User talk:Linuxbeak/RFA Reform/Going About it the Wrong Way

Going about it the wrong way

Guys, with all due respect, but we are getting nowhere with this. We are going to wear out our keyboards and, in all likelihood, get nowhere, or at least get very little done over a very, very long period of time. Here's the only way to get it done, as I see it: we should elect a committee, and give them a deadline to come up with a new, or reviewed, RfA system. The committee's final outline would be final, and would run for a period of time (a month? maybe two), after which it would be subject to a review to determine if the changes were effective, or if we should revert to the previous format, or even come up with yet another one. And very importantly, as suggested by Radiant over at the RfA talk page, halt RfA during the committee's deliberating period — meaning: currently up RfAs would run to completion, but no new ones would be presented, I'm thinking, as of the voting process for electing the committee.
And on a more particular note, the committee would be elected, but I do believe that some users should be automatically in it, namely Cecropia and Linuxbeak, as the two more experienced Bureaucrats that pretty much live and breathe RfA. Thoughts? Regards, Redux 15:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

From past experience, users don't especially like having new processes or rules forced on them by a committee. Even Jimbo would likely meet with high resistance if he just decided to implement new RfA rules. Perhaps the discussions on this page won't result in a new RfA process, but I wouldn't consider that to be "getting nowhere". It's important to identify what needs to be fixed with RfA, if anything. It's equally important to make sure that what's working well with RfA is not changed. Of course the opinions of bureaucrats should be well regarded in any RfA discussions, but I'm having a hard time understanding why the community shouldn't be involved in discussions about a community process. Carbonite | Talk 15:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The community is already involved. If we were to nominate a committee, members of the community, chosen by the community, would be in it. Hence its legitimacy to propose a new format — naturally, keeping any positive aspects of the existing one. It wouldn't be about starting from total scratch, not necessarily. And it wouldn't be a committee of three people, but rather a more comprehensive number. I proposed the committee because the community is too big, and even just in RfA, there's too many people for us to be able to coordinate an effort that will produce effective results. RfA has been criticized (on aspects) time and again, countless ideas and proposals have been presented to improve it, discussed on talk pages that are miles long. And yet we end up doing nothing, because everything ends up buried under an endless polemic. It is very difficult to practice a direct democracy in a highly populated environment. We need to delegate to a group of democratically elected members and trust their judgment (and there would still be a later review). Maybe if RfA were a small forum that no one cared about, but that's not the case. We need to accept that it just won't work if too many people try to talk it out. Or, as I said, maybe something will come out of it, but it won't be trully significative, and it will take a long, long time. Regards, Redux 15:40, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right, with enough voices you'll end up with opposition to just about any proposed change and enough discussion to feed an army. Seems like there's a lot of unfocused disatisfaction but not a lot of agreement. Maybe we should have a group to "lead" the decision making process, step by step starting with the question of if anything needs changing at all? In any case a group of moderators might help focus and move the discussion along. Rx StrangeLove 03:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with both sides. I don't think we're getting nowhere, we're just making slow progress. This has only been going on 3 days. Can we honestly expect a full consensus in only three days when we're potentially proposing such a major overhaul of an established system? I do, however, like the committee idea. Although, I don't think that only one committee should be formed. In fact, I propose two comittees (both kept fairly small) in order to come up with two distinct ideas. One would be just responsible for trying to find the flaws in the current RfA system and come up with a proposal to fix them. The other committee could come up with an entirely new system from the ground up. After a consensus is reached by both committees, then their proposals could be submitted to the general userbase for comment/approval/rejection. IN ADDENDUM: I propsed two because that seems to be the two general thought patterns. Fix the issues, or start a new system. --^demon 03:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Just to point out: this particular effort has been going for just three days (and still no clear, even if yet partial, idea is distinguishable), but as I said, there have been countless discussions about ideas to reform or improve RfA before (over at the RfA talk page, usually), and we've gotten nowhere with those. Second, I'm not saying that two committees would be necessarily bad, but the entire discussion about whether the present system could be fixed with a reform, or if we'd need an entirely new one, could be handled by the same committee. Here's a for example: Forensic experts often help police investigations by answering questions proposed. The community could direct the work of the committee by proposing in advance questions that it would need to answer, and from there, deliberate on the solution. For instance, we could ask, Can RfA be reformed, or do we need a completely new system? They will work on that for a while, and answer either way. From there, they would start working either on the reform or on the new system.
I maintain that, once the committee presented a proposal, it should be final and go into effect. If we submit it to the larger community, it will be buried under polemics, again. I mean, there's always going to be some people who won't completely like the new system — heck, if the present system were to be presented today, I'm sure some would see fit to oppose it. So ultimately, some people will have to accept that we just can't please everybody. There's just too many people to be pleased.
But, as I also said, the new system, or the changes made in the present system, would come into a review after a period of time (a month of two, I'm thinking). Regards, Redux 12:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

