User:Useight/RFA Subjects/Piling on

Avoiding Pile-ons (Archive 31)

I suggest we add a statement to RFA policy: "Please refrain from voting oppose on nominations that are clearly failing". I think we can avoid a lot of bad blood that way. Thoughts? Borisblue 13:20, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I like it. My only concern is that a nomination can be "clearly failing" one minute and can turn around the next - if a nominee has, say, 4 support and 5 oppose votes, they are clearly failing; but if a dozen people turn up to vote support over the next hour, then the candidate is headed to success. In the meantime, people who would have opposed, and may have supplied relevant information as to why the candidate in question is unsuited for an adminship, will have held their tongues (and may not revisit the candidacy to see if it takes off). If we add such a statement, perhaps we should qualify what constitutes a failing candidacy. -- BD2412 ^talk 14:23, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd prefer that nominations that are clearly failing be removed by a bureaucrat. If a nomination is still active, all users should be able to vote on it, whether they're choosing to support or oppose. Limiting one side of the vote doesn't make sense to me. Carbonite | Talk 14:32, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Why not just end an Rfa if more than a certain number of legitimate oppose votes are registered? I haven't check back through, but I doubt that any nom with more than 10 oppose votes has ever succeeded no matter the number of support votes....Fawcett5 14:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, apart from Fvw's comment below, that would turn the process from consensus into consensus, providing that fewer than n people oppose. That would be a major policy change. --GraemeL ^(talk) 15:01, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Looking at User:Zzyzx11/RFA nomination records, 5 of the 39 listed top most active nominations had more than 10 oppose votes. --Durin 16:45, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to toot my own horn here, but I received 13 oppose votes (most of which were stronger endorsements than the support votes, but you can't count that). --fvw * 14:54, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Some recent experience would indicate that the occasional candidate for adminship fails to understand what consensus means. Given this possibility, I am now inclined to think that letting all RfAs run their full course int the interest of transparency is, on balance, the best practice, despite the possibility of hurt feelings. Filiocht | The kettle's on 15:10, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Yup, I agree. I do think we should be encouraging those whose RfA is failing to withdraw early, and make it as easy and non-humiliating as possible to do so. --fvw * 15:19, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I think rules such as this get in the way of discussion, which is what this process should be about. I think a better rule might be that people should only vote in pile-ons, and cake-walks for that matter, if they have a comment to make which may be of value to the candidate in terms of improving their editing in the future. (To be honest I think all votes should be accompanied by some sort of reasoning, but there you go.) Rje 16:32, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I personally do not feel an RfA that is going poorly should be closed out and removed from the active RfA list. Only nominations made in bad faith should be treated in this manner. My rationale for this is that while a pile-on might offend a user, a person who would most likely make a good candidate in the future would use the failed admin nomination as a reference point on how they could improve themselves to become great admin material. If the nomination is closed prematurely, there may be additional items of concern that might not be addressed the next time a person comes up for nomination. From what I've seen, the nominees who get offended at oppose votes would not make good admin material anyways. For those that it does not offend, the full RfA on the nominee is a potentially very useful training tool. --Durin 16:52, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Whoa, this discussion has gone waaay off topic. The reason I made my suggestion in the first place is to avoid pile ons. One example would be Empty2005's nom now. I don't see any reason why ANYONE would vote oppose now. I'm sure those who did had good intentions, but adding an oppose vote would just hurt Empty's feelings. So I say we state in the "guidelines" that we strongly discourage people from piling on oppose votes in nominations that are clearly going to fail. Whether or not we should remove them early is a discussion for another day.

