn out and lose many of our most dedicated people has become a huge concern. I'd be interested to know why the people on this list have reduced or stopped their work as bureaucrats.

I also think it is important not to put bureaucrats who have pretty much stopped editing Wikipedia in the same category as those who may simply be playing a slightly different role. A list like the one above certainly should not include Tim Starling, who is a major developer (and may need the ability to work from all the different access level interfaces to do his job), or UninvitedCompany, who does dozens of checkuser runs each week (and checkuser status was probably conferred on him based on the community trust reflected in his election to 'cratship, so in a way it is a bureaucrat action, though not recorded as such) and is a member of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 15:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A nice analyisis. Bcorr and Linuxbeak both appear to have left the project, or are on long wikibreaks, and Cprompt has made fewer than 100 edits in the past year, and no logged admin actions either. I would agree tim Starling and UninvitedCompany are still very much active, just not in this particular area. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 15:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Hmm. I can see why some users would think that bureaucrats should be de-bureaucratted (is that even a word?) if they appear to have left the project, but then, the same arguments apply towards admins, and that has never picked up steam. At the same time, almost all bureaucrat nominations have one or two cases of users indicating that there is no more need for bureaucrats, that there's too many inactive ones, so... I don't know. Heh. Perhaps a middle ground is in order? Similar to voluntary adminship resignations, allow bureaucrats desysopped due to inactivity to "speedy request" the bit back to a bureaucrat if they want it? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • An addendum to that: they can be re-crated after they're active in the community again for x amount of time. Personally, I went on a sudden wikibreak for a full month, and only came back a couple weeks ago, and I've been extremely hesitant to start using my mop again, as I know some policies and whatnot have probably changed in that time, but I haven't kept myself up-to-date with them yet. If someone is gone for such a long time, I'd like to see them be back and active for a while (and show a strong understanding of current policies et al) before jumping right back in. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
    • But then, if we trusted them in the beginning, wouldn't we trust them to be sensible enough to do that? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, there is that, isn't there? I'd still like to have that extra layer, though; just because someone is usually sensible doesn't mean that they don't slip on occasion. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
    • That was a silly choice on your part. Wikipedia is full of sanctimonious people with a sharp eye for irregularities; one will invariably correct you if you make a mistake. The bureaucrat's position, on the other hand, doesn't ever change much. We've added a few new things but these are clearly explained on the relevant pages. We have here, as so often, a solution searching earnestly for a problem. — Dan | talk 20:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Why not email them and ask them if they would like to help out in doing what their position entitles them to? =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It's odd, no one ever thinks of doing the most simple thing... Majorly _{(o rly?)} 18:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this a perennial proposal? --Kim Bruning 22:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, we're doing spring cleaning; we had to pull this idea back out of the closet so it didn't get completely eaten by moths. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
(apparently ideas are made of cloth... hmm)

Now I just KNOW you're making things up out of whole cloth. ;-) --Kim Bruning 22:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

ais's RfA is past due

Do the 'crats find this kind of posts annoying? Please do tell. Xiner (talk, email) 18:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, since the RFA was closed 20 mins before this message was posted. :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

o_O. Oh boy, I hope never to make the mistake again! Xiner (talk, email) 20:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if this is the same person, but Anthony.bradbury is overdue as well. Anynobody 01:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure the 'crats will get to it soon ;) Majorly _{(o rly?)} 01:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Would a crat be willing to be the "trusted user" in a reverse RFA?

m:Requests_for_permissions#Removal_of_access says that stewards are willing to honor consensus decisions for removal of access. They want a "trusted person" on the local wiki to inform them, with a summary of the results of the discussion. If we were to make an RFA on someone who already has sysop access, and the RFA showed a consensus to overturn the sysopping, would any crat be willing to be the "trusted user" and make the request to a steward? It seems to me that a crat ought to be in the trusted user role, since we already trust crats to promote in the first place. Anyone willing to do this, or would you see it as an undesirable expansion of crat authority? Friday (talk) 18:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• Decisions to desysop someone lie, on en.wikipedia, with ArbCom. They do not lie with our local bureaucrats or with stewards (except, in the latter case, in cases of emergencies). --Durin 18:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • But, they would, if a crat was willing to ask for it and had community consensus to back it up. Hence, me being curious whether a crat would be willing to do so. Friday (talk) 18:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • But they wouldn't, since currently the only body given that authority at en.wikipedia is ArbCom. Bureaucrats can not take on the role by community consensus without ArbCom blessing it. --Durin 18:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem is that you are trying to take a more general policy established at Meta and apply it to the English Wiki which has its own process called ARBCOM. Your question is hypothetical because it presumes that a consensus could be built via "reverse RFA". The problem with this hypothetical is that it presumes the consensus could be foremed without a massive vote against the process of "reverse RFA" itself. Many editors would oppose the "reverse RFA" on the grounds that it was "out of process".

If you really want to do this, you need to make a proposal out of the "reverse RFA" process that you have in mind, get consensus for that proposal and only then worry about whether or not there will be a bureaucrat that would participate. If you're looking for a b'crat to give you a generic "yes, I would participate in that process" type answer, I suspect that you would really need to spell out how the "reverse RFA" process would work before you could get an answer.

Even then, I suspect that most if not all bureaucrats would want to see that the new process was based on consensus, not something you thought of at school one day (oh, sorry, that means something else, doesn't it).

--Richard 18:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, sure, I expect all manner of objections along those grounds. We already know no such thing will happen. But, who better than a bureaucrat to cut through bureaucratic paralysis? :-) Friday (talk) 20:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The closest thing here to a reverse RFA is CAT:AOR. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

While we do have an existing process, consensus can outweigh process. Requiring Arbcom to do this does not appear to be a foundation issue, so a clear consensus could change the policy here pertaining to administrators (it is afterall "no big deal"), but the way to do that is not via a test case, but by using the policy process. Recent debates (such as the ones over RFA Reform) have made it pretty clear that the administrator status policy is unlikely ready to change. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• A "trial by fire" of this nature would have two problems: the sensitivity of the issue at hand itself, and additionally, the opposition of users to using a different method to desysop a user. We can remember Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Stevertigo1, and how the community loudly opposed intermingling one process with another. I'm not sure the same would not happen here. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• The problem is this: if there is a recent major incident that calls the trust of some admin into question, then the atmosphere becomes too heated to discuss a community deop process, because people on both sides will believe the other side to be biased and this will heat a lot of tempers. If there is not a recent major incident of that sort, then there's nobody to test the system on. So we have no feasible way of implementing this suggestion. >Radiant< 13:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, without a change in policy, we cannot hold a "reverse RfA" and then ask a Steward to desysop based on that. Current policy on the English-language Wikipedia is that desysopping only happens in very specific circumstances — and in the case of involuntary desysopping due to inappropriate behavior, current policies establishes that it takes a decision by the ArbCom for it to happen. A policy change would be required beforehand if something like this were to be done.
However, I would note something that has been upheld even by Jimbo himself: this kind of procedure, given the current state of affairs around here, could be detrimental to the role of Administrator. If all it were to take for a !vote to be held on removing someone's adminship, and usually in a badly charged environment, as noted by Radiant, were to be for someone to cry "witch!" then administrators would have a very difficult time making the more difficult decisions, and taking actions that are certain to annoy, or even anger, certain people. We should not force admins to chose between doing their job and keeping their job. Redux 14:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