How would you go about giving the committee any legitimacy? The people working here can't self-appoint a committee adn then spring a surprise on the whole of the rest of the community. That's why things are done 'by consensus'. -Splash^talk 13:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

That's why I suggested that the ideas proposed by the committee(s) would be then given to the people for discussion/consensus. I agree that rule by committee (in effect, enforcing their decisions without consensus) is not right and doesn't agree with the wiki philosophy of policy by consensus. I merely suggested it because the masses cannot seem to get beyond "We don't like how it is right now" stages of this, and never get closer to a solution. By doing it by committee, then you're trying to reach a solution with a smaller group, which is much easier to gain agreement on. However, I do think that if a committee is formed, the number needs to be kept small. --^demon 14:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, first, to answer Splash's question, here's how I was thinking the setting up of the committee would go: we would place notices about the election of a committee to redesign RfA on the Main Page, the RfA and the Administrators' Noticeboard (maybe somewhere else too?). That would be done at least three to five days prior to the presentation of candidacies for the committee. After those 3-5 days, we would open for those interested to present their candidacies for the committee, and this would last, I'm thinking, for a week. After that week, the committee would be elected and would, in a 24 hours time, begin deliberations, at which point no new RfAs would be presented at the RfA forum.
Now, the second part, pertaining to demon's post: the committee would represent a consensus by proxy, so to speak. I'll explain: the members of the committee would be elected by consensus, and the committee itself would deliberate by consensus. Consensus would, thus, still be the key for a change. And yes, a relatively small committee is essential for the idea to work: I was thinking of about 10 people, as follows: 8 members elected, plus Cecropia and Linuxbeak, for the reasons I explained above — although it would not be "unthinkable" that all 10 members were elected. How does that sound? Regards, Redux 15:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me expand even more: how would the committee be elected? Here's my idea: an election somewhat similar to the present ArbCom elections, that is, we would vote either "support" or "oppose", and at the end, elected would be those with more "support" votes than "oppose". However, the ArbCom elections have a rule of simply more support than opposition, and I was thinking that, for this, we could set a standard of electing only those with 10%, or maybe 20% more "support" votes than "oppose". The election itself would run for no less than a week — which is the duration of a RfA, but it could be more, two or three weeks even, I'm thinking. Redux 15:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

So far, I think the idea has merit. We should consider it as a serious option (rough draft at this point, of course).. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 15:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

If we are actually going to be doing this, and we have certain reserved positions (Cecropia and Linuxbeak), I think it should also contain at least three non-Admins. These are the people RfA pertains most too. If we just fill up the committee with Admins, what's the point? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought about that, actually. Again, suggestion has merit. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 15:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense, but I think we would need to keep it small enough to it can be effective. Something like 2 reserved positions, 3 admins and 3 non-admins? Rx StrangeLove 15:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

