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Observation

Being basically a WikiGnome myself, I can't help but notice that in the past few months' of RfAs that I've looked at, some Editors/Admins oppose a candidate primarily because the individual hasn't devote a substantial amount of their time and edits to writing new articles (and it's article creation, not editing, that counts). And it's not just creating stub or start articles, it's creating exceptional articles that is now expected. So this can result in Oppose votes for otherwise productive Editors who might toil away reviewing articles, working in Mediation or at the Help Desk, or fighting vandalism because they have no GAs or FAs to their name.

I can't believe that this expectation was present even a few years ago because I see many active Admins who contribute loads of time to the many important areas of Misplaced Pages that are essential for the smooth running of the encyclopedia, but little to new article creation. I completely understand the importance of new article creation for the vitality of Misplaced Pages and its future. I'm just not clear on why being an outstanding writer is a necessary qualification for becoming a good Admin.

So, that's my perception and you can argue that it's on the mark or way off. I should add that some of these candidates have passed their RfAs in spite of the opposition to their lack of writing expertise. It's just in looking over Oppose votes (which are, unfortunately, always longer and more detailed than Support votes), I see this same criteria coming up again and again. Liz 22:02, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

This is an significant point. Misplaced Pages has developed to a high degree of maturity and it is becoming as important to protect the good material that we have as to create new material. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2013 (UTC).

I think it comes down to showing that the person has attempted to try to build the Pedia and understands not just the policies needed in the role, but also how those on the affected side of the tools may feel when used. Most say, not looking for GA or FA, but something. I believe having those focusing on vandalism and other meta areas is vital; however, it's not out of the realm to expect someone to learn what goes into making an article and collaborating with others on them. It really isn't asking so much and a certain amount of clue is shown by knowing this prior to attempting an RFA. Calmer Waters 22:32, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree; extenuating that it becomes a bit more requisite, in my opinion, when the candidate expresses an intention to administer csd/afd deletions.—John Cline (talk) 22:46, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I do not have GAs and FAs, and I explained in my RFA statement why I am not planning to have any. There were no opposes based on this ground. I think the voters just believed my explanation.--Ymblanter (talk) 03:35, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that the content requirement is to have a GA or FA, I'm not seeing many !voters who are opposing for the lack of audited content. But I do think that the de facto requirements include having mastered the art of adding reliably sourced content to the pedia. Any candidate who doesn't take the opportunity of using question 2 to give examples of them doing that is going to have problems. ϢereSpielChequers 22:37, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I also don't think that FA, GA, or DYK are necessary(#4), but I do think a very minimum of article creation and/or an equivalent amount of new content should demonstrate that we are here first and foremost to build an encyclopedia and not a MMPORG. People don't join the army just because they want to shoot guns, and they don't join the police force just because they want to drive a fast car with a blue light and a siren and hand out speeding fines. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, I don't see mediating disputes, closing CfDs, protecting pages, closing discussions on noticeboards, offering guidance to new editors, etc., as the "glamour" part of being an Admin. Not every Admin needs the tools to block other users as Admins generally focus their efforts on a couple of different areas of Misplaced Pages.

For example, if someone has an excellent record fighting vandalism, it might be nice to have another Admin working in that area even though an Editor doesn't need to be an Admin to fight vandalism. See there are two different approaches...the generalist approach views top Admin candidates to have lots of experience in many areas of Misplaced Pages so they are well-rounded (even though they will actually probably only work in a couple of areas). The other approach, the specialist, argues that it's talented Editors who should get the tools so there are a representative number of Admins present in all areas of Misplaced Pages, so there are Admins present in Dispute Resolution, on Help Desk or Reference Desk duty, in deletion discussions or article creation. You elect someone who has the right temperament, experience and attitude to be an Admin and then they continue to work in the fields they excel at.

Right now, it seems like the generalist approach is the dominant one seen in RfAs (although people voting do not need to share their rationale for their votes). I guess what I'm trying to get across is that there are different ways to select leaders.

I realize that suggesting reforms of the RfA process is a perennial activity for many. But this is not about changing the process, it's about viewing Admins in a different way, as more than just users who can hand out blocks, but as genuine leaders wherever they choose to work. Liz 01:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

There is just one flaw in that argument: At RfA we don't elect leaders, we elect janitors. The only difference between those janitors and the non-admins is that the janitors wanted to be janitors so they tried their chances at RfA, and if they passed they demonstrated that they could be trusted with a bunch of keys, know most of the corridors and rooms, and not to use them for locking the wrong doors for the wrong reasons. For leaders, we have a lot of prolific, very well respected active users who help develop new things, define policies, help other users, review and pass FA and GAN, and close RfCs without an admin flag. There is absolutely no glamour whatsoever in being an admin - if you stay in the safe areas of admin work that don't attract controversy, you'll never get noticed (but your work is still important), and if you are one of the 20 - 30 who are bold enough to enter the danger zones without a Kevlar vest, you'll get noticed alright but what you take is flak and criticism from the detractors for just doing your job. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually no. We should be electing janitors but the process is designed to elect conservative leaders. The problem is, most of them don't lede. In fact most admins don't do anything...or very little...and that's the problem. The current RFA process favors promoting ineffectual editors to admins. For every 10 admins we promote, only a couple use the tools with any frequency. The rest just add the icon to their userpages ad strut around. If some of these "wanna be's" wants to do some work then they should do some, otherwise the community needs to start promoting people who are willing to do the work, not the ones who will keep quite and play nice. I like you Kudpung I think your one of the better admins but the more I see your comments the more I think that the process won't change because too many admins find an excuse to keep it. No change is good enough so we may as well leave it be. I also don't agree that admins who do certain tasks are more prone to attracting criticism. Although that is true to a point, more often than not they attract criticism because they start to get arrogant and do whatever they want with impunity. They know they can't be touched, so they can do whatever they want. Many get bolder and bolder and no one does anything. I keep checking back thinking these discussions might be of some benefit. But I check back less and less and when I do, I see that the attitude here is that of general complacency. If the community doesn't have the desire or morale courage to do the right thing and help build up the project, then I have no desire to be here. As it is, its just a bunch of admins trying to hold onto their power and shooting down any suggestions to upend the system that got them that power. When you are interested in building an encyclopedia and are willing to make changes to benefit the project and not yourselves let me know. I would love to participate in that project. Kumioko (talk) 03:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know for sure if admins should be leaders or even if such qualities are anticipated at RfA; lead by example yes, but that's not the same thing. I've certainly never seen myself as a leader either - a mover-and-shaker maybe, because someone has to get the ball rolling but the rest is up to the community. I did my bit a couple of years ago by investing many hours in WP:RFA2011, which was not, I hasten to add, a project to help admins retain their superpowers and exclude others from it. The project was born of the very arguments the regular detractors make about all that's wrong with adminship and the way the sysops are elected. If I still comment here or vote regularly at RfA, it's because I'm still very concerned that the bit is not given to the wrong people while all the time hoping that more candidates of the right calibre will come forward, but I'm unlikely to be active on any new campaigns for reform. In an environment where the same detractors are persistently shooting the messengers, it's just not worth it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:04, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

And RFA2011 ended just as every other related one ended, in failure. Largely because too many do not want the system to change. Not you necessarily, but many. The problem is we need to do multiple things to fix the system and we can't even get one to pass. I obviously don't have any faith in the system left and I have a pretty strong disdain for the current system. I also don't think several of the current admins should be allowed to call themselves admins. In the end though no one really gives a shit what I think. I'm just a fool tilting at windmills. Because its easier to discredit my comments as heresy than to fix the obvious problem that a lot of editors see but continue to ignore. I see the problems and I see them getting much worse. That can be seen in the numbers of how 2 are promoted for every ten that have the tools taken away. I can also see already that the only way things are going to change is when the project gets to the brink of collapse. I hope Wikia is solid enough it can take the articles over at that point. What is needed is a major house cleaning and a complete and total restructuring of how the tools are used and who gets them. Good luck with that! Till then, those of us that want to help won't and we will continue to loose contributors to this arcane and outdated bureaucratic system. Kumioko (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Liz could not be more wrong. Considering I just finished dealing with a serious content problem in a DYK review from a new admin (whose RFA I just browsed and it showed no content experience), I'm reminded that those who don't know how to build content and don't know Misplaced Pages's core policies and guidelines that govern content should not be policing same. No, you don't need GAs or FAs, and those don't guarantee good admins, but please ... stop supporting admin candidates who don't know the fundamentals of how content is built or even our core policies, like BLP or NOR, or guidelines, like reliable sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: I couldn't agree more.

@Kumioko: I have a very soft spot for anyone who takes the time (and spends their money) to attend a Wikimania. When we met, we should have taken the opportunity to discuss these issues, pity we didn't - mature blokes like us can usually talk things through. We all know what axe you are grinding, but never say nothing can be done about it. There is a huge amount of resources in WP:RFA2011 and the only reason none of the proposals were launched is because several of us got simply fed up with the barracking from the sidelines from wannabe's who would never get the tools if they asked for them - under the current system, others who were simply demonstrating righteous indignation at having been (most probably) rightfully admonished, and some who are like those who go to a peaceful demo just to throw rocks, smash shop windows, and set fire to cars. In the finish when the background din was getting so loud, we decided either to continue the project off-Wiki and get accused of being a cabal, or dropping the whole thing. We dropped it. There are several ready-to-go proposals in there that are just waiting for someone to take them to RfC. I doubt very much if ever one of the radical alternatives to the adminship system will ever gain traction, but unbundling some of the tools may be an answer although there again, detractors are worried about creating more hats for the kids to collect, some would fume if their requests for the rights would get denied, while others are genuinely concerned about the added bureaucracy an extended priesthood of gatekeepers would create. I don't believe for a second that there is a cabal of admins who practice a single-party exclusion policy - we're not a military dictatorship. If more people of the right calibre would run for office, we'd get, well, more admins of the right calibre rather than teenage hotheads or pompous adults who are used to throwing their weight around in RL. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Y'know, if we could distil Kumioko, SandyGeorgia and Kudpung into a single concoction and require all Wikipedians to drink it, Misplaced Pages would be invincible. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

@Kudpung:, actually several people of the right calibre have run and didn't make it. No I'm not talking about me. There are several others that have tried to get the tools and the community told them no. Sometimes for petty reasons and I know you have seen it too. Then as I said the majority of those that get it don't use it. Sure they might use them occasionally, but their not really making any impact and this site is too reliant on the same few admins like Plastikspork who does the vast majority of Stuff for deletion closures and Sandy with the FA's. If they leave, or several others like them, then those venues virtually collapse. Look at what happen to Featured pictures when Durova left. That venue is deader than a doornail. Aside from unbundling we also need to eliminate the admin for life mentality and the admins are above reproach policy. Not to mention the misconception you need to be a saint to have the tools. People keep mentioning how they don't trust me with the block button but the truth is I think 98% of blocks should be undone and virtually all blocks longer than a week should be restricted to a higher review than one admin. So the times I would even use that button are so rare its almost not worth having. Its just an excuse to prevent me from interfering with their POV and personal agendas. Not all of course, but quite a few. When we have admins who are indefinitely blocking IP ranges or users for a minor infraction or making up rules as they go along, then we are just hurting the project. Did you know we currently block about 3% of the entire internet from editing. That may not sound like a lot, but it is. I know people get irritated about me but then they completely ignore the real problems like admins abusing new editors and the severe abuses of power like the ones at AE because they can't do anything about those. The only reason I keep coming back is because I keep seeing these discussions where people are saying half truths and trying to manipulate the discussion because not enough people know the history. Now although I have been responding in a few discussions I really have the intent to essentially retire from this site. I no longer want the tools, I no longer help out any Wikiprojects, edit articles, write code for AWB, etc. I'm done. Completely fed up with the mentality of this place and the "we don't care how much work you do we just don't like you" comments. The problem is, that is why we lose a lot of people and they don't come back, because they are fed up with it too. Kumioko (talk) 13:48, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

We've also lost around half a dozen of our busiest and fairest admins over the past 12 months because they too, simply got fed up. Those who would like to see the back of all admins are of course jumping with glee, but those admins are the hardest of all to replace. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

By my count, including those due to inactivity we lost 89 admins, only a couple asked for the tools back. Since only 30 have been promoted its easy to see there is a problem. I would also argue that there were a couple that gave up the tools I would not consider a loss. Several yes, but not all. Unfortunately the ones who need to have the tools removed, or at least restricted, still have them and are unlikely to give them up. Kumioko (talk) 14:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The current admin system operates in a way that is a systemic insult to able admins and productive content builders. Able admins have to carry the burden of admins who pull the system down, and the best admins often resign or leave. The admin system is grinding Misplaced Pages ever deeper into muck of its own making, and we cannot look to the system itself for solutions. Maybe the only hope now is if remaining content builders revolt to the point where they can overhaul the system. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Undermining the current state of affairs is not the way to go about building an encyclopedia. Rather, if change is in order we should all sit down and talk about it in the appropriate manner as is deserved such a large culture change. KonveyorBelt 22:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