In addition to that, such a process would quickly degenerate into the return of Quickpolls, which never were a good idea to begin with. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Crats judge consensus for adminship. Consensus can change. It may not be traditional, but I'd rather see the crats doing the whole job than half of it. Don't we trust them this far? Friday (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfair early closing of my RfA

I wish to complain in the strongest terms. I have just received a message from Nichalp that he or she has closed my RfA early as "it does not enjoy the support of the community". Well, I was gaining support votes daily; people were expressing their confidence in me as a candidate all the time. Even if it was doomed to fail, I would have appreciated it running to full term to allow the community to express their feelings in full. I request that my RfA be re-opened and be allowed to run for the three remaining days it had to go, going down in flames if need be, but going down in flames fairly. This is unfair. -- Hex [^t/_c] 10:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Further: in this diff Nichalp says it was "a waste of everybody's time and bandwidth". Well, the people writing in my support clearly didn't think so. -- Hex [^t/_c] 10:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, Let me clarify, I'm a he. :) Please do not twist my words. I made a generalised statememt: a clearly failing RFA not your RFA is a waste of time and bandwidth. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 11:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

And by applying that phrase in your notification that you were closing his early on someone else's talk page, you tarred it with that brush. I can't believe that you would not understand that, Nichalp. -- nae'blis 12:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't see any difference. The RFA was always failing. (oppose > support) =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't see any difference. - Yes, that much is clear. -- nae'blis 12:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It did not have a reasonable chance of success. Promotion of admins is the only thing that RfA is for. Remember, articles are what we are here for, and continuing the RfA would not have helped in improving articles. We appreciate your desire to help, and I'm sorry you wished the RfA to continue, but it wasn't helping the project. If your desire is to help the project, I would suppose you could come to see that. - Taxman ^Talk 11:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

"it wasn't helping the project" - would it have hurt the project to let it continue for three days more? I was more than happy to accept a fair defeat, but you've taken that away and left me with a nasty, bitter taste in my mouth, and sharply damaged my faith in the process to boot. Well done. -- Hex [^t/_c] 19:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It and this debate are taking resources away from articles. That should always be minimized. Again, sorry you're upset, but it's your choice to let it leave a nasty, bitter taste in your mouth. Also, I didn't do anything but agree. - Taxman ^Talk 19:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you greatly exaggerate the extent of the resources involved. And no, it's not my choice. I chose to participate in the process and accept the outcome of a community-led process. -- Hex [^t/_c] 20:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the withdrawal. It was obvious that it would be contested, but that's what 'crats are supposed to do, right - make tough decisions? Anyway, though I sympathize with certain aspects of your complaints, continuing it would be WP:POINT more than anything else. Xiner (talk, email) 14:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

RfA isn't to see how many people support you. It's to see whether enough people support you for you to become an admin. Clearly that wasn't going to happen, so leaving this open is simply wasting people's time in your attempt to prove some point about RfA. Please use WT:RFA instead of misusing RfA like this. Nichalp did the right thing. Angela. 16:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Even Foundation staff agree with me that no, it isn't a point issue, and no, WT:RFA won't help. -- Hex [^t/_c] 19:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

David Gerard is not a Foundation staff member. TacoDeposit 16:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Honestly? I don't think it had a chance in hell of passing (and had I participated in it, I would have !voted "Oppose"). Your attitude about the entire situation strikes me, a complete outsider to the whole thing, as a very pointed issue, to be perfectly honest (hell, even one of your supporters told you to ditch the chip on your shoulder).
I don't think it was particularly horrible thing to leave it open, but I don't think it served much purpose, either; basically, I think you need to just accept the fact that you didn't have community support (regardless of what a Foundation staff member's opinion is).
If you really want to show up all those who !voted oppose, I'd suggest dropping this and concentrate on improving the encyclopedia; your next RfA will then be able to pass on your actual merits, rather than people admiring your guts in not answering questions. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You are misrepresenting both what I have been saying and what actually happened. For the former, where have I ever said that I did have overall community support? To repeat myself, I would have been more than happy for it to end as a failed RfA. For the latter, for your information, I do nothing but attempt to improve the encyclopedia, day in and day out. That is precisely why I ran at RfA in the first place. Will it "show up all those who !voted oppose"? Of course not. That implies that the oppose votes were because I do not improve the encyclopedia, which is not the case. Anyway, I am here to work on the encyclopedia, not play games and try to "show up" people; it disappoints me that a bureaucrat would make such a suggestion. -- Hex [^t/_c] 20:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

First and foremost, I'm not a bureaucrat; I'm merely an administrator (while I'd like to run a successful RfB at some point, I'm not convinced that now is the time). Just want to make that abundantly clear so that my opinion doesn't hold more weight or authority than it should (incidentally, it shouldn't hold any more or less than any other editor; admins and 'crats aren't above other editors, necessarily; they merely have access to additional tools, which is both a blessing and a curse...).

I'm not suggesting that people were opposing you because you don't do any encyclopedia building. What I'm saying is that if you actually work on the project for a substantial period of time, there will be all the fewer reasons to oppose you (if you'd like, I'd be more than happy to explain my hypothetical opposition to your RfA on your talk page; here is not the place for a largely unrelated matter). I also wasn't suggesting that your edits be for the express purpose of "showing up" people; it was more of a statement of what behavior modifications I think you need to make if you earnestly want to run a successful RfA.

Also, if you're wondering why people think you're being pointed about the whole thing, it might have to do with your "RfA has decayed into a gabbling clique of process junkies who actually serve to damage the project by impeding the progress of numerous perfectly reasonable editors" statement.

