User:Royalbroil/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: unknown

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: Make a non-binding suggestion infobox so that candidates understand that less than 3000 edits, maybe 4+ months of broad-based experiences is doomed to fail. Otherwise make low minimum requirements before listing an RFA because the community already has minimum criteria in mind.

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: A firm limit of 2 co-nominations should be written in the requirements. Other potential nominees can use the Strong Support route - I've done it.

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: First of all, ban off-topic questions like one that appeared in my RFA: "If you saw another editor who looked suicidal". Even though I actually had an experience like this and the question worked in my favor, I don't think it belonged. I think that the culture of Wikipedia should cause people to not ask so many question, but is not reality. I don't have a good constructive response to the question.

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: Trick questions about guideline and policies should continue to be allowed as long as they require the candidate to say the policy back in their own words. Basic policy and guidelines need to be understood by the candidate (even if that means that need to review the policy).

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: No response - I wish I knew.

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: The current method is a much better way to deal with the process than discussion or a hybrid. The number counting gives an undisputed (usually) way to determine the outcoming instead of something gray. I know the current way leads to a popularity contest, but admins need the support of the majority of the community.

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: Leave the 'crat level of activity the way it is right now - nothing's broken. They have the discretion to determine if there's puppetry going one.

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: I support limited advertising - allow a standard infobox message could be posted on the user's userpage and/or talk page, but no canvassing on the user's WikiProjects and other projects. A standard infobox message will inform anyone who looks at their userpage, from fellow WikiProject members to the vandals that they have offended, so there's net positives and negatives with this standard infobox.

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 don't like admin coaching. If such a thing would be allowed to exist, it should focus on how to make the person more well-rounded so that they experience to handle admin tasks.

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: A more in-depth new admin coaching program would be VERY beneficial. I didn't know what the boundaries and precedents were when I became an admin, so I had to slowly feel my way. Having an experienced admin to coach on what to do in specific scenarios to complement the new admin school to learn the mechanics would be a very helpful program.

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 don't see the current system as flawed. Do exactly what it does now: allow an established contributor to open up a request for comment on the user and let community consensus determine if they should be deadmined or banned as appropriate, like what happened in the User:Archtransit situation.

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: Mandatory processes in open recall are a bad idea. By nature, admins have to deal in controversial areas. Some people are offended by these actions. Admins should not be forced to undergo a scheduled mandatory reconfirmation or recall - these should be done on an as-needed basis.

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: Abolish the recall process and only allow an admin to be recalled when there's a problem as I indicated at D1, and then it should require numerous (5?) well-established editors to nominate and then community consensus to do the actual recall.

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: Horrible idea. No reconfirmation should be needed, except in cases when an admin is recalled by a group of well-established contributors. Then a RFC should be enacted with a binding straw poll. For a reconfirmation to fail, there needs to be a supermajority opposing the reconfirmee, with percentages similar to current standards (around 75% opposition).

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: Have a "So you think you should be an admin" essay, and have nominees read it. In there, comment about what the community expects to see in nominees - many months of activity, thousands of edits, well-rounded in xFD/article building/etc., trust of the community, competence, communication skills, etc. Advise them that if their RFA does fail that they need to spend several several months addressing these issues before running again. Tell them that there's no shame in failing and that plenty of well-known administrators/'crats failed on their first RFA.

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: Not everyone should be an admin, no matter how long they help. Some people just don't have the personality for it. It's too bad that so many people view adminship as a trophy, but it's true that people do view it that way. I like how the current system is structured. There's a single public place so everyone can find it. The bad parts are some of the bad questions, but most questions are good. The recall is another bad part. If someone answers that they are not open to recall, it makes them look like they're power hungry.

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 23:06 on 22 September 2008.