You might think so, but if you stay around here for more that a few weeks, Konveyor Belt, you'll realize that not how things work around here. The precise issue is that talk about it "in the appropriate manner" achieves nothing. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Then perhaps it is time for a change in "the appropriate manner". But running around screaming "revolt against authority!" will not get this encyclopedia built. What the content builders can do right now is continue to write articles and expand the wiki. If they make enough good contributions with no mass hysteria they have a fair shot at being an admin. By the way, what do you mean about admins who pull the system down? KonveyorBelt 22:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not a MMORPG for teenagers, and you are not achieving anything with inflammatory language about "screaming" and "mass hysteria". See of you can write an article and get some experience with what this site is actually about. --Epipelagic (talk) 23:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Konveyer Belt. I'd have said "If they make enough good contributions without being a party to controversy they have a fair shot at being an admin." In my experience the main reasons why candidates who mainly focus on building content sometimes fail at RFA are either that they don't show a need for the tools, or they don't appreciate that the Q&A section is an open book exam and that it pays to reread the relevant policy before answering each question. I'm not bothered by the odd error in the Q&A section, and I personally don't oppose candidates who haven't indicated where they would use the tools. But my experience is that those are the main risks for our "content creator" candidates. ϢereSpielChequers 00:39, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

@Kumioko:, let's keep this attrition thing in perspective because we need to avoid possible misinterpretation of the figures. Since the 'inactive' policy was enacted, many users have been procedurally desysoped but they can get the bit refunded on simple request. If they haven't asked, that part of the attrition speaks for itself and no one is expected to be a Misplaced Pages contributor for life - people change their hobbies or their lifestyle or simply just move on. We really have lost about half a dozen or more of the nicest and most active admins over the past 12 months (I'm not going to list them), some of whom quietly handed their tools in, while others simply went into (semi)/retirement. I know the reasons behind several of those retirements which were mainly due to RL situations or, more worrying, getting fed up with the climate here. These latter have been driven away, and as I mentioned before, they are the ones who in terms of quality and activity are the hardest to replace. If you and our friend Epipelagic and a few other non-admins who regularly voice disfavour of the current system would actively help change it, maybe there might be some progress, but it's my guess that they, like me, have run out of ideas.

WereSpielChequers feels that some failed candidates should perhaps have passed. He may well be right, but those failures were based on community consensus or in the case of close calls, a crat chat, and they are always welcome to try again as WSC did; I'm not sure though that those who took 4, 5 ,6, or 7 attempts should finally have been promoted (a quick check on their performance might show something, but there's no need to go on a witch hunt). One way to address these issues is to improve the turnout and the quality of voting. What the table I published above demonstrates is that turnout is nevertheless generally on the increase, 100+ support votes are no longer a rarity (perhaps a reason to deprecate that list), and the number of inappropriate transclusions has dropped dramatically. There is a fascinating sortable table produced by Scottywong on this page of RFA2011 where a total of 1,497 individual RfA voters' profiles were examined based on multiple criteria. With some possible new trends emerging, perhaps this table should be updated to include all the RfA that have taken place over the additional 2.5 years since the table was created. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Look, I didn't come to do battle. There is enough bickering and fighting on Misplaced Pages as it is. I made an observation. I proposed that there were two ways of judging candidates, looking for generalists who had a deep and wide level of experience and picking specialists, individuals who have special skills and would make good Admins based on their character.

It was just a thought I was putting out there, to see if it would prompt a conversation, which it did (thank ::y'all). I'm not proposing sweeping reforms because, I've seen, this has been done many times in the past without success. I doubt that I have insight to offer that wasn't already present in ideas that have been suggested.

Let me be totally pragmatic now: There are only 630 active Admins and, according to comments here, only about 20-100 of them are doing most of the heavy lifting. I think you could use more help. But there are competent Editors, with experience who would make decent Admins who would never put themselves through an RfA process because, frankly, unless the candidate sails through, it's an exercise in having strangers point out all of ones flaws, in a public setting and debating ones competence. Who would want to go through that unless it seems like a sure thing? And I've seen these RfA check lists of expected levels of experience and, frankly, if 1 Editor out of 10,000 meets these criteria, I'd be surprised.

So, that's the situation. If this continues, Misplaced Pages will get 1 or 2 new Admins every month, while a dozen or more retire or are desysop'd for lack of activity or for cause. That's the trend line, going on for more than three years, and it is unlikely to change, we are not going to suddenly see dozens of Editors with straight A+ backgrounds wanting to become Admins.

Agree with me, disagree with me. Accept my ideas or ignore them. I'm just one Editor. But the demographics point to fewer and fewer Admins shouldering more and more work resulting in more frequent burnout. And right now, it doesn't seem like the community is inclined to do anything about this. Liz 03:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Liz, no one is suggesting you came here to do battle. If you review the archives of this talk page you'll see that even my comments regularly come under heavy fire, but I don't get upset about it. I wouldn't say that nothing ever gets done about RfA - earlier this year Dank started a monumental effort with a string of RfCs; my main observation was that they were not widely enough published to attract sufficient participation. A huge initiative was made with WP:RFA2011 to thoroughly examine RfA; even those detractors who didn't contribute particularly objectively had their say, and their points were noted. At the very least, as this talk page demonstrates, RfA is still a very lively topic for discussion, and your comments are most welcome even if others don't agree with you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, I was just placing my comments in chronological order, I wasn't writing them in response to your wise words. I'm sorry for the confusion that resulted...I probably shouldn't have indented them. This, on the other hand, is in response to you! Liz 23:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion, it is critical that anyone nominated for RfA should have substantial article edit contributions as well as the courage to stand up for Misplaced Pages's core principles and for what is right even when they are standing alone!... After one is elected admin and has been one for a while, then they can strike a balance, and focus more on admin contributions. Anyone who agrees or disagrees with my "opinion" is welcome to express their opinion respectfully, nicely and assuming good faith.Worldedixor (talk) 05:59, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

But that's not enough for many. A lot of editors are looking for a reason to oppose not to support. I have about 30 GA's and a dozen featured but even that's not enough to support. They can give all the reasons and excuses they want but I won't be an admin because I am critical of the system and abusive admins. So that's a big part of why I stopped editing. I also agree with Liz completely. Less admins means more work for fewer of them. That means a higher stress level for those that do the work. The majority of the editors that are getting promoted are the ones who don't get involved, because those are the ones the process favors.

@Kudpung: You know that I have and that I have been active in trying to change things so you can't blame the communities failure to change the processes on me. I ignored the problem for years just like everyone else and when I finally got involved I completely destroyed any chance I have of getting the tools. As I said before, at this point I'm essentially done with Misplaced Pages. I have no desire to try and change anything. They can turn off the servers at this point as far as I am concerned. So no I will not be submitting an RFC or discussion to change anything, because there is little interest in the community to do that. They would rather keep things as they are until the fail than change before they do. Kumioko (talk) 12:29, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Kunioko...you don't have to be an admin to be a somebody on the website. The tools exist solely to be a janitor and clean up stuff. I'm sorry gaining adminship has been something that has eluded you...Misplaced Pages isn't always fair or impartial.--MONGO 20:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Right, this may have been discussed somewhere but I can't see it and have limited time - (someone can link if they know) - two signs of a system in trouble would be (a) a significant number of candidates who fail who should have passed (or vice versa), and (b) a significant number of editors who won't run due to the process - are these numbers actually large? Without necessarily going into specifics and folks counting their own failed RfAs if they have one, can folks comment? My impression is that (a) is not too large as I don't recall seeing a large number where I think the result was in error (?), but (b) possibly a bigger group. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:05, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Cas Liber, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง is the user I know who has done the most study on the RfA process and maybe he could tell you. I remember recently he (I believe it was Kudpung) reviewed all of the candidates from the past year, compared their votes with the results of the RfAs and judged the process to be fair.

As for how many Editors who'd make good Admins decide not to try to become one, I don't think guesses at this number are even close since a) they are based on anecdotal information (those Editors we know) and b) most people who decide not to do something rarely talk about it. It would only happen if an Editor suggested nominating another user on their Talk Page and that user replied that they didn't want to do an RfA.

On an unrelated note, I have a script that posts how long an Editor has had an account and what User Rights they have. I think a high proportion of Admins I run across (I'd guess it's about 60-70%) have had accounts 6-8 years. When I look into when they became an Admin (when that detail is disclosed), it was between 9 and 15 months after they started editing. So, it does seem like there was a push to get more Admins during the period 2005-2008 as some Editors were given the tools with less than a year of experience. Obviously though, they were good decisions as many in that cohort are still quite active. And Misplaced Pages was experiencing a surge of growth around 2005-2007. So, the community can respond to a sudden need in Admins if they choose to. But Misplaced Pages hasn't hit this turning point yet. Maybe in another year or two though...whenever the number of active Admins falls below 500, I think it will be time to be very concerned. Liz 23:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I can't take the credit for having done the most research into adminship related issues. Admittedly I started WP:2011 and kept it bubbling as long as possible and kept the project's vast navigation on track, but I cajoled others into spending huge amounts of time to devise regex and other systems to come up with all the tables and extrapolations. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:18, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, if not you, then who would you give credit to? Because we should invite them to this conversation. Liz 03:18, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

The answer to that Liz, is in the WP:RFA2011 project. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Stats

Also, I just came across Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Statistics. Even though the data is 7 years old, you can see, in the last chart, the problem emerge. In 2006, there were 800 active Admins and just over 1M articles. Now there are around 630 active Admins and over 4M articles. It would have been so interesting if this study had lasted longer than one year. Liz 23:50, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Glad I poked my head in on the link you gave, it led to stats regarding active administrators I didn't previously have. I was able to update Misplaced Pages:List of administrators/stat table from 2002 to March 2007, but I am still missing five months of stats that don't seemingly exist. It might be a huge pain but I'll find them; I can't stand to see this gap in the table.

Average number of active English Misplaced Pages administrators per month (January 2001 – present):
	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December	Yearly
2001	Founded
2002									37	37	38 (1)	39 (1)
2003	40 (1)	40	47 (7)	54 (7)	65 (11)	86 (21)	98 (12)	105 (7)	114 (9)	121 (7)	128 (7)	143 (15)	104
2004	153 (10)	166 (13)	193 (27)	215 (22)	240 (25)	253 (13)	259 (6)	270 (11)	292 (22)	312 (20)	336 (24)	360 (24)	217
2005	368 (8)	381 (13)	394 (13)	418 (24)	432 (14)	458 (26)	417 (41)	446 (29)	496 (50)	541 (45)	557 (16)	627 (70)	267
2006	667 (40)	689 (22)	696 (7)	731 (35)	738 (7)	757 (19)	783 (26)	787 (4)	804 (17)	815 (11)	812 (3)	819 (7)	192
2007	825 (6)	846 (21)	863 (17)	857 (6)	916 (59)	947 (31)	971 (24)	913 (58)	922 (9)	929 (7)	952 (23)	993 (41)	174
2008	1,011 (18)	1,016 (5)	1,006 (10)	989 (17)	986 (3)	990 (4)	986 (4)	966 (20)	974 (8)	966 (8)	951 (15)	951	42
2009	942 (9)	938 (4)	929 (9)	918 (11)	922 (4)	918 (4)	916 (2)	906 (10)	896 (10)	880 (16)	862 (18)	865 (3)	86
2010	882 (17)	885 (3)	859 (26)	843 (16)	841 (2)	838 (3)	817 (21)	800 (17)	805 (5)	796 (9)	785 (11)	777 (8)	88
2011	765 (12)	778 (13)	777 (1)	771 (6)	764 (7)	760 (4)	765 (5)	746 (19)	730 (16)	723 (7)	729 (6)	744 (15)	33
2012	742 (2)	748 (6)	745 (3)	734 (11)	719 (15)	703 (16)	693 (10)	702 (9)	694 (8)	674 (20)	661 (13)	663 (2)	81
2013	693 (30)	700 (7)	687 (13)	687	686 (1)	676 (10)	661 (15)	651 (10)	646 (5)	631 (15)	621 (10)	633 (12)	30
2014	630 (3)	648 (18)	634 (14)	608 (26)	598 (10)	601 (3)	599 (2)	610 (11)	613 (3)	595 (18)	583 (12)	583	50
2015	591 (8)	591	590 (1)	597 (7)	591 (6)	583 (8)	585 (2)	584 (1)	572 (12)	574 (2)	571 (3)	582 (11)	1
2016	593 (11)	594 (1)	567 (27)	562 (5)	547 (15)	539 (8)	545 (6)	545	540 (5)	516 (24)	526 (10)	529 (3)	53
2017	552 (23)	568 (16)	571 (3)	547 (24)	538 (9)	542 (4)	534 (8)	523 (11)	525 (2)	535 (10)	531 (4)	533 (2)	4
2018	548 (15)	552 (4)	536 (16)	528 (8)	530 (2)	537 (7)	524 (13)	520 (4)	520	514 (6)	513 (1)	515 (2)	18
2019	521 (6)	527 (6)	527	523 (4)	531 (8)	531	505 (26)	498 (7)	507 (9)	505 (2)	504 (1)	497 (7)	18
2020	504 (7)	517 (13)	509 (8)	510 (1)	508 (2)	509 (1)	512 (3)	515 (2)	514 (1)	499 (15)	498 (1)	503 (5)	6
2021	514 (11)	516 (2)	498 (18)	494 (4)	491 (3)	492 (1)	487 (5)	474 (13)	450 (24)	468 (18)	469 (1)	463 (6)	40
2022	475 (12)	479 (4)	458 (21)	455 (3)	465 (10)	472 (7)	460 (12)	447 (13)	478 (31)	483 (5)	479 (4)	478 (1)	15
2023	498 (20)	475 (23)	461 (14)	455 (6)	462 (7)	454 (8)	467 (13)	449 (18)	462 (13)	451 (11)	446 (5)	448 (2)	30
2024	466 (18)	474 (8)	448 (26)
Notes:	Information gathered between September 2002 and August 2007 was the number of administrators considered active at the end of the month • Information gathered between September 2007 to present was collected daily by Rick Bot and averaged together • July 2011: Misplaced Pages adopts the policy of procedural removal for inactive administrators • December 2012: Misplaced Pages adopts the policy of lengthy inactivity of administrators