That could work. 2 Bcrats, 3 Admins and 3 non-Admins. My only concern is that if we segment the election too much, it could disfigure the process. Think about it: in theory there would be about 800 Admins eligible for 3 spots, and 800 thousand users eligible for the other three. Theoretically, we need to have people who understand RfA on the committee. There are a lot of non-Admins who participate regularly, as well as Admins who contribute a lot there too (some only get more interested in RfA after they've bee through one themselves). I don't believe that Admins would have an unfair advantage in running for the spots "against" the non-Admins. Would they? Regards, Redux 16:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, to be frank, a lot of supporting "friends" would happen, and Admins tend to be people who would be supported the most (most visible, most name recognition, etc.). But the process (RfA), realistically, no longer has any bearing on Admins. You see a lot of "cliques" within the Admin population, so I would just like to see non-Admins have a shot at being on the committee, since RfA pertains (mostly) to them. I dunno, I was just making a suggestion. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

That's a fair point, we could just throw all the candidates into one list and take the top 3 admins and the top 3 non-admins. Rx StrangeLove 16:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Humm, yes, indeed. The whole committee idea is about us being realistic. I'm onboard with reserving the spots. And I like Rx's suggestion of having a single list and picking the top 3 Admins and non-Admins. It should make it for a fair election, and more difficult for people to try and direct their voting, since they'd have to keep close tabs on all candidates, in order to know who are the leading three. Very good. But again, I had suggested that the elected would be those with a 10%, or 20% difference in their voting, in favor of "support". This way, we'd first have to determine those who made the "cut", and then, from this shortlist, determine the top three (possibly by number of votes?). Redux 16:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Something like picking the top 6 out of a pool that received greater than 70% support? Rx StrangeLove 16:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

How about we just take the top three admins and top three non-admins by number of edits? Going by WP:1000, that would be

• SimonP
• Everyking
• Olivier
• SPUI
• Bobblewik
• Caerwine

Everything should work out smoothly with that committee, right? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Yikes, no way. That would be, in a sense, a ringing endorsement of editcountitis.. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 16:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Linux is right, and plus this problem: being very active doesn't mean that the user will be sufficiently acquainted with RfA, and it also doesn't mean that the user would have the support of the community to participate in the process of reviewing RfA. And we need consensus to determine the participating members. All those things can only be secured by an open, free election. On a side note, there's no guarantee that those users would even be willing to commit to the process, whereas if you present a candidacy, you probably only do it because you are willing to participate with the necessary commitment. Unserious candidates would simply not be elected. Regards, Redux 16:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

What a silly proposal. Everyking gets blocked almost daily and should have been deadmined long ago. All his contributions in the main space that I have across are semi-bot edits. And you know that adminship makes editcount skyrocket. Please devise something better than this. --Ghirla | talk 17:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, look. You cannot decide who is going to be on the Committee by fiat. They will have zero legitimacy. We do not elevate some editors above others on whims of editcount or votes, with one single exception: ArbCom. The committee cannot have the final say, because that is directly counter to the notion of agreeing by consensus. There is no adequate option to disagree if some committee can simply impose their will, and any process so imposed will be bitterly opposed by some. You cannot usefully reform RfA by committee, it is simply unworkable, unwiki and unpleasant, not to mention the need to hold an evil vote about how we conduct the review into how we conduct another evil vote. Don't do it. Decisions round here are not made by Committee. -Splash^talk 17:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It was my understanding that the decision made by The Committee would only be tried out for a week or two, all the time receiving feedback on the new process. Is that not what was going to happen? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Even so, what is recommended is unchallengeable: a single-shot fail-or-succeed, and it still has all the unacceptable features of decision by comittee:

1. We have to elect or appoint a committe. This will result in all the usual silliness that surrounds the ArbCom elections. It will result in elevation of some editors over others, it will result in exclusion of 99.99999% of editors from the discussion process.
2. There is no way that a decision by committee can be called any kind of consensual decision making. A change to RfA must be absolutely such.
3. If you talk enough, it will become apparent that either there is or is not a good idea out there.
4. If you want to run in an election, go hold your beauty contest elsewhere.

