User:Useight/RFA Subjects/SNOW and NOTNOW

Obviously unqualified nominations (Archive 17)

If noone objects, I'd like to put a notice at the top of the page explaining that nominations of users with <100 edits will be removed without need to vote. I don't view this as a "qualification" so much as a recognition that such nominations will never succeed given the general feelings of the Wikipedia community. Such nominations end up serving only as a whipping post for the candidate, and as a minor waste of time for the other contributors here. There's no reason for them to stay up for a full-length vote, and I'd like to have the notice up so that people can't complain that we haven't "let the wiki process work" or whatever it was that JRR Trollkien whined about when we removed his joke nomination of Sayyed al afghani. Isomorphic 19:52, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

I second that. --Cluster 20:09, May 15, 2004 (UTC)

I believe that should also include candidates recently turned down, say, in the last month or so. UninvitedCompany 20:34, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but how about in the last two weeks? I wanted to make this as noncontroversial as possible, and some people (myself included) might accept a renomination in, say, 3 weeks for some cases. Isomorphic 20:54, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Also, users nominated who have been here less than a month should also be removed without need to vote. --Lowellian 21:26, May 15, 2004 (UTC)

How about simply stating that certain qualifications are expected as a bare minimum, and that nominations that don't meet them are virtually certain to be rejected? I don't think it's necessary to state an explicit policy of deleting. If people want to go ahead anyway to see what will happen, let them. I don't see that much time need be wasted. Given such a qualification, the first response could be "Oppose: doesn't meet minimum qualifications," and there could be a tradition that in such cases nobody else even bothers to vote. Indeed, the person making the first nomination could put a boldfaced line under the title line saying "Does not meet minimum qualifications."

I think a 0/1/0 vote on an unqualified nomination would send a clear message, and not give much food to trolls. Eventually someone needs to judge consensus on making him an admin, so any game-playing or sock-puppet voting could be dealt with in however it's dealt with now.

And, by making the consequences vaguer ("virtually certain to be rejected") it becomes possible to set the bar on qualifications higher and make them more realistic. You could say 500 edits are needed, without fearing that some petty authoritarian will delete a nominee with 499 edits. Dpbsmith 22:51, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I see the page sort of says that already, but it could be made stronger--particularly with regard to self-nominations--and more specific. If we can say "many months" we can say "at least several hundred edits." Dpbsmith 22:55, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

I decided to "be bold" and put a notice under the self-nomination heading. Take a look, edit and/or delete as necessary. Dpbsmith 23:19, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

When did we get so biased against self-noms? I personally wouldn't require a self-nomination to have any higher standards than a nominee. I would like to remove the "it is recommended that you exceed the standards by a good margin". Meelar 05:29, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

The phrase was added at 09:29, 5 May 2004 by User:UninvitedCompany with the edit comment "(update policy to reflect our actions regarding recent events)" Dpbsmith 10:19, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_15

|Archive 15] has a section Self-nominations beginning with a 29 Feb 2004 note from Isomorphic: "Do we really want to allow self-nominations? Lately I've been looking at this page and seeing self-nominations from clearly unqualified people (not implying that most of the self-nominations are such, but there's been several lately that were.) This bothers me because it puts others in a position of having to oppose and state why, and it could hurt the feelings of the user in question. This is especially true for newer users who don't completely understand how the site works...

Dpbsmith 10:26, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Concur with Dpbsmith. There's one BUT - how can we stop anyone from getting a seperate username to nominate his alter ego? JFW | T@lk 11:33, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

I guess what would be better would be a listing of some set of minimal requirements, and not requiring self-noms to do any more than other nominations. Maybe 1 month and a couple hundred edits? Meelar 17:11, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Meh. I didn't want this to become a long discussion. The page already gives some vague guidelines for what would make a successful nomination, and I wasn't trying to change those at all, or to "raise the bar." I just wanted a note saying we reserve the right to weed out the most ridiculously unqualified nominations. I'll just be bold and make the change the way I intended. If anyone sees a problem with what I do, say so. Isomorphic 20:06, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

OK, I rewrote the guidelines a bit. Note that I haven't really changed anything or introduced any new rules. Rather, I've tried to describe what tends to happen. IMO, that's the best kind of wiki "guideline": a description of what the community would be doing anyway. Isomorphic 20:39, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Removing votes before their time (Archive 19)

Please be careful with this. Unless a nomination is clearly a joke or prank, or the nominator or nominee asks for the nomination to be withdrawn -- and even then with a moment's discretion -- please discuss here any urge to remove an RfA vote before it expires. +sj+ 05:58, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Votes should run their course. If the nominee feels set upon, noone should object to his/her removing it themselves. -- Cecropia | Talk 06:40, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship states "Nominations may also be removed early if the current voting makes it clear that there will be no consensus to grant adminship." The vote had been static for days and it was apparent that he would not get a consensus, much less a 50-50 vote. Not that it means anything, but there was a consensus on IRC to remove. blankfaze | •• 06:47, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Recent consensus appears to have been worked out over the past months--that we leave nominations unless the nominator or candidate wants it removed, or if it has no chance of succeeding AND is a magnet for sniping and argumentation. I think you know the ones I mean. They shouldn't be removed just for housecleaning. -- Cecropia | Talk 15:08, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think IRC is generally bad for Wikipedia - it creats its own momentum. Secretlondon 13:21, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Amen to that. It violates principles of transparency and I'm amazed that, as slooooowly as some things seem to happen on Wikipedia, how quickly IRC can raise a necktie party. :( -- Cecropia | Talk 15:08, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And it's hard to reach consensus on IRC, since most people on the channel ignore most comments or requests. If 10 people are actively talking, and two respond to a suggestion and one likes it (and the other gives no opinion), is that consensus? Nine abstentions? etc. +sj+ 18:40, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Bah. This is anti-IRC groupthink. :) -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 11:13, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Proposed policy change (Archive 19)

• I'd like to propose a change in RfA policy. I'd like the section that reads:
  • Nominations which are obviously unqualified (those with fewer than 100 edits, for example) may be removed before the voting is complete. Past votes shows that the great majority of Wikipedians will not support such nominations, so they have no chance of success. Nominations may also be removed early if the current voting makes it clear that there will be no consensus to grant adminship.
• To be changed to:
  • Nominees who are obviously unqualified (those with fewer than 500 edits, for example) may be removed before the voting is complete. Past votes show that the great majority of Wikipedians will not support such nominations, so they have no chance of success. Nominations may also be removed early if the current voting makes it clear that there will be no consensus to grant adminship.
• Additionally, I'd like "if the current voting makes it clear that there will be no consensus to grant adminship." to be defined as "if it is highly, highly unlikely that the nominee will recieve even a majority" or something of the like. I think we're too lax on RfA policy, and I've seen several instances where candidates who had really no business even being listed were allowed to stay listed for the entire week. Unnecessary, I think. Just an idea. Opinions, please? blankfaze | (беседа!) 00:23, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I'd like the policy section to be more clear. For example, I didn't know what the tally was for (the "0/0/0" thing) until I looked through the archived talk. That should be clearly explained. Also, I think 800 edits and three weeks should be the minimium, and there should be SOME guidelines about what "consensus" means. Neutrality 00:35, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)
    • Three weeks is way, way too little. You can't have gotten to know someone in three weeks. I would rather specify what has previously been the approximate comfort level: three months and about 750-1000 edits but as a caution rather than a hard number. Something like: "Candidates and their nominators should be aware that candidacies below three months on Wikipedia and about 750 to 1,000 edits are apt to be below the comfort level of enough editors that an otherwise worthy nomination has a good chance of failing, so it is would be good to consider whether it would be better to wait a bit before making such a nomination." -- Cecropia | Talk 01:01, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      • A month and a half sounds fair as a minimum. Neutrality 01:20, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)
        • I'm actually with you two on this. I was aiming low in hopes of garnering more support. I think 1½ or 2 months should be the bare minimum, and 2000 edits IMO. I especially like Cecropia's proposed statement. blankfaze | (беседа!) 05:48, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
        • See the most recent poll. Why a month-and-a-half? I agree that there should not necessarily be a HARD minimum, but we are trying to see where people's comfort level is. Both polling and people's reactions on votes show a lot of people getting antsy under 3 months. Only one editor specified less than three months as a hard minimum. -- Cecropia | Talk 01:28, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• I'll go farther - 3 months is the *bare minimum* amount of time someone can have been here and get me to vote for them - that is to say, any less and I automatically vote against them. Even then, I am not comfortable with someone who has been there only that long. →Raul654 01:13, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)
  • I think three months is a reasonable guideline for adminship, but it's too high for calling someone "obviously unqualified". This is for handling "HI I AM A NEW WIKPEDIA USR AND I WNAT TO BE A ADMIN!!1 WAHT DO U THNK????" -- Cyrius|✎ 01:56, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I generally vote for anyone who has 2+ months and 2000+ edits under their belt, unless IMO they're not right for the job. Just wanted add my "bare minimum opinion"... blankfaze | (беседа!) 05:48, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • How about: Nominees who are obviously unqualified (those with fewer than 500 edits and less than two months membership, for example) may be removed before the voting is complete. Past votes show that the great majority of Wikipedians will not support such nominations, so they have no chance of success. Nominations may also be removed early if the current voting makes it clear that there will be no consensus to grant adminship. blankfaze | (беседа!) 05:55, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      • I disagree. There is no reason to pull nominations early. If you really feel that a nomination should be pulled early, I think the right thing to do would be to ask the nominator or nominee is they wish to withdraw the nomination. As to the minimum though, I am personally beginning to feel that I may make 3 months a hard minimum for my own voting, I prefer wording that warns the prospective nominator/nominee that the nomination is likely to fail. -- Cecropia | Talk 06:59, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

DrZoidberg's RfA (Archive 27)

DrZoidberg is a user who edits almost exclusively in the sandbox. He currently has zero edits in the article namespace. [[1]. He has now decided to nominate himself for admin. At last count there were four opposing votes and no supporting votes (other than himself). This is almost certainly a "joke" nomination and I don't see the purpose of having it hang around for a week when the outcome is obvious. However, I wanted to get some opinions before I took any action.

In general, when is it appropriate to remove a nomination before the voting period is over? Also, should a bureaucrat remove a nomination or can an admin do so? What's your opinion on removing the following:

• Non-serious nominations (DrZoidberg's)
• Candidates with extremely low edit counts (< 100)
• Rejection is obvious (votes such as 0/9/0)

Thank you for your time. Carbonite | Talk 17:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say that if someone with so little chance of actually passing a RfA vote goes to the trouble of putting his or herself up for a vote, just let the vote ride itself out. It doesn't harm anyone by sitting here and accumulating oppose votes, and prematurely removing such noms means there's a chance (albeit a fairly small one) of removing a legitimate, serious (if potentially misguided) nomination. As for the other potential situations, I'm not sure that having an edit count limit is necessary, but I don't think it could harm much, provided the number is low enough, and the requirement is explicitly spelled out somewhere. And in cases where "rejection is obvious," I'd let the vote ride out: if nothing else, the oppose comments might prove useful to the rejectee. In addition, I think removing noms should be saved for bureaucrats: I see too much potential for confusion and/or abuse otherwise. – Seancdaug 17:37, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

An argument for removing the nomination is that if a person is just seeking attention, they'll get exactly what they want by having people comment on them for an entire week. There's also the possibility that legitimate RfAs will receive less attention if non-serious ones remain up for a week. I agree with many of your points though. I'm still mostly undecided and that's why I wanted to seek comments on this issue. Carbonite | Talk 17:48, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

True, but we're not out to punish egotistical nominees, we're out to ensure that Wikipedia functions properly. If the nom wants a week of people telling him or her that s/he's incapable of performing the duties of an admin, than so what? There will be the odd crazy, sure, but I can't at the moment see it progressing to the point where it seriously damages Wikipedia. If things do reach that point, then such restrictions would be worthwhile. Until then, I don't think it matters much. – Seancdaug 18:01, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Seancdaug. No harm in letting it stay. --Kbdank71 17:44, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

also, once the vote is at 0/9/0 anyway, I won't even bother voting. No time wasted. dab (ᛏ) 18:32, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

First of all, bureaucrats have no special authority over the RFA process other than being empowered to promote people. Any unsuccessful RFA can be removed by any user, and while this is now rarely done it was once routine (though bureaucrats/developers have always been given the opportunity to judge any close calls). The policy parallels that of VfD where it is not necessary to be an admin to remove a nomination that has not resulted in a clear consensus to keep.

Second of all, in general, experience has shown that removing frivilous nominations usually produces more conflict than leaving them until they expire. That said, there are certainly plenty of nominations of obviously unqualified candidates that have been removed early; indeed, I have done this myself.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:45, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

"Non-serious nominations"? Neutral point of view please.  DrZoidberg 18:22, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

NPOV only applies to articles. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 18:24, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Does No personal attacks also only apply to articles?  DrZoidberg 18:31, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

No, that applies everywhere. But note that discussing someone's behaviour, even negatively, is not a personal attack. Now, if someone had called you a maroon, that would have been bad, but saying that this nomination stinks is only unpleasant. JRM · Talk 18:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

You probably meant Moron here, unless you meant Maroon in the context of an escaped slave - an article (and term) I was hitherto unaware of! Thryduulf 14:52, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Maroon was used by Bugs Bunny, coined in the 1940's as a jocular pronounciation of moron. [2] --Kbdank71 14:57, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Hey, what's wrong with my nomination?!?!?!?!? I believe I qualify according to the standards at the top of the page!  DrZoidberg 18:36, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Aw, shucks. Those are only the technical requirements. In addition, but we can hardly put that down in writing, we need people who are willing to crawl through dirt and broken glass (proverbially speaking) doing all the ungrateful work so the regular users don't have to. We cannot, no, will not allow you to debase yourself like that. They've already gotten to me, Zoidy. There's no hope for me. But you can still save yourself. JRM · Talk 18:41, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

You wouldn't believe how much dirt and broken glass end up in the sandbox every day! Just last week I stepped on half of a beer bottle and had to spend a night in Wikipedia:Hospital !!  DrZoidberg 18:43, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Zoidberg - you seem to be missing the forest for the trees. We confer adminship on people we trust to use good judgement in exercising their adminly powers. When trying to decide whether or not we trust someone, metrics like edit counts and how-long-someone-has-been-here help us guage trustworthyness, but they are not the only factor. So while you might have a high edit count, and while you might have been here a while, because you have only edited in the sandbox (and VFD thereof), in our judgement you are (very) ill-equipped to exercise the kind of judgement we exect from an admin. →Raul654 19:43, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

I know you are but what am I?  DrZoidberg 13:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

What wonderful dedication to Futurama that he's stayed in character this long! ::sigh:: I really do miss Futurama. Unfocused 14:47, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO!  DrZoidberg 13:51, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

It's fun torole play. However, I think you need to get some of Zoidberg's speech patterns down; for example, he usually uses V2 word order when phrasing questions and even some statements. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 15:30, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Are you thinking of a different Zoidberg? I'm the Doctor, I am!  DrZoidberg 21:03, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