However, this is quickly degenerating into a little back-and-forth between the two of us, I'll again say that, if you want to continue this conversation, let's do it elsewhere; your talk page or mine, I'm game for either. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

"User X is an admin"

This is an odd, yet very common, edit summary used when promoting new admins. While it could be intended to mean that in their heart of hearts they were admin-material all along, or that +sysop is theoretically outside WP:RFA from a constitutional standpoint, it would make more sense to use "User X is now an admin" or somesuch. —Centrx→talk • 01:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I always thought that as well... Majorly _{(o rly?)} 01:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Being told I was now an administrator with the words "Newyorkbrad is an admin" didn't bother me. :) Although I would have spelled out "administrator" to mark the full solmenity of the occasion. :) Seriously, I've noticed that individual 'crats have different formulas but I don't know that it matters very much. Newyorkbrad 01:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the edit summary on promotion matters very much. I mean, they could say "Enjoy the chains of hell" and it really wouldn't change much about adminship itself, or the +sysop flag in the b-crat log. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 03:10, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad I swallowed before reading your "Enjoy the chains of hell" comment. (^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering if anyone would think it was as witty as I did. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 06:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

If I ever become a 'crat, I think I will make that my standard promotion text. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It could reasonably be interpreted to mean "User X is already an admin, no reason to nominate him, delisting". —Centrx→talk • 04:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I frequently interpreted it that way before I was informed otherwise. -- nae'blis 12:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

What about changing it to "User X has been promoted to admin"? --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@ 00:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Promoted isn't politicially correct these days :P Majorly _{(o rly?)} 00:20, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

It could be interpreted as meaning they are already an admin by the time the crat gets there because the crat doesn't make the decision, they just recognise it and implement it in the software, so you become an admin as soon as your RfA reaches consensus. --Tango 13:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Get rid of tallies on RfA's

Please participate in the discussion. It's a minor change to the template, but many people will be surprised at it. Thanks. Xiner (talk) 18:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Usurpations - minor change in eligibility

I plan to deny any usurpation request that intend to take over an account that was created less than six months ago. Let me know if there is consensus for the move. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It's a sensitive move, given that people sometimes create accounts but then only start using them after a period of time. Redux 14:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

And now I know why you need time, but are we talking about the target account, the one requesting or both? BuickCenturyDriver (Honk, contribs, odometer) 03:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The target account. The new user log must show that it was created (and never used, which is verified in Special:Contributions) at least 6 months prior to the posting of the usurpation request. The age of the requester's account is not concerned here. Redux 05:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Does the "no edit" clause preclude any other exceptions, such as consent? BuickCenturyDriver (Honk, contribs, odometer) 22:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If you have their consent, then there is no need for usurption. They can request a new name themselves, and then the other person can be renamed to their old name. --Tango 13:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. My own pattern of early contributions is perhaps a case in point. --Dweller 10:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

RfA extension request

Would it be possible for Cla68's RfA nomination to be extended? There was a serious concern a few months ago that Cla68 was either a sockpuppet of banned User:Wordbomb (a very abusive sockpuppet and stalker) or was helping him. My recollection is that there was no technical evidence that Cla was Wordbomb, but he definitely seemed to be helping him, and some of his edits indicate that they're based in the same area. I only just noticed the nom, and I've left a comment with more details, [11] but it's due to close at 12:18 today. I would like to give Cla time to respond, and some of the supporters time to look at the new information. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Consider it extended for 24 hours. New information has come up within 3 hours of the expected closing time that other contributors to the RfA have apparently not been aware of. Contributors should have time to evaluate it. - Taxman ^Talk 12:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Cla68's RfA opened at 23:23, 28 March, but the first opposition did not come until 09:26, 5 April 2007 when the tally was (40/0/4). As of 02:29, 6 April 2007, the tally was (40/27/6). Many of the oppose opinions expressed in the RfA are based on deleted posts. Normally, we could just review the diffs for ourselves and judge. However, because the diffs have been deleted, the new information needs Cla's responses to assist others in evaluate it. This RfA may be Cla68's last chance in a while to reach this many people to explain what happened. Even if the RfA may not be successful, I think that, to be fair to Cla68, Cla68 should be given much more time to respond than 24 hours. -- Jreferee 02:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see any significant lack of time to respond to the issues involved, nor significant hinderance to not being able to see specific revisions that have been deleted. The fact that they have been should provide enough information. Nor does it look like any further information would have an affect on the outcome. Everyone knew that there was 24 more hours, so ending then is the fairest outcome. - Taxman ^Talk 12:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

RFC-style RFA

I'd raise this at WT:RFA but I thought it counter-productive. Given that the task of the bureaucrat is to determine whether there exists consensus to promote, the actual process by which consensus is divined is secondary, if not tertiary, so long as the process is open, public, and well-attended. That being said, if confronted by a Request for Adminship organized as a Request for Comment instead of the standard thinly-veiled vote, would a bureaucrat be willing to evaluate said request? In short, are the bureaucrats open to other paths? I'm not suggesting that this constitutes a change in policy--far from it. It's just a process tweak, really. Mackensen (talk) 03:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Bump. Mackensen (talk) 20:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Been there, done that. MER-C 05:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks like it failed through apathy. Can't imagine that. Mackensen (talk) 13:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Jrockley's RfA

Can someone please remove it? Thanks. Xiner (talk) 23:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a post here helps. The RFA table above usually is sufficient to alert us. =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I would generally agree unless it's been greater than 12 hours overdue or something. - Taxman ^Talk 14:00, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucrat discussion

I've created a section for bureacrat discussion on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Danny. Please weigh in with your thoughts. I'd prefer we didn't close it without substantial investigation into sockpuppetting. - Taxman ^Talk 23:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I've moved discussion to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Danny/Bureaucrat chat so as to have the discussion with a bit more peace and quiet. Raul654 01:27, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