-Splash^talk 17:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not talking about imposing anything, somewhere above I said that they would lead the discussion and help move the debate along. Not to come up with a plan and enforce it somehow. The problem is that these debates are long and drawn out without focus or closure. And again, I said above that the first question is if there needs to be any change at all. Rx StrangeLove 17:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I really, really fail to see any point in appointing/annointing a committee to deal with this problem. Surely a self-selected, well-announced process such as what is going on here can have some result, if we are committed to having an end result. talk pages don't have that same sense of immediacy; I think that's why Linuxbeak phrased this as "homework". Adding an election onto the front end, with all of the political pitfalls and win/lose problems associated with that, doesn't serve the purpose. -- nae'blis _(talk) 17:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'd like to be more flexable about trying new things. I personally am not talking about a group that would impose anything but considering the nature of the objections I certainly don't think this is a good idea. Rx StrangeLove 18:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I personally advocate the idea of election. I think the suffrage requirements should be the same level as ArbCom, since I don't believe this to be of a deeper severity than ArbCom. I also agree that the committee should contain two BCats (the two aforementioned), and I also agree with three admins and three nonadmin suggestion, capping the committee at 10. However, I don't agree with the consensus by proxy. The I believe that whatever consensus that the committee comes to should ALSO be then put forth for a raw vote by the users. If it fails, the committee goes back and tries again with a new proposal. --^demon 18:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

We are loosing perspective, again. It is not realistic to hope to accomplish a meaningful review of RfA in the way we are conducting the discussions so far (even if the decision was to be that RfA should not be changed). Chosing a committee by consensus, and one that would deliberate by consensus, under the guidance set forth in advance by the community is not compromising our standards. Times have changed, and we must adapt. A member of this committee is not made superior to the rest of the community. The committee is a temporary, and short-lived, entity. It will exist only long enough for RfA to be reviewed. There is no intention of creating a cast of "RfA overseers". It would be great if we could get this done by talking it out and reaching a general, community-wide consensus. But this is no longer realistic. As I said: direct democracy is a practical impossibility in highly populated environments. Plus, RfA is something that stirs polemics intrisically. And of course some will likely oppose the outcome, but also as I said: it is impossible to please everybody. We need a compromise, or nothing will get done.
Yes, our voting process is far from ideal, but at least it will yield a result forged in consensus, and one that we all must accept exactly because there are no users superior to others. And plus, we need to take one step at a time. We will subject ourselves to this "necessary evil" so that we can accomplish something greater, perhaps even a better system of achieving consensus in RfA, which is pretty much a vote as it now exists — is that good? is that bad? I'm not discussing that now. My proposal is that a committee will outline that. Regards, Redux 18:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I see a point in demon's latest suggestion: instead of having the committee's outline go immediately into effect, we subject it to a raw vote by the greater community. I only think that this should be a directed vote, like asking the community: Do you agree with 'this' aspect of the proposal?, so that the committee would go back to work, if necessary, only on the specific aspects that did not reach a consensus agreement from the community. Redux 18:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Another, small, observation: notice that we'd be taking our time in doing this. Between announcing the procedure, the period for presenting candidacies, running the election, the deliberations of the committee and the final vote, we could be talking about...what?...two months before any changes go into effect — even more, if the committee has to go back to the drawing board on any aspects of their proposal. Redux 18:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Granted it may take some time, but if we continue with the current method and do not adapt, then it will take even longer. Who knows, maybe committees is going to be the new way to get ideas done around WP, and this will set a precedent. Perhaps a timeline could be this: 1-2 weeks of committee member voting, followed by however long it takes the committee to come up with a proposal (est. 1 month or less), then followed by 1-2 weeks of voting on the proposal. So Redux, that falls at your ~2 months idea, but I don't see it as unreasonable, if we emerge with a system that is agreed upon and forged in consensus. --^demon 19:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there anything wrong with simply holding a formal vote to change the RFA process? This was done a little while back (and a few times) to expand the WP:CSD criteria, I don't see how this is any different. We've wasted enough time on discussion. Now it's time to actually get these things voted on (or some other formal action). --Deathphoenix 18:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that, when RfA is concerned, we just can't seem to articulate any kind of general agreement. How can we hold a vote if we don't know what to vote on? We can't reach consensus on whether change is necessary. Or how much or RfA needs to be changed and how. Too much polemics, from a very wide community, immobilizes the process. Redux 18:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

sigh, that's certainly true. In the current RFA reform polling, there are a few items that reached widespread support. Perhaps we can take those items and create a set of reform items, set a consensus level, and hold a formal vote? There are a few items that people seem to think are very good ideas for RFA reform. --Deathphoenix 19:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

We can try. But if you ask me, we should start having problems as soon as it comes down to defining the level of consensus. Again, because there's just too many voices, articulating too many opinions, the moment you say those are the items we want to vote on, already some people are going to protest against some, or all, of those items. That's what usually happens: we can never get to the point where we make a final decision, because everything gets drowned in polemics. We could try, but I believe we should keep the committee idea going, so that we have it ready when if the formal vote falls through. Regards, Redux 20:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, about demon's latest post. Indeed, I actually meant that this projected duration of ~2 months for the process to complete is a very positive thing. Especially considering that, when Linuxbeak set up this page, some thought that any plan to reform RfA that was concoted over a week's time would be unlikely to succeed, given that it had been devised in something of a hurry. With the committee, we would give it plenty of time to make sure that we come up with a quality plan, to improve RfA trully. Redux 20:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Going about it the wrong way (section break)

(continuing "going about it the wrong way"...) I am not keen on an elected committee, even one with quotas (unless one slot is reserved for "non admin who has edited a lot of damn fine bridge articles lately", LOL). If there is consensus for change, we can find it if we work hard enough. I'm fine with some sort of self selection of people going off and working hard to see what they come up with, though. That, after all was how the process for the recent ArbComm election got done. Someone stood up and said "hey, I'm working on it, are you in or not, get in here and help draft this". Maybe we need some stakes in the ground and whoever cares the most ought to be the ones that draft them. Not that many, one tinker, one radical change. Run them up the flagpole and see who salutes. THEN put them to a vote of everyone, or even of just the board? But an election to elect a committee to decide what the right proposal is just doesn't feel right. To this newb anyway. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 08:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

That would be fine, except that it won't work for RfA, I'm afraid. It's been tried, and still RfA remains exactly as it was before. Naturally, if the community could have a sit down, talk it over, and come up with a draft, which would then be subject to community approval and go into effect, it'd be great. After countless trial-and-fail situations, I have proposed a committee to do just that. Of course no one likes to organize and run elections on Wikipedia, but again, we need to be realistic. Question is: do we want to do something about RfA? And do we want it done sometime in this century? Then we need to wake up and accept that the previous, "classic" methods are not working for RfA — they did fine for changes on CSD, the ArbCom and other forums, but polemics in RfA are rendering the process fruitless. Again, realistically speaking, I see no other way to get something done concerning RfA — and not because I think so, bur rather because I've seen everything else fail. Regards, Redux 12:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

After rereading this entire page (I felt compelled, knowing that Jimbo and Linuxbeak are proud of our accomplishments thus far), I must say that the only suggestion that seems to make any sense is the committee idea. Also, as for the "I'm gonna do something because nothing is getting done" idea. You can expect something out of me. I have work, but when I get home tonight (sometime around 11:30EST), I'll start framing up some elections for a committee. Question though, can I use the Wikipedia namespace for this or not? --^demon 20:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

While we continue to work it out here, you could start it at a subpage of your user page. When/if we get a final greenlight, we can move it to a project namespace. I appreciate your work on this, even after working on a saturday :(. Just let us know when you start it, so that we can chip in too. In fact, if you'd prefer, use this link User:Redux/RfACom (and use a subpage of mine) — reminding everybody, however, that this would be a draft page, we are not setting up anything definitive for the time being. Thanks, Redux 22:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It'll be housed at User:^demon/RfACom. Mainly because I already have my userspace added to my watchlist and I'm far too lazy to add anything else. I just got back from work (I hate restaurants, I really do), and I'm gonna unwind for a few. Expect some sleep-deprived beginnings around 1:00EST or so. --^demon 05:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)