Oh well, one day maybe I can be coerced into finding those missing stats or manually doing it. Addendum: Bothered too much, filled in the information now. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 10:13, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Is it possible to represent this table as a graph? Maybe also plot the number of articles, and the number of active editors on the same graph? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 00:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Very possible, assuming I had the information for the latter two; I'm sure that information is somewhere. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 04:47, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Liz, I wouldn't worry too much about the ratio of admins to articles, the current number of articles doesn't really predict the admin workload, and sometimes it is a bit academic as the same content might form a different number of articles depending on whether it has been broken down by subsection or spun off into separate articles. The real drivers of the admin workload are things like the number of edits, number of deletion tags, number of AIV reports and of course one crucial difference between us and some language versions, the timezones we need to cover. EN wiki operates 24/7 with readers and editors in pretty much every timezone, by contrast there are some language versions which are inactive for several hours per day. ϢereSpielChequers 02:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

@Moe Epsilon: I believe that stats:EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm is what you're looking for. It has the number of articles and active editors broken down by month. Thanks for all your work keeping the stats table updated over the years. Best. 64.40.54.82 (talk) 09:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

No problem! I'll try and get a graph detailing this information out soon. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 11:25, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Nice work, both of you. I am really surprised and somewhat reassured that admin numbers are broadly tracking edit levels. I would prefer that as the community stabilised so the proportion of admins rose. I also worry that our definition of active admin doesn't really separate those who use the admin tools for several hours each week from people like myself who at least this year rarely use the tools, and I worry that our community is increasingly divided between very longterm editors who include 90% of the admins and newer editors who are underrepresented in the admin cadre. But then I'm a worrier, perhaps we have more slack in the system than I feared. ϢereSpielChequers 13:16, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Just spotted that these graphs are based on article edits not total edits, total raw edits are falling more gently. When measuring the admin workload I think we need to include the non article edits - AIV and AFD edits probably generate more admin activity than the average. It may seem a bit unsettling that article edit counts have fallen so sharply in recent years, part of that could be the drift of newpages to AFC and userspace, and since the beginning of this year the change in the way that intrawiki links are maintained. But the big change in editing since 2009 has been the rise of the edit filters, and most of what they lose us will be mainspace vandalism and its reversion. My estimation is that if all the edit filters had instead been implemented as anti vandal bots we would now have a higher raw edit count than in 2009, but no-one can be quite sure as the way that vandals respond to the filters is different. ϢereSpielChequers 14:51, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Where would I find total edits per period? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:19, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

One source is User:Katalaveno/TBE, that doesn't fit with the time period you want but the methodology has potential - though I hadn't realised this omits deleted edits, which is a bit awkward for the purpose of identifying admin workload as deleted edits will have involved admins! There are others but they give current figures not historical. ϢereSpielChequers 04:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I might be able to work something with that. At the very least it helps me develop a new idea for how to get the data.

About tracking edit levels: I share your surprise. It was really surprising to me when I saw the comparison, but, as can be seen clearly with graph 2, the pairs of numbers are perfectly ordered: That is, the year with the fewest edits has the fewest active admins, the year with the second fewest edits has the second fewest active admins, etc. all the way up to the year with the most edits which has the most active admins. I would have been surprised to see a close ordering, but a perfect one (for each September anyway) was very surprising. Now, despite that ordering, the ratio has obviously nonetheless swung widely between 2002 and 2013 (the best ratio was 2003, and the worst was for 2010), but since 2006 the trend is flat. So at least as for number of article edits, the number of active admins does not seem to be a problem (unless it's been a problem since 2006). Now that doesn't mean the number of active admins is not a problem for some other reason, as you point out.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 10:28, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

More graphs

• I have made another attempt at making the graph for number of active admins. Since I am not as good at making graphs as others here, the data used for making the above graphs can be found at the Google Drive spreadsheet at bit dot ly/WikiAdmins (I could not find any other adequate way to paste the spreadsheet here so I uploaded it.)

If anyone can use that data to make better graphs that look at a number of these factors, while still factoring in all the months, that would be great.

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 16:22, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow, Moe Epsilon, I LOVE the graphs and table. It really brings to life trends one can only guess at based on ones own experience. I think the most stunning stat is the steeply falling number of edits....it seems like not only are there fewer editors but the editors that are here are doing fewer edits, which is stunning to me considering the popularity of automated tools like Twinkle, Huggle and AWB.
Based on the first table, it looks like Misplaced Pages is most likely to have a net addition to the Admin corps from December->February. It does look like there need to be more active Admins but given the decline in edits, it's not as severe as I originally thought. Of course, there is a very low bar for what is considered "active" and I'm guessing that not all of the 630 active Admins are doing admin activities daily or even weekly.
Moe, I'm tracking down more and more stats on Adminship which different Editors have put together and they are scattered across Misplaced Pages, including on subpages of user accounts where I just kind of stumbled upon them (by backtracking to see what pages linked to certain information). I really think it would be a good idea to collect all of this data (all attributed, of course) on a section of Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship or some other area of WP devoted to conversation on adminship. Even old information is useful when you are talking about the evolution and history of Misplaced Pages. What do you think? Liz 19:30, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I can't take credit for all the graphs, thank Atethnekos as well. :) The falling number of edits doesn't surprise me so much, because the number of one-time contributors is down drastically. We peaked at 51,000 editors with 5 or more edits in March 2007, with 4.8 million edits made that month. We are down to a lowly 28,000 editors with 5 or more edits, and 2.8 million edits in September 2013. Editors with 100 or more are "active" per se, but the bulk of our community used to be small-time contributors. I'd probably say that long-term semi-protections that locks out the majority of these editors is why the number of edits are down.

There is a low bar of what is considered active. Consider though if you will, that we have 1,424 administrators (I think we peaked in the 1,700s total at one time, so we havent lost a whole lot of them). As of right now, over 800 administrators can not even meet this low, low bar of activity. That is what is most troublesome to me. The bar being set at 30 or more edits in the last two months may not be entirely accurate or indicative of what the truth is (a handful of admins handle all the tasks on a daily basis), but at least it does show us how truly inactive the majority of our administrators are.

I think it sounds like a wonderful idea, to keep stats somewhere in the main RFA space as a subpage perhaps, and have this information free for people to see all together. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 05:05, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I think most of what you say is right on Moe and I think it matches pretty closely with what the numbers show. I have a couple followup opinions though. Part of the reason why we have less edits is not only because of the semi protections but the massive number of blocks. I have read several times that we currently block between 2 and 4% of the entire internet through range or IP blocks. Another factor in the numbers as well as edits is log entries. I'm not sure if those are reflected in the numbers above. Since many of the things admins do aren't edits per sey, the numbers will be only one factor. From a personal perspective I tried for years to help out but I was told repeatedly I can't be trusted, IMO because I am very outspoken about admin abuse and the us and them mentality between many admins and editors. So I basically stopped editing. I beleive that is the case with many others as well. They edit and want to do more but don't fit into the cliche so they leave and the project loses in the long term. Its really hypocritical considering most of the current day admins were promoted when it was easier to get the tools and very few admins ever have the tools removed for reasons other than inactivity. So, either the old system worked pretty well and there is no reason why we shouldn't go back to making it easier to get the tools, or we have an ineffectual system for getting rid of bad admins. In either case, there is room for improvement in the current system. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 13:47, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Hypocrisy is a nasty charge, can I ask you to reconsider it? It might seem hypocritical if an admin opposed an RFA candidate for being little more qualified than they themselves were when they passed RFA. It would certainly be hypocritical for an admin to oppose someone who they thought better qualified than they were now. But since Admins are less likely to vote oppose than non admins are at RFA, and several of those admins who do participate here passed with qualifications that would still see them pass today, I would be surprised if you could find many hypocritical !votes. ϢereSpielChequers 21:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

' Admins are less likely to vote oppose than non admins are at RFA "'

— WereSpielChequers

Is that really true? Axl ¤ 14:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

What we don't know (and seem unable to figure out)

• We know that the preceding section was created by User:Liz who also initiated the current discussion at the top of this page
• We know that Liz is concerned (to paraphrase) about the obstacles to Administrator recruitment
• We know that this concern has been raised by some editors for a few years
• We know that serious attempts to propose restructure of RfA in 2011 and 2012 failed - completely
• We know that some people are concerned about aspects of the existing RfA process which might contribute to a lack of fresh candidates
• We know that a lot of effort by a few editors continues to be expended in examining, re-examining, discussing, scrutinising, analysing and regurgitating this issue, over and over again
• We know that there have been some good-faith ideas that are, frankly, daft
• We know that no tangible change has been affected by any of these discussions
• We know that the place where there is evidently no shortage of Admins. is WP:AN & WP:ANI and that the problem (if there is one) must be at the more practical, mundane level where Admin. involvement is currently the only way to move things along
• We know that for all the efforts to present available data, it is open to interpretation depending on what one wishes to achieve by way of outcome
• We know that becoming an Admin. means (in all but exceptional circumstances) a job for life
• We know that before a single question is answered it is possible to have up to 25 supports turn up to !vote yet such a candidate can still not pass their RfA
• We know that too many editors across the entire range consider becoming an Admin. as (delete as appropriate): Promotion, Recognition, Election, Deserving, Achieving, Elevation, Rank, Authority
• We know that too few editors across the entire range consider an Admin. as being (delete as appropriate): Entrusted, Selected, Suitable, Capable
• We know that there are lots of other "knowns" which I don't know.

• We don't know what conclusions might be drawn if and when all this data is interpreted correctly (or incorrectly)
• We don't know why we don't know precisely what, if any, problem actually exists (with RfA)
• We don't know precisely why candidate numbers have dropped in recent years
• We don't know for sure that the drop off is necessarily detrimental now, next year or by 2020
• We don't know what being an "active Admin." actually means in terms of actual Admin. activity as opposed to an Admin. simply editing
• We don't have an undisputed, completely accurate view on the correlation between the size of the user community, the size of the active user community, the volume of contributions generated by the active community and the number of Admin. interventions required at any given time
• We don't measure and compare critical queue sizes where Admin. intervention is required, therefore we are not measuring the real problem (if any)
• We don't know whether any reform to RfA would have any material consequence - beneficial or not
• We don't know why, before a single question is answered, it is possible to have up to 25 supports based on no evidence of suitability
• We don't know for sure but one might suspect that (trigger warning: accusation of self-interest) the ultra anxiety repeatedly shown by some non-Admin. editors about this matter belies a pressing desire to become a member of the Admin. group.

• There are many other things about RfA we do not know we don't know.