New discretionary range on RFA

This comes up every time someone is promoted below the "sacred threshold" of 75%, but I would like to spur a specific and constructive discussion by Bureaucrats to consider using the model above in ALL future questionable-consensus RFAs (what that range is, I leave up to you). More than one Bureaucrat discussing in earnest on the small percentage of RFAs that close between clear consensus and clear failure would probably go a great distance toward improving the culture at RFA. And I say that as someone who is not sure this decision was made correctly, but at least it was made deliberately and clearly explained. Thanks for any time you give this. -- nae'blis 12:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I think it went as well as it could have. Even though it's much more tedious, having the discussion on wiki seems to have helped a lot. Of course I couldn't discuss the closing of the nomination off wiki, but for the WP:BEANS issues most of the other bureacrats could and others helped out with the checkuser and sockpuppet checking which really helped. - Taxman ^Talk 13:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The only people who have been promoted below 75% were previously admins; it was already well known that they would not break anything. —Centrx→talk • 15:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Right, I know that (first part, anyway), but it's largely immaterial. What I'm suggesting is that other users could occasionally benefit from more than one set of 'crat eyes, and it shields you all from the accusations of cabalism. Consensus is not easy to determine (I work with it in my daily personal life as well) by yourself all the time. If a good faith request was made on the talk page, would you consider using this process on someone who was not an admin before? -- nae'blis 15:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't tell if you were confusing my comments with Centrx's or just replying to both of us, but yes, in potentially controversial decisions, it does seem like a good model to follow. - Taxman ^Talk 16:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Centrx, Ryulong was promoted below 75% (with 69% support) while never having been an admin. The other three examples of promotions below 75% were former admins. However, I'm not sure I'd apply a "would not break anything" standard to the one that was involuntarily desysoped either. So, to my mind, stretching things to accomodate former admins in good standing can only really address half the cases. Dragons flight 16:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

So, the key question to ask here is whether it would be advisable to do these bureaucrat caucuses in the future, for nominations in a particular range, or some other criteria. I think it is a great idea, IMO. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It is a good idea to have them, but an incredibly bad idea to mandate them. Imagine needing to hold a vote for every RfA with the level of support Danny had. This creates an unhelpful: "less then x always fail, more then y always pass" situation. It is commonly said that a Bureaucrat's job is to determine consensus, but what is RfA's job? To determine if a user is trusted not to abuse the admin tools. So truly a bureaucrat's job is to determine if that trust exists, not the candidate's popularity or unpopularity. While that is usually an accurate sign of trust, there are exceptions, and to deal with them Bureaucrats need to be given some freedom. Prodego ^talk 02:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm actually talking (or intending to talk, at least) about giving 'crats more freedom, in that they will no longer be limited to the strict 75.00001-79.999999% discretionary period. If they wish to discuss a particular nomination (of which there are maybe 2-3 a week) that falls in a questionable range and they would like to consult with other 'crats on, I wholeheartedly support that. I also think it should be triggerable by a user in good standing/good faith request on the RFA's talk page, but that may be too extreme of a change all at once. -- nae'blis 15:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I have a radical idea. How about letting Bureaucrats actually judge Requests For Adminship by consensus. I know, this is a crazy idea. It's just as crazy as making an encyclopedia on that new-fangled kind of collaborative software, what was it? Niki? Tiki? Yes... Tiki. You know those crazy fools actually started an encylopedia on one of those, and actually ran it using consensus? Wow. I wonder if we could do the same? :-P --Kim Bruning 15:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC) <ahem>

I like the idea of bureaucrats discussing things before making the decision on potentially controversial RfAs, as tehy did with Danny's RfA. As with what some others have indicated, I think it will go a long way toward making the process more open and transparent, and allow people to see the process of the discussion (whether or not they agree with the final decision). ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Question

In Danny's RFA, a large number (no exact count was given) of statements against the nomination were discounted during the closing process. One stated reason for discounting such opinions is that they did not speak to "whether he should be trusted with the powers of an administrator." That bureaucrats are authorized to do this is not disputed. There have been longstanding criticisms that unreasonable demands are made in RFA opinions, and discounting RFA opinions that do not speak to the trustworthiness of the candidate might be a step towards resolving these criticisms.

I would like to find out if Danny's RFA is part of a trend, or one of the necessary exceptions to any general policy (or something else).

1. In your opinion, does this RFA represent a shift in the general procedure of closing RFAs?
2. Do you plan to continue discounting such votes in future RFAs, and if so, can you give a few examples of reasons for opposition that are commonly given that would ordinarily be discounted?

I hope that one or more bureaucrats are willing to address these questions. CMummert · talk 14:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Rackabello: Sockpuppet? Very new user voting on multiple RfAs

I posted the text below on WP:ANI over 34 hours ago, but as far as I can tell, no action has been taken on this matter. Another user has also posted about this to WP:ANI almost 24 hours ago, with no response. So I'll try posting here.

This user made his/her first edit at 17:17, 7 April 2007, and has been immediately nominating many articles at AfD, and commenting vocally on RfA (always opposing based on self-nom). Very unusual behavior for a new editor. See Special:Contributions/Rackabello. This fits the editing pattern described at Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Characteristics of sock puppets. Please check into this user as soon as possible.

Note that I have had no dealings with this user, but just noticed his/her strange oppose votes on 4 separate RfAs today (now 2 days ago), and then decided to investigate. --Seattle Skier (talk) 06:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC) --Reposted here at 16:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Put a comment below the vote saying This user has registered on... OR This user has 10 edits..., and we'll evaluate the vote when closing. This applies to support as well as oppose votes. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I placed a comment on two separate RfA's today regarding these concerns before I saw this page, and a different editor has drawn attention to it on a third. It should amount to the same thing as the suggested comment, though, for any bureaucrats closing them. I just thought I'd mention it. *Vendetta* _{(whois talk edits)} 02:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

InShaneee (bureaucrat v steward action)

Per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/InShaneee, InShaneee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was desyopped for 10 days. The desysopping was effected at 20:00 (UTC) on 2 April [12] so adminship should be restored at around the same time today. If you have any questions please check with a member of ArbCom. Thatcher131 03:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

As a procedural matter and not a regular promotion, this request probably should have been placed on m:RFP, but I have carried it out anyway using the Meta interface. — Dan | talk 04:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It would be better if promotions, including non-RfA based ones, were done by the local project so that it shows on the local rights log. NoSeptember 04:46, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

That is true, I do not know why that was suggested. It is not really a procedural matter, it is an Arbitrational one. If we really want to be nit-picky, a member of ArbCom or a clerk should do it. :) Cbrown1023 talk 20:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

None of us clerks are bureaucrats (or stewards). A couple of the arbitrators are 'crats, but generally prefer to keep the two roles separate. Newyorkbrad 20:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucrats are responsible for maintaining the RFA process and granting admin permissions according to that process. Procedural issues like this have in the past fallen to stewards. It's a fairly trivial distinction, but a convention has arisen to govern it; I am merely acting according to that convention. — Dan | talk 20:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