I really don't understand the occurence of late of suggestions to constrain the RfA procedure. As it stands, it works and pretty damn well most of the time. This is because it is unconstrained and we don't need to pretend our way around it. If an editor wants to withdraw their RfA, they are able to do so by clicking the edit button, just like anyone else. If they don't want to, there is no reason to suppose that adding constraints to the process will be particularly help. -Splash^talk 17:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't suggest a constraint... what I'm saying is a firm reminder that Admin candidates are people, and people can get their feelings hurt by oppose votes being piled on them. In the interest of civility, I say it's simply good wikiquette to refrain from casting an oppose vote once the nom is dead. And yes, people have been hurt by this process- perfectly good editors have left wikipedia simply because they had an admin nom piled on with oppose votes. Borisblue 17:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

An example would be User:Rl Borisblue 17:39, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Oppose; nominating for adminship means you agree to be judged, positively or negatively by the community. If you cannot take criticism, simply don't nominate.

Poor user:Luckyluke (Archive 44)

Since his RfA is already going to fail, and between my list of recommendations and the others, enough has been said, why do we need more "oppose per above" votes? I ask that when you see this happen, either be the one to make a long to-do list or if it is already there, then just don't vote. He knows the reasons, he doesn't need a 2/30 oppose vote.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 20:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but how would we make sure all voters know that. I know that I use section editing when I vote. Doing that, such a message could easily be missed. And you'd also have to deal with people who do that before failure is nearly certain, perhaps by misunderstanding or because that user has a grudge against the nominee. Guidelines should be set. And that still doesn't fix the notification problem beformentioned. -- §Hurricane ERIC § archive -- my dropsonde 07:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I think there are probably two ways of sorting this out: either come to a policy decision to close obvious losses early, or for one of us to leave a message on the respective user's talk page suggesting poilitely that they might wish to withdraw before it gets too bad. Saying that RfA isn't supposed to be a popularity contest and users should understand before the accept a nomination that this could happen. -- Francs 2000

18:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

It isn't always necessary to go through an elaborate procedure. Usually this is a matter of bureaucrat discretion. Alerted to the situation by the above, I removed the nomination, as 2-19 was clearly failing and leaving it just piling on. I would discourage other users from making such a decision without a direct request from the nominee since it is a good way to begin needless RfA wars. -- Cecropia 18:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you can remove it. But my issue is less formal: don't "pile-on", let it conclude into failure as is. If 5 people say "not enough edits" and 14 oppose for simalar reasons, why say "oppose. per above" or "oppose. not enough edits"? What does that add? It just makes the candicacy look incredibly pathetic for no gain.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 19:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Alas, 'tis human nature I fear. How many expressions do we have for it? "Don't kick a man when he's down," "Don't whip a dead horse," But some people get a charge out of it anyway. Or perhaps everyone feels they must "get their licks in." Not many at Wikipedia, it sometimes seems, have much patience for religious philosophy, but it might be well, every now and then to consider whether "we do unto others as we would have them do unto us." -- Cecropia 20:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I gave one of the last helpful votes, making a good list of things to do and telling him to apply later, I did that to try to stop a pile-on. It didn't work...Voice of All^T|@|ESP 22:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Why do people find the need to pile on? (Archive 56)

There's a nom out there that's at 0/19/0. Why do people find the need to oppose? It would take 76 support votes for him to hit 80%, making it near impossible for him to make it. Yet I'm quite sure someone else will oppose him before it's closed. It can do nothing but stress the user requesting adminship. Ral315 (talk) 23:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It's always been my assumption that those people are just being dicks. Although in that particular instance I do not have an enormous deal of sympathy -- that wasn't just a misguided new user. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe a number of users are not really thinking about it as "piling on" but instead as voting. I didn't really think about the 80% thing when I first partcipated, all I thought about was what vote was most appropriate based on the data available. Not enough users read this talk page to know how others might see them on this issue. Just my 2 cents. Peace, Kuki ni 00:01, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah there was a 20th, and now the page has been taken off the main RfA page (but not by a b'crat). It just jumps out at me that after an RfA is obviously doomed, it's mean to oppose more. There's no point. But that's just me. --W.marsh 00:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

That's part of the reason I've done a few moral supports (though not to that RfA, which didn't deserve one). People keep piling on against new contributors, and I feel that even a fairly new contributor, if decent, should get about a 50-50 Support-Oppose ratio. Oh well. —Cuivi é nen (talk•contribs), Saturday, 13 May 2006 @ 01:15 UTC

We had a very interesting exchange about this here not too long ago, where we discussed that, in the spirit of WP:DICK, WP:BITE and WP:SENSE, we should refrain from adding oppose votes to RfAs that are already clearly doomed. It's the topic "Moral Support", now at the top of this page. Redux 03:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what has been said: I assume that people are just voting, not actually trying to be a dick. I'd say the vast majority of people who are voting oppose (if not all of them) are just voting, not actively trying to be dicks. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 08:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Certainly not; I wouldn't expect that people would that mean-spirited, but we should somehow make people aware that an excessive number of opposes can be rude. Not a rule, but a guideline of some sort. Or something. —Cuivi é nen^T|C, Saturday, 13 May 2006 @ 21:01 UTC

Certainly one might argue that it is in a sense more honest, if one truly feels that a particular candidate should not become an admin, to go right ahead and say so rather than, say, watchlisting the nomination page with the intent to vote oppose if it should look like the nomination might pass after all. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

There are talk pages. Go to the user's talk page and suggest him there to end his own nomination. As Redux said, there was a long discussion about how good or bad the moral support votes were. With people understanding the spirit of WP:SENSE, the moral support would just disappear as people would stop voting after a 0-7. People should learn that, if the candidate has no chance, he should go to the user's talk page to try to convince him to step down. Or, at least, vote neutral and turn into oppose if the candidate decides to go ahead anyways. -- ReyBrujo 23:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

You can't really stop other people from piling on. Mob behavior is human nature... The only solutions I see to this problem is persuading the candidate to withdraw, or having an admin or bureaucrat removing ridiculous RfA... like those with 0-10. Olorin28 02:17, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Some people add good-faith "oppose" votes to failing nominations because they are concerned that the nomination may turn around and they don't want to have to monitor the nom to see whether or not enough "support" voters show up for them to actually have to weigh in with an "oppose." Some people also wish to make their opposition clear for reasons unrelated to the vote itself. For example, they may be concerned that an archived RFA might, when looked at some months later, appear to show a closer vote than was actually the case had everyone with an opinion voted. Or, they may be concerned about a perception by others that they vote "support" too often. AGF. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

No one, I think, is assuming ill faith. However, I think this discussion pertains more to RfAs that are clearly not going to succeed - those with a 1-7 tally, for example. Very close RfAs such as Amgine's I would not consider "pile-ons". —Cuivi é nen^T|C, Sunday, 14 May 2006 @ 03:06 UTC

Absolutely. If a RfA's tally shows a concensus of, for instance, 97% against the candidate, then it's already rather clear how the community feels about that candidate, and there's no need to pile on oppositon. Redux 23:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Numbers participating at RfA over time (Archive 74)

I know WP:100 and WP:200 are a bit silly, but they got me wondering whether anyone has done an anaylsis of how the raw numbers participating at RfA has varied over time. If lots of people are participating, then large numbers of votes are possible, and less so if smaller number are participating. Also, overall, the numbers participating probably increases as the number of editors grows. But I was hoping someone might have actual stats, or be able to generate them. This could lead to an RfA passing 80/0/0 being notable for passing during a period when most RfAs were only getting around 50 people participating. And some 100/0/0 RfAs happening at a time when lots of people participated. Of course, some popular or extremely exemplary candidates might have the effect of getting people to participate and support who wouldn't normally do so (by this I mean a natural effect, and obviously not vote-stacking). Also, what is the average number of people participating in RfAs over time? Carcharoth 11:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The number of participants obviously grows. WP:100 used to be special for RFAs but it isn't really any more. What a year ago would have been considered a record number of support !votes is now commonplace. (Radiant) 11:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
User:NoSeptember/RfA voting records would probably be a good place to start, or Durin. -- nae'blis 22:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That voting records page is really good. It also led me (via the category) to Category:Wikipedia_statistics. Lots of stuff to read through there! Carcharoth 23:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)