Leaky Caldron 14:36, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice one! Do we know whether any of the unknown unknowns, if they became known, would refute any of the known knowns? IOW, did Rumsfeld have a clue what he was talking about? --Stfg (talk) 14:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with one of your listed "knowns": that there is no lack of admins at AN and ANI. Several people who start sections there later go on to bemoan the lack of response; and ANI in particular is a fashionable place for non-admins to hang out, partly as preparation for RfA (some do use participation there as a measure of suitability; and it can be argued to be a good place to get to know issues and community standards) - sometimes to the point where a thread has so many responses it gets passed over, but none are admin responses. Looking at that it occurred to me that the thing about measurability of admin actions and the thing about where we need admins are related - some admins avoid those two noticeboards, some admins perform very few logged actions but edit a lot of protected pages ... it's a more varied job than I thought it was before I got it, and there is even greater variation among admins than I had been aware of. I suspect some editors would be good additions to the admin corps and simply haven't realized it because they're not seeing this variation and how they could be useful in one admin area; I've also seen a few RfAs (both successful and unsuccessful) where an important objection to a candidate was that they would likely not work in a wide range of admin areas; and the questions thing is probably related too, because not everyone boasts well. Obviously a candidate's responses to the questions can be very useful - for one thing they are useful in showing how well the person communicates, and for another, what they consider most important or what is uppermost in their mind regarding adminship - and that's why they've been made a part of the template. But responses to the unpredictable questions that follow are at least as useful, and it does say something about a candidate if they get 25 supports before they finish filling out the form! Every RfA - and candidate - is different. I like that, and it suits what we want, which is for all sorts of clueful editors to be seriously considered for adminship. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Most of those observations are correct, though as a community we clearly don't agree as to which possible reforms are daft and which are eminently sensible. But it isn't just some aspirants who are keen on reform, Kudpung and I are both admins and we aren't the only admins who consider RFA to be badly in need of reform. We don't understand all the reasons for the decline, but we understand some; Fewer editors becoming active editors and rising if arbitrary standards especially the change in early 2008 after Rollback was unbundled and "good vandalfighter" ceased to be enough to pass RFA. Also I wouldn't worry at the number of !votes placed before the first question, few of the questions are actually tailored to the candidate; My worry is the number of !votes placed in the first half an hour, how can these be based on even a cursory check of the candidate's contributions? ϢereSpielChequers 17:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

There's no doubt there is a small minority of admins who do advocate for change publicly. The problem is they can't compete with the minority of admins who are abusive and want to keep their power or the vast majority of admins and editors who either don't want the process to change or don't care. So the process is basically stuck in a rut. We can't change it because we can't get a consensus to change it and the process and environment gets incrementally worse as more time goes by. Basically the project suffers, because of a few stallers. I also agree with most of Leaky's points. A particularly good point is that we don't know what will happen if we change the process...we do know what will happen if we don't change it. I also think that some of the unknowns are known...but the results of nearly anything can be debated so a few will always shout there is no consensus for change. I also agree with the post of the IP below. The hostility of Misplaced Pages is legendary and will be its downfall if something isn't done. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 18:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• We know exactly what the problem is. Misplaced Pages is hostile. The problem with RfA is the same problem with Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages is hostile. RfA is a nightmare because Misplaced Pages is hostile. New users don't join because Misplaced Pages is hostile. Veteran editors leave because Misplaced Pages is hostile. The decline in RfA's follows the decline in editors, which follow the decline in articles, etc.. We have known this since at least 2009. People have been talking about it since 2009 (Why is Misplaced Pages so hostile to experts?). There have been acedemic studies and newspaper articles about the hostility going back to 2009. They are all over meta:. The community did a major study about it in 2010. I've mentioned it several times going back to 2011. The most recent I know od is the MIT study a month ago and the related Slashdot thread (Misplaced Pages's Participation Problem). The problem will only be fixed when people decide to come to Misplaced Pages to collaborate with each other rather than battle with each other. Until that happens, the problem with RfA/editor retention/article quality/etc. will remain. 64.40.54.145 (talk) 18:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Then this is a job for the anthropologist, psychologist, sociologist, and maybe a priest. WP is getting an increasingly stressful place to work in, and I have only been here a relatively short time. But the RfA issues, all the Gordian-knot problems of WP systemically, are symptoms of the real world. It is an internet plus real life problems thing. It is human nature. Was there ever an ideal WP "first time" a polite collegiate state of nature utopia that we have slipped from? I suspect we have always been like this, but things have just got bigger and more complex. Let us not drive ourselves nuts with these big issues. Lets try to fix small, do-able bits that we can agree on and take forward for discussion. Irondome (talk) 19:12, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually its my experience that it is possible to do thousands of edits without encountering hostility, and it is quite possible for experts to edit very happily. I'm also Wikimedia UK's GLAM organiser and I've met several museum curators who edit successfully and uncontentiously. Aside from the minority of us editors who deal with abuse and attack pages there isn't much outside hostility to worry about. Within Misplaced Pages there are a minority of contentious areas, anything contentious in real life will be contentious here, but that shouldn't often surprise people. Where we have big areas of contention are the rise of spam, our deletionism and inclusionism struggle and between verifiable and verified. If you are writing referenced content about something notable and uncontentious, even dry and academic then you are unlikely to find WP hostile. Spammers and those who write articles of borderline notability will find us hostile. If you write unreferenced content then nowadays you are likely to be reverted, sometimes without an edit summary. I'd like us to go back to tagging stuff as , but I'd prefer that we changed our edit process to prompt for or even require a reference rather than continue the current trainwreck of our unadvertised de facto standards being stricter than our advertised ones. ϢereSpielChequers 19:58, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

@Irondome: Was there ever an ideal WP "first time" a polite collegiate state of nature utopia that we have slipped from? I don't know about the earliest days, but between 2003 and 2006 Misplaced Pages was a very different place. It was dominated by writers and content builders. A thousand edits in those days was huge. People would spend a couple of hours each day making 3 or 4 edits. They were writing great swaths of material. The community was slow and methodical because writing is relatively difficult compared with other things. Around mid-2006, Wikpedia started showing up more often in the top 10 results of Google. Also around that time, automated tools were becoming more popular and this attracted a different type of editor. With a single click, an editor could tag an article, revert an edit or template a user. These rapid fire edits made people focus more on rapid fire tasks rather than content building. In mid-2007, the rapid fire editors came to be the dominant community and took over from the slow, methodical content builders and that's the peak you see in all the graphs. That's when the content builders started leaving. A rapid fire editor could tag more than 100 articles in the time it took a content builder to make a single edit. The click-first and ask-questions-later type editor created of different type of user experience for newbies and verterans alike. It's much easier to tag a new article for deletion than to do in-depth research to to find out if it's notable, so that's what people focus on. That's why we only have a few thousand FA class articles and over 2 million stubs, because people want to do quick, easy edits rather than the difficult work of writing content. This type of rapid fire work fosters a different type of thinking. People think more in terms of "what can I find that's wrong" as opposed to "how can I significantly improve this". That, in a nutshell, is what the hostile environment is. 64.40.54.145 (talk) 20:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

@Special:Contributions/64.40.54.145 Thanks for that excellent response. Very helpful for context. Irondome (talk) 20:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Misplaced Pages IS a vicious place; WereSpielChequers you completely missed the main place that it is which is on contentious articles. More specifically, articles which reflect a real-world clash where the combatants see that there is something to gain by making the article go their way. And the way to accomplish that (as encouraged and incentiveized by the system) is by cleverly ripping the other person and their work to shreds / deprecating / denigrating them. And do it in a way that is not only 100% wiki-legal, but which uses the wikisystem to do so. For an emblematic/ironic/informative example, to use wp:civil to cut their wiki-head off with a chainsaw. North8000 (talk) 20:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I didn't miss the issue of contentious articles, I just pointed out that "Within Misplaced Pages there are a minority of contentious areas, anything contentious in real life will be contentious here, but that shouldn't often surprise people." Most articles are uncontentious, and even on the contentious ones I can and have fixed typos without causing upset. My first experience of a fully protected article was one about the first battle between Islam and Judaism, neither side objected when I wanted to change thrity to thirty. I've since had a few involvements with contentious articles - I don't dispute that at their most extreme they can get very unpleasant. But they are a small minority of articles, and their nastiness is quite contained. If you look through recent changes it is easy to spot edits where unsourced content additions are reverted with little or no explanation to the bewildered newbie concerned, edit warring on contentious articles is much rarer. ϢereSpielChequers 20:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Misplaced Pages has ever been a warm, cuddly, supportive place. It depends on who you ran across during your first year editing, whether they were friendly or left a bitter taste. For example, early in my time as a more active Editor, there was another Editor who for a day, followed me from page to page and reverted a good portion of my edits. So, I just lay low, did completely uncontroversial edits, didn't edit as much, and that person moved on to other editing activities. But another person might have edit warred because they felt the reverts were unjustified. I came across a paper on Wikimedia about the effects of reverting a person's edits and, as you can guess, it prompts other people to get prickly (my unscientific word).

I've spend a fair amount of the past four months reading old ARBCOM cases which led me into the AN and AN/I archives to try to trace how particular conflicts started, evolved and exploded (this is primarily between 2005-2009). No grand conclusions (yet) but, let me tell you, things were vicious then, too. It seemed like WP:IAR was much more highly valued than today and lots of Admins appear to be free-wheeling, lone rangers, used to getting their way. I see much more reference to particular policies now than 5-8 years ago and I came across more than a few Admins who complain about there being "too many rules" now on Misplaced Pages (I guess, compared to 2001-2005). So, for all of the complaints about "abusive Admins", I think there is actually more adherence to rules and accountability and less shooting from the hip than there used to be. Of course, I'm reading about desysoping, topic bans, admonishments and controversy over IRC so I'm seeing the worst of it.

But when I see people getting all nostalgic about the old days when everyone supposedly supported and encouraged each other, I'm beginning to think that when they joined they signed up with a WikiProject that offered that to them, it's a particular kind of experience that can happen today with some WikiProjects that isn't tied to a particular era on Misplaced Pages. I do run into a fair number of inactive WikiProjects and maybe some of the loss of collegiality is due to that. Liz 21:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, Misplaced Pages still is a warm, cuddly, supportive place. Depends on what you are doing. It certainly still is in the area I mainly edit - though of course just one problematic editor can easily turn this into a hell, and several tried.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with much of what Liz is saying but having read much of the Arbcom, AN, ANI and other content over the years myself, I interpret some of that differently. First, I agree that there is more emphasis on the rules these days. I also agree that the good ole days weren't necessary steller, they were better in many respects to what we have now though. Back then if you were a hardworking editor and had been here for some time and asked for the tools, there was a strong chance you would get them. Now, unless you are extremely careful in your wikicareer and stay away from dramatic areas until after you get the admin tools, you probably won't. I also think the Arbcom 5 years ago was a much better process than the one we have now. As with many things, RFA included, it has strayed quite aways from its original intent and mandate. Decisions are more arbitrary and especially at Arbitration enforcement, the end result is more like a block them so we don't have to deal with it any more mentality. Its almost like they try and make the process so painful to all parties no one will want to use it because everyone gets burned, so its better not to submit at all. To get back on topic of RFA, the RFA process we have now is a shadow of what it should be. RFA should be more like a screening process than a gauntlet (more like what it used to be like). If the submitter isn't going to delete the main page or start mass blocking all their enemies, they should get the tools. On the inverse, all the admins who do little more than bully other editors and make an arse out of themselves should swiftly have the tools removed. WITHOUT having a multi month arbitration case and editors should be more than trustworthy enough to vote them in and out. We need to abandon the notion that Admins are above reproach and editors can't be trusted to vote them out. That argument only further justifies the arguments that the RFA process is garbage. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 22:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

@Kumioko, I hope you don't mind me using you as an example. A long time ago, I ran across Kumioko, He was one of the most friendly people on the project. He was hard-working and encouraging to others. He was like this for many, many years, then he got bit. I don't mean just a little, it was a feeding frenzy, There's an entire thread at the village pump where people were criticizing Kumioko. His natural reaction was to defend himself but people didn't want that. They wanted him to submit. Most people would have left after something like this, but Kumioko stayed and called for change though in an abrasive tone, which is understandable. At that point, Kumioko was labelled as one of the bad guys. All his years of service didn't matter. The community decided he was not one of the good guys. There are many other stories like this. It has happened over and over. This is what has changed about Misplaced Pages. Instead of thinking about "how can we make this situation significantly better" people instead focus on "what can we criticize about Kumioko". Misplaced Pages has changed from focusing on improvement to focusing on criticism. That's why changes to RfA don't work. People are focusing on criticizing rather than improvement. So when people go through RfA, !voters focus on criticizing rather than helping. This is a result of rapid fire editing and how it has changed the mindset of editors. 64.40.54.126 (talk) 02:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Nope its totally fine. Not trying to hide, there's just no point in using an account anymore. IMO that's a fairly accurate assessment BTW. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 03:21, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• There are more than 4 million articles on Misplaced Pages. Can ayone really get their head around such a vast number? The amount of incivility, personal attacks, edit-warring, and bad admining is extremely small in comparison. In fact, as a 'front-line' admin, I see most of what goes on at AN, ANI, RfC/U, and Arbcom. What I do see are the same names cropping up time and time again, but they are only a tiny minority of the editors and admins who gnome away making uncontentious content contributions, using AWB to correct typos and formatting errors, policing the very few who do (regularly) misbehave, and generally getting on well with the people they meet in the areas where they work. Never in the field of human knowledge has so much been owed by so many to so few. Don't wreck it by giving it an undeserved bad name. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
  • @Kudpung: Part of the problem with that statement Kudpung is that eventhough admins are only a small fraction of the community and bad admins are only a small fraction of that, the mere fact that its next to impossible to remove the tools from a bad admin only increases the problem. One admin can do more damage than 20 or 30 regular editors. By the time the tools are removed from them, a massive amount of damage is done. Arbcom and AE has done more damage to the project than they help and no one even thinks about doing something about them. In the case of Arbcom it isn't so much the members but manipulative admins who craftily eliminate editors they don't like or agree with. Then you have others admins who feel they are always right and will even block or revert other admins who question their actions. Most of the time admins just let it go but there are some, and I know you know a few, that will fight tooth and nail against any action which questions their actions. So most admins don't bother arguing with them and eventually they just get their way. Sure some admins have lost the tools over the years but the vast majority (not counting loss due to inactivity or voluntarily) are due to association in a tangential Arbcom case. Their usually not even the direct target, just collateral damage. Even the its often times under the appearance of being done just so to show people that submitting an Arbcom case is going to end badly for everyone...so just don't do it. My problem isn't with the 99% of the good admins who do what they are supposed to do, my problem is that nothing is being done about the 1% who doesn't and admins such as yourself that just dismiss it as admin bashing. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 12:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
    • It is not next to impossible - the arbitration committee is bound to at least respond to a case where use of tools or admin conduct has been questioned. Agree with comments about vast areas of content-building being harmonious, and the good old days not really being that good. People often get supports by others who know them. I rarely look at answers when voting, but concentrate on past conduct. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
      • The reason I state that its next to impossible is two fold. First, historically the huge majority of editors who were sanctioned fell into that trap. Only a handful managed to avoid it, mostly by just not editing and moving to some other project like Commons. Secondly is human nature. People edit what they are interested in so if I am interested in Biology and I have a sanction on biology articles its not very likely I am going to start editing sports articles instead. Its more likely I am going to write about something tangentially related or leave. Most people aren't going to edit something they aren't interested in. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 13:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
        • • Many people can and do edit in a wide range of areas. It is a matter of sitting it out and abiding by the rules, not dick around and split hairs editing at the margins and engendering reams of arguments about whether it constitutes a transgression of sanctions....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That's not accurate. You forget that on contentious articles, "the rules" are used against their intended purpose and are just a wiki-llegal method of conducting warfare. In Misplaced Pages, the most effective way to POV an article is by cleverly using the policies to deprecate your opponents, including those that want it to be neutral. North8000 (talk) 14:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I've seen bad admins do a huge amount of damage. The two most common reasons are incompetency and engaging in battleground mentality while supposedly acting as an admin. North8000 (talk) 14:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

