Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections

Observation on the value of nominators in this run

11 people passed of the 32 candidates, of those 11...

• 6 of them had nominators: Ahecht, Dr vulpes, SD0001, SilverLocust, Sohom_Datta, and ThadeusOfNazereth
• 3 of them had public offers to nominate that were noted in guides: DoubleGrazing, FOARP, and Queen of Hearts
• 2 of them were not noted as having publicly been offered a nomination: Peaceray and Rsjaffe
• Everyone with a nominator or public offer to nominate passed

I think a lot of people leaned on candidates having nominators in this election, possibly due to the number of candidates and having difficulty evaluating that many. I'm also aware that at least a couple candidates had privately been told by people I hold in high regard that they'd be willing to nominate them, but did not take them up on it. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that having a nominator is a good idea, and is likely to improve the chances of being elected. On the other hand, I suppose some candidates were attracted to the process because, in addition to having the voting in private, they also did not feel like they would have to approach potential nominators, and perhaps have the risk of being declined. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't address that some candidates chose to run without a nominator though. I also wonder whether this was simply because of the number of candidates and, if limited to 10 candidates, they would have the same value as they did here. I think having someone credible speak on your behalf will always be valuable, but I think because of the number of candidates that those who had them benefited and were given additional weigh as a result. Queen of Hearts did the best after all, and they had offers but ran without any. So I think it's an interesting thing to discuss and consider. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:42, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

TBH, it never occurred to me that nominators were even a feature in this new format (all due to my own ignorance, obvs, and had I thought about it I might have at least looked into or inquired about the matter, but didn't). Even the 'offer to nominate' I had was more "there's an election coming up, would you consider running?" than "...would you like me to nominate you?" I think this could be clarified in the candidate instructions for future elections (if any), especially as it seems to be such a big factor. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:20, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I was really dismayed by how few candidates ran without nominators, since I thought it would seriously hurt their chances (it seems I was right). Going forward, I think we'll need to make it a bit clearer. But hopefully also people will be more likely to ask for noms, given these results. -- asilvering (talk) 19:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure that it's even the fact that some had nominators, or whether that was a side effect of a likely trust of the community in them.

Personally, looking over the list of the candidates that passed the election and had nominators, or offers from nominators, I recognized quite a few names, many more than of the other candidates that didn't, and I'm probably not alone in that observation.

So I think it might be more that, if another admin has felt confident in their candidate to co-nominate them, it is likely a positive signal that the candidate has probably shown prospects with using partial mopping permissions and/or judgement in their respective field of editing, which also likely means that candidate has crossed path with more active editors and thus may also be experiencing confidence by more people from the community.

So I think from my anecdotal debrief/interpretation of that, I think it might be worthwhile to consider the offer of a co-nomination to be a (soft?) criteria for future candidates as it likely yields a (slightly) smaller, but much more likely to pass scrutiny field of candidates and may actually just be the natural selection criteria that could bring future candidacies from 40 to a more manageable 10 (if this initial election can be a rough first indicator). Raladic (talk) 06:32, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Phase II page.

Theleekycauldron created the Phase II page for AELECT at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator elections. Will this be where the RfC takes place after the debrief phase? fanfanboy (block talk) 15:24, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

We're not ready for that yet, and it may end up not being used at all. Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Debrief is the official place to leave feedback at the moment. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:19, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

We don't actually do "official" on Wikipedia as - other than the WMF - there are no authorities here, just a self-governing and consensual community, but we know what you mean. ;-) SilkTork (talk) 18:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Planning for post debrief

Mini-RFC phase

My idea is to let the debrief phase run for a week or two, then we start a new mini-RFC phase where folks make proposals to modify little pieces of the hypothetical next AELECT. So someone might create a proposal to reduce the pass threshold from 70% to 65%, someone might create a proposal to cap elections at 10 candidates each, someone might create a proposal to have our scrutineering done by 3 enwiki checkusers instead of 3 stewards (since stewards have said they probably can't scrutineer this regularly), someone might create a proposal to link to the voter guide category from the AELECT page, etc. We finish that up, get everything properly closed...

Renewal RFC phase

...and THEN we do one renewal RFC. This order is important. I want the process to be improved (mini RFC phase) BEFORE we do a renewal RFC. Else the renewal RFC will be full of "support only if X is changed" votes, which is a pain for the closer.

We should also give thought to the structure of the renewal RFC. Do we want to ask for 1 additional trial? Do we want to ask for a blanket approval to run elections whenever desired (and then we would de facto run like 1–2 elections a year since that is WMF T&S's current bandwidth, but we might eventually do it more often when Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Determining who should be an electionadmin is finalized). (Probably ask for blanket approval since overall AELECT has gone well.)

@Theleekycauldron has expressed a desire to have these processes take place under the umbrella of WP:RFA2024 phase 2. So some thought should be given if we should have that process manage these RFCs. (Seems reasonable. We should probably do that.) –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:33, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Yep :) I think we were pretty much in agreement on your talk page that the renewal RfC should be at phase II and the initial debrief should be here. I would say the proposals at the mini-RfCs should be workshopped at debrief and then voted on at phase II; seems like you were hoping to get some of the changes ratified informally, which I'm also on board with. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 19:45, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree, it will be important to properly workshop the proposals for both mini-RFC and renewal-RFC so we don't get overlapping ones or too many. e.g. there should be exactly one proposal to reduce the support percentage (perhaps with multiple options), and exactly one to change the duration of the consultation phase, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 19:51, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Good idea. We can create a workshop subpage to draft RFC proposals. Not sure if we should be strict about it when the mini RFCs start, e.g. if someone wants to propose something that wasn't in the workshop that'd probably be OK. But a workshop would probably be helpful to minimize overlapping RFCs. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:04, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/RFC workshop is now open. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:17, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Novem that the renewal RfC needs to be after all the mini-RfCs are closed. Things like the support threshold are definitely going to affect how comfortable people are with extending the process, and I don't think it's a good idea to ask people to !vote until it's been settled what exactly they're !voting on. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:24, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I basically agree with other editors that we should get the details worked out before having any sort of up-down vote. I'm speaking as someone who had been very critical of what I have been seeing as a rushed process leading to troubled results throughout the RfA2024 process, but also as someone who is very much in favor of this particular innovation, which I very much want to succeed. Personally, I'd actually have preferred that we allow the Debrief phase to run its course before even starting the RfC workshop, but since that ship has already sailed, I want to put in a plea that we allow plenty of time for that workshop to get all the kinks worked out, before moving on to any next steps. This isn't an emergency, and we shouldn't rush it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:06, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Recent RfA template

Should we include {{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Recent}} somewhere in WP:AELECT? fanfanboy (block_talk) 17:25, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Modifying candidate pages to show if they became an admin or not

I think it might be helpful to go back and edit the candidate pages to use a green/red hat instead of a yellow hat, depending on whether the candidate was elected or not. It may also be helpful to add a sentence to the top of each stating whether or not they were elected, and what their percent was. This would 1) provide important information with less clicks (not having to go find the results page to see) and 2) would be in alignment with what RFA does. Is everyone OK with this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:50, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I completely agree, I was just thinking that yesterday after following a link to one of their pages. I think a mention that they passed and the final vote tally, similar to regular RfAs, would be ideal. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:31, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds useful and sensible. Thryduulf (talk) 22:46, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Great. Since there's no objections, does anyone want to start on this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd give it a go, buuuut I'm tentative because I'm not sure who to mark it as closed by. I certainly don't want to be perceived as the closer. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:03, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree. FOARP (talk) 14:31, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac you were the 'crat who flipped the bits. Would you object to being the formal closer? Thryduulf (talk) 19:16, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

If it's an election, and thus a straight vote, I would make the argument that no closer is needed. Primefac (talk) 20:21, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it's a matter of semantics at this point. I believe it makes sense to note, at the top of the relevant RfAs, that they were successful. However, typically we have

Final: (200/20/2) – Closed as successful by whoever.

I guess we could do something like,

Final result: (200/20/2) – Adminship granted.

Without a signer? Not sure the best approach, but at the end of the day the goal, at least from my POV, is just simply to make it clear they passed and include the vote as we traditionally would. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:26, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I suppose my point was that on a normal RFA, the 'crat that closes is the closer. On an admin election, hatting the discussion is a formality. In other words, I would support your second suggestion over the first. Primefac (talk) 20:31, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd just put something like Achieved X% in the October 2024 administrator election. Promoted to administrator. or Achieved X% in the October 2024 administrator election. Not promoted to administrator.. You can sign it or not sign it -- that part probably isn't too important. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:10, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I like this wording but I'd swap "promoted" for "elected". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:19, 9 November 2024 (UTC)