There is more procedural precedence for doing such actions locally at least on enwiki. Restorations done by bureaucrats after ArbCom related desysoppings include: Zero0000, El C, BorgHunter, Ashibaka and Freakofnurture. Resysoppings after voluntary desysoppings should be done locally too. Keeping it local is more consistent with general Steward policies, the evolution of the bureaucrat role (such as the moving of bot flagging to the local project), and improves local transparency. NoSeptember 05:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Where is that documented? (No, I'm not thinking about challenging it, but I'm still interested.) Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

This comment seems relevant. If there is real disagreement about keeping sysoppings local, we should bring the issue up again on meta. The only enwiki sysoppings that should be done by stewards are the occassional instances of temporary permissions (more common with checkuser or oversight permissions) or a correction of a mistake. On a big project like enwiki that is quite rare. NoSeptember 05:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't even think those can be done here. Particularly not temporary permissions - they're done only on wikis with no local bureaucrats. Checkuser and oversight are not handed temporarily, AFAIK, so those are ok, though. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that most use of permissions should be done by those who have been selected to hold them permanently at enwiki, but a quick look at the meta logs for enwiki (grey lines) shows how often the stewards do it. But it is understandable in cases where a checkuser case extends over multiple projects, for example. Admin promotions due to prior desysoppings do not share that legitimate reason to do away from the local project. NoSeptember 11:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Moralis

A discussion regarding the formating and usablitity of this RfA is being held at:
Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Moralis#Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship.2FMoralis. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:10, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Moralis RfA; information for bureaucrats

The archiving bot moved substantial discussion regarding the Moralis RfA to Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_86#Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship.2FMoralis. There is still some related discussion at WT:RFA. --Durin 13:36, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Moralis overdue

This Rfa is now overdue by more than half a day. Someone needs to decide soon from that mess whether Moralis should be sysopped or not. Errabee 16:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why anyone needs to do anything within a certain amount of time. If it takes a week for someone to be available and make a decision, so be it. —Centrx→talk • 16:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, we don't want month long backlogs though. Prodego ^talk 19:50, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

He complained after 12 hours. —Centrx→talk • 20:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Opposition to format of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Matt Britt

Some users have expressed opposition to the format of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Matt Britt, in particular that they feel they can not use this format and thus are incapable of contributing to this RfA. I.e., their views are suppressed by the format. Due to it being a meta discussion on the format, and not on the quality of the candidate, I've removed the section where this was posted on the RfA and placed it at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#This_method_of_RFA_is_so_confusing_that_I_am_unable_to_participate.. Bureaucrats are encouraged to read that section, and other related discussion as well if they see fit, to aid themselves in deciding if this is a "valid" RfA. --Durin 18:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

This is wrong. Discussions about the RfA are relevant to whether it is going to produce a result that reflects any consensus. If there are problems with the format such that people are not participating in it or that it produces misleading result, then that is absolutely relevant to whether the candidate should be promoted. —Centrx→talk • 21:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Equally loud complaints have arisen about the current format for RFAs. Many longstanding and highly experienced editors have complained that its vote-oriented format is not conducive to arriving at consensus on the suitability of a candidate. These complaints, which are surely as serious as any about the current format, have not invalidated any requests for adminship.

There may be valid problems with the format, but as it's substantially similar to Requests for comment which has been our primary consensus-gathering mechanism in conduct disputes for several years now, it's difficult to see these as in any way posing a serious problem to the process. --21:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

One major difference is that this format is new and untested. The problems with the standard format are well-known and well-defined. Regardless, if people oppose someone or leave comments of any sort because of the format of the standard RfA, their comments are not moved to the talk page. —Centrx→talk • 21:57, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

There's a teensy germ of truth there. The RFC form is untested at Requests for adminship. The "vote" format has on the other hand been tested and found wanting over a long period. It is fairly common practice on an RFC to move matters not pertaining to dispute resolution to the talk page. --Tony Sidaway 22:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

RfCs are not trying to achieve specific defined outcomes. They have, proverbially, "no teeth". RfA does "have teeth", and it is trying to determine a very specific question. The current disaster of a multi-dimensional vote is far worse for that purpose. Splash - tk 22:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that this is relevant. Both requests for comment and requests for adminship are intended to form community consensus: one on resolution of a dispute between several editors over user conduct, the other on whether to give an editor a sysop bit. The RFC format here is an intentional act of destruction of the false notion that we reach consensus by having a vote. It provides a relatively free format area in which we can discuss pros and cons and a consensus may form. --Tony Sidaway 22:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It's an act of destruction, that's true. But it's just asking us to have a series of overlapping votes on any topic that springs to someone's mind. Well, they're votes as much as the current RfA is, at least, noting that current RfAs also have a free format area for wider discussion (at the top). So it's a combination of everything that's been identified as bad about RfA (voting) and RfC (inability to do anything). Splash - tk 22:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we've already established quite conclusively that RFA is not a vote. The RFC format makes it more difficult to mistake it for one (though I've no doubt there will be some spirited attempts). --Tony Sidaway 22:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Right, so RfA is not a vote, I agree, despite some unfortunate graphical appearances. But then there's heaps of shtuff at the top of this current visitation that sings the praises of how this is the format that prevents voting which led me to conclude that was the main (ir)rationale for it. If it wasn't a vote anyway, and it still isn't, but it still admits anything anyone wants to say and lets people agree or disagree with that following discussion, I really don't see how it has improved RfA at all. If it's just the format that's the problem, as alluded to a few comments up, then might it be easier to do a find and replace "#" to "*"? Splash - tk 23:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone asked the crats if they are even willing to close this? These are impossible to close without controversy. It is an awful format, and enough for me to oppose the candidate for allowing it. We should not be changing only some RfAs, since - yes - format will effect the outcome. This should be handled the usual way, consensus first, then changes. Prodego ^talk 22:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but if someone doesn't like the outcome, they can just re-run using the traditional method, right? --Kim Bruning 23:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Not if the new method promotes and is contested. Any new system should promote more; getting away from the very restrictive situation we have now. This should be a positive change, assuming it is done properly. However, changes to only one RfA are disruptive to the process. This should be discussed on a subpage, a suitable system designed, and then, 'once there is agreement', then the design (or top 2, ect) can be tested. Prodego ^talk 23:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see how it is disruptive to the process at all, actually. The process on other RfAs continues unaffected. Every candidacy is completely segregated on a separate page from every other candidacy. What negative spillover effects do you envision? Christopher Parham (talk) 04:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• The notion that the group of people at WT:RFA can form a consensus is false. It has not happened in three years, and it isn't about to suddenly happen now. One of the reasons this experiment was done "in the wild" is precisely because WT:RFA refuses to come to consensus about anything. If you doubt that, look at the WT:RFA talk page archives. How many libraries should we fill on speculative conversation before actually trying something?
• I find it interesting that the two largest spikes in contributions to WT:RFA over the last two years had to do with the Carnildo promotion and the Ryulong promotion. Guess what is #3? The Moralis/Matt Britt nominations. This is a good thing. --Durin 00:26, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The only valid question here seems to be whether or not the bureaucrats feel comfortable judging consensus from the RfA as posted. The consensus appears clear to me, despite the formatting, so I see no reason that these RfAs shouldn't be closed normally. I'm not sure it's the role of the bureaucrats to discourage further experimentation... but not closing these in the face of rough consensus would send a clear message about standardization. Dekimasuよ! 01:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. <very innocent look> --Kim Bruning 01:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused on the concept of RfAs. Who decides who will become an admin? My understanding is that in an RfC or an AfD, an admin makes a final decision based on community inputs + Wikipedia's guidelines and policies. In an RfA, I thought that it was all about the community deciding, not a bureaucrat. Yes, I understand it's "not a vote", but I thought that was just referring to bureaucrats' lattitude in making minor adjustments for irregularities such as SPAs and sockpuppets. In the last local election, I was a counting judge and I helped decide which irregular ballots to discard; this was purely technical and by no means did I "decide" the choice of mayor.