One the core myths is that we need more admins. There are far, far, far too many admins. Admins as a group generally seem very satisfied with the way they operate things, and rarely critique their system. The one criticism we do hear a lot about on this page seems to be about unwashed content builders who make passing RfA difficult, which in turn makes it difficult for admins to further build their numbers. We already have a vast horde of life-appointed admins, far far more than needed. We need perhaps one tenth of their number to do the actual admin work. Admins say themselves that about 30 of them do most of the heavy lifting. The rest of this great legacy horde have one essential function only, which is to make sure any motion which might limit or dilute the powers of admins is defeated. This dark reality lies at the heart of the admin dysfunction, and is the reason why there can now be no hope of getting a decent system, short of revolt by the content builders. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

We don't need more admins, we need new admins: the inactive ones are dead weight, so there are effectively only ~30-50 admins. Inactive is inactive, they aren't there to defend themselves or the admin corps as a whole. See WP:Former administrators: there are far more being desysoped for inactivity than people requesting it back (in fact, I've only seen one formerly inactive admin regain the tools). What we need is for new, active editors to take over for them. And besides, there is no cabal. Ever. Ansh666 01:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That's not true at all. Many hundreds of admins are active but not on admin stuff, or are almost inactive but not enough to have their tools removed. Collectively they form a huge reservoir of loose cannon admins that emerge individually at random and on whim to block active content builders, or to block a motion that could otherwise lead to improvements. The result is the inconsistent, fraught and unjust environment we see today that content builders are expected to try and work in. We don't just need new admins. We need the dross pared away and replaced by a few quality admins, and we need a restructuring of the admin system so different types of admins are targeted for different purposes. The current "all-purpose admin" model has been trialled for years and is an abject failure. Are you here to become another one of our admins, Ansh? --Epipelagic (talk) 02:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

See the break in the section below - I won't be putting myself out there for a long long time, and if I do I'll be active in deletion only. I'm not going to respond to the rest - I haven't had any bad experiences with current admins at all. Ansh666 03:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Well see how it goes if you try building content. If we had a rational system, you would be able to get the tools you want to do the deletions. But we don't. Every admin, and only admins have all the tools regardless of need or competence. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I have done quite a bit - more or less everything before around May 2013. Not even interaction with admins there, as far as I remember. And yeah, I wish. Ansh666 03:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Let's not get carried away with the 20 - 30 admins I cite so often. These are the few who are prepared to work in the danger zones without a Kevlar vest. These are the ones who, if they make one small error of judgement or block one blatant vandal too many, or warn an agressive user for 3R, take all the flak for the entire corps of sysops. They are brave and they are bold. We must not forget however, that there are dozens of active admins who carry out lots of essential routine operations well away from enemy lines. Then we can start counting the 'way too many' admins who don't do much sysoping at all, and the ones who are over enthusiastic and make too many mistakes. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Anyone who wants to be an admin....

go write some content. Or if you can't, go review some - peer review is always desperate for input. Or expand some stubs at the Stub Contest in a few weeks. Show onlookers you care about the First Pillar....cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:01, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I for one have done all of that. In fact the vast majority of the things I have done over the last couple years are admin related and I still will never be allowed access to the tools. I won't be allowed to help out at CCI, see deleted content, help delete trash bock vandals or protect articles and I'm tred of spending my time submitting these things to admins when I can't be trusted. Let them find it themselves if they don't trust me. Sadly I have a growing list of uncorrected vandalism, several of which from the same user and at least 30 templates that need to be fixed for various problems. Not to mention the long backlogs at multiple venues. So the oversimplified statement above is just kidding the reader. IF they want to be an admin they need to do some of those but stay away from ANI, AN and keep their heads down, don't question the admins and never try and stand up against them until after you get the tools. If you care more for the project than managing your wikicareer you will not get access to the toolset. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 13:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Err, so you say, I can't comment unless you log in as who you are and see what you're talking about. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

No not at all, you can comment all you want just as I can. I just don't agree that ultra simplified explanation you gave is nearly enough to help someone get the tools that's all. Maybe back on 2005-2008 time frame it worked. But now it doesn't. Although I agree it should. I would also add that I no longer care about getting access to the tools. I am investing my time elsewhere since it wasn't wanted here. I just comment occasionally now but this project and this community lost me as a contributor in the traditional sense. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 13:51, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

If you're a new editor, I suggest you create an account. GiantSnowman 14:00, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a new editor, I was here for years and had a lot of edits across a wide range of areas but there is no need to login anymore. There is nothing (except vote) that I can't do as an IP if I need too. Even as far as credibility goes I don't care about that either. People can believe what I say or not, it makes little difference to me at this point. This isn't really about me though. Its about fixing the broken RFA process. If it really bothers you to know though my username is mentioned in the previous discussion. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 14:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that your "If you care more for the project than managing your wikicareer you will not get access to the toolset." shows understanding and wisdom, at least for folks who's caring about the project involves going near contentious articles and contentious situations. RFA questions should cause a CLOSE look and analysis of how the person handled themselves in tough situations, not just what the name-callers said or whether they avoided them. North8000 (talk) 15:49, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

*cough* Kumioko *cough* Just a hunch.—cyberpower _Online 16:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Lol Ding ding ding. See, no need to login at all. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 17:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

It is disrespectful and extremely unhelpful to editors unfamiliar with your prolix style to deliberately fail to identify yourself, use multiple IPs and then use your registered ID all on the same discussion page. Leaky Caldron 17:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, tough shit. I gave up caring about what people here think of me and its no more disrespectful or unhelpful than how I was treated as an editor. Same for many of the comments by others here who either miscategorize the problems or attempt to discredit them. It doesn't matter that I was an editor. Now I an IP and I don't intend to use my username again. So regardless of whether its bad form or not, it is what it is. That doesn't change the problems with RFA it doesn't change the problems with abusive admins and it certainly doesn't change the problems with too much work for too few admins. So if its ok with you and the other nitpickers here, why don't we get back on the topic of discussing problems with RFA and less about how that Asshole Kumioko keeps coming back and talking about fixing all the broken shit related to RFA that no one else seems to care about. Sure we have a lot of folks with comments about how they would like to fix it, but at the end of the day, that's all it is, talk. No action and no desire for action. For what its worth though, the reason you are seeing multiple IP's is because I have different computers (work and home) and the power went out here in my area which caused my router to reset. Not that any of that is relevant to this discussion. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 18:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I am meticulous in never knowingly responding to your tediously long polemics on RfA. The truth is you behave in this way because you failed to gain sufficient support to achieve the status you believe you deserve. You have done everything you can since your failed second attempt in August last year to repeat the same mantra in every venue possible. You might think it helps; I don't. Leaky Caldron 18:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok fine and I'm sure you think the project is a lot better off now that I'm not editing. As I said before I don't really care what you or anyone else believe. So why don't we just move on and get back on topic. BTW that was my 4th attempt. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 18:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

August 2012 was your second RfA . Leaky Caldron 18:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh that one. I apologize. I thought you were talking about August 2013. My 4th and final attempt. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 18:49, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, do let's get back on topic. The topic was the idea of admin hopefuls doing content work. Now how did we get distracted from that? Oh, yes ... --Stfg (talk) 19:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

And you wonder why I don't want to log in. Give me one good reason why I should even bother logging in. So I can vote? So I can get credit for my edits? So Leaky can ignore the discussions? There is no reason to log in to participate in a discussion that isn't going to result in anything anyway. Here we are, 2 weeks into November and we have only had 1 RFA that isn't going to pass and I am apparently the only one that sees that as a problem? Really? 108.45.104.69 (talk) 20:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

No you are not the only one who sees the lack of new admins as a problem. I am aware of many who see this as a problem. We differ sharply in our proposed solutions, but I believe more accept it as a problem than not. Progress is indeed lamentably slow, but when I was first warning people about the drought there were many who thought it some sort of statistical fluctuation. The debate has moved on and no-one doubts that we have a declining number of admins, so we are making progress, just mind numbingly slowly. ϢereSpielChequers 20:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

My fear is that nothing will be done until the problem is irreversible or the WMF is forced to step in with some half cocked solution like Visual Editor that makes things worse. It may not happen in the next few months, but that day is steadily approaching as we lose several admins a month. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 21:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

@Kumioko: I don't wonder why you don't log in, and I'm not here to claim you should for any reason. Sorry if I offended you, but I feel something needs to be said: I have RFA on my watchlist and very often take a look in here to see what's going on, but I quickly run away again when I see the same people saying the very same things in long walls of text for the umpteenth time. I can only speak for myself, but I do wonder whether other people may also be chased off from contributing here by this repetitiousness, as I am. Please look again at your opening reply to the post that started this thread. It was about you and how you had tried that but didn't get the bit anyway and how much we've all lost by that. The original post was about people getting content experience -- highly relevant to at least three of the RFAs that have floundered in the past few weeks. Why are we discussing your past RFAs and whether you should log in or not, instead of that? --Stfg (talk) 22:18, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I was using myself as an example that the modest goals Casliber points to are wildly optimistic in todays editing/RFA environment. They haven't been that basic since at leas 2008. The reason I keep bringing myself into it is because frankly I have done just about everything there is to do here at some point. I have more admin experience than at least half the admins and probably more. The reason I don't get the tools are 1) because I am hypercritical about abusive admins and the RFA process and 2) because some people (mostly abusive admins or wanna be admins) think I am a jerk. The truth is I am generally only a jerk to those who are jerks first or those who have a history of Jerkiness. I generally get along with most editors, I just admittedly no longer feel compelled to be overly nice to those who aren't nice themselves. As for adminship I no longer care about it cause I am through here, but the RFA process still needs to be changed before it implodes. So in the end its not about me anyway but the general failures of the site and the community to promote people who can actually use the tools over those who hide in the corner and don't get involved. We have too many of those already. People may not like how I do things but they don't get involved themselves so IMO they can either step up or step aside. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 03:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I do not know about the first three runs, but, at least, in my perspective, the last time you have not got the tools because you decided to run right after an incivility block. Having a recent incivility block is in my opinion not the best admin profile.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That's fair, but its also fair to say that quite a few admins have gotten a block for incivility too. Some multiple times. There are several admins that have been blocked more than 5 times. They didn't lose the tools, so why would we prevent a long term contributor from having access to them for the same reason. It should also be noted that I requested that block. Me and that user have a pretty long history and I got tired of dealing with their crap. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 12:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

"a growing list of uncorrected vandalism, several of which from the same user"; actually I don't agree that any of those mainspace edits of mine were vandalism. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:01, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 18/11

Looking from the outside in (as someone who has only !voted once in an RfA and never run before), here's my take on things:

@Casliber: There's more to that first pillar than content creation - curation and maintenance play a large role as well. Even more so for admins: aside from editing fully protected pages and possibly restoring deleted content, the tools contribute nothing to content creation. In fact, the majority of the tools are used to stop or even reverse the creation of potentially worthy content. Not to mention that there are 4 other pillars . IIRC, the most important attribute of administrators should be civility (4th pillar) and dispute resolution, not the ability to write. Anybody who wants to can do that. Not everybody who does that can, or should, become an admin.

@WereSpielChequers: Yes, the declining number of admins (and the inactivity of a large portion of that number) is a problem. However, as we've seen from the graphs, it corresponds reasonably well to a general decrease in wiki activity, so it's not as much of a problem as we may think.

