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So, I actually went and made one. In keeping with the spirit of no-big-deal; User:Dihydrogen Monoxide/RfA criteria. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 08:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, a tad feline-centric. Doesn't quote Jimbo, so automatic 5 yard penalty. Fails the 1FA criteria, as well as lacking the required "Will you add to AOR?" statement. But overall a fair attempt at RfA rules, I !vote a solid Neutral. MBisanz ^talk 08:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All issues addressed. [1] Or just to piss off the FAC regulars (ie. me);  Done. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 09:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I vote oppose, I'm allergic to cats. And in other news, I don't like CAT:AOR Maxim_(talk) 13:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's about wrapped it up. Rudget. 13:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is humor a breach of policy? If so, DMHO should be indefinitely blocked. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 14:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But to be serious for a moment, the whole "being an admin is no big deal" gets touted way too often. I know that's been said/discussed multiple times. If it ain't a big deal, there wouldn't be a rigorous examination. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 14:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Wisdom, and I've banged on relentlessley about it. WP:DEAL is not only an extremly old quote but seems (to me) to be used without understanding. Being an admin is no big deal - you're hardly likely to impress your mates down the pub with it. Admin tools are a big deal, as their misuse can be at best a pain for other admins and at worst costly to the project in terms of loss of editors. Pedro :  Chat  14:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, being an admin is no big deal. Choosing an admin is a big deal, not an opinion but a demonstrable fact based on how we choose them. _(1 == 2)^Until 19:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I've been able to impress people because I'm an admin. However, all my friends are computer techies like me. Never been able to impress a girl with it, though. Useight (talk) 15:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep - that's because the term administrator carries a heavy implication of authority..and almost everybody has heard about Wikipedia. I keep telling people I wish to be one soon in the future and they get wide eyed. I immediately qualify my statement and temper their..err..enthusiasm. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 00:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly lacking in ferrets. This may be due to systemic bias on Wikipedia, rather than a problem with any individual user. Dlohcierekim 14:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Pedro, but the NOBIGDEAL quote isn't overused in my opinion. I've encountered users who had such a mistaken view of adminship before. Nousernamesleft^{copper, not wood} 19:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's astonishing. So if you're an administrator your GA nominations get nodded through? I'm with Pedro, being an admin is no big deal, but having access to the tools is most certainly a big deal. Otherwise why would it be so hard to prise them out of the hands of incompetent admins? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like the look of Giggy's new criteria, but I personally like WP:WTHN? :) Anthøny 00:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is scary and really should not be supported. And yeah Anthony, Ral's is always going to be a classic :) dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 07:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nodding through an admin's GA reviews is exactly the opposite of no big deal. Adminship should not be so big a deal that admin's get preferential treatment. We should be admins more because we can be trusted than trusted because we are admins. I guess it's as big a deal as the community is willing to make of it. Arrrg. Dlohcierekim's sock (talk) 14:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In Defense

I would like to defend myself here, as I just now noticed this discussion. The article and discussion mentioned is being taken out of context. When this comment was made, I had failed the GA nomination, on the grounds that it simply was not ready. After reviewing the article once the pictures were placed, I noticed that, in my opinion, the article met the criteria and would pass a GA nomination. I was not telling User:Nousernamesleft that simply due to the fact he was an admin I would pass the article. Please dont make assumptions here, as it makes a bad impression on others about a user. If you have questions, please direct them to my talk page. Thanks and happy editing Dusti^{talk to me} 16:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Totally Biased Support - it has cats?! I support wholeheartedly! Anything feline is to be worshiped... But on serious note its pretty solid basic criteria that applies to any candidate. You might also want to add that it is important that the candidate possesses a good amount of knowledge regarding policy as well.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 19:06, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What no requirement about "Project" space edits? What about the need to have done extensive image copyright work, including a degree in copyright law? Where is it shown a user needs to have brought peace to two warring nations within that last 6 months? I am sorry but we can't just let anyone in. _(1 == 2)^Until 19:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to Dusti: I fail to see how adminship ties into that at all. Why did you mention it if it had nothing to do with it? Nousernamesleft^{copper, not wood} 22:08, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In all actuality, Adminship wasn't even an issue. I was suprised at the fact that you were an admin, that's all. The GA article was a separate issue. If you had a question, instead of taking it public and giving others a false image of me, you should have asked me. Dusti^{talk to me} 15:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To Whomever may read this:

My name is Mychael John Thomas, and I am the originator of a concept and trademark for GUITORCHESTRA (TM). The name has been documented on my website, originally on line in 1997, on IAC, where my music is for sale, and on MySpace, where it is linked to the sites afore mentioned. I would like to add my history in the form of an article. Can you please help me? I was the first one to use the term in ANY format. I would like credit for this, as a new work is in progress. Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,

Mychael John Thomas (75.139.58.152 (talk) 19:42, 29 March 2008 (UTC))[reply]

It would probably suit you better to ask this in the help desk. Personally, I don't really see how this would be notable enough for an article. bibliomaniac15 Hey you! Stop lazing around and help fix this article instead! 19:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At Wikipedia talk:criteria for speedy deletion, we find this:

WP:RFA culture now places much weight on accurate C:CSD tagging. So yes, sadly, it has become a race to place the tag first.

A newbie creates a new stub article. Then adds more to it ten minutes later. Then more still after another ten minutes. And so on. Right? Wrong: the way it now works is that the initial stub is tagged for speedy deletion and deleted within three minutes—often within two minutes. The newbie is disgusted and goes away and never comes back. The person who does this to the most newbies becomes an admin. That's how it works. And they don't bring any intelligence to the decision about what to tag for deletion. "I don't understand it effortlessly since I've never studied advanced physics, and it's too much work to think about it for a moment, so it must be crap. Delete! That's how to become an admin. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So sad, and so true. The problem is by no means limited to RfA though. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 00:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not that sad at all. If you actually look at new articles created by new editors, the majority are "Joe is crazy and his dog stinks" or "(Name of editor) was born July 15, 1992 and attends X high school and is really cool" or "Gnarpharg is a sound I make in my throat sometimes." These are articles that the second or third edit ten or twenty minutes later are very unlikely to improve enough that it no longer satisfies the criteria for speedy deletion. Edison (talk) 00:59, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict reply mainly to Edison) It doesn't just happen to newbies, though, as I found out around 2 months ago. I pointed out to the over-eager tagger that it might be an idea to give more than 3 minutes (the time it was) to allow someone to carry on editing the article, especially since his over-eager tagging had caused edit conflicts that meant I was unable to add sufficient detail to the article because of his speedy deletion tag! I got a lecture back about how to edit an article, which I thought amusing as it meant he had not attempted to look at my editing history at all. However, he did say he would wait 3 minutes which is all he had left anyway, and I had to point out that I said "longer than 3 minutes" and had suggested substantially longer than that. He just replied with "I got the message", but I note that later messages on the editor's talk pages are complaining about the same behaviour, so I guess he didn't get the message after all. I think this borders on the disruptive at times if it is done frequently, and I would certainly not shrink from pointing this out in any RfA.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stretch, please tell me that your initial article, when you first hit the "Save" button, was not equivalent to one of the typical three examples I cited, which represent actual deletions I did in the last couple of days? Say it ain't so! Edison (talk) 02:58, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, it wasn't. I can't recall clearly now, and don't have the time to find it, but it had content, valid categories, a reference, and even an infobox.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing how badly savaged RfA candidates get if they mistakenly tag articles for speedy deletion, I'm not convinced that tagging articles for speedy deletion incautiously would be a wise way to try and earn "points" towards adminship. Whilst it is certainly true that experience of tagging for speedy deletion is likely to benefit a candidate, I don't think more tagging equals more support. Similarly, fewer well reasoned XfD contributions are likely to be viewed in a more positive light than simply "voting" delete on hundreds of discussions. Those thinking of applying for adminship should be thinking about demonstrating the sound judgment they propose to bring to that role, not the volume of work they would do if appointed. WjBscribe 01:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know that happens? Maybe you've seen some cases of admins getting "badly savaged", but how do you know there aren't hundreds of cases of newbies going away quietly after there article is deleted, for every one where they complain? Is there any way to even attempt to keep track of this? Michael Hardy (talk) 01:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If an article is even remotely useful, I am starting to userfy more often. This takes care of a lot of issues at once, and doesn't really piss anyone off. Experienced editors should already know to build their article to minimum standards in their userspace before "releasing into the wild". Tan | 39 01:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But experienced editors should not always have to build their articles to "minimum standards" on their user spaces before they start to create them, and nowhere, when one fist creates a page, is there a notice recommending that one should have done this. In the case I was involved in, it was already arguably of a minimum standard for a stub article, dealing with a notable subject (a civil parish in a county within England), complete with references. I think that this option is useful, however, but I think telling people they should do this is not a good way to combatting a trigger-happy reaction to new articles without elementary checks on who was the creator of the new article. Or is this going to be another new means by which suitability for being an admin is to be assessed, without actually giving anyone a clue that is?  DDStretch  (talk) 01:49, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that most of the tags are fine to just slap on for most pages, but A3 should be used with caution. That's the one that can stop a newbie trying to create a good page --Chris 02:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As we all know, anyone who creates an article has a bold text box staring them in the face saying, "As you create the article, provide references to reliable published sources. Without references, the article may be deleted". Fair warning. It's hard to draw the line between overly aggressive tagging and letting no-context articles slip into the encyclopedia, I think. This is veering rapidly into a village pump type of discussion, but I wonder if there's a way to change how articles are deleted under A3. Instead of speedy (i.e. instant) deletion, if they could get a tag that stays on the article for a period of time like an hour or two, then can either have the tag removed or the article deleted. Complicated, but I think Chris points out a real problem. Darkspots (talk) 02:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More new article I see presently added to Wikipedia that time is unlikely to improve. Should RFA potential candidates be wary of tagging them, so they have lots of time to add refs and rise to Featured article status? See The periodic table of elephants:"the periodic table of elephants is a table classifying pachyderms based on their size and plce of origin. it was created in 1920 by renowned german zoologist hans gubenmeister. it today is widley used in most countries in europe asia and africa." It was tagged for speedy deletion one minute later. Bless the tagger. Edison (talk) 03:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a non-admin, it's easy for me to say...over aggressive tagging isn't the problem. Over aggressive deletion is. Anyone can tag an article. Only people who have the confidence of the community have the buttons to delete. I try not to tag anything that I don't think qualifies, and I stand by the majority of tagging that I've done. At the same time, I hope that admins deleting pages I've tagged have taken an extra moment themselves to verify that the tags are legit. --Onorem♠Dil 03:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a rough estimate, I'd say that 90-95% of tagging is correct. I probably refuse about 5-10% of speedy deletion tags, and I always err on the side of caution. One thing I would say is that sometimes editors are too quick to use the G1 tag when "nonsense" actually has quite a narrow definition. Often such wrongly-tagged G1's are valid A1, A3 or A7's, but many aren't. Anyway, probably veering off-topic here.Black Kite 03:21, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)For what it's worth, I do recognize that the tagging itself can be a problem. Even if the tag is removed, a new editor might be lost if they feel that their original contributions are about to be unfairly deleted. --Onorem♠Dil 03:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think articles are tagged quickly because they have to be, or they will no longer be on the first page of special:newpages and harder to find and delete if they are never improved. Useight ( talk) 03:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not going to deny this problem exists, but just three small points: 1.) Exactly what is the meaning behind the title of this section? Is it a common view that most candidates who are granted administrator status are excellent SD taggers, or is it just obnoxious sarcasm? 2.) Newbies are instructed to develop their articles in adherence to our guidelines before clicking the save button. They are given the opportunity to make a suitable stb. 3.) By far, the most common articles created are absolute trash/nonsense. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 04:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will repeat it's not just the newbies... the other day I forgot to write an article in my user space. Saved it. Went in to edit it, before I had a chance to edit it, it was speedily deleted per A7. Needless to say, I was not pleased. A lot of articles do need to be speedily deleted, but not all. Discretion should be used to see who is creating the article (do they have a track record or are they a true newbie) and has enough time passed to give the article a chance.Balloonman (talk) 04:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're not going to get an argument from me about that. The tagging has become rampant. Goodness knows I've tagged rapidly a few times. In order to curb the problem, I suggest the following: 1.) Check the history and identify the author, check their contributions. 2) If you have any doubt when tagging for A7, don't (contemplate the relevant notability tag). 3.) People need to stop tagging every short article as "no context", as the subject can easily be ascertained. 4.) Add a stub template for short articles and add helpful article templates to identify potential problems. This isn't directed at anyone in particular, just my two cents, and more than likely written in the guidelines. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 04:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to think there are 2 types of CSDs. One would be attack pages, blatant spam and copyvios, and genuine nonsense. But then there are the notability and context CSDs, which are an entirely different animal. I wonder how fierce the opposition would be to a 1 or 2 day PROD for all notability based deletion propositions? MBisanz ^talk 08:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's kind of what I'm talking about above. I think it would still need to be under the speedy rubric rather than PROD (PROD tags can be removed by the creator), but we could require that A3 and A7 tags to be placed on articles for a period of time before deletion. OR strongly suggest to administrators that any article with the remotest hint of merit be given a period of time for development (6 hours? 24 hours?), because there are plenty of A7 articles that probably should be deleted on sight. Darkspots (talk) 11:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The fact is that far more often than formerly, I have recently seen good articles tagged for speedy deletion by people who were unwilling to know what the articles said before they tagged them. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and these are the people who eventually have failed RfAs because of overzealous CSD tagging. It's a problem, unfortunately, and when admins are asked "why did you delete my article" for the 50th time that day, we/they need to remember to be civil/polite. It's only fair - we were all newbies once too. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 07:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion really is getting into something that is more relevant to the village pump. Per the original poster of this topic though, bad CSD taggers tend to not pass RfA (don't know whether I was lucky or not :p). Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 08:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem has to do in part with the understatement in the first paragraph of WP:PATROL#Patrolling new pages. Is it meant to be an understatement? I guess that a lot of people don't read it as one and believe that tagging Crustaceans in Byzantine hagiography 15 minutes after its creation is OK if they have followed this process. Unfortunately this means that its creator, after a 2 hours' absence for breast-feeding, nappy changing and a few other household duties, will learn that we don't want her expertise.