So am I missing something? Has admin selection really been a bureaucratic decision all along? If not, are all the comments about RfA being "broken" and the push for new formats propelling a power shift from editors to bureaucrats? If the record of overall preference in the form of a tally is being canned, will that obscure a general sense of community consensus? Is RfA really broken -- and if so, are the Morales and Britt formats an improvement? --A. B. ^(talk) 01:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The current RFA method has very little traction. New methods will hopefully provide some power to work with in the first place! :-P --Kim Bruning 02:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The tally itself is not necessarily an indication of consensus. Viridae^Talk 06:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

User RFC is a disaster area, and I am very strongly opposed to any attempt to make RFA more like it. The format of this discussion is a mess that will make it nearly impossible to determine whether consensus has been achieved. I'm also concerned that the real purpose of these alterations is to remove the decision of adminship from the Wikipedia community and place it into the hands of the bureaucrats instead. Bureaucrats are supposed to determine what the Wikipedia consensus on adminship rights is, not make up their own. The existing format may need change, but it seems to me that it could be done in a far more consensus-respecting and less drastic manner. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 06:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Gaining community consensus to effect any change to the format of RfAs is impossible. Witness the severe acrimony these test formats have generated, plus the abundant WT:RFA talk page archives. If we have to gain consensus to test something at WP:RFA, we'll never ever ever evolve as that bar can not be met. --Durin 13:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• User RFCs (as opposed to article RFCs) frequently turn into a completely unworkable mess, replete with flames and other nastiness. It is probably unwise to base any other system on that. >Radiant< 14:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The format for User RfCs is why I don't feel comfortable contributing there. With RfA, it is probably the broadest random user audience we get aside from AfDs. There are RfA "regulars" for certain, those do rotate as people lose/gain interest, but many a many user reads RfA without expressing an opinion. The RfC format compounds the lack of likeliness of participation by having to read through a myriads of opinions to endorse. Muchless that the bureaucrat now has to not only judge consensus, but consensus on many sectional views combined with which views relate to each other relatively in endorsement or opposition. Seriously, it's just "per nom" with more red tape to provide endorsement "votes" on an RfA. Teke 04:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Quick question to the bureaucrats: do any of you believe that the current state of Matt's RfA will allow you to determine consensus on whether or not to promote? This is an honest question and I'm asking because I feel that we should otherwise restart the RfA under the standard format. The best this RfA will produce is an acknowledgment of basic facts like "he's been here long", "he's stayed clear of blockable offenses", "he doesn't do much XfD", "he could do better with edit summaries". All in all, I find little if anything that couldn't have been verified in 10 minutes of research so I'm not sure how a b'crat could find anything resembling a consensus to promote in there. Pascal.Tesson 21:36, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but I view this as yet another attempt to shut down this experiment. The nominee has stated he is quite willing to allow the experiment to run its course. As stated near the top of the RfA, "If the bureaucrats find it impossible to evaluate consensus in this format, the RfA may be restarted in a different form if the nominee chooses to do so". The experiment should run to its conclusion. There is no damage that is being caused to this project by this experiment. If, at the end of it, the bureaucrats can not evaluate consensus, Matt Britt is certainly welcome to re-nominate in the "normal" form. Indeed, allowing this RfA to evolve allows the possibility for it to grow in such a way that consensus can very easily be judged. Personally, I think it's readily easy to judge consensus on it right now. You disagree, and others may as well, but that isn't a reason to shut it down. I respect that you want to re-start the RfA. Matt Britt does not. --Durin 21:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