Personally, editcountitis, insistence on stringent criteria for content creation, and an ingenious idea for an April Fools' joke (heh oops, that cat's out of the bag now...) are holding me back from running at all. I have ~3000 edits, and I think around a third are in AfD and a fifth in article space, with a large majority of those gnoming, reverting, or tagging for deletion (that damn replication lag). I'd say I have a pretty good idea of the content policies here. However, putting myself out there at all before I reach 1k article space edits is out of the question, and who knows how long it'll take me to get there with all the work university has thrown at me (sad thing there is, I'm probably still more active than plenty of the admin corps). The biggest problem with this is that I think that I'm ready, but I know the larger community would not. Now, feel free to disagree, but if it weren't for the community's inanely high standards, there would be more applicants, if not more accepted. I don't care if people try to pick out my flaws (and trust me, you could probably find quite a few if you dug deep enough), but mudslinging isn't the way we should go about this - we have WP:AGF for a reason. The admin situation here isn't bringing the 'pedia down, but it sure is indicative of the way the entire place is headed. Ansh666 21:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting. I disagree with those who oppose RFAs just on the basis of two few articles created, or zero GAs and FAs. But I do think that admins need to have a good, broad understanding of, and competence in, the things that make this an encyclopedia rather than, say, a social networking site or an MMPORG. And I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can really get those skills without engaging with the content to a great degree. How well can a candidate understand what a content dispute is really all about, or what constitutes unacceptably close paraphrasing, or what is involved in seeking sources and creating text that uses them without plagiarizing them, or etc, etc, unless one has spent some time tackling these things? Casliber began with "go write some content. Or if you can't, ...", so there are ways other than original authorship to get that know-how. But imo it needs to be got somehow. --Stfg (talk) 22:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Hah, silly bot tagged me as unsigned, removed. Anyways, it's true that there are other ways. My personal experience in content policy comes from AfD discussions and CSD tagging. I've read through some RfAs, and I think that the general voter community there doesn't agree that work in deletion is enough to get the requisite experience. I'd disagree. Ansh666 01:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

AFD and CSD can make for a pretty good background for an admin, but there are some common pitfalls. Some new page patrollers get carried away and become sloppy in their tagging, they tend to get opposes from those of us who assume that sloppy work in tagging would lead to sloppy deletion. Some patrollers just tag stuff for others to fix and haven't yet mastered categorisation or even referencing. My own very crude rule of thumb is that when you've got to the stage where you are removing more tags than you add then you are probably ready to be an admin. A more clearcut precedent is that nowadays adminship is only for those who have made some contribution to building the pedia not just defending it. We've had people repeatedly declined because despite doing over 100,000 edits they couldn't point to any content contributions, and we've had RFAs pass first time where the candidate had referenced a chunk of the unreferenced content left over from the days when referencing was less usual. ϢereSpielChequers 05:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Which raises the question, why do they need tools to add references? Anyone can do that if they had the time, patience, and resources. (I know, of course, there had to be other reasons, or it'd be snowing...) Ansh666 06:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There may be some admins who blindly delete CSDs without checking further. Actually, the only reason I still patrol is to patrol the patrollers, and the number of messages to editors about poor patrolling is quite significant. Perhaps it's time to set some criteria for competency to patrol pages after all. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that having experience with AFD and CSD and the other related venues is a start but we should be careful not to put too much weight on the percentages or we give the impression that its better to vote on which way the article for X is going than to vote how you feel. Its easy to keep your stats high just by cruising through and finding some with a clear consensus result. Using my past edits as an example there are a lot of folks who don't think being a Medal of Honor recipient is inherently notable, I don't particularly care about having all the international football (soccer) players biographies or porn stars. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 12:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that piling on at the easy-to-read AFDs is a way to get percentages up, and that might have been an issue with some RFAs. Quality of a candidate's AFD nominations is probably a better measure of their judgement than accuracy of their !votes. CSD/AFD work is obviously very useful, but the reason I find it insufficient is that it's at the poorest end of the encyclopedia. Ways to work on better content include doing cleanup work, doing reviews, and servicing edit semi-protected requests, which is quite fun, brings some variety to the content one works on, and gets one considering various policy and guidline issues. --Stfg (talk) 14:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The way I see it, many pile-on !voters (especially those who go through the trouble of citing others' legitimate reasons and explaining them) and !voters who tend to change their !votes are good at seeing consensus, as AfD isn't only about policy like CSD or PROD. When I used to browse the AfD logs (no time anymore, sadly), I'd pile-on-delete some of them because I was unable to close them even though there was a clear consensus for delete or speedy delete (though in the latter case, it's easier to just put up the speedy tag and let someone get it that way, then wait the full week and have it closed). Ansh666 22:17, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

@Ansh True you don't need the tools to add references. But the tools include setting Autopatrolled rights, and it would be odd to give that right to someone who'd never added reliably sourced material. There is also an admin only role in DYK promotion, I'm not familiar with the area, but I've seen that used as an argument not to grant adminship to candidates who haven't done some content creation. I've also seen the argument that since admins can block content creators, and this site is ultimately about creating an encyclopaedia, all new admins should have done some content creation. From my own experience I'd add that it is a core skill that any longterm editor needs to pick up, and as an admin you may get all sorts of queries, some you can swerve by saying I'm aware of that area but I've never touched it. But you really can't do that with referencing. ϢereSpielChequers 14:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

@IP Lots of RFA candidates have had blocks, providing they are 12 months stale you can usually reassure the community that you've learned that particular lesson (it's what q3 is for). If the community is sometimes prepared to block but not desysop an admin but not to appoint a new admin if they've had a recent block then I can see that as seeming anomalous. But think of it like taking a driving test, there are things like speeding that would fail you on a driving test but which an already qualified driver would not lose a license for. I wouldn't nominate a candidate who'd had a recent block, but unlike many RFA !voters I might Support if there was a good case made. Or you could just think of this as an area where the RFA crowd is harsher than Arbcom. In any event someone getting a once in a blue moon block is not a bar to adminship, but never being able to stay block free for a year is. PS if you hadn't realised that was the issue, why not login and just make sure you don't get blocked for a year? ϢereSpielChequers 14:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to change IP's on you, this is my work IP but its 108/Kumioko again. The fact is I just don't care that much amnymore about getting access to the tools or about what happens to the project and I frankly don't think most others really care about the project either. I used too, strongly, but the community has shown me that feeling was misplaced and unwanted. I think most folks, admins included just care about filling whatever topic area interests them and don't care about the bigger project or picture. Yes I am inferring they push POV. As for the block issue, I was so active on controversial topics I attract controversy, especially as adversarial as I am with some of the abusive admins that should have their tool access removed (and a couple higher than simple admin access), there is little chance of not getting blocked by one of them. Besides that, there is zero chance of me getting access to the tools at this point even if I went ten years block free. My point though is that if an admin isn't going to have their tools removed after multiple blocks, then to not give an editor the tools because of a block is hypocritical and isn't in the best interests of the project. If the event is enough for an editor to not get the tools, the admin should at least have the tools suspended for a period of time. I don't expect many to agree with this but that's how I feel. Expecially if its one of the admins who has a multitude of blocks, who I won't name here. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 14:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kumioko, I wouldn't describe it as hypocrisy, but I'd accept that the community can seem inconsistent even if the individuals usually aren't. Part of the problem is that RFA has become very difficult to pass, and part is that it seems to be human nature to expect people to be at their best when they submit to an exam. If some de facto requirements at RFA are too high for a large proportion of the existing admins to pass then some will consider that as evidence of RFA being broken, not of admins being hypocritical. However I'm struggling to think of a current admin who has had multiple recent blocks, maybe I've been avoiding the dramah boards too much, if I'm wrong I'd welcome an email naming any admin who has had more than one block this year. As for your chances of getting through RFA if you went ten years block free, I suspect you'd have made it through last time if you had been 12 months block free. If you log in, concentrate on writing the Encyclopaedia, and take some advice about the way you handle controversy, then I'd be surprised if after 18 months of productive block free activity there were many who fretted about anything as old as 2013 in a mid 2015 RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 12:01, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

A big part of the problem, as I have mentioned repeatedly is that admins aren't held to the same standard. The standard is considerably lower once editors get the tools. If an editor does something against policy any admin can act on it or any editor can submit them to ANI. They are frequently punished severely. For an admin though it requires a long and detailed case with Arbcom and the end result is almost always with dismissal. In the rare cases of a desysopping its almost always due to being associated to a case that wasn't even directly about them. So few even bother and by the time they do, it just amounts to a waste of time. The other alternative is they voluntarily give them up, which is rare(not counting desysopping due to inactivity). If the process doesn't treat all editors and admins equally and fairly, it doesn't work, that's the bottom line.

Lets look at completely different problem. Another example with a problem in the system can be seen with some of the admin RFA's from last year as further example of a problem with the system. Many passed with 100% support, a few passed with as many as 30 opposes. This can be seen in every year all the way back. So are the 30 wrong or the 100 that supported? In virtually every case the work they do is great with no problems. So either the 30 opposers were wrong, or the process needs to be changed.

I have argued from the beginning that change needs to take 2 parts. The tools need to be easier to get and' they need to be easier to take away if abused. One doesn't work without the other. I also don't agree that I would pass. I am too critical of the system and have pissed too many people off. That ship has sailed. I'm also not going to volunteer large amounts more of my time to a project where the majority doesn't want me here and that I personally see failing in the next couple years due to the cultural problems. Personally I cared a lot about the project, but all I got was insulted and told I couldn't be trusted. No one is going to participate in a volunteer project with that. I would also add that if an editor needs to wait 6 months to 18 months to submit an RFA after a block to stand a chance at getting the tools then an admin that gets blocked should have the tools suspended for some amount of time. Of course that would ensure that admins don't get blocked at all, which only further illustrates my point that the system as it is does not work.

I will send you an email a little later with some names and examples. I need to go finish cooking Thanksgiving dinner. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 15:16, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Firstly enjoy Thanksgiving. Secondly advice about 18 months was a cautious note from a seasoned nominator. My standards for supprting people are different to my estimate of what the community will accept. People have run with blocks as recent as 12 months or less, but they can make for fractious RFAs or ones that only barely pass. If there are admins out there who have kept the bit despite blocks then I really would be surprised if they are numerous. I'm not convinced that admins are judged to a lower standard than non-admins, I've certainly seen examples where I thought Arbcom or the community was being harsher because the person was an admin. But I accept that you may have seen things that looked differently to you - this is a big complex place. However I don't accept the argument that almost all Arbcom cases against admins get dismissed, I'd be surprised if it was even a majority, especially if you exclude the ones where people have so little confidence in their case that they try to go straight to Arbcom and skip the earlier steps. As for whether the opposers were wrong when an RFA passes, or indeed whether the supporters were wrong when one fails, proof of the pudding is when there is a desysop or a second RFA. I have seen people pass on a second attempt and go on to become successful admins, I like to think that justifies my support in their first unsuccessful RFA, I have also seen someone resign under a cloud or be desysopped when I was one of the handful who had opposed them. So to me what matters is not whether one !voted with consensus, but whether a year or more later one would with hindsight have !voted the same way. Also I think it important that we set a criteria for adminship but until we do there will be people disagreeing at RFA not just because they are unsure whether borderline candidates meet a criteria, but because they have different criteria as to what makes a good admin. ϢereSpielChequers 16:43, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks you too. I'm not worried about me anymore. I've moved onto participating in Wikia projects where my help is wanted and appreciated. Several have made me an admin there because they need and want help from experienced editors. So I am going to help the projects where my help is wanted, not here where its obviously not. And I'm certainly not going to hide in the corner and play along ignoring obvious problems just because that's the only way to get the tools. If that's what it takes, then I don't need or want them. I'm barely editing anything outside an occasional discussion here anymore anyway and don't plan too. Even less so logged in. There's almost nothing I need or want to do I can't do as an IP. I just generally ignore the vandalism and other problems I see here now. Which are quite numerous BTW because it doesn't seem like there are enough people who are interested in these areas or know what to do. Again with the admins thing, most don't get blocked when they should because the bar is set lower for admins in general. Yes there are certainly a few exceptions and outliers but they are infrequent at best That's part of my point. They are allowed to do things that would get a normal editor blocked or banned and nothing is done. They are the exception I agree but its that small minority that's a contributing factor to the ruin of this project. What happens if you get an ounce of gas in a truckload of milk? The whole truckload gets thrown away. Same thing here. The fact is that the majority of active admins where made admins back in the 2006-2008 timeframe when it was easier to get. And their still here. That has a lot of meaning, but if it doesn't make sense then I cant explain it. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 17:23, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the wikigeneration gulf emerging, I wrote about it for the signpost over three years ago, and the gulf has widened dramatically since then. But different people learn different things from that gulf, to me and others it is a sign that RFA has broken, and it is only because the admins who were appointed in 2003/07 have continued in such numbers that we are still able to do the deletions, blocks and other admin tasks that this site requires. Others seem to think that RFA isn't broken and that the anomaly is that we still rely on admins from the era when admins were appointed in large numbers. I suspect such people also believe that today's RFAs with their focus on edit count and the Q&A section are better at sorting potential good admins from potential bad admins than the RFAs of a few years ago where the emphasis was more on checking the candidate's contributions. I don't agree with that, and I don't share the vision of us having a minimum possible number of admins, where admins are specialists who perforce do little but admin stuff. To me the fewer the admins we have the bigger a deal adminship becomes, and the larger the proportion of an admins wiki time they spend on admin tasks the more detached they risk becoming from the other editors. I would rather have hundreds of admins from the era before RFA was broken and have them spend a minority of their wiki time doing admin stuff, than have a small number of admins who may have started editing at the same time as the current community, but have drifted away from them because they do little but admin tasks. ϢereSpielChequers 18:01, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I generally agree with all of that. But even if we were to flood the tools out to a bunch of the long term editors we would still need to be able to remove some. Removing them is still too hard to do. I also think that there are multiple reasons why RFA is failing and why Misplaced Pages in turn is failing and addressing any one of them will help, but not fix the problem. Certainly creating the roles of File mover, rollback and template editor helped but it was only necessary because we don't trust our editors. There are lots of potential admins (Going Batty, Liz, Maile and a pile of others) most don't want to run because the RFA process is such a nightmare. They don't want to go through it and I don't blame them. The other problem is we do have hundreds of admin from the era before it was broken and they are leaving at the cyclic rate. Every month we desysop a halfdozen or more for inactivity. Most of the remainder only edit every few months, just enough to keep from falling into inactivity. That leaves only a few admins to do the majority of the tasks that is the problem now. Too few using the tools and the wrong ones are being promoted. If only the ultraconservative editors can pass, or will even try, then thats what we are going to get. And those are not the ones who are going to participate in CCI at ANI, at AE or in the numerous other areas where help is needed. Not everyone who gets promoted should be and should lose the tools, that's just a fact of life. We shouldn't have the attitude that its better not to promote anyone than to promote a few bad ones. That's why we need to make it easier to get the tools and easier to take them away. But no one wants to hear what I have to say anymore so I'm just going to drop it. If whispered it, I've yelled it and I've typed it. No one cares and no one is willing to take the time or stake their reputations on it to fix the problem. The only way this is going to get fixed is if the RFA process fails to promote for a few months. Otherwise some are going to argue the process works and no effort will be done to fix it. Even then I am dubious that this community can pass any meaningful change. The only point of solidarity in recent history is when we told the WMF that Visual Editor was a mess and needed to be unenabled, even then we had to take matters into our own hands. The community doesn't care about the RFA process and neither does the WMF. Neither of those is likely to change anytime soon. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 19:30, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Another break seems needed