There is also a psychological component. If someone patrols an article, they want to feel that they are being useful. They want to click a button. Not being allowed to press the "patrolled" button because they don't have the necessary knowledge to assess an article no doubt creates frustration in some editors. (This paragraph is speculative and based on introspection when I just patrolled a new article for the first time in my life.)

We need to change the process. Blatant nonsense and attack pages need to be deleted immediately. Other CSD articles need to be deleted before the author has invested too much time, to avoid drama when it is finally deleted. The current process is skewed towards the first problem and to radical concerning the second. Perhaps the ideal solution would be a technical one supporting a second stage of new pages patrol. Instead of marking a page as patrolled, it could be marked for repatrolling. This would occur, say, after 3 days or 10 edits to the article, whichever happens earlier. It would be inserted into Special:NewPages at that stage. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:59, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

...and now I just found the article titled Bochica. User:Excirial tagged it as patent nonsense. Then User:SatyrTN deleted it, saying there was not enough context to identify the subject. I'd never heard of the subject, but I identified it in seconds using Wikipedia and Google. Clearly these two users couldn't be bothered. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I highly resent being singled out for your example. The version I deleted was one sentence, thirteen words, some of them spelled wrong. It didn't qualify as a stub, didn't assert any notability, and was labeled by another editor as "patent nonsense", which it certainly seemed. Futhermore, it had been tagged for three hours, plenty of time for the article's creator or anyone else to have removed the speedy tage, added context to it, anything to make it suitable for keeping. I may agree with your arguments, but this is the wrong article to use as an example. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 18:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thirteen words with clear meaning doesn't qualify as a stub? Being a god of a culture isn't an assertion of notability? There are two types of patent nonsense, and the article was neither. It already had context, all anyone (including you) had to do was correct the typos and wikilink the relevant words. The fact that you've never heard of the subject means that you should look it up, or else refrain from taking any action. –Pomte 18:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The typo "mitology" was particularly unfortunate there, since it does make the article incomprehensible. I have to agree with SatyrTN's deletion.

We've known even before the Mzoli meats incident that every new stub should have at least one reference or external link to establish notability. The message presented when a new article is created directly asks the author to add references, or else the article may be deleted, so nobody should be surprised. Personally, I haven't had trouble with people deleting my stubs, even on highly esoteric subjects. [2] [3] [4] [5] — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:51, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of the thirteen words, two were spelt wrongly, but their meaning was clear, within the context of the article using the word "god". Consequently, I do not accept that it rendered the article incomprehensible. Although I have only involved myself in nominating deletions occasionally, I thought it was only polite and sensible to do a web search, etc prior to nomination, just in case it was more a problem with my own knowledge rather than the article itself. I'm surprised that this elementary precaution is not almost universally done, and I suggest some appropriate guidelines be edited to include this advice, if it is currently absent from them. If the web search threw up references, then I would simply add them to the article in order to start it off with a good track record with referencing, but I am sure this is also not a universal strategy. Indeed, I've just added one! I think this particular case was unfortunate.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is unfortunate. But I don't think we can reasonably expect people looking at CSD backlogs to research each article before deleting it, especially since by all accounts 95% of the articles tagged as nonsense really are nonsense.

The 'nonsense' criterion has to be read as referring only to the literal content of the article, not to its possible content. In this case, the article was, for all reasonable purposes, indistinguishable from a random "Earloben is the god of corn, well known in Iowa" article. Did anyone ask the creator (politely) why he or she didn't heed the advice to add a reference? Maybe if we follow up on some of these problem articles, we can find a better way to inform new users about our requirements. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Carl, above, that spelling "mythology" as "mitology" made the original article incomprehensible enough that SatyrTN's deletion is acceptable. I don't want to call into question the experience of anyone participating in this discussion, but Special:Newpages is simply insane. Like tryin' to drink from a firehose, as the saying goes. We need to support new contributors, but watching this page for an hour or two justifies speedy deletion policy in a visceral way. If anyone here hasn't done this, please do so before singling out individual administrators for criticism. Darkspots (talk) 19:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Incomprehensible"?? It should have been obvious to anyone that "mythology" was intended. I saw that instantly and I'm as far from an expert as you can get on that subject. Obviously a non-native speaker of English wrote the article, and the misspellings were easy to fix, including that of "mythology". Michael Hardy (talk) 20:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I agree that it is often a difficult job, given the amount of rubbish one sees being added or created on occasion. I would think enquiring why the person did not include a reference would be useful, especially since I found one which was very simple to add in virtually no time at all. However, along with improvement in the behaviour of article creators, there are two more stages that need to be mentioned and clearly separated, since they can be mixed up together in ways which might hinder any closer examination: the first is the act of adding the Speedy Deletion tag to the article; the second is the action prompted by the placement of that tag. It does not take an administrator to add the speedy deletion tag to an article, and so perhaps we should encourage more responsible people to take their turns at the first stage or task, emphasizing that looking at some articles with a view to tagging them for speedy deletion might just mean spending short amount of time improving them. As for the second stage or task, if the workload is too much, then there probably there is a need to be able to create more people who can make decisions about speedy-deletion-nominated articles (as far as I am aware, one must be an administrator to be able to do this.) This need not mean creating more administrators if appropriate changes could be made, but it could mean this. And that brings us back to the issue of being able to better specify the characteristics of good behaviour one might be expected to see in good administrators. "Point scoring" on the basis of number of successfully nominated deletions, etc may not be the best way, if we think there is something at fault in the present process, for example.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Creating in user space

I have just one comment: People should not have to create pages in their userspace, to prevent them from being deleted. This is a wiki. A wiki is most beneficial when people can collaborate on articles to bring them up to speed.

Let me repeat the key phrase: People should not have to create pages in their userspace.

Did I mention that the moment people start creating pages in their userspace... that's a really really bad sign, and whatever the cause is must be eliminated asap?