If the bureaucrats are already convinced that they will not be able to evaluate consensus, then running the RfA is a complete waste of time. We already got the info we needed: what's good about the format, what's problematic, whether or not it's likely to be a system most would be comfortable with. Running it for another few days only to have b'crats restart it in the usual format is not helpful. And despite what you seem to think it's not because I'm against experimentation per se but I'm certainly against prolonging an experiment that's not producing positive results anymore. I am also seriously questioning the judgment of Matt: he should have realized by now that this process is going nowhere and fast. Pascal.Tesson 22:19, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Allowing the experiment to run its course allows it to evolve. Aborting it just shuts it down and leaves the question of what would have happened if it had been allowed to run its course. There's nothing being lost here. As to bureaucrats restarting it; that's not their charge. If you question the judgment of Matt for being willing to allow this experiment to run its course, there's a place in the RfA to do so. You're welcome to contribute. --Durin 22:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Durin, for what it's worth, I'd like to give you the opinion of a non-admin. It's impossible for a bureaucrat to gauge consensus if the format discourages participation. That is, if people can't easily express their views, then there's absolutely no possibility that a crat can form an opinion of all of those views. Frankly, I really don't understand the point of the new format. I realize that, in theory, it's supposed to prevent people from treating it like a 'vote'. However, it also actively prevents people from clearly and plainly expressing their opinions and concerns of a user. It prevents us from endorsing or declining a candidate based on what we deem to be the most important priorities for wikipedia. If the point is to gauge consensus, I don't know why we aren't allowed to simply and efficiently present our views on a candidate.
As it is, I think mattb would make a very good admin, but I can't participate with this rfa. And I have to wonder just how often this might happen. Bladestorm 14:50, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• RfA as an RfC has been suggested as a reform proposal multiple, multiple times. There's been experiments done in this format in various places that received (as all such experiments do) lackluster attention and no conclusion as to the merits of the experiment. Result; the proposal keeps being put forth. See Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Reform#Proposal_by_Picaroon and Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Reform#Proposal_by_Theresa_Knott. Part of my intent in putting forth Matt Britt's RfA as an RfC was to answer these calls for this type of reform. If it was a blindingly obvious failure, people could refer back to the RfA and say something like "No, we tried that, and it failed miserable. See Matt Britt's first RfA".
• There are people who feel as I do that the current 'normal' form of RfA discourages participation. For example, it is often frowned upon if people engage in significant conversation on an RfA. If the nominee does, they are too combative. If a contributor does, they are argumentative and/or hounding other contributors. The idea of RfA is to build consensus. The current norms for RfA prevent it from being so. This is not to say I disagree (or agree) with you that RfA as RfC discourages participation. I'm simply stating that the current norm is also actively discouraging to participation.
• Re "prevents us from endorsing or declining a candidate based on what we deem to be the most important priorities for wikipedia". This is one of the chief divides on which much of the recent controversy at WT:RFA has battled. RfA is/isn't a vote.
• I firmly believe that considerably more can be gained from an experiment than just whether or not it failed at being a good model for RfA to follow. A great many fantastic insights have been brought up at WT:RFA in the last week due to these experiments. Matt Britt's has directly contributed to that. I believe this is a positive process, even if it does generate considerable debate. We should not fear debate. Neither should we fear experiments that foster them.
• Also, as noted above, if the bureaucrats feel incapable of evaluating consensus on the Matt Britt RfA they are free and welcome to reject it on that basis. Indeed, that is their sole charge with regards to RfA; evaluating consensus. If they can't, they can say so when the RfA comes due and it can be shut down as inconclusive. Personally, inability to contribute objections aside (for the sake of discussion, not function), I think this format of RfA is an excellent tool for evaluating consensus. I'm considering starting a section at WT:RFA to lay out why, but to be frank; after all the hate that has been leveled at me in the last week, I'm just a tad bit hesitant. I'm openly reviled by some contributors there, and they absolutely insist on doing everything they can to undermine anything I do.
• Thank you for your input. --Durin 16:22, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ragesoss

I don't see answers on this RfA to the first 3 questions. Isn't that required on an RfA, for it to pass, also before people voice their opionion?--U.S.A.U.S.A.U.S.A. (talk) 22:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

No. Majorly (hot!) 22:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• Opposing because somebody won't answer the optional questions. Then, when he still won't, people coming here trying to get it shutdown. Shaking my head in utter disbelief, --Durin 01:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Lets assume good faith here. U.S.A etc. was trying to clarify the position, not trying to get it shut down. I agree that the standard questions should be there to help the candidate by giving them an idea of what the community might want to know about- they aren't compulsory. That being said, lets not bite the newish editor who's just looking for guidance as to what policy requires. People have often discouraged the voicing of opinions in RfAs before the questions are answered and the candidate has accepted- the misconception is understandable (though the acceptance is the important bit). WjBscribe 01:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• Forgive me. I mean no direct offense to USA. I'm just flabbergasted that people could find reason to oppose someone for not answering optional questions. In referring to people coming here to BN, I mean to speak generically. --Durin 01:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I agree with the more general comment- failing to answer the questions does not a bad sysop make. WjBscribe 02:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Archiving of WT:RFA

WT:RFA is no longer being bot archived, due to deficiencies in the bot's actions and a pattern of ample human support for manual archiving since the inception of RfA. Just bringing a note here to inform bureaucrats, since they are frequently the people who conduct manual archives. And yes, WT:RFA could do with some archiving at the moment. --Durin 15:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries for WP:RfA

Could I please ask that when RfAs and RfBs are removed from WP:RfA, the edit summary says whether the request was successful. Often this is not stated.--Runcorn 22:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

This information also appears elsewhere, most notably on the request page itself. — Dan | talk 22:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it is convenient to be able to look at the edit history of WP:RfA for a quick summary.--Runcorn 09:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Runcorn. --TeckWiz is now R ^ParlateContribs_@(Let's go Yankees!) 14:44, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Me too. A few weeks ago I saw the edit summary "Danny closed", and I wondered, "And...?" YechielMan 16:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Why couldn't you just look at the RfA? It says successful or unsuccessful right at the top. John Reaves (talk) 18:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

While this may seem a reasonable request, it's also the kind of thing that leads to instruction creep. Those who need to monitor this information know where to look for it. --Tony Sidaway 18:46, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Instruction creep? All Runcorn is doing is asking nicely if bureaucrats would be considerate enough to make this common practice. When admins close XfDs they usually have an edit summary that says "close as blah". Nobody is holding a gun to their head, but it's common practice just to make it simpler to get the info by looking at histories. Pascal.Tesson 19:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Runcorn and let me make explicit why this is useful. If you have expressed an opinion on a particular RFA and see in your watchlist that it has been closed, you are naturally interested in what the decision was. If the edit summary says "Closing XYZ; successful" or "Closing XYZ; failed", you know the answer and don't need to go find it. The problem is that you can't just go to the WP:RFA page because there is no longer a direct link on that page to the closed RFA. So, you have to go find the actual RFA page which is not easy unless you type in the name of the RFA page. A few extra keystrokes on the part of the closing b'crat would save work for those who are interested in the result. --Richard 13:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It's really not much to ask for. People will appreciate it. -- Hex [^t/_c] 14:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Why the Durin/Britt RFA experiment should be terminated without a decision

I actually think there are a lot of good things about Durin's format and that it represents an improvement on the current RFA format although there are flaws in the process which need to be ironed out (e.g. the unrestricted addition of assertions).

I agree with Durin that a b'crat could easily determine consensus from the discussion that was conducted using this format. However, after thinking about this further, I now have a different set of concerns which is around the policy implications of promoting Matt based on this RFA format. What follows is not an argument against Matt's adminship or against Durin's experimental RFA format per se.

