User:Nsk92/RfA review Recommend Phase

Welcome to the Recommendation phase of RfA Review. In this phase, you will be asked to offer suggestions and proposals to address specific concerns and problems with the current Requests for Adminship process.

The questions below are taken directly from the 209 responses from the Question phase, each of which offered editors' thoughts and concerns about RfA. Based on those concerns, we identified the most frequently mentioned problems and included them here. These are the elements of RfA that are currently under review.

Please take your time and read through the concerns below. For each item, you are invited to offer a proposal that addresses the concern. Where possible, you are encouraged to provide examples, references, diffs and so on in order to support your viewpoint. There isn't a limit on the scope of your proposals; the sky is the limit, here. The intent of this phase is to get ideas, not necessarily to write policy - recommendations that gain traction and community support will be refined during later phases.

Most importantly, Answer as few or as many questions as you wish. All responses are evaluated, so any information you provide is helpful.

If you prefer, you can submit your responses anonymously by emailing them to User:Ultraexactzz. Anonymous responses will be posted as subpages with the contributor's details removed. If you have any questions, please use the project talk page at Wikipedia talk:RfA Review.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. We stress that editors who didn't participate in the question phase are encouraged to participate now - more responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results.

Once again, thank you for taking part!

Questions

Selection and Nomination

A1. Editors note that the RfA process can be daunting to prospective administrators, and that the process itself may discourage otherwise qualified candidates from seeking adminship. How can this "Selection Bias" be countered?

• Response: I think the real problem is that many candidates submit RfA requests while unprepared for what it involves and while unfamiliar with both the typical expectations and the typical issues that can be raised there. I would recommend several things to address this issue:
• Encourage admin coaching (which, nontheless, should remain voluntary and non-obligatory)
• Make a pre-screening and a pre-RfA consultation with a bureaucrat mandatory. This will flush out obviously unqualified cases and address question A2 below and also provide valuable "third opinion" for the rest, which would be helpful and informative even for experienced editors (and even editors with a nominator, since friends can sometimes have a bit of a blind spot). A crat doing such pre-RfA consultation would be able to point out potential "standard" issues that are typically raised in RfAs: sufficient record of both mainspace and projectspace contributions, sufficient XfD, ANI etc participation, recent blocks, disclosure of past problems, not answering the first 3 RfA questions, etc. In some cases a candidate will rethink and decide to postpone their RfA, in some cases they will decide to proceed but, in any event, they will have been prepared to face certain standard RfA issues. It should be made clear that a crat consultation is just that, a consultation.
• Make the pre-screening crat do the actual transclusion of an RfA. This will go some way toward addressing question A2 and avoid embarrassing technical transclusion mistakes that RfA candidates do sometimes and are blamed for in RfA itself. Also, I think that it is the transclusion part that many RfA candidates find fairly daunting and intimidating. Nevertheless, it should be made clear that a prescreening crat has a very limited authority to deny transclusion and may only do so for obviously unqualified cases (question A2) or if some formal prerequisites (if they are instituted) are not satisfied.
• I am a little less sure about this, but I think it is a good idea to institute formal minimal requirements for both RfA candidates and RfA voters. This will cut down on obviously unqualified RfA candidates and go some way towards addressing the problem raised in question A2 and will also cut down on trolling, socking or simply obviously inappropriate votes that sometimes happens with very new accounts voting in RfAs. E.g. something like:
  • At least 3 months of a named WP account and at least 3000 edits total for RfA candidates.
  • At least 3 weeks of a named WP account and at least 500 edits total for RfA voters.

A2. Editors expressed concern over unprepared or unqualified candidates at RfA, noting that their candidacies result in NOTNOW and SNOW closures that can be discouraging. In lieu of minimum requirements for adminship, how can prospective candidates be educated about RfA and the community's expectations of its administrators?

• Response: Several items that I suggested in answer to question A1 can be used to address this: mandatory pre-RfA consultation with a crat, having a crat do the transclusion, and instituting minimal requirements (in terms of account age and the number of edits) for both RfA candidates and RfA voters. Let me, however, repeat what I said there: it should be made clear that a prescreening crat has a very limited authority to deny transclusion and may only do so for obviously unqualified cases or if some formal prerequisites (if they are instituted) are not satisfied.

A3. 44 editors expressed concern over excessive co-nominations. Some of these editors advocated a limit on co-nominations, perhaps capping them at one or two per candidate; others recommended asking prospective co-nominators to post a Strong Support in lieu of an actual nomination statement. How can the concern over Co-nominations be addressed?

• Response: I don't have strong feelings either way here but I think that limiting the number of conoms to 2 or 3 is reasonable. I should say, however, that I have not seen a large number of co-noms having been a problem. One very rarely sees an RfA with more than 2 co-noms.

The RfA Debate (Questions, Election, Canvassing)

B1. 60 editors expressed concern over the number of questions asked of candidates, and indicated that questions should be limited in number. How can this be accomplished? What limits could be fairly imposed? Are there alternative means for the candidate to provide information about themselves without the prompting of questions?

• Response: I think that artificially limiting the number of questions is a very bad idea. If such a limit is instituted, it will be very easy to abuse or misuse it by friends/opponents of a candidate asking a lot of questions first and precluding others from adding more questions. Experience shows that the number of questions rarely raises above 15 and if it does, there is usually a good reason for it (e.g. some issues coming up late in the RfA debate). If too many questions or too frivolous questions are asked, this can be pointed out in the discussion section and, in any event, the candidate is not obligated to answer questions. I view RfA questions as absolutely crucial part of the RfA process as they often bring to light significant shortcomings in understanding of basic policies and guidelines. I would be very strongly opposed to any attempt to artificially cap the number of RfA questions.

B2. Editors expressed concern over the content of questions, with 43 editors disapproving of "Trick questions", 8 disapproving of questions that require only a quotation from policy to answer, and 54 favoring questions that relate directly to the candidate and their experiences, contributions, conflicts, etc. How should the scope of possible questions be determined? Conversely, how would the decision to remove bad-faith or problematic questions be made, and by whom? What subjects should be specifically off-limits, and why?

• Response: While I share some of these concerns, any possible cure here is very likely to be much worse than the desease. It is a highly subjective matter what is or is not a "trick" question and what exactly is or is not appropriate. Who is going to decide what is a "trick" question and how? It is really impossible to give a reasonable definition of a "trick question" that most people would agree with in practice. Removing such questions is only going to generate drama, cries of unfairness, favoritism, etc. I have been observing the RfA process for some time and in my observations the current system of RfA questions by and large functions fine and should be left intact. There are only a few instance where I have seen obviously inappropriate questions being asked and they are usually quickly challenged by other editors. I think only a crat should be allowed to remove an RfA question. There is one area where I do believe that a formal bar for RfA questions is necessary: I think that any questions directly asking about any kind of RL personal information should be prohibited on privacy grounds. I would include in this category any questions regarding age, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, political affiliation etc. Such questions should be off-limits and should be removed by a crat. Also, of course, any questions violating existing WP policies, e.g. questions containing obvious personal attacks and gross incivility, should be removed by a crat as well. However, everything else should stay.

B3. Editors note that RfA is seen as a negative process, with issues such as badgering of opposes, personal attacks, and a general lack of civility being prominent concerns. How can the RfA process be changed to address these concerns?

• Response: Some of it is true but it is hard to fix such things and often a cure can be worse than the desease. The biggest drawback I have seen in the current RfA process is that sometimes, especially with relatively new (about 5-7 months of WP editing) editors come to the RfA process unprepared for what it entails, and are so put of by the (necessary) scrutiny they receive that they afterwards leave the project altogether. That is indeed very deplorable. I think that instituting a mandatory pre-RfA consultation with a bureaucrat and encouraging more admin coaching would go some way towards solving this problem. In terms of incivility, in my observations it usually happens when there is overly agressive questioning of the oppose votes by the supporters of a candidate. Such overly agressive questining of the oppose votes is indeed a problem and it can easily deteriorate in incivility (from both sides), overly heated discussions etc. I think that overly agressive questioning of the oppose votes should be explicitly discouraged and people should be asked to direct their complaints, suspicions of canvassing, sockpuppetry, etc, to bureaucrats, rather than post them directly below the RfA votes themselves. The crats need to play a more active role in the RfA process and ask people to cool down if necessary. I also think that the supporters/opposers of the candidate should not be allowed to initiate massive checkuser requests on the other side themselves and leave dealing with suspected sockpuppetry and canvassing to crats.

B4. The very nature of the RfA process was disputed. Some editors desire rationales with every vote, and favor a more discussion and consensus-based process similar to other processes on the English wikipedia. Other editors desire a more vote-based election, where the raw numbers of supports and opposes are the critical factor. Is there one of these methods that would provide a clearer consensus on the community's view of a candidate? Or, alternatively, is a hybrid of the two preferable, and how should that be structured?

• Response: My personal opinion that ultimately a straight vote count is the best approach and that RfA should be treated essentially as an election. RfAs are different from AfDs and other content-related decisions on WP, where policy-based consensus is operative. An admin position is earned rather than AFG-ed and RfA vote is an expression of personal trust or mistrust of a candidate by community members to hold a position of authority, so an election approach is most appropriate. I would not require a detailed rationale from either opposers or supporters. If an opposer votes oppose without explanation or with an unconvincing reason, such a vote will not generate more oppose votes so in the end it will be self-discounting. If an oppose vote offers a serious rationale and raises specific serious problems, others will pay more attention to it and more oppose votes will be generated as a result. So ultimately the numbers tell a fairly convincing story. I would not require a detailed (in fact any) rationale from the support votes either.

B5. The amount of discretion held by Bureaucrats to remove or discount problem votes was also discussed, with some editors favoring increased discretion for Bureaucrats. 25 editors also favored a detailed closing rationale from Bureaucrats, detailing the specific factors that resulted in the candidate being successful (or not successful). What changes to the RfA process or format could clarify community consensus on this issue? Should Bureaucrats take a more active role in managing (or clerking) ongoing RfAs?

• Response: I am against giving the crats greater power in discounting or removing votes. It can and should be done in case of ineligible votes, gross incivility and personal attacks, sockpuppetry, etc, but not in other cases. I explained above that in my view an election-type approach is best here. A vote with poor/no rationale is a already self-discounting in that it does not generate significant follow-up votes. A well-argued vote does generate more follow-up votes and, in practice, counts more because of this anyway. So it is really mostly unnecessary for the crats to insert their own discretion here. I do not feel that a detailed closing statement by a crat is all that necessary, except maybe in borderline cases.

B6. 68 editors noted that a limited form of Canvassing or advertising would be acceptable, if such canvassing was done on-site and in a neutral fashion. How could a candidate advertise the fact that he or she is a candidate for adminship, while being completely neutral in the audience to which he or she advertises?

• Response: In general, I am strongly opposed to institutialising canvassing. There is too much potential for abuse here and the possible benefits are far outweighed by the adverse consequences. I do think that an RfA process would benefit from regular participation by a greater number of users, since this would smooth out various random effects and statistical fluctuations. However, the situation where certain RfAs attract an unusually large number of voters who do not regularly participate in the RfA process is more likely to lead to negative results and a mass circus/spectacle like atmosphere, as some relatively recent examples show. The only form of canvassing I would look favorably to is this: post an RfA counter for ongoing RfAs (of the type that we have at the top of Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship) in a few high-traffic areas, such as AN, AN/I and the Village Pump. I also think it is perfectly OK for the candidate to post a note at their own talk page and user page that they are being considered for adminship. Anything beyond that should be off-limits. I have an especially dim view of any kind of off-wiki form of canvassing (either for or against candidate), such as via e-mail, IRC and so on. I am also against posting notices of RfAs for particular candidates at specific wikiprojects they work in. It is fairly easy to abuse something like this by formally enrolling in a large number of wikiprojects. Also, we have wikiprojects for just about everything including stuff like Wikipedia:WikiProject Theme songs and Wikipedia:WikiProject Warhammer 40,000. In many cases notifying a wikiproject of your RfA will be the same as letting all you buddies know about it. Not a good idea in my opinion.

Training and Education

C1. Though 73 editors responded favorably to the Admin Coaching programme, 39 were critical of the process for "Teaching for the test", or for being an RfA preparation programme rather than an Adminship preparation programme. In what ways could Admin Coaching be improved to focus more on adminship itself?

• Response: I view admin coaching as valuable process and think that greater use of it should be encouraged. In this case "teaching to the test" is a good thing. Admin coaching actually makes people think about what it means to be an admin and why they want it before an RfA and prepares people for the psychological challenge than the scrutiny of an RfA invariably presents. I also think that people who have gone through admin coaching are better prepared to begin their admin job once their RfA is approved.

C2. In evaluating New Admin School, some editors noted that a Mentorship element would be of great benefit to newly minted administrators - something that Admin Coaching provides in a direct one-on-one coach-coachee team. Similarly, 15 editors characterized Admin Coaching, a primarily pre-adminship process, as being invaluable after the RfA, which is traditionally when New Admin School is used for training. Are there areas where the two processes overlap, and can be made more complimentary? Are there common themes or elements that could be shared between the two processes, in order to improve the effectiveness of both?

• Response: Don't know much about this, but, certainly, some form of initial mentoring for newly approved admins would be helpful.

Adminship (Removal of)

D1. Editors noted that the current voluntary Admins open to Recall process is redundant to Dispute Resolution process such as Requests for Comment and Arbitration. In the absence of Recall (i.e. if it were removed altogether), how could existing processes be adapted to more effectively deal with issues of administrator abuse?

• Response: I think that an RfC is a fine form of vetting out problems in case of admin abuse. (See more in the answer to question D2)

D2. Editors cited the voluntary nature of the Admins open to Recall process as problematic, and 40 went as far as to recommend a mandatory process for all administrators, either as a mandatory form of Admins open to Recall, or a more formal version of the process administered by Bureaucrats. As a separate process from WP:DR, how could the current recall process be standardized for use as a mandatory process? Who would be responsible for such a process?

• Response: As a general matter I have a dim view of a the idea of recall. Once elected, admins are expected and required to deal with all sorts of difficult situations, conflicts, disputes etc. They should be allowed to do their job without having to constantly be in an election campaign mode and without the threat of constant distractions in the form of recall votes. It should be really hard to remove an approved admin from office. There are two things that I would consider acceptable:
  • Setting a specified limited term of service as an admin (say 2 or 3 years), at the end of which another RfA would be automatically required if the user wanted to remain an admin. This would allow admins to do their job without the possibility of constant distractions by recall votes and, at the same time, provide a strong moderating and accountability factor for their actions.
  • Instituting an impeachment-type procedure in case of serious abuse of admin power. I think that this process should be run by bureaucrats and perhaps involve some sort of a vote among the beraucrats themselves.

D3. 44 editors criticized the recall process for being too open to abuse, both through spurious or bad-faith calls for an admin to be recalled, or through administrators who fail to follow through on a commitment to stand for recall. How can the recall process be amended to address these concerns?

• Response: Basically, I agree for reasons stated above in the answer to D2. Recall (as an election-type on-demand vote by WP users) is a bad idea and we should look for other control and accountability mechanisms, such as term limits or maybe an impeachment process administered by the bureaucrats.

D4. Some editors recommended that administrators be required to stand for some form of reconfirmation after a given period of time. How would such reconfirmation be structured? How long would an admin have before such reconfirmation would be required? Could such reconfirmation be triggered by an effort to recall an admin, and how would that be handled? What form would such reconfirmation take (RfA, Straw Poll, etc)?

• Response: As noted above, I think it is a reasonable idea and would introduce a reasonable form of accountability without being unnecessarily distracting, arbitrary and disruptive to the performance of admin's duties. I think that setting a particular term of service for an admin (say 2 or 3 years) at the end of which another RfA would be required, is a reasonable approach. No, I do not believe that such reconfirmation votes should triggered by any sort of recall efforts or RfCs. They should simply occur automatically, in the form of a new RfA, at the end of the specified term of service 9assuming the user in question still wants to be an admin). Since admins, by the nature of their work will certainly have been involved in dealing with serious conflicts and disputes, it may be appropriate to set the bar for passing a reconfirmation RfA lower than it is for the initial RfA, say 60-65% rather than 75%.

Overall Process

E1. The earliest version of the RfA policy states that adminship is granted to "anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community." Current policy leaves the definition of a "trusted editor" to the community. Editors offered a wide range of basic characteristics desirable of administrators, including Trustworthiness, competence, and communication skills. How could the RfA process be amended to either A) more fully ensure that editors selected as admins do indeed have the full trust of the community, or B) more fully fit the community's expectations for administrators?

• Response: The current wording of Wikipedia:Administrators policy seems fine to me. Trust is demonstrated by the community members voting in RfA and that is why the current process does. A greater degree of regular participation in RfAs by community members is desirable, but apart from that I don't see that anything else needs to be done regarding part A) of the question. Perhaps a somewhat better form of publicizing the RfA process, such as posting RfA counters for active RfAs at the top of AN, AN/I, Village Pump and a few other high traffic areas, would be in order. Regarding part B), greater preparation (in particular in the form of pre-screening of RfA candidates by a crat and a pre-RfA consultation with a crat) would certainly help in making sure that RfA candidates better understand the community expectations and are aware of the standard issues that are raised in RfAs (article-writing experience, projectspace and AfD participation, etc).

E2. Editors expressed concern over the format of the Requests for Adminship process. Some suggested that RfA has become a form of high-impact editor review, while others expressed concern over the view of Adminship itself as a goal or "trophy" that all editors should attain after a certain period of time. In taking the RfA process as a whole, what elements work well? What elements should be removed or amended?

• Response: Despite various gripes (and I do have a few pet peeves regarding the RfA process myself), I actually think that the current RfA system is working fine, at least it terms of its formal outcome. By and large, people who deserve to get approved do get approved and people who should be rejected get rejected. Moreover, it is good that people get 2-nd and 3-d chances and are given an opportunity to improve; on the whole I find that, except for fairly drastic cases, the community is fairly forgiving of past problems if enough time has passed and no significant new problems occurred. The current process does get it mostly right. Looking at the RfA closed in the last 2 months I see only a few where I moderately disagree with the outcome and no cases where I would strongly disagree with the outcome. RfA is a pain and in some ways it is like going to a dentist: painful but necessary. There is only so much that we can do to make it more pleasant. As noted above, I think the most serious drawback is that sometimes good editors get so turned off by their RfA experience that they leave the project altogether. In my observations, this usually happens due to lack of experience, lack of preparation for an RfA. Some modest changes like a pre-RfA consultation with a crat and encouraging more admin coaching would go a long way towards rectifying this problem.

Once you're finished...

Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process.

Your responses will be added to Category:Wikipedian Recommendations to RfA Review, which will be used to review the responses after this phase is concluded.

Footnote

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 00:37 on 23 September 2008.