So you're saying CSD tagging is encouraging people to create pages in their userpsace first?

Ok, then let's kill CSD tagging. (Either that, or put a time delay on the CSD tags, so that they don't show up for admins until hours or days later... hey wait... isn't that PROD? Maybe other solutions could work too?)

Could I see a quick show of hands of people who create pages in their userspace?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 12:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I create articles in my userspace, because as an experienced editor I know that I need to satisfy wikipedia policy/guidelines. Although collaboration is what a wiki is about, if people come across an article that could be deleted, they are welcome to either improve it or tag it. You just have to rely on there being good admins who would choose to reject the speedy. Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 13:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I often write new articles on my own computer and then copy them here once I am sufficiently happy with them, but that's mainly to try to avoid inflating my edit count fixing all the errors I make when starting an article. I think that creating articles in userspace, rather than mainspace, is a practice we should discourage. Having the page in userspace has the effect of preventing others from improving the article, and goes against the point of a public wiki. If experienced editors feel they need to to it because of overly hasty CSD tagging, it's a sign the CSD system needs changed. I have advocated for a long time that the CSD criteria concerning importance, rather than spam, nonsense, libel, etc., should have a time delay like the image criteria do. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't create articles in userspace. I might have once or twice, but I have no clear recollection of doing so. I certainly hope that does not become expected behavior for newbies or any editors (except perhaps for reprobates attempting to salvage their reputations). And I might note, the problem with CSD is not only with newly created articles. On more than a few occasions, a vandal defaced an established page, someone else came along and tagged it for speedy deletion, and another editor comes along and "poof" no more article. In some cases, I happened to notice the vandalism or CSD placement on my watchlist and was able to rescue the article in a timely manner. In other cases, it wasn't until some time later I notice a redlink that I knew should have an article and looked into the history. What is worse, when I pointed out the faulty deletions to the editors, I got snarly responses, as if it such accidental deletions were acceptable collateral damage in the war against vandalism and spam. I think such editors have misplaced their priorities. older ≠ wiser 13:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I create articles in user space in order to avoid conflicts. This is based on what I heard and other people's experience, not my own. I don't mind doing it: Normally I only create articles on topics that I strongly care about, and I want to get them right before anybody else messes with them. I know this is not a good attitude, and I wouldn't do it that way if I didn't have a rational argument. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I create in my userspace for two reasons. One, I tend to write slowly, finding one source one day and another other days. So rather than put something live that isn't obviously notable, I hold off until I have something that seems to be good enough. Two, DYK's are based only on new article expansion. So if it took me 2 weeks to get an article from an unsourced one line stub in my head to something sourced, with formatting, etc, in the mainspace, it would be ineligible for DYK consideration. MBisanz ^talk 14:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I create in my sandbox because I like to get it right before I release it. I fix my typos, insert formatted inline references, edit copy, add categories, etc. Then after a few hours work I put it into article space. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:48, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I make my own sandboxes and lists of templates and to-do lists. I work from home, from work, and from cafes with wireless. Having these auxiliary pages helps me keep organized with my wikipedia work. They also help me work on articles not ready for publishing. Kingturtle (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I am curious what your question has to do with adminship. Kingturtle (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Experienced editors should already know to build their article to minimum standards in their userspace before "releasing into the wild" was actually used above in rebuttal to the complaint that RFA favors rabid deletionists who, following an easy promotion, gain the ability to more efficiently and more assuredly alienate the contributing poplace.
Of course the real issue is a vast fundamental disagreement as to what "minimum standards" are, and what a reasonable timetable is for achieving them. — CharlotteWebb 19:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of minimum standards, we can look at notability; experienced editors do know what needs to be done before submitting an article to mainspace. But in terms of a page created by a new editor, if you delete (on grounds of notability/advertising etc), I'm of the principle that you should be willing to explain to the author why you deleted. A friendly welcome note and a helpful explanation can reduce the BITEyness of a page deletion. Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 23:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I do it (in my sandbox) for the same reasons as Sbowers3. I just keep it there for a few hours while working on it. I also do this if I'm extensively changing an article. Both of these times, I do it when I need/want to make frequent saves, and that would needlessly clog up the page's editing history. нмŵוτнτ 18:41, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rarely, and then usually for my own nefarious reasons rather than a concern about speedy deletion. I don't need to worry too much about <redacted> <inaudible> <redacted> tagging my work: it's marked auto-patrolled (and like rollback, I'd like to be able to add all clueful editors to the auto-patrolled group). If it's going to take a while, I always slap {{underconstruction}} on it, which should scare off a great many NPPs. But what annoys me most is not tagging per se, but things like the sorry history of Jane McAdam Freud (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and the messages left for the creator. Oh deary me! Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a similar problem: I have had to switch to creating templates in my user space and keeping them there for several days until I am sure I have tested them enough and thought enough about them that I am not that likely to do more changes to them. The reason is that admins have often protected the templates while I was still working with them and before they were deployed anywhere. It is very frustrating to not be allowed to finish ones work. Admins should use "semi protect" more and "full protect" less.

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:27, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Totally blindsided

Here's what the article said:

Bochica is the protecter god, social planner and benefactor in the chibchan mitology.

It was completely irrational to label this article "nonsense" and to speedily delete it, but the person who deleted it is saying that the misspelling of "mythology" made the article incomprehensible. I was just completely blindsided by that claim. I would think that anyone who in those circumstances failed to understand that "mythology" was intended would be embarrassed to realize he had done that. Yet he's saying that in his defense. I am as far from an expert as you can get in the topic, and it was obvious to me that "mythology" was the word intended. I can understand it not being obvious to someone whose familiarity with the English language is limited. I can understand it not being obvious to a sixth-grader in at least some cases, even if the sixth-grader is intelligent. But when an admin asserts that he can't see such an obvious point, that makes it really difficult to sympathize with him. A person who is that mentally challenged shouldn't be trusted with an adminship. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I wouldn't necessarily go that far, but the above example is fairly ludicrous, and, frankly, alarming. The nomination is one thing, but the deletion is quite another. I'd say that an administrator that robotically deletes such articles should just be reprimanded (not with sanctions), but more of verbal admonishments. I'm sure after a few complaints, they'll start to pay a little bit more attention. No need to assert that they are unfit for adminship. Sometimes people get lazy. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 21:05, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To Michael Hardy: I do see your basic point. I've pulled A3 tags off of enough articles myself to appreciate your frustration. I'm not saying that the article was incomprehensible to a careful reader, just that it was at that point incomprehensible enough to make deleting it understandable. I do think that calling a specific editor "mentally challenged" is not acceptable. Darkspots (talk) 22:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you commented first, Darkspots, as I've already left a note with Michael expressing my dispointment regarding this overall thread and didn't want to stir the pot, as it were. However, the "mentally challenged" statement is right in the zone of WP:NPA and frankly we are probably only giving lenience because he is an admin - which is upsetting and wrong. Other users have had final warnings for less. I hope Michael will be revisiting this and redacting that comment with due apologies. Unbecoming of any editor of this work. Pedro :  Chat  22:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

fictions posted in this thread

Someone wrote above:

by all accounts 95% of the articles tagged as nonsense really are nonsense

I think that is fiction. How does anybody know such numbers? An admin asserts that he's speedily deleted lots of articles and he's had only one complaint of an error. One out of hundreds. That's his failure rate. Pretty good. How does he know that? How does he know there haven't been hundreds of cases where he's deleted things that shouldn't have been deleted? The newbie user goes away in disgust and no one ever hears about it. How can anybody know?

Is it possible to look at an admin's deletion logs and see which items he's deleted? Michael Hardy (talk) 00:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Go to Special:Log/delete and fill in the admin's login. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need to make this more conspicuous. On an admin's user page there should be a conspicuous button labeled "User's deletion log" or the like. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll repeat (with additions and modifications) what I wrote down below in the next section, since it is relevant: The difficulty is that 95% is a nice round percentage, comfortably close to 100%. I imagine that it was chosen as almost a figure of speech for "large amount" or "almost all, but not so much as to be easily and quickly challenged". I don't criticize the person who first used "95%", or the others who restated it, as this is something we may all do to varying degrees from time to time. But it does not represent the product of hard and good critical thinking about what we are doing here. I do suspect that it was not chosen as a result of some survey that counted and classified such instances. This is a pity, because unless we are careful, this discussion is likely, in my experience and opinion, to become bogged down because it will be based on suspicions, hopes, desires, etc, rather than being based on empirical facts. In these kinds of cases, we need hard facts and data order to get a sensible grip on the existence and scale of any problems so that we can then decide whether and, if so, how much effort needs to be placed in finding any solutions (that is, if a problem is found as a result of collecting the information.) Furthermore, it is not really up to those who question the figures to go away and try to find the evidence to support them, because that way gets the burden of proof completely the wrong way round. If someone asserts that 95% is an accurate figure, it is up to them to provide the evidence in its favour, and it would have to be free from any reasonable alternative explanations (in terms of bias, etc), of which Michael hardy is pointing out one such example.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1) I am disappointed to see this huge thread without anyone bothering to let me know. 2) I note my original remark has been stripped down to one line, losing a lot of context. 3) Out of my 3427 deletions one has gone to WP:DRV and I admitted my error in that case so I think I know whereof I speak regarding C:CSD. 4) I believe I am pretty well seasoned in the RFA process. 5) I stand by my remark that accurate CSD tagging is important at RFA. 6) I also stand by remark (not included in the original quote at the start of this thread) that admins should be more active in advising editors that their tags are incorrect - if the tagging editor is considering RfA this will rightly be viewed as a negative if they have a number of such comments on their talk page; If they are not considering adminship, well, frankly, no-one likes admonishments on their talk pages, no matter how gentle they are. Pedro :  Chat  21:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I personally think it's a shame that a few erroneous speedy deletion tags invariably put RfA candidates in the gallows. My point about the admonishments, though, was simply a more lenient way of dealing with an administrator who can't catch blatantly false or inappropriate tags. Although, that becomes a problem too, because, as Pedro indicated, no one wants their talk page peppered with admonishments and WTF comments. I'm not entirely sure what can be done. Do you request a WP:RFC on the admin, make a note on WP:ANI? There is no one easy solution. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 21:41, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A speedy tag is a recomendation that an article should be quickly removed from an editor. It is for an administrator to determine if this removal is correct. However at RFA candidates can, self-evidently, not be judged on poor deletions. Therefore they are judged (in part, and particularly if Q1 indicates they wish to work in deletion areas) by their C:CSD tagging. The buck stops with the deleting admin, no question, but editors who also wish to also have admin buttons should move from seeing CSD tags as a "I think this should be deleted but I may be wrong, doesn't matter if I am" mentality to "I want to be an admin and I'm sure this is clearly inappropriate so I'm going to put it to CSD and not PROD or AFD". Editors not interested in adminship should be assured that they have a backstop in the administrative team. Editors who are interested in adminship should be sure they know policy and can demonstrate it, and this is one method. The solution is, therefore, simple. Admins do as they are entrusted and give proper consideration before hitting delete, and, as I suggested in the non-quoted element of my original remark, advise users when their CSD tagging is incorrect if they decide that the speedy request is wrong. I will hold my hands up now and say I haven't been doing enough of that. I will do so from now on. Pedro :  Chat  22:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well stated. When my CSD noms are turned down I ask the admin for the reason so that I can learn to do better. (And it seems to have worked because lately I've had very few denied.) If the admin explained without being asked, more of us could learn. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:13, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We keep hearing that there's this important task of deleting nonsense articles, and that 95% of speedy deletions are instances of those. But I rarely if ever see any of those, and with recently increasing frequency, I see this other sort all the time. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:55, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look through the deletion log. There is, as they say, a great fire-hose of crap. Whether you see it depends on whether you're following the new pages log avidly, or using one of those weird applications beloved of new-page-patrollers. If you only look in C:CSD from time to time, you won't see very much of it. Still, the supposed 0.1% error rate, or whatever number it is we're claiming, doesn't strike me as plausible. Just looking at the last 100 deletions, of which about half may be speedily deleted articles, Robert Dyk (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Lucy Lamode (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) struck me as have some claim of importance and/or significance: Teenage Enema Nurses sounds like it must have changed lots of lives and reporting the Iran Hostage Crisis is perhaps something important. Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The difficulty is that 95% is a nice round percentage, comfortably close to 100%. I imagine that it was chosen as almost a figure of speech for "large amount" or "almost all, but not so much as to be easily and quickly challenged". I don't criticize the person who first used "95%", or the others who restated it, as this is something we may all do to varying degrees from time to time. However, I do suspect that it was not chosen as a result of some survey that counted and classified such instances. This is a pity, because unless we are careful, this discussion is likely, in my experience and opinion, to become bogged down because it will be based on suspicions, hopes, desires, etc, rather than being based on empirical facts. In these kinds of cases, we need hard facts and data order to get a sensible grip on the existence and scale of any problems so that we can then decide whether and, if so, how much effort needs to be placed in finding any solutions (that is, if a problem is found as a result of collecting the information.)  DDStretch  (talk) 01:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

the effect of bad tags depends on how bad they are, and how recent. Obviously everyone does it inexpertly at the beginning--I certainly did. By the term someone is ready to become an admin, we have to see that they understand well enough to trust them. DGG (talk) 06:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on aquisations made

I have to fully agree with Pedro's (An editor i came to highly respect for his friendliness and professionalism) comments in the previous section. Apologize the incivility, but i find these aquisations to be a cross breed between an witch hunt simply for the matter to prove a witch actually exists, and an exhibit of the line "If you want to hit a dog, its easy to find a stick".

What i am refering to is the following line: ...and now I just found the article titled Bochica. User:Excirial tagged it as patent nonsense. Then User:SatyrTN deleted it, saying there was not enough context to identify the subject. I'd never heard of the subject, but I identified it in seconds using Wikipedia and Google. Clearly these two users couldn't be bothered. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC). I have already left a lengthy response for this at my talk page, but seeing as its discussed here, i will repeat it briefly.[reply]

About a month ago (The time at which the edit was made) i decided to move from vandalism patrol to new page patrol, a section of which i hardly knew the rules, and hardly ever worked in. Back then i had the philosophy that in case of doubt(Read: Not knowing the rules yet), it was better to tag the article for CSD as it was merely a request to have it looked at. This ideology has already been proved wrong, and my editing style has already been adapted to prevent the somewhat more overzealous editing.

Still i find it laughable that someone is now singling out one questionable edit out of over 15000 edits and then finds it necessarily to drag it to Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship to post it, along with leaving a comment on my talk page implying that i WP:Bite newbies, and only doing my work to get rewarded with an adminship, which i desire in no way at this time being. So please, the next time the need arises for example of "Bad Editing", get a more recent, and a more representative one. Or at least WP:ICA before making aquisations. Excirial ^{(Talk,Contribs)} 07:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See the initial/original discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. It was a little non-newbie bity if you get my meaning, although I think the intentions were good. The bottom line is this. The issue needs to be addressed, however, it needs to be done with a little more tact. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 14:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I will by no means deny that this tag was questionable, and by the standards i currently use is downright wrong (Now i would add a stub notice and expand tag). Also my thanks for pointing me to the original conversation, as that added quite a bit of context to the discussion here.

From what i can see is that Michael (in a slightly non civil way) expressed his concerns over wrongly tagging articles for WP:CSD. I agree he is onto something here, but i doubt the problem is as serious as it is stated here. Based upon my own edit history i can say that about 3% (14 out of 450 ish, really quick count of bluelinks) of the articles i tag does not result into permanent deletion of the article, either because the tag is wrong, or because the article is improved after tagging it(recreation included). The rest of the articles mostly fall in G1 because it are student jokes, or G11's because it are advertorials.

I don't think the 2% is that bad a number. Most times at the time of tagging the article is indeed in such a shape that it is valid for CSD. Yet i have to agree that deleting those articles would be a shame, since they obviously got improved. The main problem lies in the fact that the new page list limits itself to new pages, which rules out the posibility to check back in a few hours. Prodding the article is most times not a solution, as i find that a disturbingly high amount of the prod tags get removed from the article creating user.

Suggestion: Personally i would suggest altering the ideology behind WP:Prod a little bit. Instead of tagging each article with an easily removable tag (Have you even tried checking 500+ articles to see if that tag wasn't simply deleted, overwritten or invalidated?) i think it would be better to add the articles name to a list, where it can sit 5-7 days to see if it has been improved. If all the questionable articles would be governed in a single place like this, its nigh impossible that some possibly bad article gets to slip past, while at the same time assuring that the "Work in progress" articles won't simply be deleted due to new page patrol limitations. At the very least i assume that taggers could become more lenient due to this (Or at least can't cite the limits of the newpage list as a reason anymore) Excirial ^{(Talk,Contribs)} 20:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right now we have 3 open RfAs and 2 waiting to be closed. Are there really only 3 people currently interested in being admins who think they meet the community's standards? I know there is always the question of if we have too many admins or too many clueless admins. I think we need more admins, given the large number of admin related backlogs (plead guilty to not doing my part there). Maybe some current admins might want to stop by Admin Coaching and pick out a nice green recruit to train? MBisanz ^talk 19:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or, maybe just nominate someone. that works just as well. Not knocking the coaching, I do that too, but there are oodles of good users that could perhaps be even more useful with extra buttons. Oodles! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I keep trying to find people to nom or coach, but it seems like there is a dearth of qualified janitor candidates. Maybe the transclusion backlink to {{user not brave not admin}} and {{user she not brave not admin}} will turn up some victims, err I mean candidates. MBisanz ^talk 20:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that someday I will have enough experience under my belt to handle the mop, but I do not believe now is that time. Though I have a shade over 1,500 edits, most of them have come in the past 3 months. I need a good read of policy before I will feel comfortable with a nom. ArcAngel (talk) 20:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Too bad we can't run this like rollback. I.E. any admin in good standing (with, perhaps, a year or two of tenure, if people are worried) can promote someone to admin. If the new admin abuses the tools, any admin can remove them again. Simplicity. Friday (talk) 19:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm trying, but I can't find anyone. I always keep on the looking for people who are ready now, alas the picking are slim of late. Wizardman 19:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One of the first times I've ever agreed with Friday on something :) Majorly (talk) 19:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So we could have something like Trial adminship. Or maybe we couldn't. You tell me. Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah... good idea. Just get everyone else to agree and we'll be good! Majorly (talk) 22:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(de-indent) You know, I hear about these back logs so much, I figure its time I let this one loose. The number of Admin's at the current moment is 1,528. Wow. It's hard to believe that backlog is a reason to nominate someone, given that we have over 1,500 admins who don't take care of the backlog's as it is. And I'm not pointing a finger either. I just don't think it takes that many admins to screw in a light bulb. :) SynergeticMaggot (talk) 19:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How many are active on any given day? Tan | 39 20:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a massive, highly visible project run by volunteers. Lotta light bulbs need changing with this many hundreds of thousands of articles. Darkspots (talk) 20:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also plead guilty to not doing my part in the admin backlogs, but I consider myself mostly a mainspace contributor and I participate at AIV, UAA, and CAT:CSD. However, I do have someone I will be nominating very soon. I coached him a little over the last couple of weeks and I'm working on my nomination. Useight (talk) 20:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. - There are roughly 1000 active admins (active being defined as at least 30 edits in the last 3 months). Useight (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, well, I'm not sure one edit every three days is enough to clear any backlogs... how many are active in the context we are discussing - 10+ edits a day? Or, even better, how many admins work to "clear backlogs" in any given day? Sort of unanswerable, I know, but probably a lot less than a thousand. Tan | 39 20:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, how many are actually performing admin-related tasks - e.g protecting pages, participating/talking at WP:ANI/WP:AN, WP:AIV, WP:UAA? etc..etc.. General editing or tweaking isn't exactly active. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 20:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which is actually my point. Even if the number was 500. I still can't believe we even have backlogs with that many active admins. Not to brag, but I used to clear through logs like nothing. And that was mainly stubs sorting and categorizing. But who knows eh? Adminship isn't at all what it used to be. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 20:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pulling a number out of thin air, I would guess that that 500 number is closer to 25. I'm not really proving a point, just saying that there certainly isn't 1500 active admins today. Tan | 39 20:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I work a lot at WP:AFDO. Can always use more admin eyes. I think there are only about 10-20 admins that regularly close old (backlogged afds) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent)Yeah, I know you wanted the number actually working on the backlogs, but that 1000 number is the only one I could find. The number you want will be hard to find. I do between 20 and 50 edits in any given day, but not much of that applies to the admin backlog. Useight (talk) 20:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm working on can be found here. Any particular suggestions to be added are welcome. Useight (talk) 20:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<outdent, because I hate counting colons>This thread started as a call for more noms, with a statement that this might be exactly where the conversation will go. The point of the question is not do we have too many or too few admins. The question was are their any good candidates out there that need nomming? The tools are free, they don't break or rust, there is an unlimited quantity of them available. Every qualified (and I use that term very loosely) editor should have them, as it would be one less editor in good standing that needs to find someone else (admin) to get something done. Nominate someone! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on a nomination right now. Hopefully it will be transcluded by the end of the day. Useight (talk) 20:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have someone in mind, although due to my last nomination, I think I'll be waiting for another month. Maybe shorter, as their last RfA was only 2-2 3/4 months ago. :) SynergeticMaggot (talk) 20:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I have a nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MrFish, we'll just have to wait for him to transclude it. Useight (talk) 20:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just like to say that before people run pell-mell into commenting on this RFA, not only is it untranscluded it is also unaccepted at this time. I know I'm a bit alone in this view, but it really is a community process and not everyone watches this talk page. Can we try and hold off the comments (votes, !votes whatever) until acceptance and transclusion guys and girls? (excepting obviously Useight as nominator) Pedro :  Chat  20:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That goes without saying, Pedro. But I'm glad you said it nonetheless.  :) -- Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it went without saying I wouldn't have said it :). There's no rule on this, but given that this RFA has been made semi-public I think we would all serve ourselves well by refraining from commenting until transclusion. That is, however, only my opinion and is not policy or guideline (much as I think it ought to be). Pedro :  Chat  21:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gah! I thought WP:PEDRO was a bluelink, and was to be followed at all times! :) Acalamari 21:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sorry for tempting you guys, please wait until it's been accepted and transcluded. I just wanted you guys to know that there are some candidates waiting in the wings. When I had my RFA, I was the only one, ruining this blank page, and now we only have 3 RFAs. Now I'm rambling, but my point was the drought could be worse. Useight (talk) 21:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Only in the event of the odd minor issue should that ever become blue. Default position on en.wikipedia should be - if Pedro recommends it don't think twice. Think thirty seven times and then by and large ignore it. :) Pedro :  Chat  21:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/General Mannino Skomorokh 22:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

109 edits? You are being ironic with section header, yes? Darkspots (talk) 22:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The editor is active, with a dozen edits today. Why not ask him about it? Useight (talk) 22:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The RfA was last edited on 11 March. I will advise him to have it deleted until he's ready. Darkspots (talk) 22:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question: I advised him that if he wanted the RfA deleted he could slap a db-u1 tag on it. On second thought, I've only ever used that for user-space pages. Will that work him? Darkspots (talk) 23:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That would fall under g7, I believe, as u1 only applies to userspace. I would imagine it would get deleted either way though.--Dycedarg ж 23:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This should be speedily deleted as it would be snowed in nothing flat. The biggest red flag is that user doesn't have a good grasp of edit summaries yet, despite the fact that he says he knows policies well. ArcAngel (talk) 23:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

g7, of course, how silly of me. I changed my message to General Mannino. Darkspots (talk) 00:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I brought this up on the bureaucrats noticeboard, but here might be appropriate to. Even though Mr. Kurt has invariably made it clear that he is going to use levity in his ironic self-nom, I feel that perhaps many of the comments being made are unacceptable and frivolous. I realize it's just light hearted banter and what not, but if it's an authentic/genuine nom, then this is going to be make it insufferably difficult to sift through. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 06:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, nevermind. I forgot the date. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 06:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It can probably be userfied (or speedied if noone wants it) once the day is over. Orderinchaos 06:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably the funniest thing that could happen today. Useight (talk) 07:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When I discovered it was a joke, I busted out laughing - and it's 3 am. I think I woke my family. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 07:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's only 1AM here. I'm going to go toilet paper the apartment of these girls I know here pretty soon. Useight (talk) 07:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Well, I !voted in the MFD that this was not disruptive, but I guess now I would have to modify my opinion. Sad panda. Yngvarr (c) 12:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kmweber 2 is funny and all, but can we keep it off of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship ? Kingturtle (talk) 13:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess that now a serious (i.e. real) RFA has been placed above it, it could be time to move along. Pedro :  Chat  13:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed it because I don't want Redfarmer or any other new RfAs to get hit accidentally with any Kmweber 2 crossfire, but Kmweber 2 still lives here in Talk:. Kingturtle (talk) 13:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That was by a mile, the funniest RfA opening statement I've ever read, and the best self-parody I've ever seen. Movie references in parargraph 2 even! I was crying when I discovered it, an office mate thought I had lost it finally...I've added it to my personal humor page, may it never be a red link. Congratulations go to Kurt. Simply outstanding humor. Outstanding!. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. After today we should tag as historical for preservation. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 15:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe User:Bishonen/Bishzilla RFA is still open -- or maybe it never really closed. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 15:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship? Beaureaucratship? Oversightship? Jimboship? Spaceship? Simply south (talk) 15:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have a spaceship? Can I hijack it interest you in letting me borrow it for a while? Mars currently has women, it just needs men, or, at least, me. John Carter (talk) 15:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jimboship? What about Angelaship? Acalamari 15:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wa thinking about becoming an IP. Would anyone vote for me? Justin^(Gmail?)_(u) 15:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Only if your IP is 867.5309. John Carter (talk) 16:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mine is 19.85. Useight (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Please find non-projectnamespace places for them. Cheers, Kingturtle (talk) 15:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Making the joke edits in projectspace is a lot better than making them anywhere in article, template, category, portal or any related talk pages. (And mediawiki wouldn't necessarily be a great place either) - Bobet 15:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think what Kingturtle means is put them in a userspace subpage or whatever, instead of directly editing the main RfA page. Majorly (talk) 15:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a good idea. Some of us watch the main RfA page... SQL^{Query me!} 15:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, they should be transcluded. And only a few more hours and we can be rid of them all... It's fun, but no point over extending the jokes. Pedro :  Chat  15:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've moved my latest power grab to User:EVula/oversightship. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mine's at User:Andjam/oversightship. Andjam (talk) 00:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mine was, and is, at User:Barneca/Requests for Jimboship/Barneca. I've also userfied the MfD to User:Barneca/Miscellany for deletion/User:Barneca/Requests for Jimboship/Barneca, so no one gets upset about there being traces of humor in Wikipedia space. --barneca (talk) 01:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am hard pressed to think of a reason not to allow joke RFAs. If they cause you a great deal of stress, feel free to let somebody else deal with them -- I'm always willing. — Dan | talk 03:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the issue was that one or two of them were not transcluded, which, lit up WP:RFA a bit. SQL^{Query me!} 04:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that! Andjam (talk) 04:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What?! You mean User:Sean William/RfB was not real?!? And here I thought I had a nonabrasive cohesive amusive, conclusive and assuasive, comprehensive and extensive, adhesive missive?! -- Avi (talk) 05:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like things have settled back down to normal around here. Useight (talk) 06:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings. Is a few months from now a reasonable time to make request 2? Anything else besides the information at Wikipedia:Admin_coaching that I need to know for RfA 2? After my RfA 1, I needed to know what nominees are expected to have read. Thanks very much to the people who helped answer that question here. They also helped me not to quit Wikipedia for better or worse. -Susanlesch (talk) 06:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this is my non-binding, unofficial opinion, but you need more edits and discussions to places listed in Template:Editabuselinks, WP:DR, and WP:XFD and edits to things like Wikipedia:Featured article candidates and creating content that is listed on WP:DYK or is WP:GA and/or tagging content related to WP:CSD, WP:RFPP, & WP:PROD. MBisanz ^talk 06:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, maybe I ought to have quit. Just kidding, but I asked for tools so I could do the news template. Like in the RfA, sounds like some people have other roles in mind in which frankly I have very little interest (like blocking people with my account that is a real name). Interests change but that list sounds like zero fun to me and much more work than any administrator requirements list I have seen anywhere here yet. Thanks anyway. -Susanlesch (talk) 06:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You generally want to wait 3 months between RFAs. Being that your last one was 2 weeks ago, no, it's not time yet. Useight (talk) 07:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be discouraged. You don't actually HAVE to do things like block people, you just need to show you know what those tools do and won't abuse them. And also I am known as a tougher person in what I suggest for RfA prep. Keeper76 (talk · contribs) tends to have more reasonable guidelines. MBisanz ^talk 07:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You calling me a slacky? I'd block you, but you'd just wheel war over it... :-) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 17:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. You've both answered my questions. If there is more to study besides RfAs and admin coaching, I would appreciate a pointer. Best wishes. -Susanlesch (talk) 07:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Susan, if you ever have any questions about anything, my talkpage is always open. I believe we are in the same state even, so ya, you know, no big deal, eh? Nuttin formal or anything, gees. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 17:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As for blocking... I've been an admin for almost 9 months now and have only blocked about 25 people---all of whom were chronic vandals on pages that I watch. I've deleted about the same number of pages. Being an admin isn't about the tools, but rather about the trust and commitment to the project. But in order to gain that trust of the community, you do have to jump through some hoops---I compare it to applying for a job. You may never need a certain skillset, and having the skillset may not really help you do your job any better than a person without the skillset, but if you don't have that skillset people are looking for, you won't get the job. So sometimes, you have to venture into uncharted territories to show people that you can do something you may never do in the future!Balloonman (talk) 17:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Susan, off of the Admin Coaching main page is link to the RfA criteria of about 10-15 people. These criteria are subject to change and are not official policies, but should give you an idea as to what people are looking for as does the summary on the AdCo main page.Balloonman (talk) 17:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Yes, I saw the criteria and am pretty sure if I didn't meet them the first time then I can meet them next time, she says like everybody else at RfA N. :-) You know, if admin coaching is a center of information that might be indicated a tad more on the RfA nomination instructions. It is one among a bejillion links there, maybe I can reword it sometime. Peace. -Susanlesch (talk) 20:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do it! Update the page! The beauty of a wiki. Anything controversial, go to talk first, anything helpful, make it better!. unless its protected. Is it protected? Cripes, shoulda checked that first... Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Admin coaching is there in one of the three spots I used, Wikipedia:Administrators which explains Becoming an administrator, Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Maybe I'll wait a bit first and come back to this. Good luck with your essay and other things in progress. -Susanlesch (talk) 21:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keeper76, hi, nice to meet you too. Thanks, ordinarily yes I would for sure "be bold" but this is wee out of focus even here in adminland. Maybe in the future, though, yes indeed. -21:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Admin coaching is an area that was essentially dead for the longest time. We are trying to revitalize it... and in some ways, we've done too good of a job. Suddenly everybody wants a coach!Balloonman (talk) 21:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That explains why I came through RfA Navigation (in this page) and RfA documentation without ever encountering more than one sentence about coaching. And now I see it is probably that way for good reason. I've changed my mind and think adding a layer of complexity for everybody is counterproductive. People who need and want it ask for help. Thanks again for the replies here and good luck to you. -Susanlesch (talk) 19:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. MBisanz, the suggestion above, which was added over and above admin coaching, that I should make more "edits and discussions to places listed in Template:Editabuselinks, WP:DR, and WP:XFD and edits to things like Wikipedia:Featured article candidates and creating content that is listed on WP:DYK or is WP:GA and/or tagging content related to WP:CSD, WP:RFPP, & WP:PROD" is unreal, even if I hadn't worked on GAs and DYKs before. I waited a few days and see it went without comment and forgot to say this because nobody said whoa. Whoa. -Susanlesch (talk) 11:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been playing around with the idea of writing up a how-to on how-to nominate somebody for adminship. But I never got around to it, then today I read Useight's nomination of MrFish where Useight wrote, "I don't give the best introductions, so I'll let his contributions speak for themselves." This got me motivated to write my essay, my essay. I was hoping you guys could take a look at it and let me know what you think. (Feel free to make any obvious changes---especially gramer and spelin.)Balloonman (talk) 07:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You may find the nominations at User:Pedro/RFA of interest. I used largely the same format for them (except Barneca). Instinctivly, people like brevity and bulleted lists. It makes it easier on the eye and therefore they are more likely to read it. Of course a good nomination should "sell" a candidate but a gleaming nomniation from an "RFA Regular" is still no excuse not to review a candidate properly. And of course my 100% sucess rate is down to the quality of the candidates and not the nomination! Pedro :  Chat  11:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good questions and common sense. I think for an essay, it is very good and that it will help some people. Where would you like to see this "write up" linked and who is expected to read it? From what I've see so far, some admins who make nominations will eat up and follow every word. Others will never see it and other will not look for it because they do things to their "own drummer" (their own internal guidelines). -Susanlesch (talk) 11:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The place I was thinking about posting it was over at Admin Coaching. I want to revamp that process a little better because I think many people don't know how to do the coaching and what is expected of a coach. (Then there are my coachees who probably complain that I am too brutal and expect too much ;0 ) But if you are referring to your comments/thoughts on the essay either here or on the essay talk page would be fine.Balloonman (talk) 16:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support the brevity and bulletted lists offered in the nominations in User:Pedro/RFA. Pedro's style of nomination can save time for voters trying to research the candidate. EdJohnston (talk) 17:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be honest, I don't particularly care for Pedro's format. To me it doesn't say much as it comes off as a checklist without any substance. But that may just be me. There is no correct/universal way to nominate somebody.Balloonman (talk) 21:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fair point. It is largely a checklist. But it works though! Pedro :  Chat  22:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think use of the word support above implied some sort of endorsement of one particular style over another. This is just discussion filled with our meaningless opinions : ). I like the ordered structure of Pedro's, but, Balloonman's taste lie with an essay format. Fine by me. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 00:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Balloonman, not a bad (I'm assuming first draft) for an essay on RfA nominations. I like paragraph number four in particular. That is vital. Whether you are being nominated by another editor, or you are self-noming, it is imperative to divulge weaknesses or areas that require some improvement. No one is perfect and I strongly feel that the community will view forthrightness favorably than surreptitious nominations. Good show. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 19:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to commend Pedro for his very structured and organized nominations. Very easy to read, and extremely informative! Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 19:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heh! Thanks Wisdom. You're only being nice because you want me to write yours too .....soon I think.... :) Pedro :  Chat  20:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Soon, yes : ), but my compliments are purely neutral. Seriously! I like the ordered layout. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 20:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Yes, I know Wisdom, no worries my man! I guess I just like the flattery so I thought I'd comment! In seriousness, and thanks as well to EdJohnston, I do quite a bit of wordsmith stuff for a living (probably why I don't do enough on WP!) and it's a simple fact that lists, consistency in headings and short punchy sentences are more readily received by the reader. The old mantra is : Tell 'em what you're going to to tell 'em. Tell 'em. Tell 'em what you told 'em. Mind you the number one element to a good nomination is this; pick a decent candidate in the first place! Pedro :  Chat  20:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Amen to that... or run them through the wringer in Admin Coaching until they are good ;-) My coachees know that I won't nominate somebody until they convince me that they can pass my standards!Balloonman (talk) 21:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Admin coaching seems to be becoming more and more frequent. Maybe that's why I can't find anyone to outright nom, they're either not ready or a coach snags them :P Wizardman 15:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse Wizardman comment. :) — Seriously though, admin coaches are the future of nominations. :P Rudget (review) 16:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Heh, looks like I'll have to retire from RfA nomming then. I'm just not a personal fan of coaching, mainly since none of my admin choices have run into any trouble. I obviously see the good in it, it's just not something I do, per se. Wizardman 16:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Me too. Wizardman and Rudget retiring from noms. :O Rudget (review) 16:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • You best both be joking. Nomming still works, and sometimes, coaching does not. Keep the noms comin'. Keep the coachin' comin'. I'll even take a few self-noms right now, seeing as no one likes standing alone... Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Meh: I'm not retiring from nominating people: I'm adapting. :) Acalamari 16:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • The way I see it, if someone is ready now, why delay it 2-4 weeks by asking them a bunch of question they're going to be asked anyway? That's just how I see it, anyway. Wizardman 17:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Agree, if they are ready they are ready. Coaching should NEVER be required. I see coaching for the person who is getting close to being ready for a nomination but not quite there... or for the person who isn't close to being ready, but can be with some guidance.Balloonman (talk) 17:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Wizard, there are a bunch of people at Admin Coaching who are interested in becoming an admin... you could take a look there to see if anybody is ready... or coach them to get to that point ;-) Balloonman (talk) 17:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on the above: I mostly agree with what was said. Coaching is an aid that is available thanks to the kind coaches that put in the work. Many users do not need or want coaching. Offering to nominate editors that you find particularly helpful to the encyclopedia should still be encouraged. Maybe they would never find admin coaching on their own. The growing popularity of admin coaching simply means that you may not find as many suitable candidates who aren't tied to coaches. Enigma ^message 18:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted what appears to be an incorrect transclusion. Why are there 2 RfA's for the same user? Bearian (talk)

Yeah, looks malformed. But shouldn't someone transclude it properly in the meantime? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 00:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The two RfA's was my fault; I moved the RfA to the correct location at the same time the candidate did it, but for some reason there wasn't an edit conflict. transcluded properly now. --barneca (talk) 00:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a possibility that Wikipedia will go through seven days without promoting an admin. Since 24 December 2004 this has happened four three times (as far as I can tell). The first three two times were way back in the Dec 2004 - Feb 2005 era.

1. 31 Dec 2004 to 6 Jan 2005
2. 13 Jan to 19 Jan 2005

   #22 Feb to 28 Feb 2005

3. 1 Dec to 7 Dec 2007

There have been a mere handful of six-straight-day streaks. So, a seven-day streak is something of note. What it notes, I don't know. I just find it interesting. Kingturtle (talk) 16:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

that we scared everybody off?Balloonman (talk) 16:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. I actually wouldn't mind becoming an admin. My big problem is that I was indefinitely blocked a year ago for legally threatening Yamla. This was brought up in my previous three RFA's which all miserably failed. I might go for another run in a few days. It's not like I'm bad as such, I've had 10,000+ edits, it's just that the block log stands in the way. I think for many people it's like that, people tend to sternly look at the blog log. If enough people willed me on, maybe I should, seeing as the current run of people having RFA's is so low. D.M.N. (talk) 17:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Prior to a review, but based on our conversations today, I feel a support coming on from me. Perhaps we can discuss this elsewhere DMN! Pedro :  Chat  17:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DMN, your unsuccesful RfAs aside, you jumped on the fake XfD bandwagon for April Fool's Day and that will be brought up quite quickly, even if it was a "joke". Considering the quality of some of the candidates who have failed this week, I don't think now would be a good time for you to go for your 4th attempt. Gwynand (talk) 17:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

$5 on the red. Oh wait, wrong forum. Yngvarr (c) 17:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According the user right's log, you are mistaken about streak #3. Cecropia promoted Jimrollpickering on February 25, 2005. Dragons flight (talk) 17:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Back on topic, of the number of people I approached over the past two weeks, all but one demurred the offer for a nominations. Only User:Seraphim Whipp was gullible enough to have accepted :(. We have to keep combing the lists and trying to find suitable candidates, I reckon. -- Avi (talk) 17:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment, but myself and I'm sure many others don't believe that a slowdown in admin promotions is definitely a bad thing. It certainly has implications for the community and could be bad, but I don't really see any problem with it currently. Gwynand (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't either, leading up to this lul week we've had a large number of candidates who passed. Plus, RedFarmer is still in there...Balloonman (talk) 17:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We definitely won't have another admin by April 7, because Redfarmer isn't due to be up until April 8th. With that in mind, we have promoted 88 admins in the first 98 days (1 Jan to 7 Apr) of 2008. That prorates to 328 for the year. That will be by far an all-time low (389 in 2005, 353 in 2006, 408 in 2007). Kingturtle (talk) 18:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of many factors, I believe that the evolving perception/interpretation of WP:NOBIGDEAL is a major reason for this.Gwynand (talk) 18:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well promotions can be a spurty thing (i.e. image at right). However, I also suspect that the decline in Wikipedia's growth rate during much of last year has probably led to fewer qualified candidates percolating through the system during the first part of this year. We saw a 30% decline in new account registations per day from January 07 to September 07. Dragons flight (talk) 18:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, rollback will destroy that chart. A 30% decline... Does that correlate with a similar decline in anything else, like edits, edits from IPs, new articles, etc.? Avruch ^T 18:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, most metrics of activity either leveled off or declined during the first 2/3 of 2007: User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis. Dragons flight (talk) 18:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the comment about rollbacks is a good one, many people who are primarily vandal fighters are no longer as motivated to become admins because they can get roll back without becoming an admin. I'm also not too worried about the annual trend. The summer is where activity has increased in the past---the first few months appear to be slow months.Balloonman (talk) 18:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say that the "vandal fighters" are unmotivated to be admins, persay, just that they are resoundedly rejected as candidates as being not well-rounded, and other such commentary as "what, that's all you do is revert?" Why go through the head/heartache? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 18:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Why go through the heartache" is right. I've read through about a hundred RfAs (mostly old ones, although I have voted on about 6 in the last two months) and it's an intimidating process. WP:NOBIGDEAL is long gone, in my mind. You see a lot of RfA frequenters who have strict requirements for admin candidates. It's almost a given now that an admin candidate should be involved with GA, FA, or both. To me, the qualifications for being an admin are roughly as follows:

• Civility towards all users and politeness is a must. Assume good faith, naturally.
• A willingness to learn and adapt.
• Evidence of good judgment in the user's contributions. I've seen numerous admins who would fail one or more of those categories, but they've gotten promoted. Why? Maybe they made significant contributions to certain articles to help form an impressive résumé. Maybe they made other contributions that were viewed as significant.

I think there is a basic failing in what RfA regulars are looking for. I've even seen someone recently who is deciding to preemptively oppose RfAs because of... <end this. I can't really expand on this, but I've seen some very troubling behavior and comments recently.>

I often get comments asking why I'm not an admin, or when will I be running, or would I like to be nominated. As I've said on my talk page, I welcome comments about my editing (I intend to submit myself to Editor Review shortly), but I don't intend to attempt an RfA for a few months because of my concerns about the process. If I enter the arena, I'll have to be well-prepared and armed. Enigma ^message 19:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've stated before and I shall state it again: The process is a load of shit. People who are trustworthy should get the bit. Trustworthyness should be decided by people who actually know the candidate (on wikipedia not IRL). There should be no rfa regulars, no one should ever vote on a candidate with whom they are not familiar with. That's my opinion. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely sure enough of a discussion would congeal if it was solely based on editors whom have interacted with the candidate. Afterall, the tools permit a new admin to affect a wide part of the project, and thus community scrutiny is probably the best course of action. Not to say that the process is perfect. It's not, but a massive overhaul doesn't appear to be in the future. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 19:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the support votes without research are higher in amount and much more disturbing than oppose votes. However, I agree that there is a serious issue of voting and commenting without either knowing the candidate or taking any time to research their edits. Gwynand (talk) 19:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree, which I think is part of the reason why a super majority ca 70-80% is expected. The opposers tend to have researched candidates a little better and generally give more concrete rationale for their oppose.Balloonman (talk) 19:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll stand behind Theresa's assessment above. To make sure my position is clear: I'm not an admin, have no desire to be one, and if asked, would turn it down. But I'm watching these RFAs, participating in a few, and come back with a distinct impression that, regardless of your service, one mistake will be held against you. And I'm not talking about blocking or vandalism, but incorrect CSD tagging, or a slight difference of opinion in an AFD discussion (or even a difference against the majority). Someone recently posted a statistical analysis of a candidate with a significant number of contributions, where the opposers were pointing out some insanely small percentage of error, it was like 0.0with a few zeros on top of it. Those who post their opposes early lend an unintended weight to their arguments. One wonders about the feasibility of a secret ballot, where your position can be stated without giving undue weight? You'd still want some sort of centralized discussion, so now you have this vicious circle.... Yngvarr (c) 19:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are there problems with the process---definately. Not only would limiting it to only people who know the candidate never fly, but it should never fly. Just like any other area on wikipedia, there are regulars who care about the subject and have learned about it. It's up to the regulars to help ensure consistency throughout the process. Without it, you would end up having a meaningless process---you know like the criticisms often levelled at GAC. The nice thing about wikipedia is that one's edit history is in full view. I don't have to know a candidate previously to research their contributions and to find out what kind of candidate they are. I can read their contributions and assess them without having ever seen them previously. In fact, the very fact that I don't know the candidate makes me a more neutral party than a popularity contest which is what it would be if "only those who know the candidate" could !vote.Balloonman (talk) 19:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So you are saying that being a regular at RFA makes one an expert on adminship? Because I don't think so at all. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Gwynand: There's an expectation that people should adequately explain Opposes, possibly due to WP:NOBIGDEAL. I believe that !votes from editors familiar with the candidate are more helpful, and that everyone should give a good explanation. There are many more Supports without any real comment, but I don't view those as that troubling. The nominator and often the candidate themselves attempted to explain their good qualities, their contributions, and why they should be given the tools at the top. If you disagree, I think it's reasonable to ask you to explain (using the general "you" here), and without resorting to stereotyping or other nonsense that I've seen recently. Enigma ^message 19:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yngvarr, are you referring to MFC's RfA, possibly? Enigma ^message 19:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, took me some time to find it, I had forgotten the relevant discussion was moved to that talk page Yngvarr (c) 19:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Theresa, I believe Balloonman is saying that RfA regulars ideally should be experts on adminship and should be unbiased. Too often, unfortunately, that's not the case. Enigma ^message 19:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think he is saying they are experts on the proccess of getting adminship which IMO is worthless. We are supposed to judge "can they be trusted not to abuse the tools" This is not what happens though. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Enigma: I don't mind explaining. The many minimalist support votes don't often bother me, because I do like to agf. Also, because of the high threshold needed to pass, even if many of these votes are frivolous, the editor often won't get through anyways if they indeed have problems. My concerns start arising when I see the little comment with the support vote that reflects a total lack of effort in the RfA process. It's enough for me no longer to assume good faith as I see an example of laziness. For example, I see in many closer RfA's: "Support -- Absolutely no reason to distrust". These votes often come after many diffs have been provided showing serious judgement problems. And I'm not talking about a single CSD error that was made 8 months ago, but real issues. Then there are the supports with "User:x is so friendly, will be a great admin!" This is not a problem if it turns out to be entirely true... but these votes are again often included in RfA's where there a lots of civility diffs provided. If one is supporting because of WP:NOBIGDEAL and maybe they once or twice worked with the Requestor pleasantly, but has done no other research of the user's edits then I see this as disturbing. And I see it happening all the time. As an after-note, my statement here is not discussing the many many problems with oppose votes who see one diff out of 8,000 and immediately vote oppose--also a huge problem. Gwynand (talk) 20:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These problems are caused by allowing people to vote on people they don't know. Perhaps reorganising the page into

• Do you trust the candidate with the admin tools? y/n , why?