It will be interesting to see whether any b'crat is willing to promote Matt Britt on the basis of the current format. The problem, as I see it, is not whether or not Matt Britt is qualified. As Durin points out, the discussion shows clearly that there has been no reason advanced why Matt should not be given the sysop bit. However, a b'crat that decides to promote Matt on the basis of this RFA format would have to be careful because doing so might be construed as blessing the format which runs two risks:

1. It opens the door for using this format again when there is clearly no consensus among RFA voters for using it. This, in essence, would result in a change in the RFA process without consensus of the RFA community or the Wikipedia community at large. Seems like a bad idea to me.
2. The experiment opens the door for further experiments of any number of formats on the premise that if Durin/Britt could do it, then why can't I? In effect, every subsequent RFA could be in a different format. In the past, experimentation with RFA formats has drawn fire for "changing the format without consensus". As I said, I like Durin's format. However, the policy/process implications of opening this door are huge.

For these reasons, I recommend that a b'crat make a "hypothetical decision" that runs along the lines of "IF this were an RFA format sanctioned by policy, I would decide that Matt is/is not qualified for adminship. HOWEVER, because it is NOT an RFA format sanctioned by policy, I will not promote Matt at this time." This would provide a successful conclusion to Durin's experiment without creating policy implications which are undesirable.

I think it is good to experiment with the RFA format. However, I think future experimentation needs to be better controlled. One possibility is to set up an RFA process workgroup whose task will be to propose and experiment with RFA formats. One of their mandates will be to restrict proposed experiments so that they do not disrupt the RFA process. One experiment a week or one a month would be about right. I would hope that there not be more than one experimental format a week. That would be confusing and disruptive.

One possible approach would be to require that only b'crats can authorize an experimental RFA format. We can discuss the details of this but I would argue that no experiments should be conducted in the future without the sanction of at least one b'crat (maybe more).

--Richard 13:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Whoop! Apparently, the Matt Britt RFA was closed unsuccessfully before I wrote my post. Should have checked first, I guess. Nonetheless, I stand by the points I made above. --Richard 13:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Percentage precedent

I think I've seen it said several times that it was due to the tendency of a single bureaucrat (I believe User:Cecropia?), that the 75% threshhold was established. If so, would it be fair to say that the bureaucrats can change that threshhold to (let's say) 67% if they have consensus amongst themselves? I presume so since, technically, they have shown in the past that they can promote to admin, even if the results are under that threshhold.

That said, I'd like to request bureaucrat comment on changing the "de facto" threshhold from 75%, to 67%. (While obviously not impuning on the ability of the Bureaucrats to freely adjucate in specific situations, as they currently can and do.)

I don't know what format would be best for you (straw poll, RfC, or whatever), I'll leave that up to you. But I would like to hear from as many as possible, in order to at least get a "feel" for your (plural) thoughts on this. - jc37 08:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

If you look at Cecropia's RfB, he notes that "long debates appear to show that the "gray" area is between 75% and 80%" - does anyone know where there was discussion that 75% was the number, if there was any discussion at all? It wasn't Cecropia that created this precedent, simply used it frequently as a prolific RfA closer. Majorly (hot!) 09:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The closest I've gotten is some references to a "bureaucrat's poll" that I can't find... -- nae'blis 12:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_16#Poll_.233 --Durin 13:05, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

  Interesting poll. In the spirit of Consensus can change, perhaps a new poll should be discussed? I also note that the poll above listed 60 or 75 as options, not 67. - jc37 18:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

There are various debates in the early WT:RFA archives which essentially had the effect of ratifying the current policy. While it is true that Cecropia was an advocate of using percentage thresholds rather than any more "fuzzy" methods, the 75%-80% promotion threshold was arrived at prior to his involvement. The threshold was, in essence, borrowed from what was then "Votes for Deletion." It was unusual for an RFA to have more than four or five votes at this early time. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 20:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps not useful

Since we're trying to kill the concept of simple percentages, I'm not sure a useful answer can be given here. --Kim Bruning 13:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well, we can't kill the concept of simple percentages. Too large of a subset can't let go of the idea of the voting at RfA. An interesting experiment in this direction would be to run an RfA with straight up/down vote, and no room for bureaucrat discretion. But, I don't know that we can run that experiment as we need bureaucrats to agree to it and I doubt they would. It'd be interesting though to see the discussions that resulted from that experiment. Certainly the current Moralis and Matt Britt experiments moving away from voting have caused a lot of people to become upset, even irate. --Durin 13:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Who is "we"? I think there are some people actively demonstrating that moving away from simple percentages and voting leads to worse RfAs. I don't know whether that is intentional, though. Kusma (talk) 13:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• There are plenty of people who actively demonstrate that moving towards voting leads to worse RfAs. --Durin 13:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, RfA has been moving away from voting and towards discussion since I started reading RfAs in early 2006, and that doesn't seem to have improved RfA. Kusma (talk) 13:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Umm, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I've seen plenty of evidence indicating it's more about voting than ever before. Certainly the large acrimony over people not being able to vote on Matt Britt directly shows that. --Durin 13:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
      • In fairness, a lot of the acrimony over the Matt Britt RFA has to do with the difficulty of participating. An RFC-style format is much denser, harder to parse, and harder to evaluate in the end, because it's in no way designed to apply to a binary decision. The Mortalis RFA, on the other hand, despite the apparent outcome, seems to have been generally well-received. -- nae'blis 14:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
        • I don't think either format can be accepted in the current clime of RfA. To be frank, I felt that way before reformatting the Moralis (not Mortalis...funny typo :)) RfA and creating the Matt Britt RfA. I was more interested in the discussions that would ensue with the reformats. --Durin 14:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • We, the editors, should always continue to question bureaucrats in their decisions. Not to get all groovy, but power should always be questioned. Unlike administrators, bureaucrats truly have power as their actions can only be undone by a Wikimedia steward. Perhaps it is time that we stop questioning ourselves. I can count the number of RfA's that have caused this long standing call for reform over the past couple years on under all ten fingers. In such time, we've promoted 1,000 users. That's one percent point one percent one percent, folks. Right on target with statistics- probably even two standard deviations to the left for what would be average. We can argue about numbers, we can argue about decisions, but the bottom line is they do the job they have been elected (yes, elected) to do. RfA was systematic in the old days, three months and don't be a pain and you're good. The project is not the same, and we rely on bureaucrats for that very reason. Teke 04:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
    • My calls for reform, and indeed that of some others, have nothing to do with outliers in the process. My calls have to do with *every* RfA and the resulting impact it has had on Wikipedia. The 1% figure is meaningless to me, as that is not why I am on about reform. --Durin 13:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Fair enought, I shall just continue to agree to disagree with you. Teke 13:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Admin

Though I eventually would like to obtain admin status, and feel I would be a great editor, I know now is not the time. I have looked extensively and must ask, though I feel like an idiot, 'How do I withdraw?'Wjmummert (talk) 05:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)