First problem: how is it possible for any complex RFC to pass in the current climate? Look at WP:PC/RFC2012, or any of the past RFA-related RFCs. It's difficult to get voters to engage on the issues and talk with each other, rather than just depositing their opinions and leaving, even on relatively simple issues. Anything as complex as an RFC that would theoretically fix RFA issues is sure to fail. See my proposal. - Dank (push to talk) 21:35, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Limiting the voters to a randomly selected pool of people who volunteer to vote on RfAs but who have not personally have had interactions with the candidates would make the process less excruciating. Everyone would still be allowed to comment, but interactions would be judged by those who were not directly involved in them. 75.166.206.120 (talk) 22:48, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, let me put it another way. We need more people to pay attention and participate; to make that happen, we need to take a substantial amount of time listening to them, taking their views into account, gathering examples of where what they're suggesting did or didn't work. Why would I want to put this much time in, when I suspect it won't amount to much, based on past results? And the reason it won't amount to much is that complex negotiations among 200 different parties don't work ... and typically, in these discussions, people have a hard time forming coalitions, everyone's got their own idea to push. If you give me a board of 11 to 15 people, and I know these people are serious about their job and are reading everything and trying to form consensus, then there's a motivation to make an effort to make a nice presentation. - Dank (push to talk) 23:00, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How many people would you expect to volunteer to be in such a pool? I am sure it would be more than 300. How many people would you want to limit the size of voting so that decisions still represent the views of the community without the possibility of a 300+ pile-on? I'm guessing it would be 15, but I would prefer 20 to allow for the possibility of no-shows and to raise the accuracy standards. 75.166.206.120 (talk) 01:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"You" me, or the IP? I didn't say anything about an electoral college; I want a working group to help us experiment for 3 months, and make recommendations, without promoting anyone. - Dank (push to talk) 02:02, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I may have misread, but it looked to me like you were essentially wanting to see a "reform council" of sorts created to assess and address these things, and it looked like the IP was talking about something different. I welcome clarification. - jc3702:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I think we should specifically ask the council or board not to work on long-term recommendations for RFA reform; that will be up to the community after they see the results of the trial. What I'd like to see the board do is to figure out how they can get the information they need to come to a decision on whether a candidate should be promoted, and figure out how to do that in a way that's most appealing to the voters and candidates and potential candidates. For instance, at the beginning of the 3-month period, a candidate might show up who seems generally right, but there are real reservations about how the candidate might perform in one area. The board might say, "If we could do anything we wanted, we'd want to promote you and have you come back in 3 months, and we'd want you to demonstrate X in that time." Then, even though the person won't of course be promoted, you can see the editor's evolution over the next 3 months and decide whether the board seemed to have made the right call or not. What I'm trying to avoid is generic arguments about RFA reform, made by the masses: "We can't allow a trial period in all cases, because X could go wrong", and instead have a knowledgeable and responsive board (who are capable of explaining their thinking, and do explain) make specific calls about specific candidates, and specific recommendations on changing the course of a specific RFA, and see if we can learn something through trial and error, through hypothesis and testing, rather than hand-waving. None of this should be construed as trying to figure out how all RFAs should change for all time; I'd rather see a focus on watching how a competent and caring group of Wikipedians goes about dealing with the real concerns of real people about real candidates. - Dank (push to talk) 02:36, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A randomly selected jury is quite different than an elected group of electors. The former are used for judging promotions and disciplinary appeals in most if not the vast majority of institutions. Given there is a trade-off between the efficiency of the process, and the accuracy in proportion to the size of the jury pool, how much efficiency are you willing to give up for additional accuracy in reflecting the will of the community? Is that last 1% costing you 200% more editor time? I am not proposing that anyone be prohibited from commenting, only from voting, which should substantially improve the overall !voteness. 75.166.206.120 (talk) 02:43, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
75.166, I'd like to see more voters and more candidates, especially from subgroups of Wikipedians who are currently ignoring RFA in particular and admin-y things in general. I'd also like to see the people who are already at RFA become more invested in the process ... that's hard to define, but it has something to do with their expectations that someone is paying attention to what they're saying. An unknown jury doesn't attract new people to a process, and doesn't educate or inspire confidence in the people who are already there. I'm talking about giving a group of Wikipedians who already know something about what they're doing, and who already have reputations that will attract new interest in RFA, the chance to learn even more by talking with each other and with the voters, and to inspire more, and more focused, participation. - Dank (push to talk) 03:17, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion Form the jury from a random selection from ALL the editors in good standing who have been active for the last (6 months, year, 3 years, etc). Continue inviting randomly selected editors to participate until a quorum is obtained (15, 20, 500, etc). This would eliminate a cabal. jmcw (talk) 13:12, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Question, could you define "good standing" and explain why editors who are not in "good standing" should be excluded. RfAs generally have ~100 editors on them, yet in a typical month we have ~2500 editors who make over 100 edits. That means that (I'd guess) 96% of editors don't give two hoots about RfA... this is going to mean a lot of spam. WormTT(talk) 13:18, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would define "Good Standing" as something empirical, such as "not currently blocked". Spam reduction: if this is necessary, let people opt out of being selected. I see it as a great advantage to bring in people who are just 'common' editors who are not usually involved in Wikipedia structure (I almost wrote Wikidrama<g>). jmcw (talk) 13:34, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly see benefits, though I also see disadvantages. There are editors who look like they'd make good admins on basic criteria, but I'd be very unhappy about them being admins. An editor who is unfamiliar with anything to do with adminship, I'm not sure how much confidence I'd have. WormTT(talk) 13:42, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The idea could be fine-tuned by a) the length of time active and b) allow the 'crats a bit more leeway in the !vote. jmcw (talk) 13:53, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