You're close... It would be better if you said something like "Perhaps a different Zoidberg you are thinking of? The doctor one I am." Cheers. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 21:33, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I guess this [3] answers most of my questions. Carbonite | Talk 19:21, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for removing nominations early (Archive 28)

I propose that any admin may remove a nomination if:

• There are at least 10 more oppose votes than support votes (i.e Oppose votes >= Support votes + 10)
• The nomination has been active for at least 24 hours

This is similar to the mercy rule (slaughter rule) in sports. Any nomination that meets this criteria is certain to be rejected. Even in the simplest scenario (0 Support, 10 Oppose), dozens of support votes (and no additional oppose votes) would be needed to even approach the level required for promotion. Carbonite | Talk 16:26, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

• Seems sensible to me, assuming you mean at least 10 opposes and 24 hours, rather than or. In practice it happens anyway though doesn't it?. Possibly the number of opposes needed could be 8 rather than 10 though? Martin - The non-blue non-moose 16:38, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, I do mean that both criterias must be met. Carbonite | Talk 16:51, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

• It's up to bureaucrats to determine if a user is to be promoted. This not only includes counting up the number of support/oppose votes, but also determining if any/all of the support/oppose votes are legitimate. Voting just gives the bureaucrat an idea of what the community thinks of the individual. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-08-20 16:40
  • True, bureaucrats must promote admins, but this is a proposal concerning early rejection. If both criteria are met, there's no chance that a candidate will mistakenly be removed early. These wouldn't be cases for bureaucrat judgement, they'd be something for an admin to clean up. If there's any question, admins can always wait until there's more oppose votes. The reason I proposed this is because it would be good to have a set policy for removing nominations early. Carbonite | Talk 16:51, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
    • The vote doesn't determine who becomes an admin. The bureaucrat does. If a user had 30 supports and 40 opposes, a bureaucrat may still promote him if he chooses. The vote simply gives the bureaucrat an idea of what is right/wrong with the user, and what the community thinks of him. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-08-20 16:55
  • I concur with Brian - if we're going to have a mercy rule, it's the bureacrats who should be applying it. →Raul654 16:46, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • You have explained what happens at present, this is a proposal to bypass that in extreme circumstances. Martin - The non-blue non-moose 16:45, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, I know, I'm saying that simply counting the number of oppose votes is ignoring the legitimacy of these votes as determined by the bureaucrats. If there were as many RFA nominations as there are VFD proposals, I might support this, but the number of RFA's is currently so low that there's no need for this, and I'd rather not circumvent the bureaucrats' final decisions. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-08-20 16:49
      • In reality, a nomination that has run for 24 hours and has even one more oppose vote than support is almost certainly going to fail. This proposal is looking only at those nominations where absolutely no judgement is required, the ones with basically zero support. Carbonite | Talk 16:55, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
        • Again, the vote doesn't determine who is promoted. The bureaucrat does. Read WP:WWIN#Wikipedia is not a democracy. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-08-20 16:59
          • Again, I'm not talking about promotion. I'm talking about flat out, undeniable, overwhelming rejection. Cleaning up a mess, if you will. Carbonite | Talk 17:05, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe this is necessary. I propose that we continue to use good judgment; I think the wording for when nominations can be removed is deliberately vague and that we haven't on the whole done too badly with it. I wouldn't restrict it to bureaucrats, either (speaking as a non-bureaucrat who removed a nomination not too long ago before it turned ugly), but if you have doubts as to whether a removal is appropriate, don't do it. This proposal is a nice handy guideline to follow, but I don't support making it a rule. Also, I'd like to suggest that people not add their opposition when it's unnecessary -- particularly to new users who nominate themselves. After 3 or 4 opposes and no supports it's pretty clear the nomination will fail; better not to make it seem overwhelming: we want them to continue to contribute and perhaps eventually succeed, not feel driven off. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 16:57, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

• Just to clarify, I wasn't proposing that this be the only way a nomination be removed. Bureaucrats would still be free to remove them whenever them see fit. This proposal was simply to institure a mercy rule for RfAs. If an RfA reaches this very high level of opposition, it can be removed by any admin. It may not happen often, but at least there would be policy to back it up. Carbonite | Talk 17:03, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm with mindspillage here -- removal of a nom seems like a fairly rare thing, and it should be pretty much common sense to remove it. If an admin removes it and there's some opposition, it's a simple matter for it to be put back and then a bureaucrat can decide whether or not to remove it or let it run its course. kmccoy (talk) 18:22, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

What happens if 10 oppose votes pile up initially for something that is easily fixed, such as "user has no user page"? What do you do then? What is the need for this rule? I don't see any need. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-08-20 17:09

I think that's really a strawman argument. Remember that the proposal was for 10 oppose votes more than support votes, not just 10 total oppose votes.

The need for this guideline would be to provide justification for removing clearly failed RfAs. There have been times in the past when users have argued that their nominations can't be removed. Even if this guideline was rarely used, at least it would exist. It wouldn't add to the bureaucracy and would make it clear that non-serious nominations would last a maximum of 24 hours (bureaucrats could always remove it earlier). Carbonite | Talk 18:26, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I can't help feeling that this is a solution in search of a problem. Joyous (talk) 18:29, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you're right. I'm not going to pursue this proposal any further. It seemed liked a rather common sense idea, but maybe it's too obvious. Anyway, I do thank everyone for their opinion. Carbonite | Talk 18:32, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I understand the objections, but I see where it could be useful, in the sense that some nominations get to the point where someone's getting hurt, where oppose votes are piling up and the poor nominee has to sit and watch it. But I think I've at least some of those cases removed when it gets to that point. Rx StrangeLove 18:43, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

There's no need for a rule here. I, as a non-admin, have removed a small number of obviously failing nominations early, and, as you'd expect, their removal generated no discussion or complaints. There's no need to have a specific rule describing the circumstances when a failing nomination should be removed - whilst there is a need to give each nomination a fair chance. Let's keep things as they are: anyone is free to remove a nomination, but must accept the consequences of that action. IE Removing nominations that everyone agrees will fail is OK, removing nominations that still have a chance of success (or even have a chance of failing without any risk of embarrassment to the candidate) isn't - and having no spelt out rule means anyone removing a nomination must be especially careful that they're doing the right thing, jguk 18:54, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

It is my experience, on the whole, that removing nominations that have not run their course causes more problems than it solves, and so I rarely do it. Sometimes self-nominators withdraw their petitions when faced with considerable opposition, which is the most honorable way to handle it for everyone involved. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:03, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Bancroftian (Archive 28)

Should Bancroftian's nomination be removed? He's got 10 oppose votes, 0 support votes, and two neutral votes which appear to be leaning more toward opposition. The oppose votes are just being piled on at this point. Acetic Acid 21:49, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I'd say yes. There's no way a 0-10 nomination is going to suddenly turn around, so it's kinder to just remove it. Isomorphic 21:58, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Am I allowed to remove it? Or does a bureaucrat have to do it? Acetic Acid 22:38, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I'll remove it, however, I think that you'd be allowed to remove it without much fuss under such circumstances. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:21, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

In that case, I'm removing SWD316's as well. 0 Support, 10 Oppose, 2 Neutral. These self-nominations have been unruly lately. Newcomers don't realize 300 edits isn't enough for sysophood. Acetic Acid 00:59, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Okay. By the way, don't take my word as law ;) (I don't know if this is controversial or not) Also, make sure you alert the user and place the adminship on this page. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Davetunney has 41 edits. He was nominated by a user with fewer than 300. Any objections to removing? Jonathunder 03:29, 2005 August 22 (UTC)

By all means, remove it. Early removal will prevent pile ons. Acetic Acid 03:32, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Withdrawals (Archive 29)

Hi there, I've just been reading the last Archive, which contains some remarks on the withdrawal of nominations. Am I correct in understanding that there is no set procedure in place to withdraw them in the interests of humane pile-up prevention? Is it generally Bureaucrats who do them?—encephalonέγκέφαλος  23:04:36, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

For ordinary closures it is, obviously, only open to the 'crats to do the deed one way or the other. Recently, for early closures, there's been a couple of 'ordinary' editors removing pile-ups; the 'crats don't seem to have needed to step in much (although they have occasionally). I guess if no-one opposes a non-crat's early closure and removal of an RfA then that's fine. If anyone does oppose it, it should obviously be left to the 'crats to decide the timing and manner of closure. That's just my reading of the recent happenings on RfA though; we don't have a policy for it that I'm aware of and I imagine some editors would disagree with my summary. -Splash 02:34, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah. That's what I thought too.—encephalonέγκέφαλος  11:19:17, 2005-09-08 (UTC)

GordonWatts (Archive 30)

I have reopened this nomination at Gordon's request. The policy of premature removal is intended to protect candidates from undue stress; however, he stated on my talk page that he doesn't mind the "ill will", and I believe this should be his choice. Please let the nomination run its course. — Dan | Talk 15:24, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

This whole debacle is damaging to the reputation of the Wikipedia project. A stop should be put to this now. The application os obviously going to fail, and no good can come of further debate on the subject. The candidate's views are now immaterial to the outcome, and there is no good reason to proceed with this. Giano | talk 17:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Frankly, this is ridiculous. "Speedy removal" does not simply spare the blushes and stress of the nominee, but also avoids ill will in the community as a whole (and stop everyone wasting time and electrons). He may not care about ill will; I certainly do. I respect his strong opinions and committment, but it is abundantly clear that a significant amount of water will have to pass under the bridge before he becomes an admin. The only reason to keep the nomination would be to clear the air: well, some thing are better left unsaid. I have been bold and deleted it again. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:34, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

The other bureaucrat involved and I have voted you down 2-1. I have restored the nomination. "The only reason to keep the nomination would be to clear the air" Let it run its course to clear the air -otherwise RfA's will continue to be toxic from editors forming insiders cliques instead of following policy. "He may not care about ill will; I certainly do." I do too, but ill will is going to occur if you don't follow the rules and let the nomination proceed; As Dan has said, only I can declare "ill will," and I do not. Besides, if another user claims to feels ill will from this RfA, then they can log onto another page. No one is forcing them to long onto this RfA. What harm can come from just stepping back and letting it run its course?--GordonWatts 13:32, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Gordon, the vote is doomed, and continuation of this is pointless. You would need in excess of 100 support votes to gain adminship, why are you still persisting? =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:53, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Gordon, this isnt a popularity contest, an unpopularity contest, an election, a democracy or a request for comment; it is a method for bureaucrats to build a consensus, for better or for worse you are not going to get a positive one so there is no point in letting this run its course. Martin 13:55, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback, Bluemoose. Also, to answer your question, Nichalp, not only is there a chance (however slim) that I might make Adminship (example: Clinton beat Bush, Sr., even though Clinton was "way behind"), additionally, check this out: "If the rights of one are violated, the rights of all are at risk" --Thomas Paine Do you see my point? The policy isn't being followed in all cases, and this is wrong -even if some people want to do things "they way they've been done" with good intentions -still wrong, and this is part of the reason many RfA's and other parts of Wikipedia are cesspools of "ill will," angst, and frustration.--GordonWatts 10:38, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I have believed for some time that early removal of candidacies accomplishes little. Let it run its course and then it will be gone. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:54, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to have to disagree with Uninvited Company on this one. While I think both arguements have merit, I agree with Aloan and Giano that removing guarenteed-to-fail nominations early spares the nominated person the embarassment of tremendously lopsided vote. Bear in mind that there has been an unfortunate trend in the requestes for adminship for (1) recrimination - "I have an axe to grind, so I'll get him back by opposing his request for adminship"-ism and (2) politiking (as GraceNote [aka Dr. Zen] has been doing lately with respect to inclusionsim vs deletionsim lately). Also, I've noticed this page has a tendancy to "avalanche" - once three or four people oppose a nomination, subsequent oppose votes start to accululate very quickly. So given these conditions, I see plenty of value in ending certain RFAs early. →Raul654 18:41, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Raul, as so often is the case, you mischaracterise the views of those who you don't like, or who don't agree with you. I have not been "politiking" with respect to inclusionism vs deletionism. I've said, clearly and openly, that I don't oppose a request for administrator status on the basis of an applicant's perceived "deletionism". I don't think that should be a basis for opposition. It's a difference in philosophy. I've shown willingness to discuss my views reasonably with "deletionists" -- particularly the more thoughtful among them. Just because you feel it is best to label those who don't share your views "trolls" and ignore what they have to say doesn't mean others feel the same (although, yes, you'll surely be able to dig up a diff where I labelled someone I disagreed with a "troll" and where I haven't been reasonable -- we all have our moments). I have opposed those who have a record of using speedy tags incorrectly or over-hastily because I feel it would be detrimental to the project to allow them to delete articles without any discussion. Is that politicking? I didn't oppose Nandesuka just because he's a deletionist. -- Grace Note

While I might not have captured all the careful viewpoint nuances that you claim to have, I think you have already summarized them quite clearly: "Oppose. New content creators, however misguided, should be welcomed. I don't want to empower editors who do not have that view... You're not just a deletionist, by the way. You are a rather unpleasant, pisstaking deletionist -- just the sort of thing that makes the AfD pages a bit of a cesspit." (emphasis added). So, you claim here that you don't oppose someone based on their deletionism, and from that earlier commetn it's quite evident that you did. So, which is it - were you lying then or are you lying now? →Raul654 07:08, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Raul. I have also commented on the b'crats noticeboard. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Without commenting on this specific case, I support removing nominations early where a success is unfeasible. I'd say a reasonable rule of thumb would be 20 votes total, with no more supports than opposes. Pakaran 19:51, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with early removal only if the nominee consents to the nomination being removed. If he/she does not, then let it run its course.