• I didn't speak up on this issue because I'm an outlier who got the tools almost entirely for content work, but I think that was a good piece of advice; lack of substantive content work has been a big issue in several recent RfAs that I've seen. (And the result has in large part hinged on how good a case the candidate has made in response to it.) Adding references to an article is indeed a good way to establish content-creation cred if a person doesn't feel comfortable creating new articles - I do a lot of attempted saving of AfD'd articles, and we could use others who do that, especially since the references usually bring additional information with them. Harder but an excellent demonstration of admin suitability in my mind is to summarize the information when an article has had copyright-violating material added; that way we get to keep the information. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

In which case a slight tweak to Misplaced Pages:Guide_to_requests_for_adminship#What_RfA_contributors_look_for_and_hope_to_see is all that is needed. (we must assume that this, and other RfA guides, are as a minimum, read by all candidates. Although looking at some of the RfA that is evidently not the case). Leaky Caldron 17:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Slightly tweaked, I had thought it was obvious, but in hindsight it wasn't obvious to those who don't add referenced material. Though I agree that not every candidate reads it, but I hope it persuades some to delay until they are likely to pass. ϢereSpielChequers 13:08, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

@Ansh666

You said:

... general voter community there doesn't agree that work in deletion is enough to get the requisite experience. I'd disagree

I'll offer a small, but important distinction. This member of the community doesn't disagree it is possible to gain sufficient experience and adequate knowledge of policy in 3k edits emphasizing deletion work. You think it is possible you have the right skill set. You might be right. But that's not the test. It isn't enough for you to convince yourself that you are ready, you have to demonstrate it to me (or enough editors like). And I am unable to determine that you have an adequate grasp of the policies and an appropriate demeanor in contentious situations if there is so little evidence. But I don't see that as a problem worth solving. It doesn't take long to do some content work (which has the minor side benefit of, well, creating content) so it will take an extraordinary situation (which has happened) for me to support a candidate with little content experience.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:33, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• If anyone would like to do a tweak to 'content' on Misplaced Pages:Advice for RfA candidates (it's the third item on the list), please do so, but I think it OK as it stands. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the advice on content is on point.--S Philbrick(Talk) 01:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I've made some changes. I doubt that a candidate without a GA could get 100% support, but as long as RFA still promotes admins who haven't written a GA or FA we shouldn't advise candidates that they are compulsory. A candidate who does many minor additions that are well referenced can still pass RFA, the content test that makes the difference between passing and failing is whether they understand reliable sourcing. ϢereSpielChequers 04:46, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

@Ansh. I've seen candidates pass who specialise in New Page patrol or in AFD work. These are great venues to demonstrate skills in content creation, knowing which articles are worth rescuing and how to do so is useful. When candidates who work in those areas fail it is usually because they have not yet reached an acceptable level of accuracy to be trusted with the deletion button. Either that or they haven't yet moved on from tagging problems for more experienced editors to fix to actually fixing problems. ϢereSpielChequers 04:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

• If anybody wants to hear my two cents to this, I feel RfA has gotten overly picky. The reason why it was successful in the past is because it was a simple concept on a then, simple encyclopedia, were everyone said adminship is no big deal. As the encyclopedia got bigger, so did the expectations, and that is the problem. Logically, as something gets bigger, more people are needed to maintain it, but the concepts are still the same. Adminship has hardly gone through any changes over the years, so why should expectations? In reality, the tool comes down to trust and general familiarity with the site and it's policies. Will the user abuse the tools? Will he learn from his mistakes? Does he know policy well enough not to make major ones? Everything on this site is reversible, meaning damage can be easily fixed. That's why I'm one to easily support a candidate. Naturally though, that would never happen here. I do have ideas on mind that could possibly accommodate this large encyclopedia but I never felt like proposing it since all the other ideas get shot down in 0.0 seconds. If anybody wants to hear them, I'll be happy to file an RfC for input on them.—cyberpower _Offline 03:47, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I wish it were true that "Everything on this site is reversible, meaning damage can be easily fixed." Unfortunately, there are some things that happen that are not reversible: the harm to an editor from a misconceived block, an excessively bossy or patronising remark from an admin, a user dragged into defending their new articles from dodgy PRODs and AFDs made without prior discussion. Harm to the encyclopedia can be reversed; harrm to editors, especially new ones, less so. --Stfg (talk) 10:48, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

By everything, I meant physically on Misplaced Pages. Bad blocks, WP:BITEy behavior, is per my above statement what should be assessed. Does the candidate know what damage these tools can cause if misused? Does s/he learn from his/her mistake? Is s/he civil? Has s/he demonstrated a trustworthy attitude? Everything else shouldn't be assessed. I see people assessing based on their username, how many articles were written, how many FA's the helped create, the slightest fart about a candidate that was minor being blown out of proportion in a long-winded oppose that makes it sound convincing to others cause "me too" and "per this guy" opposes, causing the RfA to potentially fail. I've seen it happen repeatedly and I feel bad for those candidates. It's a reason why I stopped participating in RfAs, and now likely won't be an admin myself. I have a somewhat controversial history myself, especially with the recent Cyberbot II issue, where my judgement was impaired due to my RL stress. That can easily be blown out of proportion and likely give my a 0% support in an RfA, completely ignoring the fact that I went on a break to destress and come back refreshed. I would like to at some point submit an RfC that I am somewhat hopeful of getting support for, but I won't do it know since RfA since to have turned up more admins recently.—cyberpower _Online 12:34, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree that RfA voters have become more picky, and I would like to see some stats to prove this claim. The one thing that stands out is that most of the voters are highly transient and the pool of regular voters is small. That said, stats will prove that there has been an increase in voter participation over the years, and that 100+ supports are no longer anything getting excited about. With that increase in voters, there is also an increase in the ones who do little or no research, are fans or detractors, or are so new they don't even understand what it's all about. At the end of the day, the bar gets set anew for each RfA depending entirely on who turns out to vote.

Let's not ignore that there are very basically two camps: those who want the bar lowered, and it is safe to assume that among them are possibly some admin hopefuls, and those who would like the highest standards applied in order to prevent the the wrong people from being promoted who may cause the very issues people complain about. Talk of introducing easier methods of desysoping are all well and good, but prevention is probably better than cure. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:57, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmm...Those are very good points. I used to think the bar should be lowered, but I no longer think that's an acceptable solution, as it may cause many other issues. I do have in idea in mind, that may work. It could potentially "fix" RfA a little to help turn out more results and more productivity. Sorry for repeating myself here. It also should address your prevention instead cure statement you made as well. I think I'm going to throw that RfC together now and start it when the time is right.—cyberpower _Online 13:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

than cure. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:57, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Although I have tried to stay out of the conversation the last couple days I disagree voters aren't more picky. That's almost without debate. I don' care what any stats claim voters have absolutely become more picky eventhough we are seeing more people voting they are definately much more reliant on their personal voting standards (must have x edits, must have x FA's, must not have ever been blocked or whateever) most of which are completly meaningless. I do agree there are multiple camps on the admin issue and that I count myself in the former. That isn't due to my desire to be an admin but from the fact that it worked for so long and the fact that the vast majority of the admins we have now were in fact promoted under that old system. So to say now that the old system of trusting our editors didn't work, would be to say that a lot of the current admins don't cut the mustard. Adding to that the fact that most passing RFA's had some opposes and the vast majority of those opposes turned out to be wrong leads me to believe that there is little reason to not trust our long term editors. I do also think though that there are several admins who shouldn't be and we need to make it easier to remove the tools from users, not just make it easier to get the tools. The 2 really need to happen hand in hand. Now back to your reguarly scheduled programming. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 16:52, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I am one of the first to agree that the there are some admins whose use of tools and/or behaviour would not stand up to scrutintiny at our current stabndards for adminship, and that perhaps there is not enough done to bring them to account. I think every admin is capable of making an occasional error of judgement but this needs to be considered in perspective. However, as we all know, such isssues when brought to book are treated mainly on one current problem only, and the community - and Arbcom - is loath to recognise or even discuss long-terms patterns. That's what we need to ,get resolved. I've seen the writing on the wall for at least three admins over the last couple of years, and lo and behold, they finally lost their tools, but in some cases, it took far too long. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:18, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

And I agree. Even as harsh as I am about admin abuses and the RFA process I completely agree that its a minority of a minority that is the problem. The problem is, as you so ably describe, is a lack of action on that minority. This is what causes the general admin corps to be looked upon in disdain and cause people, including me, to badmouth the admins in general. I would also like to think the new Arbcom will be better than the last but I don't see much to make me think that and in fact some of the candidates make me think it will be more of the same or worse if they get elected. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 18:32, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Kudpung, it is absurd for you to claim, as you did above in reference to RfAs, "that there are very basically two camps: those who want the bar lowered... and those who would like the highest standards...". There is perhaps a group of admins wanabees who fall into your first camp, but they are there for self-serving purposes. Likewise, there may be a group of admins who fall into your second camp, because that way they feel they can further secure their positions as admins. But to focus in this way on the RfA process is merely a cosmetic distraction, designed wittingly or unwittingly to deflect attention from the real issues. The real issues involve the purpose of the RfA, not the process. It is deeply disrespectful, Kudpung, for you to so resolutely ignore those of us who are concerned about the real issues, about the dysfunctional structure of the admin system itself. No amount of useless tinkering with the RfA process, such as is going on in this thread, will make the slightest difference to healing the growing divide that now exists between those who build the encyclopedia and those (the admins) whose role should be to facilitate the building of the encyclopedia. --Epipelagic (talk) 18:45, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I can only speak for myself, but I've been able to collaborate quite nicely with admins and non-admins alike on my latest project. Now it happens that on this, even though I'm the main writer I've had to use my admin tools to scrub a few things which really needed to be hidden from public view (years-old junk floating around in archives and such, even if there wasn't a formal policy on respecting privacy I think basic human decency would kick in), but otherwise it's had has had no bearing whatsoever on how the article has developed. I'm normally as involved in contentious issues as anyone, but I had no difficulty separating editor from admin; a few admins have trouble doing that, but they're the exceptions. Treating them as the norm makes it that much more difficult to address the real issue those people present. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:05, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Epipelagic, Over the years, thousands of editors have commented on this talk page. Discounting the ones who have not posted here in the past 12 months, that makes you the #20 most prolific contributor to this talk page. Instead of resorting to PA and basically repeating the same complaints about admis/adminship over and over again, if you feel so strongly about it (which I belive you do, though I don't see what personal axe you have to grind), why don't you do something about it? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:08, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Gosh, are 19 editors currently more active on this page. What can that mean? Should I contribute more? If I have a "personal axe" it is fundamentally that I would like to see content builders treated decently. The better and harder working admins also get a raw deal, having to deal with flak that doesn't really originate with them. If the system worked rationally, users like Ansh above who seems competent and really wants to do deletions, would be allowed to do them instead of being brushed aside and left frustrated. Simple procedures would be in place to monitor his performance and remove his right if he performs badly. There is nothing complicated about this. The admin system is much too much under the control of legacy admins and admin wannabes. The wider community which build Misplaced Pages no longer has a say. As you must know Kudpung, there is very little content editors can do about this. The system has assigned so much power to itself that it now has Misplaced Pages in an iron grip and content editors have no power. "Being an admin is no big deal" is a sick joke, and the system is indulging the wrong people. I am merely pointing to the obvious. The one remaining shard of light is that the right to critique the system has yet to be completely extinguished. An editor can still attempt to articulate the real issues from to time on pages like this one, albeit with difficulty. It is critical this is done, not for the benefit of admins and admin wannabes, but for the benefit of other content editors. Occasionally one of these innocents stumbles on these pages. Unless some less innocent content editors who arrived here earlier can manage to secure small refuges of sanity and clarity on these pages, new innocents will be drowned by admin phantasmagoria about the magnificence of admin splendiferousness and the ghastliness of naughty content editors. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:19, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