with an expectation that people should answer both pars of the question might work. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but one doesn't need to have personally interacted with the candidate in order to determine whether they can trust then with the tools. This isn't about whether we think a potential admin will intentionally abuse them, but whether lack of experience, judgment errors, and and issues with incivility give us pause about whether a problem will rise up in the future. "Do you trust this candidate with the tools?" "No, I feel they might make broad spectrum errors due to lack of experience." Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 20:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The thing about personally knowing the candidate is that one can make an overall judgment of their trustworthyness based on a number of their edits taken as a whole.If you know the candidate you judge them as you find them. If you don't the temptation is to scan their edits and look for reasons to vote no.Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the requirements that some people have for RFAs are ridiculously high, but that is not what is being discussed. I agree with what Yngvarr said about one mistake costing you. I speak from my experience on RFA. A few stupid CSD tags late at night or a answer to a question being misunderstood is enough to cost you. If I have no reason to suspect they will go on a block and delete spree and I feel they have a moderate understanding of policy, then they meet my requirements. Obviously I'm in the minority. -CWY2190(talk • contributions) 20:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If everyone thought the same way as you, more good editors would want to run for adminship. The eternally increasing requirements (a year ago, a candidate would be asked less than half the number of optional questions asked today if any if I recall correctly) of RFA are driving potentially good admins from nominating themselves or accepting nominations. FunPika 21:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let me sum up the "ridiculously high" admin standards in my view. It's how much policy knowledge you have and how much perceived experience in admin-related areas you have, and other people's interpretations of what judgment you have shown - that is the "standard" that gets you the mop. If I am wrong in my interpretation of such, please let me know. ArcAngel (talk) 21:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that, on this rare occasion, I disagree with Theresa Knott, an editor I respect a great deal. Theresa, you seem to base your entire criteria on a candidate being "trustworthy" and commentators "knowing" (in the wiki context) said candidate. I'm afraid there are a number of editors who I have collaborated with and trust not to do something stupid with admin buttons (a block spree etc.) who I still would not support. Editors who are real assets to Wikipedia - as editors - but as yet still have not demonstrated sufficent policy awareness or discretion to be granted the buttons. A well meaning, civil, generally lovely and fluffy editor who gets admin tools and then starts pouding C:CSD with poor A7 calls is just a liability to other admins. The same lovely editor, who (as an admin) blocks sleeper page move vandal accounts for 1 hour, to "give them a chance" are also a liability. To be trustworthy is a fundamental thing, and if you're not trustworthy you won't get very far on WP as an editor. To be competent with using admin tools is another thing entirely. Adminship is no big deal. Admin tools are. Pedro :  Chat  21:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This just goes to show there are far too many rules around here. If an admin is really that bad, they will get desysopped. Majorly (talk) 21:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Theresa. Unqualified fly-by votes are what destroy RFA. Have a look at RFAs back in, say 2004. People who voted on them had actually heard of the candidate (mostly) and seen their work. Nowadays, it's an urge to vote on every single one. There's no way you'll know what someone will be like by counting the edits in each namespace, and looking at their edit summary usage. You have to actually be familiar with the way they work, what they do and how they do it. The fact RfAs are ridiculously huge are because of fly-by vote-on-every-RfA users. Over on Meta-wiki, and Simple Wikipedia, every person who passes RfA does so with the agreement on pretty much the entire community. This isn't possible here, obviously, so the next best thing is to have users who are actually familiar with the user to vote. And this brings forward the idea that, yes, canvassing IS good. Majorly (talk) 21:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That assumes, of course, that WP:NOBIGDEAL is no big deal. If WP:NOBIGDEAL it were a big deal, a sufficient number of edits to judge experience, and a reasonable examination of the talk page history would show whether or not someone were qualified enough. All you need in an admin is someone who won't go off half-cocked on a whacky crusade. (With apologies for the confusion of negatives!)--RegentsPark (talk) 22:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You know they could easily be de admined very quickly? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 08:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An RfA regular waiting patiently for the next RfA. Would this be a Lull-cat? --barneca (talk) 22:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My optimistic assumption would be that nobody wanted April Fool's Day to happen smack in the middle of their run for adminship. My pessimistic assumption is that growing editcountitis has limited the people who can become admins to a slowly-growing minority of users who spend large amounts of time making semi-automated edits, and we've used them up already. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 22:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Trust me, there are plenty of users who spend large amounts of time making semi-automated edits who are not yet admins. Enigma ^message 04:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And are these the users we want as admins? It seems to me they way to become an admin is to make large numbers of edits, keep you head down, never say anything controversial, never voice an opinion rally, never joke, never make even one error ever. But do the kind of peole who are able to do this make the best admins? I'd say no. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 08:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know this has been discussed ad nauseum, but we really should stop deluding ourselves and say that yeah, adminship is at least somewhat of a big deal. It's not something you can impress your friends with (well, not unless they're really geeky, in which case they're probably admins anyways...) but it can be a big deal - blocking the United States Congress, for example. Thoughts? Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Big deal. Read the last 100 or so RfA's as verification. That particular essay should be MfD'd. Outdated. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My keyboard is getting bored typing this. 1) Quote = old. 2) Quote = most misused on WP 3) Read quote before discussing this thread everyone 4) Being an admin = no big deal - the ladies (or gents) do not rip your clothes off and force you into bed because of it. No one is impressed by it. 5) Admin tools = big(ger) deal due to potential harm / driving of editors / mucking around with the MW software as seen on April 1. 6) Summary Adminship = nowt. Block, Protect, Delete, Muck up the MW interface = something. Hence RFA. Pedro :  Chat  22:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it's a big deal. We ordinary wikipedians quake in fear and immediately fall in line when an admin enters the talk page!--RegentsPark (talk) 22:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dude! You forgot the </sarcasm> tag!! Pedro :  Chat  22:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It can be a big deal if you manage to make a catastrophically bad decision somewhere along the line, yes, but the primary point is that the quality that makes someone unlikely to do such things, which is good personal judgment and intelligence, cannot be evaluated via the totaling of brownie points (nor of little gold stars, for that matter). --erachima talk 22:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From what I know of the technical aspects of the privileges, nothing is catastrophic. Anything that an admin does, either going rogue or just a bad decision, can be undone and fixed. Disruptive? Maybe, but with 1k admins, I don't think someone deleting something in MW would take very long to be fixed. Yngvarr (c) 22:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, promoting someone without that judgment can cause quite a few problems, definitely making it a big deal. Concur with Pedro. :) However, I do think we should make it less of a big deal. I'm not arguing that it should be a big deal, but that it is'. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I think you guys are going the wrong way with this. What action can an admin take that can't be undone? I don't quite recall who said it, but admins actually have less power now than they once did; images once could not be undeleted, and I believe all admins could run IP checks. I think rather than MfDing WP:DEAL and embracing the rising standards at RfA, we should turn this around and instead make a push to lower standards and start giving the tools to more editors. GlassCobra 22:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. The only truly disaterous admin decision I've ever seen is when someone deleted the sandbox, and that caused everything to break for about 1/2 an hour. But that is fixed now. It's impossible to delete pages with very long histories, so nothing an admin can do can not be easily reversed by another admin. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 09:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can we petition Jimbo, as Founder and Constitutional Monarch to create a new, wordier quote in line with community conensus. MBisanz ^talk 22:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's the second time that policy has been mentioned here recently. :) Acalamari 22:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heh! I didn't even hover the mouse on the red link until Acalamari comented! It was funny and ironic enough that "community consensus" is a red link ! Pedro :  Chat  22:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also the "conensus" spelling error, I didn't even realize looking at it that it said WP:PEDRO because the red link made sense :-P Avruch ^T 23:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GC - the problem is that the undoing of an admin action is often too late - we've already lost the editor through a poor deletion, a bad block or an ill thought out protection. Reversal is academic. Bad admin actions = Loss of new editors. Loss of new editors = detriment to project. Pedro :  Chat  22:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a little unfair to our current RfA candidates. Why would we assume that a new admin would block where a more experienced admin would not? Also, I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we shouldn't oppose editors who have obvious civility problems or large gaps in policy knowledge. I'm saying that we should not be opposing simply because a candidate doesn't have 10,000 edits with at least half in mainspace and a quarter in WP space, or if they've had one or two CSD slipups. People oppose over entirely trivial reasons. GlassCobra 23:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely agree with Pedro that it's outdated. I've said so myself on several occasions. Perhaps there are still some that treat it as no big deal, but the number of those that treat it as a big deal and have complex requirements* is significant enough to render the essay moot and almost meaningless.

*I was looking for a page in userspace where a user put forth his ridiculous stringest RfA standards, but was unable to find it. I planned to link it there. Enigma ^message 04:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

nod, if my wife wasn't already an admin when I started editing wikipedia, I probably would have quit when one of my first articles was AfD'd by a CSDer. I wrote the article, went back in, and before I had a chance to save it for the second time (less than 2 minutes later.) It was deleted because the guy who saw it didn't realize that I had messed up on the authors publications. That happened with two other articles I was writing early on before I learned to write in my user space before moving to the mainspace. I think I've become an asset to the project, but CSD'ers almost drove me away.Balloonman (talk) 04:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Out of interest what articles were those? And do you think making it harder to become an admin will solve that kind of problem? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 09:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am guessing this would be a bad idea to suggest this but if this is going through changes, do you think an important question to be asked on an RfA form or added should be this one although i don't know what it is going to be oh i am just rambling on again and not making any sense so i will start again the important question is "what is an admin?" but then again ramble ramble ramble — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simply south (talk • contribs)

The word "administration" is derived from the Middle English word administracioun, which is in turn derived from the French administration, itself derived from the Latin administratio -- a compounding of ad ("to") and ministratio ("give service"). --erachima talk 22:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And that is one of the best things on this page. Darn good comment erachima. Pedro :  Chat  22:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, so "to serve and protect". :))

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We should keep that in mind: "to do service", not "lord 'power' over everyone". Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 23:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, it was probably not the best idea but i was meaning posing it to other people as mandatory question 4, not answering it here...

Cutting all the rambling out therefore i was meaning (cut from top)

"I am guessing this would be a bad idea to suggest this but if this is going through changes, do you think an important question to be asked on an RfA form or added should be ..."what is an admin?" Simply south (talk) 23:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have more than enough questions shooting around as it is, don't give people more ideas :P Wizardman 23:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We could always add in the block vs. ban and Cool Down Block questions, since it seems you can't be an admin unless you're able to perfectly define both of them (semi-sarcasm. Semi!). I dunno if anyone would want to though, because the first 3 questions are really general, while only specific questions are generally proposed. I can't really think of any general questions that aren't covered already by the first three, but I'd be interested to here some suggestions. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 23:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Rfa home page is for letting us know who's up for Administrator nomination. What's the purpose of these discussion though. GoodDay (talk) 23:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is where people discuss RfA, propose new ideas, etc. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 23:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okie Dokie. GoodDay (talk) 23:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly, it's for complaints about how RfA isn't working as well as it didn't used to. Along with lots of suggestions that require too much scary change to ever be implemented. --erachima talk 23:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

..isn't working as well as it didn't used to..?. GoodDay (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a common topic of discussion - how RfA used to work fine (in 2003-04) and how it's a cesspool now. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 23:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When I said "as well as it didn't used to", I was joking that a lot of the topics about RfA not working are looking at the past a bit too favorably. We have archives of complaints about the same issues: low pass rates, absurd user requirements, etc. etc. etc. that go back years. --erachima talk 00:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's because no one has ever done anything about it. Although there is much disagreement over how best to judge suitability for adminship there does seem broad agreement that absurd reasons for voting no (or yes I suppose) is a bad thing. We really should get our heads together and do something about this particular aspect of the vote don't you think? Does anyone have any ideas on what could be done? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 09:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Smile! Yep, I've got some ideas. They're called User:Pedro/Net Positive combined with User:Pedro/RFA Standards. But plenty of people will disagree with those as well! Pedro :  Chat  09:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heya Theresa. I think we could possibly set up an alternate route to gain adminship, and gently ween people off of this one? --Kim Bruning (talk) 09:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a bad idea at all. Start from scratch with a new proposal, allow candidates to choose which route they prefer.Theresa Knott | The otter sank 10:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is at least possible that, given the combined bemoanings that have taken place on this talk page since at least 1861, there do not exist any more genuinely new proposals which could be started from scratch. In any case, the RfALull (not the same as a ROFL) will soon be over and, when about 20 candidates are up, this talk page will go quiet again — especially if most of the candidates look to be successful. Splash - tk 12:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]