Journalist ^C./ ^{Holla @ me!}

My other reason was simply that I felt that GordonWatts would be less likely to renominate himself repeatedly (cf. Terri Schiavo on FAC) if he became convinced that he really wasn't trusted by the community. I will respect the other bureaucrats' opinions, though I would rather have seen some time for discussion before the nomination was removed for a second time. — Dan | Talk 20:33, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Consensus Regarding Pile-Ons (Archive 34)

Was consensus ever established regarding the removal of a clearly failing nomination (Oppose Votes = Support Votes + 10)? Misterrick's nomination is one of the worst cases of piling on that I have ever seen. Normally, I would remove it by the time he got 13 oppose votes. But after removing A Link to the Past's nomination, Durin left me a comment, telling me not to remove nominations as consensus was never reached. Just to have it down in writing, is it easy to remove a failing nomination like this? Does a Bureaucrat have to do it? Acetic'^Acid 06:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I think a candidate should be entitled to their full seven days no matter how bad they're loosing. I would have thought that it has to be up to the candidate to withdraw. All anyone else can do is suggest that they may like to withdraw early. Of course, in a case where someone is nominated without good faith it might be possible to pull the nomination as a case of vandalism. --Gareth Hughes 10:35, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Where a nomination is clearly failing (eg it would need a record number of support votes even if no more oppose votes were cast, and there's already an overwhelming majority voting "oppose") then it's sensible just to remove it. Anyone removing a nomination is, of course, is responsible for their own actions - so tread with care - but there's no real benefit in just prolonging the agony of a hopeless nomination, jguk 11:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier just to leave the decision to withdraw to the candidates (even for non-self nominations), instead of trying to create a consensus for an automated withdrawal which you probably wouldn't get? Lectonar 12:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

My view is that commonsense should prevail - we should not be slaves to process. Quite frankly, if a candidate goes to 2 supports, 30 opposes, there's really no moral justification for letting it stay. The candidate will have got the message - can anyone really object if it is removed? jguk 12:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

"commonsense should prevail - we should not be slaves to process." I think we should all repeat that 5 times a day when we wake up in the morning. Or possibly "die bureaucracy, DIE!" either will do. Martin 12:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

To Jguk above: I for one don't see a moral justification not to let it run it's course, 'cause nothing gives us the right to do that (except, perhaps, after asking him on his talk-page?); it could implicate that you presume to know more about the candidate than he himself, and that someone else is needed to sort it out for him. If he's got the message, let him withdraw his candidateship (but we should make this possiblity clear in some form, not that anyone feels shy about it. I just can imagine that an already whacked candidate hasn't got the courage to involve himself) Lectonar 12:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

There was a recent case of an obviously-destined-to-fail nomination that was pulled from RFA early. The candidate complained loudly, there were bitter arguments, page protections, appeals to Jimbo, and an ugly mess all around. The nomination was eventually reinstated, with the end date moved back to account for the 'missed' time. (It did ultimately, thoroughly, fail.) If we're going to remove unsuccessful candidacies, then to avoid controversy and complaints and accusations of a cabal, we're going to have to do one of two things. (If anyone can think of a #3, that would be fine, too.)

1. Ask the candidate's permission. Obviously voluntary withdrawals will be acceptable to all involved parties.
2. Set a threshold in some sort of policy (or at least a guideline for bureaucrats) at which a candidacy is eligible for removal. Acetic Acid's suggestion above looks reasonable; something of that flavour sounds about right.

We should probably also discourage people from 'piling on' to candidates; I'm not sure how to accomplish this, however. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:47, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that this seems the only reasonable way to go, but rather than asking the candidates permission, I'd say we should suggest removal by the candidate themself. Filiocht | The kettle's on 12:55, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll second that; btw, does anybody else get the impression that 'piling-on' is also a phenomenon in the support votes, and that the whole RfA process is getting more and more a sort of popularity contest? Lectonar 13:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, with the danger being that "popular" candidates may not always be the best ones. Filiocht | The kettle's on 13:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• First, I would caution everyone here to beware of instruction creep. Second, I don't see any valid reason for removing a failing nomination prematurely. If the nom was done in good faith, it's reasonable to assume the nominee has the ability to remove the nomination themselves if they so choose. People are free to suggest they withdraw a nominee's candidacy, but adding on instructions on what arbitrary level we should allow ourselves to remove failing nominations is not beneficial to the process. In fact, it makes us more slavish to process and bureaucracy, not less. Third, even in failing nominations benefit can happen. A failed nomination can teach a nominee in what areas they need to improve before their next nomination. Fourth, a failing nomination can teach all of us about problems with the process. I cite Wikiwoohoo's RfA in which nobody could come with any reason to oppose the nominee except on grounds of editcountitis. I did not support the RfA, but I did challenge people to come up with other grounds on which to oppose. The fact that nobody could is quite telling, and should teach us all something about the process. Fifth, if we are willing to put in place a policy regarding negative pile-ons (in essence, a speedy delete of RfAs doomed to fail) then a reverse policy should be considered as well; speedy promotes. Just considering such can serve to highlight the errors in a speedy delete notion. A speedy promote policy would be absurd. For example, look at NichBush24's RfA. This nomination was 36-0 a day and a half into the nom. I placed one negative vote, and assumed the nomination would still sail through. I was wrong. Following my negative vote, there have been 20 more negative votes, and just 7 more positive votes. The RfA is now failing. If we had speedy promoted his nom, we would have made an error. Sixth, as previously noted some nominees do not want their nominations removed. Doing so prematurely can hurt feelings just as much as leaving them up might do. In essence, to some users it can be interpreted as "I think you suck, and so do lots of other people, so bye bye RfA". --Durin 13:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• Regarding the positive pile-ons: As most people here know, I am keeping track of the RfA process and have been doing so since late June of 2005. I too was curious about the phenom of rapid positive vote pile-ons and took a look at the number of votes per RfA over time. Surprisingly, it's been steady over the last four months. So, while there have been a number of noms with large numbers of positive votes, the votes show that the pattern has been more or less stable for the last few months. That said, as Wikipedia grows in popularity, the scalability of the process comes into question. I raised some issues in an earlier section above regarding scalability. There are more. Do we really want to have RfAs with 200+ votes on them being the norm? Maybe we do, maybe we don't. Either way, we need to consider the consequences of having such RfAs being the norm, as it's going to happen in the future. --Durin 13:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Delist (Archive 35)

I delisted Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Private Butcher because the user seems to have left (or at least has some problems). Would a bureaucrat please close the nomination. Broken S 20:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

You don't need a bureaucrat for that. It's just like non-admins can close AfD's, but only if they result isn't delete. Non-bureaucrats can close RfA's, but only if the result isn't promote. Redwolf24 (talk) 22:55, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I figured that might be so, but where are the instructions? I have never closed an RfA. Broken S 23:48, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Bleh I don't know the template, it was created pretty recently (but then again so was the nomination template...) just ask Nichalp or UninvitedCompany. Redwolf24 (talk) 23:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

To bad about this fellow incidentally. Marskell 00:30, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's a shame. I believe he's a recovering addict, who suffers from terrible depression. By the way, I wish people wouldn't keep piling on the "oppose" votes once it's clear that an application is going to be unsuccessful, and especially when it's clear that the candidate has personal problems. In the six months that I've been on Wikipedia, this is the post I feel least good about. Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 00:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Obviously Ann you've had a change of heart since then, and I applaud you for it. I fully agree that it's unnecessary, if not downright evil, to pile on oppose votes after an obvious failed nomination. Redwolf24 (talk) 00:47, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

this makes me feel really bad for him, I'm afraid that RFA was probably a very bad experience for him. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 02:31, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

How many good users do you think we lost due to having a bad RFA? Borisblue 07:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Given how high standards have become now, we should be careful about turning away good people. Would it be nuts to create an intermediate usergroup between Registered and Sysop ("Moderator"?) - perhaps without blocking ability or whatever? (This is easy in MediaWiki 1.5, I think.) Then good users who look likely to be good admins can be recommended for that status instead, rather than just denying RFA (which must feel like a pretty unpleasant rejection from the community). Alternatively, grant adminship on probation (for a month, say); use the nomination talk page to collect discussion of whether to de-sysop a new admin - this might ease some concerns based on giving powers that are so rarely revoked. Rd232 ^talk 09:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I can tell you, my RfA was MUCH harder than I thought it was to go through, even though people had nothing but nice things to say (it resulted in a three week wikibreak). As for an intermediate step between user and admin, I was thinking a while ago when ITN on the main page was never updating, how about giving some users the right to edit protected pages (and no other powers except that and perhaps rollback). They would be instructed never to edit page that has been protected due to an edit war, but they could freely edit things that are protected due to vandalism, such as the main page templates and other pages. I don't think that a huge elaborate process should take place, just that if an admin sees a user who never vandalises, he asks him wether or not hed like to be a "Trusted user", and if so, the admin would make him that. No vote or anything, just an admins good judgement (it isn't like it's a huge power or anything. Aslong as a user is found not to be a POV-pusher or vandal, this shouldn't be to much of a problem). Ofcourse, if he abuses his power even once, any admin should take his powers away. What do you guys think? gkhan 12:05, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that conflicts with the basic philosophy that pages should be protected as rarely as possible. And bestowing powers in such an ad hoc way smells like a recipe for trouble, particularly if you think about the implications of needing to regulate removal of same in cases of abuse. If we want more powers for Trusted Users, the automatic move power bestowal process seems a better model (all but most recent 1% of accounts, AFAIR). Rd232 ^talk 13:56, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

A few things:

1. Why not let users know about user scripts?
2. PB will be back. I'm sure of it.
3. The users who choose to actively participate in the RfA process are constantly in flux. At any given time, the RfA process seems to reflect the current cohort of users who wish to become more involved and recognized in the community by participating on RfAs.
4. I feel that generally the RfA process has become much more stressful, and much more vicious. Compare the RfA process here with that on say, the German Wikipedia. Even if the comparison may not be entirely valid, there is a noticible difference. Generally, I feel that one factor on why the feedback on certain candidates become progressively negative is because sometimes we have a tendency to uncover "flaws" when we want to find them. The Wiki seems to be slow to forgive at times. --HappyCamper 22:16, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Please, do not prematurely remove admin nominations. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_34#Consensus_Regarding_Pile-Ons, which lacks concensus. If a nominee wants to withdraw their nomination, they can. --Durin 14:15, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I think "consensus" is best gauged from actual practice. Nominations are regularly removed prematurely if they stand no chance of success. I removed PB's nomination because it stood little chance of success (though not nil) and had clearly caused him a great deal of stress; it seems to me that stress-prevention, where possible, is in the community's best interest. I consider it unfortunate that users pile oppose votes on to nominations which are clearly unqualified or otherwise failing, but as long as they continue to do so, I will continue to remove said nominations. — Dan | Talk 15:55, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• So actual practice determines policy? If not, would you please direct us as to the policy that covers delisting RfAs that are going poorly? Removing PB's nomination might have been in his best interest, and it might not. At least one nominee whose RfA was going very poorly was mad when it was removed prematurely. You are presuming that you know the inner thoughts of each nominee whose RfA you prematurely remove. A more balanced response is to suggest to the user that they withdraw their nomination. There are multiple reasons for retaining RfAs that are going poorly. Whether a user is becoming stressed over their RfA is not the only interest in play. If this "actual practice" is policy, then I suggest we open a poll to determine what should be done; it is and has been open for debate. Relying on "actual practice" to summarily override that debate is (unless you can cite policy), I think, less than we could hope to be. --Durin 17:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

An open poll might actually be a good idea. I'm sure I have read somewhere, though, that nominations can be removed if it is clear that they will fail. I'm personally in favour of removing them. I remember the case of the candidate you refer to, Durin, but I think he was unusual in wanting to prolong the agony. And, as far as I recall, Dan agreed to replace it, since he requested that. I think also that it was quite appropriate to remove PB's nomination, since he had left a note on his userpage saying that he was leaving Wikipedia. Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 18:22, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Ann is correct. In the case of GordonWatts, his nomination had received many more oppose votes than support, and I removed it to prevent a pile-on. He requested that I relist it, and I did so, believing that it should be his choice; however, several other bureaucrats demurred, and the nomination was quickly unlisted again. He continued to persist in requesting adminship and wrote various lengthy messages to Jimbo, all to no avail. In any case, he is certainly the only candidate I know to have protested at the removal of his candidacy, and (not to make presumptions, but) in doing so he probably damaged his future prospects for adminship (see here and the following sections for extensive discussion of the matter). As for a basis in policy: the instructions have read for a long time "Nominations that will clearly fail may be removed earlier to prevent discussions that generate ill will." — Dan | Talk 20:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• I'll outline my rationale for retaining failing RfAs again:
  1. If the nomination was done in good faith, it's reasonable to assume the nominee has the ability to remove the nomination themselves if they so choose. In fact, some editors have done so.
  2. Even in failing nominations benefit can happen. A failed nomination can teach a nominee in what areas they need to improve before their next nomination. It can serve as a template on things to improve upon. Prematurely removing an RfA from consideration deprives the nominee of that resource potentially leading to a future nomination going poorly because their earlier nom was removed before everyone could comment. For an example, view this comment from a nominee whose RfA was likely to fail [4].
  3. Early removal of an RfA presumes that all RfA voters check on WP:RFA frequently. I don't think this is the case. We leave nominations open for 7 days for a reason. Supposed problems with a candidate might be in error. I'm aware of at least one case in which a nomination was beginning to go poorly due to low edit counts vs. total time on project. I contributed earlier on to the discussion to show people a graph which showed contributions had been mainly within the prior few months, and their numbers for the entire time should probably not be considered, rather their contributions compared to the few months in which they'd been contributing in earnest. If I hadn't contributed earlier on to that discussion, that nomination might have gone poorly and might have been prematurely removed.
  4. A failing nomination can teach all of us about problems with the process. I cite Wikiwoohoo's RfA in which nobody could come with any reason to oppose the nominee except on grounds of editcountitis. I did not support the RfA, but I did challenge people to come up with other grounds on which to oppose. The fact that nobody could is quite telling, and should teach us all something about the process.
  5. If we are willing to put in place a policy regarding negative pile-ons (in essence, a speedy delete of RfAs doomed to fail) then a reverse policy should be considered as well; speedy promotes. Just considering such can serve to highlight the errors in a speedy delete notion. A speedy promote policy would be absurd. For example, look at NichBush24's RfA. This nomination was 36-0 a day and a half into the nom. I placed one negative vote, and assumed the nomination would still sail through. I was wrong. The nomination later failed 43-23.
  6. Theoretical situation: A nominee is placed for RfA. Within hours, a group of friends agree to populate the RfA with oppose votes and rapidly turn the RfA to 1-9 against (or maybe worse). Maybe their reasons are valid; maybe they aren't. A bureaucrat, on good conscience, would need to evalute each individual vote as the RfA proceeds to see if good faith votes are actually ruling against the nomination. Is this done? Regardless, even if it is done, a nomination that is going poorly suffers from perception problems. This could influence people not to vote, or worse vote oppose just because others did.
  7. Some nominees are not having their feelings hurt by an RfA that is going poorly. We are judging for them, without their involvement in the decision, that since their feelings are being hurt we must act. This policy is based on a lack of evidence; it presumes bureaucrats should act to prevent hard feelings without evidence that any hard feelings are being created.
  8. At what level do you decide an RfA is going poorly? 1-3? 4-13? 7-18? Where is the line? Is it communicated somewhere to nominees? I don't think so. I believe the line is arbitrary, and is variable depending on the bureaucrat. This variability can, in itself, lead to hard feelings. The policy, what there is of it, is not clearly delineated. If you delineate it, there needs to be a rationale for the placement of the border, as it were. Else, it's purely arbitrary and subjective.
  9. Since the policy is not clearly delineated, we have had people who are not bureaucrats, and even not admins who have removed nominations that were failing. Was this improper? Who knows. The policy doesn't say if it is or not.
• In the face of the above reasons, the only reasons I have seen put forward for premature removal are:
  1. Desire to not cause the nominee to have their feelings hurt by a nomination gone awry.
  2. Desire to prevent the community from developing a sense of discord within the RfA process.
• I submit that the first of these two reasons can be addressed by educating the nominee on how their nomination can be withdrawn if they desire such. The second of these two reasons can be addressed by fostering productive, constructive input from frequent RfA voters; perhaps an education page on what an RfA voter should consider, and how they should act in the process. --Durin 20:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Durin, why not apply for a bureaucratship then? You seem to be so passionate about the process. --HappyCamper 00:00, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Delisting Poll (Archive 35)

Per Kelly Martin's comment above, I'm starting a poll to determine what everyone thinks about the new delisting rules. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Please add your name with #~~~~ to the section you agree with:

Support

(Keep new rules and allow delisting if nominee does not answer questions)

1. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
2. To be clear, there should be no question of "delisting", as no RfA should ever be listed until the nominee accepts the nomination and provides at least cursory answers to the questions. This may indeed be coercive, but even though adminship is no big deal, it is nevertheless a privilege to be earned. Besides, I've never seen a serious admin candidate decline to answer the questions, and doubt I ever will.  BD2412 ^talk 00:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
3. Per  BD2412. I also agree that any RfA candidate declines to answer the questions at their own peril, but I think it is within reason to wait for the questions to be answered to begin the voting process. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 02:25, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
4. I support the current (new) rules. Only list if the candidate accepts and answers the question, and only delist if the candidate declines or withdraws the nomination. — JIP | Talk 12:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

(Go back to the old rules, and delist only if the nominee does not accept the nomination)

1. See m:instruction creep. Questions should not be mandatory. Acetic'^Acid 07:51, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
2. Yep.  Grue  08:05, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
3. Yeah - although I doubt if they'd be promoted with no answers to questions. --Celestianpower ^háblame 08:23, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
4. yep. *opens beer* (King of the Hill reference for the humor impaired)  ALKIVAR™ 09:18, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
5. I think that if the nominee does not answer the questions it is their fault and they'll get less supports for it - it's up to them if they are serious enough. FireFox 09:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
6. Indeed. -- NSLE _{(Communicate!)} ^<Contribs> 11:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
7. Yerp. No need. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
8. There is only in the rarest of cases a need to delist before the end of 7 days, and almost never if the delister is not a bureaucrat. Bureaucracts decide the outcomes of RfAs, and delisting is a pretty clear decision of outcome. -Splash^talk 19:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
9. Making the questions compulsory is too coercive. -Greg Asche (talk) 23:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
10. A lack of answers is an answer itself. Turnstep 00:44, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
11. I don't think there's a need to require answers. They'll run into a brick wall if they don't but there might be a situation where it's not needed. m:instruction creep comes into play also I think. Rx StrangeLove 03:06, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
12. Mmmm. I think it was a good experiment, but I think the other way was a little better. Linuxbeak | Talk 18:50, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Neutral/Other

1. Do these rules include delisting early if the candidate seems assured of defeat? --Maru (talk) Contribs 05:48, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
2. Voting is silly. --Carnildo 06:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
3. I'd say delist only if there is no obvious evidence that the candidate has accepted the nomination (e.g., it might be worth checking the nominator's talk page). Making the questions a requirement is stupid. Right now we have a nice, simple definition of what we want in admins -- "trusted users who are familiar with Wikipedia policy." I see no reason to add a requirement that they be able to articulate the contributions they are most pleased with. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Erm.

1. Wikipedia:Does_Wikipedia_have_too_many_polls?_poll. Dmcdevit·t 08:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

   Just to be clear, I'm with what Filiocht said below; I'm sick of polls. I think putting a little number next to my name and quarantining it in its own little section with similar votes discourages discussion. (Oh wait, that's what an RFA is... :-) Just thought I'd point it put, don't mind me. Dmcdevit·t 00:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

2. Voting ≠ consensus. Filiocht | The kettle's on 09:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
3. I think a poll is premature at this point. For one, I'm not at all sure what we are being asked to vote on. When putting the question, please be specific. Two, please don't rush into a vote without asking for debate and allowing for amendment and shaping of the question. Jonathunder 21:42, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

   A split poll indicates a lack of consensus, which is why I asked for a poll. I personally think that this proposal was railroaded through without consensus, and I wanted verification that my suspicion was correct. It would seem that it was. Kelly Martin (talk) 11:36, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

   It absolutely was, as my attempts to oppose it ~12 hours after it had been proposed were ignored. Apparently consensus had formed all while I slept. Christopher Parham (talk) 13:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

   Just to be clear; I oppose the proposal, but I'd rather not be asked to vote in yet another poll. I'd prefer discussion. My own view is that all RfAs should be allowed to run their full course unless the mominee withdraws. However, I also feel that nobody should be proposed without first getting their agreement to accept on their talk page or by e-mail. Filiocht | The kettle's on 13:53, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

4. Must change my D&D alignment to neutral-evil Lectonar 10:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• Ermm... I'm kind of confused now. Are we voting polling about whether to 1) not let RfAs be placed on the page until the candidate has accepted, 2) or whether to require that the questions be answered? It appears to be unclear to me. In either case, I do apologize if the proposal seemed railroaded through, but it appeared we had a consensus on the page with no opposition, so I was bold and implemented it. I didn't hear any opposition afterwards except from one person (Christopher Parham), so I didn't think there was significant discontent with the new policy. It seems like I'm wrong regarding that. Anyways, just for clarification, are the "No" people voting to not let subpages be placed on here if not accepted but let them be on with acceptance but no questions answered? In either case, I do want to point out that candidates always have the right to refuse to answer the questions; if s/he accepted and stated, "I do not want to answer these", I don't think the current policy would let it be removed. THanks for the clarifications, and my apologies if this proposal did seem a bit rushed. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 00:25, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

  My personal oppose is to oppose any reason whatever for delisting before the end of 7 days, except is blatantly obvious cases of either bad-faith nominations, declined nominations and other similarities. -Splash^talk 00:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

  Would you agree that, rather than making provisions for a declined nomination, it's easier to just wait for the nomination to be accepted before it is posted to the RfA page? After all, this would prevent both joke nominations (such as Rainbowwarrior1977's nomination of purplefeltangel) and unaccepted nominations in which some unpleasant things are said of the nominee before they get around to declining (as in Kappa's last nomination).  BD2412 ^talk 03:25, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

  Now that sounds fair. The questions are just extra, but accepting the nomination is already mandatory in order for it to run its course. This would also prevent awkward surprise nominations (like my first nomination). Acetic'^Acid 03:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

  I think that would be alright, although much of the time it doesn't make a whole load of difference. I am basically quite strongly opposed to any early delisting once an RfA has begun, whatever the reason, short of obvious bad-faith, a withdrawal or a bureaucrat's decision. We create bureaucrats for their judgement in handling RfAs, and I dislike the devolution of that power to one random editor's discretion over when a nomination is 'likely' to have failed. -Splash^talk 14:15, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, well put. Rx StrangeLove 14:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Also agreed. As stated by myself in prior discussions here, I think it is a bad idea to remove RfAs prior to the end of the 7 days, unless they are made in bad faith. I'm also opposed to bureaucrats removing them, but feel less strongly about that than random good faith editors prematurely removing them. I feel very strongly that a nominee should be given the opportunity to voluntarily withdraw, rather than forcibly withdrawing them. Forcibly withdrawing has lead to problems in the past, and even now with the (albeit unusual) Stevertigo nomination, which was removed early and put back up. --Durin 17:28, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Durin, pretty much exactly. Forcible withdrawal does more harm than good. If the nominee wants it removed, they can easily say so, and it will be done. Friday (talk) 17:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

A Simple proposal for delistings (Archive 35)

Some thoughts

1. Frivolous nominations.
2. Candidate declines nomination.
3. Candidate requests a delisting.
4. Admin questions not answered within 5 days of accepting nomination. Voting should only start after candidate has answered questions.
5. Spoiled nominations. Excessive controversy results in irreparable damage to the voting process.

Klonimus 07:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Some responses

1. Who decides? Better to let run its course.
2. The rule is (or should be) do not list without pprior candidate agreement.
3. The only valid one, IMHO.
4. No, questions should be voluntary. Let the voters make up their own minds about lack of answers.
5. Let the candidate decide.

Filiocht | The kettle's on 14:00, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

What I think

1. Only list an RFA once the User has accepted the nomination.
2. Only delist an RFA once the User has withdrawn the nomination. encephalon 04:43, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

As this apparent flux in the delisting policy comes in the wake of my RFA, Ive made some comments and requests with regard to the appropriateness of my delisting. (See #Inappropriate delisting)-St|eve 04:50, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• There's been an ongoing debate about when to delist from before your re-RfA came up. In concur with Encephalon's suggestions. --Durin 15:25, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

There's a numeric rule for removing?! (Archive 38)

I'm disturbed by the suggestion that once Oppose–support=10 an RfA has failed. I don't recall, and nor can I find, a "general consensus" on this new instruction. We don't need it, it wasn't very widely approved (unless I was asleep for, say, a two week voting period), and we shouldn't be removing noms early anyway, in my opinion. And hard numbers are bad since a controversial RfA could easily swing around 9-11 votes difference and I would be horrified if someone thought "ah, then that RfA is dead". It seems to me to be part of a recent instruction creep assault on RfA which we have successfully fought off. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: RfA is not broken and does not need constraintive rules to help it in not-breaking. The immediately above debates aside, of course, since they are substantial reform rather than creep. -Splash^talk 03:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

In complete agreement. Legalism is bad. ~~ N (t/c) 04:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

In general, any arguments in opposition to the idea that failing RfAs should not be withdrawn early have fallen on deaf areas, and it remains policy. Barring a full blown poll on the matter to demonstrate (or not) community consensus on the issue, I doubt there will be any shift. --Durin 04:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

There are too many negatives for me to be sure of what you mean. But in any case, policy (such as it is) most certainly does not stipulate a 10 vote difference constituting failure, and it never has. -Splash^talk 04:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Although it's possible to come back from 10 votes in the hole, it's totally inconceivable. 10 supports up? Easily, just screw up and bang! you're gone. But 10 opposes? If you get 10 opposes with 0 supports, it's strange that the oppose votes came that fast that you can expect to get 40 support votes without another opposition vote, and it's just as weird to go from 50/60/0 to uhhh, 240/60/0, if you know where I'm going with this. I can't think of being able to do something so amazingly great that you WON'T lose the RfA. However I believe if RFA's are delisted to protect the subject from woe, and thus if the subject doesn't WANT to be delisted, don't delist them. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The point about numbers is that, if you stay 9 votes down, you get a whole week to turn things around, but, if you're 11 votes down, you're a dodo. If you're a controversial candidate, and your total vote count is reaching toward 80-100, that's dead easy to see happen. -Splash^talk 04:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying 80 people participate? that'd be 35-45, meaning you'd still need 180 total support votes, assuming no more opposes come... and as for 9 vs. 11, I guess you have to draw the line somewhere... but once again I think we can use common sense in delisting, and if the subject wants to relist themselves, don't stop them. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Lucky6.9 springs to mind, and so does William M. Connolley. But anyway, there doesn't have to be a line drawn at all. If you must unlist early, then use judgement, not hard rules. Judgement in reading RfAs is why we make people Bureaucrats. Those we elect to interpret sociology over statistics should not be trying to break the process down into mere statistics. -Splash^talk 05:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Many of the arguments in favor of removing failing RfAs are based on the presumption that the only thing that can result from an RfA is a determination of consensus on adminship. This simply isn't true. Quite a number of RfA candidates have used prior RfAs as a guide on how they can improve themselves for the next go around. Removing RfAs prematurely denies them this resource. Further, quite a number of RfA contributors use prior RfAs to see if the candidate has improved on shortcomings from the last RfA. Remove the RfA earlier, and you open the door for people to castigate noms on a second nomination because of errors they made prior to their first RfA. Look at Alkivar for a case in point of how bad it could have been if his prior RfA had been yanked prematurely. He's succeeding because it's clear the objections are from before the last RfA and were stated in the last RfA. Remove early, and you deny a candidate that. No matter what arbitrary measure you use to determine whether an RfA is failing, you are going to find exceptions and objections to it. Early removal also encourages people to vote quickly, rather than slowly. I tend to not vote very much despite spending a lot of time involved in the RfA process. This is because I vote slowly. Look at my oppose vote on Aranda56's nom ([5]). That took a while to develop. Let's say instead that it was a positive vote. I would have to move quickly for an RfA that I thought might fail to get my support vote into the RfA, to perhaps influence other later contributors prior to them voting oppose. As it stands now, anyone...whether a bureaucrat or not, whether an admin or not, can arbitrarily remove an RfA as failing based on whatever criteria they so choose. I can go on for a while on a number of points on why removing RfAs prematurely is bad. In fact, I have in the archives of this talk page. I keep repeating myself over and over and over again on these points to no avail. As I noted earlier, it's falling on deaf ears. I believe the policy is essentially etched in stone. As I noted previously, barring a poll to reverse the policy, it isn't going to change. --Durin 05:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I kind of see were RedWolf24 is going. The votes should be quite randomized and linear, assuming no "rallying", so that O(t)=Kt and S(t)=Ct. C and K can be determined after only a samplespace number of votes are cast to get an accurate prediction. Therefore V(t)=t(c+k). If C/(C+K) is *WAY* less than 2/3 then the nomination will fail, whether you close it now or wait(let t increase). C and K, as determined by O(ti)+S(ti) must be at least about 10 or so("i" for initial), and after more than 2 days; but using standard deviation..ect...we could get the exact right number to get +/-3 % accuracy ;-).

Then again, numbers aren't everything, and Durin's Bane, I mean Durin...:-), has a point. Maybe failed candidates can learn from this as opposed to a quicky removal.Voice of All ^{T|@|Esperanza} 06:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

For myself, I would have much preferred to have left my nomination open until either it expired or it turned heavily uncivil. Sheezamageeza, I'd love it to be re-opened now, 190 proof feedback is damn hard to come by. There were still quite a few people from whom I hadn't heard, people whose opinions really count to me, who didn't even log on in the short window my nom was open. I certainly didn't expect another fifty people to turn up and support, let's be clear, but a lot can happen in five days.

A big issue in mine was racism. In fact, the first "oppose" came based upoon this issue while the nom was still in my user space. But if that user hadn't been around it probably wouldn't even have come up, everyone else seems to have accepted my apologies when it happened. Where I'm going with this is that if it hadn't been raised and dealt with in this nom then it could easily have derailed some potential future nomination.

So how do I now know that there's not some other skeleton in my closet? Something that could have been expunged this time, but wasn't? Being nominated is stressful enough, having to potentially run once for every mistake you've ever made is torture.
brenneman^(t)(c) 06:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I didn't vote on your nomination, but I sympathize with you. It would be disconcerting to find your RFA closed without warning. I think unless something is spinning wildly out of control a nominee should at least be consulted with before an early closure. There is value in letting a nomination run to it's term for all the reasons people have pointed out. Rx StrangeLove 07:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

To be clear there was consultation, and I did express that I'd like it to be kept open, but left it to the other party to close if they felt it was disruptive. My previous facetious edit summary aside, I'm not terribly upset by the early closure. I'm sure there's a polysyllabic German word for "mild dissapointment at premature end to enriching experiance", so whatever that word is that's how it felt. - brenneman^(t)(c) 09:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I actually think Aaron has a point. And what if a serious charge was made in an RfA - and then the thing was removed before the candidate had a chance to respond? Even if the RfA is obviously going to fail, a reputation might be at stake if an editor is denied the right of publically replying. --Doc (?) 09:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I take the tack that an RFA should be removed only when the respondents specifically request its removal. For example, if a user with no experience in vandal-fighting whatsoever and only a few score edits makes an RFA, the first few comments will oppose their adminship, and then later commenters will clamour to remove the RFA. Contentious nominations, on the other hand, such as Alkivar's first two nominations, Sam Spade's nominations, and Alphax's nomination, would rarely receive requests to remove the RFA, because most respondents would see know real reason to remove the nomination. If we follow this strategy, we can weed out the joke nominations while retaining the ones that are merely contentious. Ingoolemo ^talk 07:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I suggest a compromise (compromises are good). RfA's that are 10 down (and thus cannot succeed) should be promptly suspended. However, the candidate should immediately be asked their wishes, and their right to request relisting should be absolute (except in extreme circumstances). That saves the face of many, but does not stifle the right of reply. Doc (?) 09:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

• I think more appropriate (and this has been suggested before) is that a nominee is informed that his RfA is going poorly, and they may wish to consider closing their nomination early. We can create a template for this, with reasons to keep it open and reasons to close it, and instructions to remove it if they so desire. Removing it, and then making nominees relist it, seems hostile. --Durin 14:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Doc, in that case why do we need a default delisting at all? Leave it up to the candidate to decided whether to close early or not. But again, this would allow a joke nomination to clutter the board for a week. Here is another compromise:

Where consensus to promote will clearly not be reached, a bureaucrat may decide to change the transclusion of the RfA to a simple link. This way, discussion can continue on the separated page for the full duration for those interested, without disturbing voting on the main WP:RFA page. Closing the voting can only be done at the end of the seven day period.

In some rare cases, such a vote may even turn around and end in a promotion. Owen× ☎ 14:21, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh, now that's quite creative. I rather like that idea, I think. -Splash^talk 14:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

• Yeah, that is a creative idea...except that I think discussion will decrease, defeating the purpose of keeping the RfA open. This seems the best compromise so far though; I'd be willing to try some test cases. --Durin 14:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Discussion may decrease, but not end totally as with delisting. People can always withdraw if they choose. Test cases sound good. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 18:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Since I am party to the above post, I wish to state that I had asked Aaron about his RFA delisting. He did give me the option to remove it, and I removed it. I'd suggested that he try again with a clean slate. IMO, I don't think it was a bad call, and I stand by my decision. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

No harm, no foul. - brenneman^(t)(c) 22:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Non-bureaucrats closing RfAs? (Archive 38)

Are there many non-bureaucrats who close RfAs? Of course only a bureaucrat can close a successful RfA, but are there many non-bureaucrats who close nominations as failed, if:

• They expire without gaining consensus to support,
• The candidate declines or withdraws the nomination, or
• There seems to be a strong consensus to oppose?

I'd be interested in hearing from other Wikipedia users. I personally only close RfAs if the candidate declines or withdraws them, as it is the only non-controversial case. Please also indicate whether you're an admin or not (I am one). — JIP | Talk 08:00, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I am adamantly against non-bureacrats deciding that there was no consensus. That's what the bureacrats were elected specifically to do. →Raul654 09:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Ditto. Marskell 09:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It's almost as bad as the Arbcom saying "well, we can't be bothered making a decision, what does the community think?" If people who were elected to do a task don't do it, what's the point of electing them? Alphax ^τεχ 09:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Extreme (...) agree. Bureaucrats close RfAs. Period. -Splash^talk 14:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Raul. Managing the RfA process is (at present) the only responsibility a bureaucrat has. They are responsible for deciding the fate of RfAs. They were given that responsibility by a strongly supportive community. Let them do their jobs. If bureaucrats were overburdened, and RfAs were extending days and days past their conclusion dates, then I could see some rationale to users closing RfAs that had obviously failed. But, this isn't the case. --Durin 14:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Per this discussion, I added the following: "Only bureaucrats may close or de-list a nomination. In the case of vandalism, improper formatting or a declined or withdrawn nomination, non-bureacrats may choose to de-list a nomination but they are never empowered to decide on whether consensus has been achieved." OK? Marskell 14:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

• Except that a nominee should be able to withdraw their own nomination. --Durin 14:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • "Or withdrawn" added. Marskell 14:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I would like to point out that the community did not give bureaucrats the job of "managing the RFA process." It gave bureaucrats the job of promoting admins who are eligible. If the job has grown to include the "management of the RFA process," so be it, but it was outside the original remit. Non-bureaucrats were closing failed RFAs long before bureaucrats existed, and I still don't see a problem with this, particularly in those cases where the outcome is clear. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 23:21, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd already outlined my views on a rough guideline as to when an admin can remove a RFA a few weeks earlier. Its now lost in the archives. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:14, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Well there was Tony1's case, which I closed as a no consensus before it ran its course. The RfA was something like 35 supports to zilch, then a comment is made, and more comments are made, and he ends up with just as many oppose votes as support votes. Its obvious he doesn't have a hope in hell in passing, and his particular RFA was causing a lot of stress for himself and several others. I agree though that if its in the grey area with 70%+ support to ignore it and let a bureaucrat decide, but when you have 50% support and 4 oppose votes are coming in for every support? Redwolf24 (talk) 19:11, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

An attempt is being made to address this problem in the Guide to requests for adminship now being developed, with a line in the Miniguide making it clear that the candidate can withdraw at any stage, and a last paragraph on General advice for nominators suggesting that a nominator contact the candidate if things go sour. Do you think this would help?. . ...dave souza 23:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Removing Pile On Nominations (Archive 40)

I've brought this up numerous times before, and have always been told that it's not my right, but I'm removing PHDrillSergeant's nomination. If PHDrill or a bureaucrat chooses to overrule me, then fine. But I think common sense is the best route to take in this case. Acetic'^Acid 03:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• Endorse Redwolf24 (talk) 03:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. There was a discussion a few weeks ago and "About RfA" was altered (by myself without complaint) to clarify de-listings by non-'crats: vandalism, improper formatting, declined or withdrawn. While the pile-ons may have an absolutely predictable outcome, it still qualifies as a non-'crat making a decision about consensus. Marskell 14:15, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I thought there was some agreement on the idea of a trial of instead of totally de-listing a pile-on nomination, you simply replace the tranclusion with a simple link. That way, if the nominee wants it to stay open (for comments on what they could do better or something), it is, but doesn't take up too much space on the page, but if they want to withdraw, then delist totally. I know a few people had said they thought it was an okay. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I remember two or three people sounded enthusiastic when I proposed that. We can try that for PHDrillSergeant, or wait for the next case. Owen× ☎ 16:55, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

That way, even if they were a self-nom who realised that they had not much of a shot, but still wanted to learn what they could do better, they could still have it open, but just not so prominently displayed. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. And it upholds the principle: no decision on consensus (however obvious it seems) unless you are a crat. No one can simply remove a nomination. Marskell 22:50, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Unless they withdraw. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, unless they withdraw--but removing a withdrawal is not a decision regarding consensus. That's part of the point. Marskell 22:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Before, I recommended giving users the option of voting for 'remove nomination', in especially bad cases. Of course, I was referring mainly to users with only a few score edits, not necessarily to Dr Sergeant

No, it's not about a non-crat determining consensus. We say that in the case of it being 70/25/0 and some jerk calls it failed. It's up to a bureaucrat to determine consensus, but consensus isn't a factor when the guy's 0/6/0 and he has like 70 edits. Redwolf24 (talk) 00:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed - the need to avoid forest fires is a more important need than the need to defer to a bureaucrat on cases that a monkey could figure out. Phil Sandifer 00:12, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

haha Redwolf24 (talk) 00:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

When we have at least one bureaucrat one hand 24 hours a day, by all means stop non-crats from delisting. Unfortunately, we only have about what, 17 bureaucrats still at wikipedia? and how many of them watch RFA? Redwolf24 (talk) 00:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

What's wrong with the link rather than a total de-listing as LV suggested? As far how many crats which RfA, I should hope all of them when they're logged in. Marskell 09:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

A link? Why? People will still follow and oppose, and oppose reasons are VERY rarely constructive criticism, unless you think advice on when to run again is constructive. And re: bureaucrats again... Yes, we have a watchlist, but we don't have a giant NEW EDIT TO WATCHLISTED ITEM! banner like we do for talk pages. EVEN IF WE DID, they wouldn't notice it because we don't edit RFA, we edit RFA/Foo. We'd be lucky if the bureaucrats checked this page once an hour, and look at WP:BUR. Our bureaucrats are no longer our most active people, most of them have been less active than they once were (with a few exceptions) which again would probably be a reason I recommend more bureaucrats as there seems to be a decline in activity for most (not all) of them. The inactive bureaucrats were also very active at one point, but just slowed down. Redwolf24 (talk) 23:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

A link for procedural integrity. If it's not vandalism and it's not withdrawn it lasts a week and consensus is decided by a bureacrat, end of story. They watch it enough to close two or three a day now and if they feel a pile on is particularly egregious they can always end it. And what, really, is going to make a newbie feel worse, coming back and seeing twelve "come back in two months" comments or noticing that their self-nom has been arbitrarily removed? Marskell 15:04, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

And we should try to let nominees clearly going to fail know that withdrawal is a possibility. Recommend that they withdraw, but don't remove RfA completely. What if they want to keep it open? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:16, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• This is a neverending debate. It keeps cropping up, over and over and over again. Right now, the RfAs for Guanaco, KuatofKDY, Halibutt, and Niz are all failing badly. Why haven't they been removed and others do get removed? Where do you draw the line? --Durin 16:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The line should be when it is certain that a nomination is in bad faith, it is clearly WP:POINT, or the nominator asks for it to be withdrawed. Add a line to the instructions indicating that nominees have the right to withdraw a nomination if they feel it is going awry. Titoxd^(?!?) 17:35, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree with Titoxd, lets give them the withdraw option, unless it is just a silly nomination, such as a two day editor running for admin.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 18:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

In line with this, I have removed the line about nominations "clearly" failing can be removed. If it is re-inserted at least add with candidate's permission. Ultimately, I don't think it's needed because it already states withdrawn noms can be removed based on my earlier change. Marskell 11:51, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Close out of RFAs (Archive 41)

Finally, could folks please let only bureaucrats close out RFAs? Else it's extremely hard to tell if policy has been followed. Kim Bruning 06:08, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

• Agreed. Nobody but Bureaucrats should be touching the "closing" of such nominations. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-3 06:10

I added a note to the front matter about closings, however since while it's functional it isn't exactly pretty someone might want to try to rework it if they get a chance. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 06:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

• I don't know how many times I have agreed with someone saying this. -Splash^talk 17:52, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Jtkiefer, I've removed your additions, as they're redundant with the rest of the page, which already stated "Only bureaucrats may close or de-list a nomination as a definitive promotion or non-promotion. In the case of vandalism, improper formatting or a declined or withdrawn nomination, non-bureacrats may choose to de-list a nomination but they are never empowered to decide on whether consensus has been achieved." I don't have an objection to someone coming along and tidying old nominations (though it's not as though the bureaucrat workload is that high). Any non-bureaucrats tidying up closed RfAs, could you please make a note if you do this of the closing bureaucrat as well as the closing time so there is no confusion? Would this be an acceptable solution? Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, maybe something should be done though to make it more prominent that non bureaucrats can't just randomly go removing noms. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 18:06, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I added what Mind quotes about a month ago. I think its pretty clear and if front matter is followed as it now stands this shouldn't be an issue (and for the visually impaired we now have a bold for the critical sentence). Marskell 21:35, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Did I miss something? (Archive 42)

Whatever happened to the point of view that RFAs exist to advance the encyclopedia by identifying candidates that are suitable for adminship? Blatantly failed RFAs, and there are several on the page right now, should go away. There is nothing to be gained by piling on or gawking at failed candidates and nothing about such opposition conversations that couldn't be accomplished in the privacy of that user's talk page. And no, I don't think that we need the expertise of a bureaucrat to decide that 0 support, 10 oppose is a lost cause. Dragons flight 19:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

First, 0 and 10 is not necessarily a failed nomination, I've seen them come back from similar. Second, if it is failing, it is the responsibility of the person being nominated to put an end to it. We do have a nomination acceptance requirement, after all, so it's not like users are being RfA'd without their knowledge. Turnstep 19:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Further, if an RfA candidate can accept a nomination certainly they can be shown how to withdraw one. It's not hard. --Durin 20:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Durin, you have some impressive RfA statistics on hand: was there ever a case where a 0/10/x nomination ended successfully? While theoretically possible, I think this falls under the "snowball's chance in hell" category. I certainly don't remember seeing anything come close to such a turnaround. I've seen a promising 10/0/x nomination fail, but that's significantly more likely, of course; 10/5/0 is a fail, but so is 5/10/0. Owen× ☎ 22:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• I don't know. It's doubtful that I can gather that information. I'd have to be keeping track of how each RfA progresses through it's 7 (or less) day time period. I don't do that. I capture information at the beginning (edit count, article edit count) and at the end (sup/opp/neu votes). Regardless, from my chair there is more to be gained from a failing RfA than just failure of the RfA. The candidate, if conscientious, will use the failed RfA as a list of what to do better for the next go around. Without a complete RfA, other issues can arise in a future RfA that were not addressed in the original RfA. This is setting people up for repeated failure. This does not serve the candidates or the community very well at all. --Durin 00:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Even some of the nominations on the page right now, like Awolf002's came back from a substantial deficit (in this case 1/6/0) to succeed (in this case by a fairly substantial margin, as it stands). 0/10/0 might be a lost cause, except that oppose voters are allowed to change their mind. Also, if we need a technical solution against piling on, that speaks of serious issues within the community. But on the contrary, I think people rather graciously refrain from piling on, which is why few nominations gather more than 10-15 oppose votes -- relatively to other nominations, that's hardly piling on. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Durin, that's a really good point about conscientious candidates using the failed RfA as a list of what to do better for the next go around. We shouldn't be trying to hide "failures" away, if it's going that way someone (probably the nominator) should contact the candidate and put the situation in that positive light. ...dave souza 19:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's stop being theoretical, I think the following noms should be closed and removed:

MegamanZero (0/8/2), WhatWouldEmperorNortonDo (2/12/1), Canaen (0/15/3), YHoshua (0/10/7)

All of them are self noms that I and many voters clearly view as unsuitable. What's more, reading those noms shows me almost no comments offering new value after the 4th oppose on any of them.

For example (from MegamanZero):

5. Sorry, no. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 08:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

6. Merovingian 17:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

7. Oppose. CDThieme 18:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

8. Oppose, needs more experience.Gateman1997 20:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

And why does it take 12 oppose votes to tell someone (WhatWouldEmperorNortonDo) that having less than 80 total edits is not sufficient? Turnstep, Durin and Dave all argue above that the person being nominated should be responsible for withdrawing a bad nom, but somehow I doubt that when one is dealing with self-noms from candidates that are this poorly qualified that they even know there is an option to withdraw. If someone believes that continuing these noms is going to somehow do anything to benefit the community or the candidate, I'd love for them to explain how. Frankly, I think it is an embarrassment to the community that we allow so many content-less oppose votes to pile up like this. In many regards, it is the only sanctioned form of newbie biting. Dragons flight 03:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• There's an important step that we seem to have skipped: has anyone asked MegamanZero, WhatWouldEmperorNortonDo, Canaen, or YHoshua to withdraw? - brenneman^(t)(c) 04:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• An perfectly civil oppose vote isn't "biting" anyone, and to suggest that this is the only sanctioned form of newbie biting when hundreds of new pages are speedy deleted with exactly no explaination every day is a bit mystifying. Except perhaps for Nightstallion's, the votes you list above don't seem biting at all, and the solution for votes that are rude, uncivil or unfriendly is admonition of the voters in question, not closing the nominations early. Feel free to explain to the nominee that they can withdraw, but fundamentally it's up to them: it's not costing us a lot in terms of resources at the moment, so I'm happy to let them get whatever they want out of the process. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Having ten people tell you are bad and don't have enough experience is wholly unneccesary and likely to cost us editors. Are those comments abusive or rude, generally no, but would you enjoy having a community of people get together and say you are no good? And I don't accept the argument that it is "their RFA" so they should get to decide what is done with it. RFAs are for the benefit of the community to decide which candidates are suitable or not, and the community should take responsibility for not continuing to criticize people long after the issue is decided. To answer Aaron's question, I haven't talked to them, though I would be happy to. Really though, I'd like to see a return to the standard that anyone can delist hopeless cases (a standard which changed sometime in that last few months). In the past, rather than watching 12 oppose votes rack up on an editor with less than 100 edits, I would have removed it and left a nice note on his talk page explaining the problem. None of the noms I removed in this way were ever upset over it and several were grateful. Somehow it seems that we have become attached to the notion that RFAs should last 7 days, rather than focusing on the fact that RFA exist to determine consensus on whether or not a given individual should be promoted. Dragons flight 06:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Dragons flight, allow me to explain your serious failing in the assumption And I don't accept the argument that it is "their RFA". Its because wikipedia is not a Democracy. It also boils down to the fact that people have their own say and right about one's own nomination, as well as the fact that its not up to anyone else to call their nomination worthless or not. In my case, I knew that I would most likely fail this request, but I decided to go forth anyway, because of the experience and learning potential. Most of the first users who opposed me, while disappointing, gave me helpful and insightful comments on how to increse my status as a competent wikipedian. And right now, I'm all the better for it. However, while there do seem to be opposers who voted agaist me for purely bandwagoon reasons, I still think this is a healthy and good learning experience. Please do not put people down in certain aspect of your WP:POV concensus.-MegamanZero 08:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• • The problem Dragons flight identifies could be reduced if all applicants read WP:GRFA and knew what to expect, and there's no loss if the remover has the courtesy to ask the nominee first rather than explaining it later. ...dave souza 08:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Another way to reduce the problems mentioned above is to simply disallow self-nominations. Not only would it cut down on people nominating themselves who really should not be (see ADMIN! below for a prime example), but it would make it easier for editors to legally remove such nominations from the page. Requiring someone else to nominate you would also automatically add an interested party who could withdraw the nomination (or suggest that their nominee do so). But I still agree with MegamanZero that there is not really a problem here: putting yourself on AfD is an entirely voluntary process. If you do so, you should live with the consequences. There's always an escape hatch. Turnstep 13:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• • As someone who has just been made an admin via self-nomination, I can see a few problems with this. It encourages cliques, or at least the appearance of cliques, or the thought that you have to be a member of a clique to become an admin. I don't edit Wikipedia to make new chums, and I suspect there are others in my position who self-nominate but would never have been proposed by someone else because they just don't "do" the social side of Wikipedia. So you'd have to have some way for people to self-nominate in some form, even if that was to approach someone on a list of willing admins who were prepared to look into someone's history and nominate them, and you'd end up having a person or group of people who were effectively acting as gatekeepers on self-nomination. But that doesn't do away with the clique problem, or the appearance that you only get to be an admin by buttering other admins up, and I suspect that just means that ADMIN! would be badgering people inappropriately elsewhere rather than here. I think perhaps a stronger warning when you're filling in the self-nomination form might suffice, and let the fools act foolishly if they choose to. --ajn (talk) 14:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I have nominated myself for adminship in early September and my RfA passed with something like 20 support votes and no oppose votes at all. I remember people saying the thought I was already an admin. I don't think I have seen anyone seriously accusing me of adminship abuse. But if I had not nominated myself, I don't believe anyone would have spotted me and nominated me for adminship. So I oppose forbidding self-nominations. — JIP | Talk 06:26, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Agree. It is also possible that someone wants to become an admin but doesn't want to ask anyone to nominate him - a self-nom is the best option then. However, really serious candidates do know that self-noms have a lesser chance of being successful, if they still prefer it - it is their prerogative. --Gurubrahma 08:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Snowball clause (Archive 45)

There are several pileon oppose nominations again. Any objection to prematurely removing those, to prevent the nominee from getting badgered overly much? Radiant_>|< 23:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

No opposition here. I used to be of the opinion that we should leave it up to the nominee, but the point of RFA is to determine consensus to give a user admin privileges, and leaving up obvious failures don't contribute anything to that effort. —Cleared as filed. 23:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I have already re-added mine after Cecropria removed and closed it prematurely under the snowball clause so I would just like to request that you don't remove mine prematurely. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 23:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Can it be that a snowball comes from flocking enemies, and if you wait for a week, it turns into a diamond? Mukadderat 23:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Pileups on RfA should be treated much like pileups on the freeway - clear them out so traffic can flow. bd2412 T 23:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The closure of RfA noms should be left to Bureaucrats. That's why we have them. -Splash^talk 23:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me to be common sense that a nomination that is totally opposed after a few days is going to fail. Since our purpose here isn't to have procedures for the sake of procedures, I can't think of a good reason not to remove obviously failing nominations. It's not like it can't be easily reversed if someone does it in error. —Cleared as filed. 23:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

If the nominee agrees, then fine. But not otherwise — bureaucrats are imbued with the authority to determine outcomes of RfAs, and, imo, noone else has that authority. -Splash^talk 23:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Seeing support and no opposition here, I went ahead and did that. Of course, when I came back, there was opposition by Splash. I don't think this is such a big deal though. Promotion and borderline cases are strictly the domain of the 'crats - but there's no need to be bureaucratic (excuse the pun) on an obvious snowball. I mean, non-admins close AFDs as 'keep' and there isn't much opposition against that either. Radiant_>|< 00:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Radiant, I'm with you. It's dumb to let them linger on, but in past discussions there has been substantial opposition to anyone other than a bureaucrat closing noms, even the failing ones. So much so that they rewrote the instructions on the RFA page to explicitly exclude it. See here and here. Dragons flight 00:27, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh wait, I hadn't noticed you had just editted the instructions to justify closing them early. Tsk, tsk. I do like the snowball picture though. Dragons flight 01:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• I already do removal of withdrawn RFA's already, and non b-crats should go ahead and remove a badly failing RFA in my opinion --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 00:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• If it is felt that a pile-on is becoming a problem then it can always be raised to a bureaucrat for resolution. I don't think we need to extend the ability to close nominations, to anyone other than bureaucrats. Cheers TigerShark 00:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• Agreed with Splash and TigerShark, bureaucrats should do the closing. They all come with an end date that should be honored by non-bureaucrats. Dropping a note on the bureaucrats notice board and/or the nominee's talk page should do it. Rx StrangeLove 04:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that leaving a note for bureaucrats to see is perfectly fine, though. However, leave the closing to the bureaucrats. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Myself and others have repeatedly argued against non-bureaucrats removing/closing RfAs. There is no consensus on removing clearly failing RfAs by non-bureaucrats. Furthermore, citing WP:SNOW as justification is fatally flawed; WP:SNOW is not policy. It's not even a guideline. Even worse, it's not even proposed as a policy or a guideline. Citing it is worthless. What is the harm in suggesting to a nominee that they withdraw as opposed to unilaterally deciding the nominee hasn't a snowball's chance in hell and pulling the plug? Early withdraw against a nominee's wishes can leave just as bitter a taste as a failed RfA. Lastly, RfA is a consensus building mechanism. Evidence can come forward during an RfA which can signficantly change the outcome. While (to my knowledge) this hasn't happened to swing an RfA in favor of a nominee (though it definitely has happened in the other direction) not allowing an RfA to proceed prevents this possibility from ever happening. Meanwhile, you're kicking users in the jaw and essentially saying "you suck, get lost" and tossing them out. WORK with these people, will you? In the time it takes you to remove an RfA you could have left a note for the nominee on their talk page. --Durin 04:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • No, piling up more oppose votes is kicking users in the jaw and tossing them out. We've lost good editors this way. Also, I fail to see the logic behind your reasoning that a certain argument may not be used because it's not policy, guideline or proposal. WP:NOT a bureaucracy; the question should always be "is this a good idea?", not "does this conform to the letter of policy?" Radiant_>|< 10:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
    • And how do we decide here what is a "good idea"? Consensus. Removing failing RfAs lacks consensus. User's getting bruised by a failing RfA is not the only outcome that can happen from a failing RfA. --Durin 14:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Calm down everyone. Didn't we already have a huge poll & discussion on this. Lets the bcrats do what they think best. Non-crats SHOULD NOT be closing RfA's though. WP:SNOW is has little standing since it is contraversial (WP:IAR does not overrule consensus, the point is that it is obviously the right thing, but the rules are not clear). So WP:IAR and SNOW have feather weight here. I do believe that it would be nice if crats ask if the person would like for it to be re-listed anyway.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• If the nominee withdraws, the RfA is closed. Period. Doesn't need any more than that, regardless of whether they were ahead or behind or whatever. If the nominee doesn't withdraw, that's their decision and if it's an avalanche it's an avalanche. IMHO, YMMV, VWPBL, etc. Regards, Ben Aveling 07:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agreed. The nominee or a bureaucrat should be the only ones to determine that an individual RfA has "no chance". With all of the vitriol flying around these days, an anti-snowball is too easy to see happening (see the ArbCom elections). -- nae'blis _(talk) 15:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Per Splash, Durin, Tiger, Tit, Strange and Ben...bureaucrats close RfAs or the nominee withdraws. There is no consensus for any other policy and I really must take issue with citing the (non-guideline, non-policy) Snowball clause in Front Matter without consensus. Marskell 11:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Fully agreed, and thank you for removing it Marskell. --Durin 14:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Problem with RfA closed early (Archive 52)

I'm puzzled about what happened with this RfA (history). The last vote cast put the tally at (0/8/1) (old edit). When Essjay closed it early, it was changed to (0/17/2) (diff). But this is not just about rectifying the record. That's easily done, and the whole thing could be attributed to an honest mistake. But I don't know about closing an RfA that had been open for just five hours with just nine votes in — granted, eight of which were to oppose, but it just seems way too early. Maybe if there were indeed 17, or even more, votes opposing. It would have been nice to have waited at least the first 24 hours though. But that notwithstanding, I'm confused. Was this closed at (0/8/1), or did Essjay have (0/17/2) in mind? I thought it would be best to post this here. Regards, Redux 17:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite sure it was a typo. Essjay closed 3 at the same time and the first one was 0/17/2. He probably just forgot and went nuts with the copy paste. None of them were going to succeed...so I don't see the problem with closing them and sparing the candidate the pain of pileon opposes. Any contructive critcism that they could get out of the Rfa had already been said. pschemp | talk 17:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

As I said: the incorrect tally is credited to an honest mistake, but the RfA was only five hours old when it was closed. And there had been only nine votes cast (and one was not to oppose). The possibility of early delisting notwithstanding, I'm not sure it should be done this early. An RfA must be given a minimum amount of time open: it is not unusual for a candidate to get four, five or more oppose votes in a row, and then start receiving consecutive support votes in the same fashion. An applicant/candidate/nominee (whatever we call them) is entitled to an accurate community feedback on his/her standing as a potential Admin. With just five hours, only the nine people who happened to be around got to vote. And again, eight votes to oppose is not a landslide, especially considering the particularly short life of this RfA. Redux 18:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

True, but I have seen other RFA's close earlier than 5 hours. Usually someone will delist an RFA due to lack of support/bad nomination and this is quite often. Usually an RFA is delisted after 10 or more opposers in a row because it highly unlikely that a user will gain enough support in a row to gain adminship. The chances of a new user/user who has 10 opposes in a row, obtaining adminship is really low. Moe ε 21:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

It is also reasonable for a 'crat to let what the oppose votes are saying. To use an extreme example, the first oppose vote details a massive string of personal attacks, the second oppose vote details massive POV pushing by the candidate, the third oppose vote shows a dif of the candidate saying that they want to be an admin so they can block users they don't like, and then the next 4 are oppose votes per the earlier ones, the 'crat has every right to delist even if the number of opposes isn't that high. JoshuaZ 21:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know. I too remember this instance when a three-day-old account nominated a week-old account. That's different. And, as I said, it would also have been different if there had been a staggering number of votes (such as those 17, or more), but that was not the case. I had opposed the candidate myself, and, realistically speaking, I don't believe that the RfA would have succeeded. But the delisting still feels like it was premature to me. Unless it is a clear-cut case (such as in the examples Joshua mentioned, or the one I just did), an RfA should be allowed to run, at least for some time. I don't believe this RfA showed any indication, five hours in, that it was a clear case for early delisting. Maybe in a [full] day or two, the tally would have read something like (0/67/1). That would have been different. Without at least a full day, there are countless users out there who never even saw that RfA, because they were asleep, or at work, or doing something other than editing Wikipedia. Some of those could have supported. And it's one thing to have a RfA fail with a consensus of 45%, or 60%, or whatever. It's something quite different to fail after being delisted in just five hours with 0% support. It can be taken as disconcerting by the candidate (and the user who nominated him/her), and no one can guarantee, with that tally and in that amount of time, that the RfA would have gone any specific way. We have had users promoted who had approximately the same time with the community (~6 months). And of the people who opposed, myself included, no one said anything like is that some kind of joke? On the contrary, the candidate was recognized as being on the right track. Again, no indication, that early on, that it was a clear, obvious case for immediate delisting. Redux 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• I am generally opposed to early withdrawal of RfAs. There are some RfAs that are clearly vandalism. Anything else...where do we draw the line at what is a permitted and not permitted RfA? Is 100 edits enough? 1000? One week on project? One month? Two months? Where? A bureaucrat pulling non-vandalism RfAs early makes a judgement call that is, at best, subjective. Such early withdrawals will be controversial. That's my take on it. Others have different opinions. I have created a page which addresses this issue at User:Durin/Withdraw policy. On April 6, I left a message with Essjay regarding early closures and referenced that page [6]. Essjay left an extensive response which may serve to show his stance on the matter at User_talk:Essjay/Archives13#Early_withdraw_of_RfAs. --Durin 14:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Joan53's RfA (Archive 54)

This RfA demonstrates that we need to have a speedier way of dealing with hopeless nominations. Whereas Joan53 might otherwise end up engaged in a tame edit war (she makes about one edit a week on average), now she's going to get a massive pileon and criticism. If Request for Rollback can't get up, then I'm not going to bother creating a policy proposal, but we need something - Richardcavell 12:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Not only do we pile on oppose votes upon a newbie, but there appears to be a contingent of RfA regulars that are strongly opposed to anyone having a friendly chat with these users about their RfA. That situation is just bizarre to me. On the other hand, people are resiliant, most will get over the deluge of opposition, once they realize it was nothing personal. NoSeptember ^talk 12:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you refering to the low-edit template discussion? People aren't against friendly chats, they are against the emphasis on edit counts. --Tango 12:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Do you really think people are opposed to the idea of talking to a user about it? Gosh I hope not, because when I went to user talk:Joan53 to leave a message of support and advice, I was happy to see that I wasn't the first person to turn up and do that. I didn't use a template but I don't think a template is a bad way to go, as I said above, if used correctly. ++Lar: t/c 12:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I am against editcountitis too, but if someone wants to mention edit counts in the course of discussing something with a newbie, so be it. There were suggestions above that such a discussion would be "biting the newbies" and "blatant lying". We can be against overreliance on edit counts without attacking the mere mention of edit counts in conversation. NoSeptember ^talk 13:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Mentioning edit counts is ok, the suggested template I saw was almost all about edit counts though. --Tango 13:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

{{sofixit}} then? Take all the editcountitis stuff out and see if you can make it better? I think most of us actually do agree here on most of the key points, we're just not sure about all the details, right? ++Lar: t/c 13:21, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

That's why these things can't ever become policy, because people will disagree on everything, even what to talk about. Please realize that when you mention edit counts to a newbie it is just a shorthand way to say, "you are too new". By the time they actually have over 1000 edits, we can expect that they will realize there is more to this whole RfA thing than just edit counts. There is nothing really wrong with using shorthand with a complete newbie, they will grow out of a edit focus soon enough. NoSeptember ^talk 13:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

How about restricting who can nominate. Not a high level, maybe "50 edits in the last month" would be enough, but slightly more would probably be ok. If you have less than that any nomination by you (of yourself or someone else) is void. That means brand new users can still go through RfA if they get someone else to nominate them (that's only a good thing on principle, I doubt it will ever actually be useful, but it's good to keep RfA as open as possible), but nominations that will always fail aren't so likely to be made. --Tango 12:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The more rules and regulations we add to voting, nominations and so on, the more unneccesarily complicated the process becomes... --Darth Deskana (talk page) 13:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

If it's unneccesary, then great. Richardcavell seems to think nominations like this are a problem, so I suggested a solution. If concensus is that it isn't a problem, then we certainly don't need a solution. --Tango 13:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really for a template, because that makes the process overly impersonal, and every newcomer has their own strengths and weakenesses that can't be generalized in a template. As has been shown with Lcarsdata and Joan53's RfAs, people are still willing to talk to the users concerned giving friendly advice, and I think that's an attitude that should be preserved on Wikipedia. -- Tangotango 13:26, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree very much with Tangotango here. You can't just slap a template, however well-intended, on a naive contributor's talk page. One size does not fit all. If you run into an RfA which is unlikely to pass, take five minutes of your life and write a short message to that user saying why, given this contributor's number of months, inexperience, etc., this RfA is unlikely to pass. The message will not be the same in all circumstances. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:09, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

But people did that, and she persisted. I think it was motivated by a desire to shut WillC out of the Maryland page (describing Maryland as a Southern state). That didn't have to be brought up and discussed here, but if she's going to push the point, then it does need to be. - Richardcavell 01:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

It's a bad example, really. The template idea is meant for good faith noms by people that just don't understand what it requires. This wasn't really made in good faith, since there was an alterior motive. --Tango 10:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Snowballing (Archive 58)

I was just wondering yesterday if any RfA had ever met the 80% OPPOSE mark. Right now there are two that have gone way beyond. One candidate does not respond. The other is RIGHT and refuses to withdraw. Why would the ‘crats not pull such lopsided RfA’s? :) Dlohcierekim 16:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Plenty of RfAs have had more than 80% oppose. Quite a number have had 100% oppose. There's been 60 since June of 2005 that have had 100% oppose. Of those 60, 23 have had 10 or more oppose votes. In general, there are a number of reasons to not withdraw clearly failing RfAs (see User:Durin/Withdraw policy for some). Some bureaucrats choose to withdraw clearly failing RfAs anyways. --Durin 16:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I think this has been discussed earlier but I really feel there should be a basic standard for RFA candidates. Probably like 1000+ edits and atleast a month of Wikipedia activity. Otherwise we have WP:SNOW cases like Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Piemanmoo occuring all the time. Thanks. Srikeit^{(talk ¦ ✉)} 16:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• This has been discussed more times than we can count. The general consensus has not been supportive enough of such ideas to implement them. Also note that WP:SNOW is not policy. --Durin 16:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

RE:User:Durin/Withdraw policy That's pretty much what I thought. I just feel sorry for the guy who is so caught up in his own rightness that he won't withdraw. Hopefully, he will listen and use it all constructively. Cheers. :) Dlohcierekim 16:41, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I generally pull any RfA that has more than 10 votes, and 75% or more oppose. I will, however, leave a nomination for a bit if it hasn't had much time up, as there could be some issue that can be resolved and things will straighten out. I'm the only bureaucrat I've seen lately doing this on a regular basis; I don't know if the others aren't comfortable doing so, or if I just end up getting there first, or if I'm just not seeing them. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 20:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll remove them early, but only if there are enough supporting factors that I can be confident they have no chance of succeeding. I consider most of the points Durin has outlined, and if there is evidence that the user and the community will not benefit from leaving it open, I close early. For example, a nominee with very little experience and recent vandalism, being blocked, or incivility or similar in the Rfa or extreme examples elsewhere. So typically that's going to involve few or no supports from at least somewhat experienced wikipedians and lots of opposes from similar. If those factors aren't too severe, I'll leave it for a while until the lack of a chance for success is clear, but in very obvious vandal nominations, I've closed them pretty quickly. - Taxman ^Talk 20:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't agree with the view that leaving them open is more beneficial than closing early, especially if it means losing good contributors, which it often does. RfA is not Wikipedia:Requests for Review of my general worth as a contributor and perhaps adminship but I really don't think so but great if it happens. It's for requesting adminship, period, and that's all it should be doing. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 22:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• I've been accumulating evidence on the page I referenced above showing that some users are upset about early removal. I'd like to see similar evidence (Yes, I know it exists) that we're forcing users away by leaving RfAs up, rather than making the presumption that it always happens. Personally, I still do not see the harm in asking the user to please withdraw, rather than slamming the door in their face in non-obvious vandalism cases. --Durin 12:59, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

While it's not a heavily used program at this point, users who are looking for feedback might be directed to Wikipedia:Editor review instead of using RFA for that feedback. NoSeptember ^talk 20:32, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Early Close Guideline Proposal (Archive 58)

I have drafted a guideline that will help bureaucrats make decisions about when RfA's should be closed early. This is in response to the community becoming divided as to whether bureaucrats should close RfAs early and at what stage they should be closed. The proposal is here. DarthVader 22:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Closure of RFAs by non-bureaucrats (Archive 58)

I would like to point out that, although it has become rare, non-bureaucrats are permitted and indeed encouraged to close nominations that clearly lack community support. They are also permitted to close borderline cases after several days have elapsed and no bureaucrat has chosen to promote (though currently this never happens). Bureaucrats are given the exclusive authority to promote successful candidates. While we can and often do remove failing nominations, the community at large still has the right to do this as well. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 11:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that this should be the case, I strongly remember several rounds of arguments with a substantial number of people vocally declaring that no one but bureaucrats should close noms. For example, Raul654 said: "I am adamantly against non-bureacrats deciding that there was no consensus. That's what the bureacrats were elected specifically to do." Some previous discussions: [7][8][9][10]. This debate included rewriting the RFA guidelines to say that only bureaucrats should close except in cases of vandalism/newbie nonsense.

Well, despite the fact that I respect Raul654 greatly, I must take issue with his assertion that bureaucrats were elected specifically to [determine that there is no consensus]. While that is indeed an important qualification for the job, it is not bureaucrats solely who may make such determinations, and at the time the process was set up in the first place, it was made very clear that the only difference between bureaucrats and others was that bureaucrats are entrusted to promote and accordingly have the technical capacity to do so. Tacit assignment of additional exclusive duties that were previously the purview of the community as a whole is a bad thing. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 23:43, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I fully support granting latitude to non-bureaucrats to remove clearly failed noms, but as it stands right now I know that I will get yelled at for doing so, so I have refrained from closing anything for the last nine months or so.Dragons flight 22:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

• Sniffle*. My one little addition to this process was Dragon flight's link above and I think it's worked fairly well. Maybe you think it too didactic, but there has been peace in this little part of the process. And do note it wasn't a re-write out of nowhere--it was a specific response to the discussions cited. Put more simply, to remove it would probably be to invite another weekly "I'm annoyed about this" thread. We have enough of those. Marskell 22:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

If there's a problem with non-buros closing noms, how about a compromise? Any admin can close a nom that's gone the full time and has less than 65% support. 65% is sufficiently below the lower limit of buro's discretion to take into account any mistakes someone not fully qualified might make and should be lower enough that no buro would decide to let the nom go into extra time, and limiting it to admins should ensure that it's done in good faith. The worst that can happen is someone has to go through RfA a 2nd time before getting promoted. Of course, I'm not sure there is really a problem needing to be fixed here - the buros seem to keep up with the workload pretty well. --Tango 23:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

This is a solution in search of a problem. What would this solve, and why? If there is some problem with RfAs closing late, and there clearly isn't, then just vet some more candidates for bureaucrat. -Splash^talk 00:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Mm, I'm not sure I like the percentage thing. It encourages the idea that it's strictly a numbers game instead of a discussion. If I were up for RfA and there were ten people with Support and one person comments in Oppose: This user was recently found to be vandalizing Wikipedia via sockpuppets, see WP:RFCU. I'd rather hope that the Bureaucrat in question would look at these claims and deny my RfA or wait for more voters to show up and suggest to the first ten that maybe they should re-examine the facts of the case. ~Kylu (u|t) 21:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I do not really agree that the current situation tallys with UC's assessment. That may, perhaps, have once theoretically been the case. But several rounds of discussion, available in the archives have established that there is at best not-wide-enough support for random editors "off the street" to determine the outcome of an RfA. There is not really even sufficient support for non-bureaucrats to "snowball" an RfA. That the only difference in being a crat is having a new button is not at all borne out by the intense, sometimes brutal, scrutiny afforded by an RfB, and the skilled determination of which way the wind blows in a most sensitive process has come to (right, imo) rest with a small group of users who we trust in both judgement and security. Encouraging just anyone to close an RfA (particularly when we are not running behind schedule in the least) seems an odd thing to do; and inventing compromises for a situation that doesn't exist is then unnecessary. -Splash^talk 00:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Are we having so many of these pass by that we need to extend this? Am I missing masses of nominations that are staying up the full seven days and then not being closed? I see no problem with non-bureaucrats removing obvious, dramatic failures (4/25/19) early, but why do we need to push it into the territory of "normal" nominations? Essjay (Talk • Connect) 00:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

In Jimbo's utopian Wikipedia, adminship may be "no big deal", but here at en.wikipedia.org, it has turned out that adminship is a pretty big deal. Good trusted contributors get turned away all the time because (I theorize) admins abusing their power has made people wary. Similarly, while it may have been the case when the system was set up that Bureaucrats are theoretically no big deal either, and their only difference is the presence of an extra button, in practice here in the real 'pedia, Bureaucrats are entrusted to do a thorny issue that is a big deal. Let's leave it to them. -lethe ^{talk +} 00:48, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

This has already resulted in this closure of a non-blatantly-clear RfA by a non-crat, on the grounds that things were a few hours late and just-anyone who fancies it can close an RfA. (Numerically, I suppose it was <75% etc etc, but this is easily non-snowballable.) Clearly (to me anyway), this is not right. That particular close has already been reverted and re-closed by a crat. We really can't have non-crats ruling on the very thing (unclear RfAs) that crats are created to deal with. -Splash^talk 00:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

69.9% is not close. SushiGeek 02:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

And? No one said it was a close vote. What they said is that you're not a crat, and furthermore voted oppose in the RfA. Those are both true, aren't they? -lethe ^{talk +} 02:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I must agree with Splash on this one. I believe this started from a smaller context and, pardon the pun, snowballed into something a lot bigger. I mean, there were instances where users who are not Bureaucrats would close RfAs, but those were very specific instances, often when the RfA itself was a hoax or just short of it (e.g., if someone nominated Willy on Wheels for adminship). From there, it turned into a situation where if there is something sufficiently (by what standards?) "wrong" with a RfA, anyone could close it. While this might work sporadically, it will create more problems than it will solve. Recent example: Robchurch protested against the manner in which his RfA was closed because it was closed as unsuccessful by a user who had opposed in the RfA. I suppose it would be best to keep it simple: let the Bureaucrats do their job, that's why they get the big bucks :S Redux 01:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I see no problem with normal users closing really obvious failures, i.e. RfAs with very few votes and/or large opposition. If opposes significantly outnumber supports, there is little scope for failure of judgement. But early closing or closing by someone who voted (either way) should probably be left to bureaucrats. I would suggest to apply common sense and not pile on more explicit rules...--Stephan Schulz 08:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not been suggested that we pile on more rules. The rule has stood for seven months. If it's a choice between explicit and vague, the former is better. "Non bureaucrats are never empowered to decide consensus, except when it's very obvious(?)". Again, all this will create is another useless talk thread every couple of weeks. "No" is much clearer "maybe". Marskell 09:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

If buros aren't allowed to close RfA's they've voted in (I'm pretty sure that's the case), then non-buros certainly shouldn't be able to. I can't see any reason to even debate that point. --Tango 10:48, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Bureaucrats can close RfAs they have participated in. It is only on the close RfAs where they should be conscious of the appearance of a conflict of interest and avoid doing so. Likewise, it is fine for non-bureaucrats to close obviously failing nominations, even if they have participated, but it should be "very" obvious, and if it is over 50% I recommend not touching it. NoSeptember ^talk 11:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The rule is simple: the more contentious the decision, the more senior and experienced the person who makes it should be. I agree with what Lethe said: the RC nomination was potentially close. The bc may have chosen to take account of the merit of the various arguments before closing, rather than just their number. Many RfAs are not remotely close, and people wouldn't care who closed the (though a non-participant is a good start). Stephen B Streater 21:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

IAR and SNOW (Archive 73)

Why are questions about the candidate's interpretation of WP:IAR and WP:SNOW being asked at so many current and recent RfA's?--Grand Slam 7 13:07, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Because it's something that is invoked quite often by alot of admins, and it's nice to see how current candidates intrepret them. Yanksox 13:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Also you wouldn't want someone misusing them, going against policy is good in the right situation, but if an admin doesn't know when it's the right situation you can see the problems that might follow. My real belief is that it's just the question that all the cool kids are asking at the moment ;) James086 ^{Talk | Contribs} 13:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Because abuse had been rather rampant, and many current and former admins had proven they had no clue how to properly use it, if there is a proper use at all. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a question that will greaty differ in answer from person to person, but I think we should contemplate adding it to the list of pre-set questions

†he Bread 00:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Practice Vs. Policy (Archive 76)

The RfA instructions read:

Only bureaucrats may close or de-list a nomination as a definitive promotion or non-promotion. In the case of vandalism, improper formatting or a declined or withdrawn nomination, non-bureaucrats may de-list a nomination, but they are never empowered to decide on whether consensus has been achieved.

This is clearly not practice, obviously failing RfAs are removed somewhat often by non-b'crats. I count 4 times in the past 2 weeks alone, [11], [12], [13], [14] . None were particularly controversial as far as I know. So my question is, should practice change? E.g. more actively encourage admins to wait for b'crats like the page says to do? Or should we change the RfA page to specifically allow non-b'crats to close discussions in some cases? Or just keep it the way it is, and continue to allow admins to ignore what the page says in the spirit of IAR? --W.marsh 01:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

If it's not causing any problems, leave it as is to avoid Wikipedia:Instruction creep. --tjstrf talk 01:22, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess... but a policy that needs to be ignored a 4 times out of 100 edits to a page might be due for review (I looked at the past 100 edits to find the examples). --W.marsh 01:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

You have a point about instruction creep, tjstrf, but leaving the wording this way has the potential to cause problems. All we need is for a (0/6/2) candidate revert a non-crat's closure, defend his/her re-opening with some wikilawyering, and we have a problem that could be pre-emptively defused if only the rules were modified. Because of this possibility, I support changing it to reflect practice. (And if anyone asks for firm guidelines about when non-crats can perform speedy closes, I'd say simply direct him/her to Wikipedia:use common sense, as opposed to actually setting guidelines about when this can happen.) Þicaroon 01:36, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Until that happens, this sounds like a solution looking for a problem. Most of the candidates who get removed by admins can see the writing on the wall. I think the more experienced admins who do this discourage them from relisting the noms, as well, which implicitly tells them they're not forbidden from doing so.--Kchase T 02:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

All the candidates above had less than 50 edits. Unless they were posting FAs in one edit, I'm not seeing a problem.--Kchase T 02:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

"Solution looking for a problem" isn't all that persuasive. If the problem is likely to come up, then if there are no bad results of the solution, it should just be implemented so that there doesn't have to be a problem. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 03:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Even if someone did use wikilawyering to reopen an obviously doomed nomination, all that would happen would be a crat coming along and closing it per the previous admin's decision. Or at worst, someone getting a few extra piled on opposes while it ran the full week. No major harm done. Making a note that says "except when common sense dictates otherwise" is unnecessary, because that caveat applies to every policy in existence (except maybe some of the foundational and legal ones).

Explicitly detailing what are meant to be universal exceptions to process is exactly the sort of thing WP:CREEP is against. This suggestion is effectively a policy disclaimer, and I believe all the normal arguments against disclaimers apply here as well. --tjstrf talk 03:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I neglected to check... if all of these people had fewer than 50 edits it shouldn't be that big of a deal. But the best policy is still one that we don't really find ourselves needing to ignore much in the first place. --W.marsh 04:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no problems with non 'crats closing obviously failed RFA, (but not *failing*). They should, however at least keep us informed either here or on WP:BN so we can verify the decision and give our approval. =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:48, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Adding a section here or at WP:BN to notify you guys of every close would clutter up these discussion pages significantly. A good edit summary when removing an RfA from WP:RFA should be enough, the history is not so active there that you can't easily see what has happened. Only if someone thinks an RfA was removed improperly should they bring it here, so it can be discussed - such instances are quite rare. NoSeptember 05:37, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it would be too much of a clutter to add a small note on BN. That page is anyways archived weekly. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I've been following RfA for about 5 months and recall only one instance (Everyking) when a closure by a non-bureaucrat threatened to become controversial. Lately though we have had non-administrators doing closures; that ought to be (and pretty much has) been reserved for clearly unhappy situations. Newyorkbrad 05:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think it's generally a good idea for non-bureaucrats to close failing RfAs. In particular, I recall Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Leotolstoy where the candidate repeatedly stated their desire to keep their failing RfA open, but which was closed early by Steel359. The user was not happy about the closing given their repeated request to keep it open. —Doug Bell ^talk 05:55, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Rare cases are not the thing to base a general practice upon. If a user strongly objects, then it is certainly proper to bring it to the attention of a bureaucrat, even in a snowball case like the one you cited. I have seen Raul reopen an RfA at the request of the candidate, but this is a rare thing. The closing you cited was not unreasonable, it was open for more than a day and the result was clear. NoSeptember 06:09, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Closing RfAs early for being doomed to fail has been controversial for quite a while. Many arguments pro/con have been put forth before. User:Durin/Withdraw policy has some more information about this. Feel free to edit that if you like. --Durin 06:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• That final suggestion on that sub-page, leaving a message on the user's talk page suggesting they withdraw, has worked well in my experience. Most RfA's that fail due to the contributor being "too new" or "inexperienced" have little to do with their actions indicating inexperience or lack of policy knowledge, but rather that they are simply unjudgeable.If you kindly explain this to them and suggest they wait a month or two, a mature user will probably see the truth behind it and withdraw themselves, saving a potentially difficult argument and a bit of the community's time. As an additional positive factor, any subsequent RfA's they go through can have an opening of "I recognized that I was too early and withdrew my own nomination" rather than "an administrator was forced to close my nomination due to my inexperience", so it's good for them as well. --tjstrf talk 07:27, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Trouble is, some of the community is much too quick to say "Insufficient Experience" but there are admins out there with just 2 or 3 months experience of being a regular editor, and there is no way to prove any admin who has been about for 2 years is any better suited to the job than someone with 2 months experience. Just another case of Wikipedia shooting itself in the foot. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 02:52, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

No, there is not admin with just 2 or 3 months of being a "regular editor", whatever that means. Extended time on Wikipedia is good for allowing enough time for a person to flame out or trust issues to otherwise be revealed, and a certain amount of time on Wikipedia is necessary in order to gain experience and understanding of Wikipedia. Editors who have been on Wikipedia for 6 months may still not have that understanding just by reason of their time on Wikipedia, but editors who have been on Wikipedia for only a month certainly do not have that understanding. —Centrx→talk • 03:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll explain what I mean and I'm going to go away from the 2-3 months bit for a moment. There is far too much emphasis placed on numbers, numbers can be manipulated and it's at the expense of Wikipedia. Just recently it's AfD experience, now if I wanted to go for another RfA again tomorrow, I could go through every single AfD from the last 5 days not already closed, and just merrily vote away and that would keep quite a few people quite happy and bag me a few more votes, going by my last RfA, quite possibly enough to pass an RfA. Sadly, to do this, it would mean not actually researching whether the AfD is in good faith, whether the article does meet Wikipedia guidelines for notability and/or references and therefore voting accordingly. That's why every single candidate needs to be assessed on their ability to help run Wikipedia rather than just numbers and I'd much rather have an admin with 100 AfD contributions where they've shown they've looked through evidence and voted for a good reason rather than just voting for the sakes of it, than someone with 1000 AfD contributions where they've not shown once that they've checked the evidence, and are just voting in agreement with the nomination, what's worse is that AfD regulars can often fall into two distinct categories, each voting the same way 95% of the time. At present RfA is encouraging potential candidates to take part in AfDs purely to bulk up one type of edit as a pre-requisite to becoming a admin, rather than encouraging and training potential admins to actually review items on a case by case basis. It's working contrary to the requirements of Wikipedia, rather than generating users who will be able to use the tools, we're creating users who can't use the tools. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 01:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it should not be determined by numbers, and one needs to look at what the person says in those AfDs—whether they are mindless empty votes or show that the person considered the article and demonstrates their thinking on the issue. Note though: you can reasonably say that someone who has 0 contributions to AfD does not have experience at AfD, but for people who do have the edits, the evaluation must go beyond that. I think a larger problem is that people are voting "support" without having evaluated the user's contribs at all or having much of an idea of what adminship is. Someone may be opposed on edit count, but should not be supported on it. —Centrx→talk • 01:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on that, it's OK to Oppose when there is a tiny number of edits which, unless there are mitigating factors such as experience on a sister project, are likely to show inexperience, but when users start getting upto 100+ edits in a particular namespace (and it does appear to be Wikipedia namespace that is the be all and end all of RfAs, perhaps quite understandably) then nobody should Support or Oppose based on edit count at all, but wholly on the quality of the edits. From personal experience you could vote 10 times without checking stuff properly, or you could go through Google, Google News, the newspaper sites and Internet Archive and vote properly and correctly. Sure, there's a lot of crap that doesn't require much in the way of research, stuff like original research, defamation stuff dragged through to AfD but they don't really need to be voted on unless, a good admin should be deleting anyway because they should be doing research before closing. What really needs editor attention is stuff claimed to be non notable or non verifiable because often stuff like this is brought to AfD as part of a grudge or through laziness and inexperience and can quite easily be deleted. And I'd much rather have admins that have experience in this field, than admins with the common sense to delete the crap needing deleted but an inability to check that decent stuff or stuff with potential isn't being trashed. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 09:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

What... the... heck? (Archive 76)

So far today, there have been four RfAs closed early, three of them within an hour of opening, and two within twenty minutes. What is wrong? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

People vote faster?--SUIT 05:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I count five RfAs if your tally is correct. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You're sure you're not counting both the time you removed No1lakersfan and the time Essjay closed it? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm merely seeing a discrepancy in your post. Or is it just me? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'm counting the ones within twenty minutes for the hour one. The last was closed in three hours. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

And what is it with canvassing?

Both of the nominees that weren't just utter and obvious lack of edits got their RfAs killed off because of canvassing concerns. Is it not clear enough that we really dislike canvassing, or what? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so it was actually three due to not having consensus because of obvious lack of edits, and only one due to not having consensus because of canvassing. But still, there's another one that's not going to suceed due to that, and I think there might be a third. Is it not clear enough, or do people not read? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I myself hold an extremely low opinion of canvassing for votes, especially for an RfA. Apparently the rash of failed RfAs seems like a bittersweet Christmas holiday present to some. Oh, I'm sorry, was I supposed to be politically correct? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

At least we haven't gotten anyone deciding to do something insanely stupid, like responding to every single oppose with flaming. Oops, I jinxed it. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I've seen one about 2½ months ago. Ironically, the username was an apt representation of his temper. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Aw man, I discovered RfA about 3 days after that, if I didn't feel comfortable commenting until November. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You'll find some more soon. I typically oppose candidates who just have to scream at every oppose they get. For reasons why, see my RfA criteria (or rather, they sound like restrictions). --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes. I think it's pretty obvious that replying to every oppose is bad. On another note, you have too good of a RfA standards page. Mine just says "be good". I mean, I have more content for RfBs (which never happen) than I do for RfAs. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I need to put this on my RfA Criteria page: This in a nutshell: Don't act stupidly on your RfA. And I do have the right to bend the standards as I see fit. ;-) --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Would just like to point out, for the sake of clarity, that none (at least, none of the ones I closed) were closed due to either lack of edits or canvassing; they were closed because they had greater than 75% opposition with a sufficient amount of votes to make it unlikely they would achieve consensus. It is for the most part academic, but it remains important to distinguish between the reason they were closed and the reason that users chose to oppose. (And I didn't mean for that to rhyme.) Essjay (Talk) 05:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Eh. Same difference. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

No, not the same difference. For the RFA to be closed due to canvasing would require a bureaucrat decision to close due to canvassing; we don't do that. We close early because RFAs cannot achieve consensus; users oppose due to various causes. "Essjay closed it due to canvassing" != "Essjay closed it because it had 75% opposition." Essjay (Talk) 05:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so it was an indirect cause. For the purposes of deciding why it failed, it makes much more sense to use that than "it failed because it was failing". -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Except that it only takes one person to do so and I start receiving nasty posts on my talk page about biased closures. I'd prefer not to have to sort through 100KB of abuse because someone wanted a shortcut. Essjay (Talk) 05:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The 'crats can close RfA's that have no chance in hell of succeeding; this was the case with the (0/11/0) and (2/9/0) cases. This is mainly done with newcomers (ie. <1000 edits), who possibly don't understand the general standards for adminship. It is a BITE protection, and a good one at that. Daniel.Bryant ^{[ T · C ]} 05:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I've struck the shortcuts and replaced with wordiness. But really, why don't you want abuse? It's funny reading people hurling abuse for no good reason. :P -Amarkov ^blah_edits 15:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies

On a related issue about all of these withdrawn RfAs... a fair number of them are not getting added to WP:RFAF. I suspect we are missing maybe 10% of withdrawn RfAs going back many months. If someone wants a project to work on, I would suggest going back through the history of the WP:RFA page to check all the RfAs that were transcluded there and then withdrawn, to see if they made it to WP:RFAF. At an average of about 8 edits a day to WP:RFA, while big, it should not be an impossible task :). NoSeptember 12:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

They could be added to your chronological unseccessful RfAs page as well, or have you done that already? Do you work direct from the RfA page, or do you rely on others to update the subsidiary pages? Carcharoth 12:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The priority is to add them to the WP:RFAF lists. I periodically go through the histories of the WP:RFAF subpages to catch them all for my chronological list. I update my list about once every two weeks or so, and always at the end of the month so that I have the statistics I need. Of course anyone else is welcome to update the chronological list if they want to. The fact that no one is checking the history of WP:RFA is the problem, I think we have been missing some. NoSeptember 13:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I might have time over the forthcoming break... Carcharoth 14:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Another place I spot some of these failed RfAs is when I look at the history of the bot pages, which I do when looking for the record RfAs. That misses the very short (30 minute) RfAs, but the versions are a lot easier to load than the whole WP:RFA page versions. And I'll also look into this in January, I'm going on wikibreak shortly :). NoSeptember 15:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I would venture to guess (at the risk of restarting a discussion that went on too long above) that the majority of the 10% are due to non-bureaucrat closures and candidate withdrawals. Someone who hasn't closed an RFA before (which, one would expect, is most of the non-bureaucrat population) wouldn't necessarily know to add it there; likewise, a candidate withdrawing thier own RFA would probably not be thinking about it either. The quick solution for non-bureaucrats when closing an RFA is to make sure you're following the instructions when closing an RfA, and to make a note of the closure here, so others can review it; the more consistent one would be to wait a couple hours for a close-happy bureaucrat like myself to come along and close it. Essjay (Talk) 03:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

There is such a desire of many to prevent a pile-on of oppose votes that getting people to wait for a bureaucrat is not likely to work, unless a bureaucrat was constantly monitoring the page (which is unrealistic). Maybe we could remind closers by talk page message, of the proper steps to take whenever they fail to do it properly. NoSeptember 10:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I usually do that, if I see one, but the liklihood that it will be the same user the next time is fairly low. Perhaps they could just put a note here or on BN when they close them, as it's definatley the kind of thing that should be noted somewhere. Essjay (Talk) 00:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)