The detractors, trolls, and those who finally provoked WP:RFA2011 into submission, were simply shooting the messengers. They missed the vital point that the exercise was all about finding ways to attract more users to adminship of the calibre that you would be happy to work with. Instead of constantly soapboxing, why don't you lead all your downtrodden content builder into battle? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:17, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Battle? Good grief, there's too much dichotomising of admins and content creators as it is, without calling for a battle. Which is it - are the admins doing too much, including conspiring to oppress content creators, or too little (particularly vandal blocking/page protection/editing protected templates)? And which side would I be on? Less of the martial language, please. I really think seeing content creation and adminship as separate poles of activity is a large part of the problem and such metaphors make it worse. Yngvadottir (talk) 13:15, 28 November 2013 (UTC) ... Oh and trolls? <looks around; looks under the sofa for RfA2011 file> Where trolls? --Yngvadottir (talk) 13:17, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move of Misplaced Pages:Not now

Hello everyone. I have just proposed that Misplaced Pages:Not now be moved to the title Misplaced Pages:Adminship is not for beginners. I am also suggesting that we use a new shortcut for the page, and that the existing shortcut, WP:NOTNOW be turned into a soft redirect. I'd be grateful if other editors could comment at the requested move discussion. — Mr. Stradivarius 16:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Be right over. Good one. Irondome (talk) 00:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Restricted mandate

Apologies if this idea has been aired before -- and if it has, will someone please close this thread (and trout me if you like). But just in case it hasn't:

I absolutely hate opposing RFAs unless it's an obvious case (perhaps even then), but feel forced to do so sometimes when there are areas that I wouldn't be comfortable for someone to work, even though in all other aspects I find them competent, polite and trustworthy. I used to believe the solution was unbundling, but I've read the arguments against that and have become convinced that it isn't practical (and that getting consensus for it is a hopeless cause anyway).

The real trouble is that adminship is currently an access-all-areas, perform-all-functions pass (almost), and I don't always feel quite that much trust. But in several RFAs I've opposed for that reason, I would have trusted the candidate to honour an undertaking not to do certain things. So I'd have been happy to support giving the whole toolkit if they would undertake to only use part of it, or to use all of it but not in specified topic areas. This is the notion of a restricted mandate.

A restricted mandate could take a few different forms. For example, an editor might be allowed to use the tools to perform RMs, deletions, etc, but not to carry out user supervision (blocks, unblocks, except perhaps for VOAs). Another editor might be allowed to use all the tools, but not in certain subject areas in which they had strong involvement.

A restricted mandate could be established in various ways. A candidate could propose it himself, for example in the answer to Q1; or a question-for-the-candidate could propose it and the candidate accept in their reply. There are probably other ways, although all of them would have to involve the candidate agreeing to the exact form. A support then simply implies trust that the candidate will keep his word. That isn't always so difficult.

One objection to this idea might be that trust is binary: if we give the toolkit then we trust it to be used acceptably. But I don't think trust is binary, and in fact we already have one form of self-imposed restricted mandate: we don't check an editor's competence with advanced template features before giving a mop: we trust admins who don't have those skills to know themselves and not get out of their depth. This suggestion just extends that idea to other areas, and makes it more explicit. And right off the cuff I can think of at least three RFAs that I've opposed but would have supported under a more restricted mandate. Does anyone else feel the same way? --Stfg (talk) 17:30, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

IMO, Restricted mandate is just another name for unbundling. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:41, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand unbundling to mean technical unbundling, enabling some tools to be given without others. I am trying to put it on a trust basis rather than a technical one. --Stfg (talk) 18:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

For me, this is obviously the right thing to do – a breach of trust in such circumstances would be obvious grounds for summary removal of tools which were granted on that basis.

What would however be important is that candidates entered into such arrangements voluntarily and before discussion of their candidacy. The sort of people who see the tide turning in a discussion and decide to throw a late "how about if I agree not to do this?" are precisely the sort of people I do not want to see as admins. On the other hand, people who want to help in additional ways and simply have no interest in helping out in other ways should not be deterred from doing so because people will – quite rightly under the current system – judge them on their ability to do all the things that adminship allows them to do. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 18:50, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

In the past there have been several RfA from users who have requested adminship for a single or limited purpose. Most, if not all, of these RfA have not been successful because the general consensus of the voters appears to be that they require the candidate to demonstrate sufficient maturity, competency, and knowledge to use all the tools that are put at admins' disposal. Once elected, there are also other tasks and judgements that are generally expected to be carried out by admins which although they do not require the use of physical tools, they require the community's trust. Trust, which is not physically definable, is a major part of the electoral process.

There was a time (generally assumed to be pre-2007) when adminship appeared to be somewhat easier to obtain. The Misplaced Pages has grown considerably since, voter turnout at RfA has increased, and thus consensus to pass or fail a candidate is stronger. In spite of today's requirements being apparently higher, some post-2007 admins do get desysoped which may prove that either the RfA system is still flawed or that there are insufficient mechanisms available for desysoping in cases of abuse of the tools or patterns of poor judgement.

While some RfC for changes to the electoral system and other elements of adminship have failed, some ideas which may have gained consensus from the community have not yet been proposed. A change was enacted this year to allow the creation of an 'unbundled' right for certain users to edit fully protected templates but such changes are rare.

Over the past 2 months I have seen more objective discussion on this talk page for changes than I have seen over the past 3 years. Perhaps it is time now to be bold and propose some of those ideas to the community in the form of official RfCs. RfC are usually proposed by an editor or editors who favour the desired outcome, but this does not have to be the case - the main objective is to provide the broader community with an opportunity to discuss proposals, express their opinions, and reach a consensus for or against. WP:DESYSOP and WP:DES may provide some useful background on the possible implications of allowing a Restricted Mandate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:34, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion first step needs to be finding some kind of consensus what is the actual main problem currently with RFA. Like in my opinion adminship is simply "too big deal" due various factors (for life, desysop requires arbcom, includes blocking and deleting tool). Some others probably think that issue is directly in current RFA procedure itself or something else. After you have identified main source of problem you can start thinking what are best options to fix it.--Staberinde (talk) 16:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The flaws in the electoral system were pretty well identified, supported by stats, and heavily discussed at WP:RFA2011. It may be that the process has become somewhat less intimidating over the past few months, but RfAs have become too few and far between to really demonstrate such a change. There are always going to be some who say "This and that candidate should have passed", (what we don't hear often is "This or that candidate should have failed"). At the end of the day however, except in the case of rare close calls, it's the community who decides, whether or not the voters were truly objective, so apart from the discretionary area, it's still based very much on a vote count. As I've stated several times already, there have been some ideas suggested over the past two months or so - all it needs is for someone to go ahead and propose them to the community through an RfC and see what happens. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Kudpung, you have ignored what Staberinde said just before your comment and focused yet again merely on the mechanics of the RfA process. The wider issues concern the way the RfA process is used to distribute power and privilege on Misplaced Pages. The discussion at WP:RFA2011 was heavily censored. The more important issues, those not confined merely to the mechanics of the RfA process, were rigorously removed from the conversation. You also appear to be repeating the myth that the results of the RfA process represent some sort of community will, rather than an outcome ultimately controlled by a coalition of legacy admins and admin wannabes. --Epipelagic (talk) 18:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Ignoring your inaccurate and disparaging claims about the enormous effort that went into RFA2011 (and the efforts to keep the trolling and personal attacks under control - which I presume you are referring to as 'censorship'), as I've stated several times already, there have been some ideas suggested over the past two months or so - all it needs is for someone to go ahead and propose them to the community through an RfC and see what happens. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:08, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I claimed only that the issues discussed in the RFA2011 were confined to "the mechanics of the RfA process". You say that claim is "inaccurate and disparaging". How? And are you really referring to the attempts in the RFA2011 to give voice to real issues as "trolling and personal attacks"? It is a very unpleasant experience to be sidelined and muzzled in that manner. I agree I got irritated and flippant in response, but I did not realize back then how severely entrenched the admin issues are. The ideas you refer to have been around for some years, not months. We don't have to see what would happen in another RfC. We already know. Nothing will happen unless it further entrenches admin powers. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:05, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It's "unbundling" of thee type that is actually needed (by types of functions performed) but not by the common meaning of the term (splitting the technical tools). We need to actually do this. It should be recognized that current admins have a COI when discussing such a split. North8000 (talk) 19:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

So why not go ahead and start an RfC to propose something? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:14, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, see next section. North8000 (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

The only way to get an RFC to actually go somewhere & effect change

We need to have a group of people work out a really good proposal, and all agree that they are going to actively support the result of their work, even if it is not exactly what they wantedThe the RFC needs to be strctured so that the status quo is presented as one of the two choices. North8000 (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It would be a mistake to restrict this to two choices, but worse is the "all agree that they are going to actively support the result of their work, even if it is not exactly what they wanted". Collective responsibility is not a good system and has dire implications here. Like Politicians the people coming out of this would not necessarily be supporting something they agreed with, but supporting something because they'd agreed to support the majority in their working party. You then risk having a policy implemnented despite majority opposition, with the majority split between those who opposed in the working party and those who opposed afterwards. This is not a good way to get a good decision. ϢereSpielChequers 18:33, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm the most cautious of anybody regarding new policies. There could be lots of choices if it's handled right ( = everybody weigh in on every choice). But homework needs to get done before going to an RFC. A large RFC never creates anything, the best it can do is decide. North8000 (talk) 18:48, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

North's proposal (merely an outline) Analysis & solution to fixing the RFA and admin cadre issues

With the RFA process broken down, right now the main criteria for who is in the admin cadre is "got in back when it was easy". And the second criteria for new ones is "kept their head low" / having avoided contentious situations. Impacts have already been felt and will get worse. The other problem is a complete blending of:

• Type #1"no big deal" tool belt functions with
• Type #2 other "big deal" "judge" type immense powers given to these folks (such as being able to sanction established individual editors, close complex and contentious discussions). This is conferred also by policies and practices, not just by software definitions of the tool belt.

Solution: 30,000' view

Many of the problems stem from "bundling" these two things together. On the cadre side, folks meeting the low "no big deal" bar back then have been given immense powers with really no basis. Some that are not suitable for this task have done significant harm to editors. Conversely, the "immense powers" has supported the RFA process being immensely restrictive, albeit in a way that misses the mark. A thorough analysis makes the solution (at least in general terms) clear:

• Split the role. But the needed split is NOT by software defined tools, it is between Type #1 and Type #2 above.
• Type #1 needs a lower threshold to get in. Type #2 needs a high but more "on target" threshold to get in.

Solution: 20,000' view including implementation

Phase 1

• Define the qualities needed for Type #2 (beyond the Type #1 qualities which are also required) Define the situations that will require a person with these individual qualities. These may include things like wisdom, kindness, fairness, thoroughness (when needed), a decision-making process which includes first learning and confirming everything that is relevant and then a very sound decision making process, self control in that they never do anything really bad, extensive knowledge of policies and key guidelines, and of how how they are applied in practice, Design a framework for the RFA Type 2 process that will guide the discussions and voting to be more around the desired qualities (including history etc. to build the case that they have those qualities. Compared to the current process, these will remain just as tough but more on-target.
• Decide on details to lower the threshold for Type #1, and make it more targeted on the qualities needed. The two main qualities are competency and trust that they will not use the technical capabilities of the toolbelt to do harm. Design a framework for the RFA Type 1 process that will guide the discussions and voting to be more around the desired qualities.
• Write policies and guidelines covering the above, to take effect after a 1 year delay.
• Give better names to Type 1 & 2. Example: Type #1 = administrator, Type #2 = Yoda.

Phase 2

Announce that exactly 1 year from then, all current admin positions (that have not been transitioned to type #2) will become type #1. For the one year period, Type#1 RFA continues with the current process, possibly with stopgap refinements to be more "on target". The Type #2 RFA process starts rolling, and non-admins who pass this receive the Type #2 status plus receive the tool belt (if they don't have it already)

Phase 3

At the one year point, implement the remainder of the above, including the looser standards for Type #1, and requirement that only Type #2 folks can do type #2 jobs.

COI note

It should be noted that since current admins would lose and need to "re-apply" for a few powers that they already have, they have an inherent high risk of COI regarding this new idea and such should be declared and taken into account in any discussions.

Pre RfA Feedback Page

This conversation is taking place at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals)#Pre RfA Feedback Page. I have included my proposal bellow. Do not reply here. Oddbodz - (Talk) (Contribs) 14:11, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

As we are all aware, there is a problem with the current RfA system. Two major issues I've noticed are: