Wikipedia talk:Early Close of Requests for Adminship

Comments

• Support idea behind proposal, but not proposed guidelines. NSLE _(T+C) at 08:19 UTC (2006-05-27)
  • That's obviously fine. Perhaps you could suggest your recommended guidelines? I admit that I only spent about half an hour trying to work out the figures, and they are probably not very close to what the community actually wants. DarthVader 08:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Personally, anything that sees 130% more opposes than supports (did you get that? I'm not sure I did, myself, I mean for example 20 supports/46 oppposes, where 46 = 20 + (20*130%)...) is fair to close (at least 8 supports, obvious ones like 1 support, 2 oppose isn't closing criteria; but 1 support, 10 opposes, for example, probably should) or, say, any nom with less than 8 supports with at least 8 more opposes. Those would, from my view, probably be middle-range and agreeable on (or at least, adjusted slightly to be agreed on). Still, these numbers are also very rough. NSLE _(T+C) at 08:49 UTC (2006-05-27)

WP:SNOWBALL

There's no need for this. WP:SNOWBALL generally does the trick. Computerjoe's talk 11:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

There's no set criterion there, plus see the WP:BN. NSLE _(T+C) at 11:41 UTC (2006-05-27)

Time criterion

I think there should definately by a time factor in there - the RfA has to be open for at least 24 hours, or something. Also, I think the existance of support votes should be more important - if any respected member (basically anyone that doesn't have a reason to discount their vote) of the community supports them, they should be given a chance. And having exact edit counts in the guideline may be a good idea in theory, but in practice it's just going to cause trouble. --Tango 23:06, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Experience has shown

That closing a nomination early creates more problems than it solves. Candidates can voluntarily remove their own nomination if they wish, and some do. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 00:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

See I just haven't seen that. When I remove obvious failures, there has been no problems, and that's the way it should be. As I said on the BN, all it takes is people backing up the bcrat instead of questioning them. Bcrats were chosen for their judgement and that should be respected. A nomination with no chance of succeeding doesn't benefit the community to leave it open. Yes there's the question of what defines no chance, but if there are very few or no good faith support votes and a large number of opposes (15, 20, etc) and the nomination has only been open 24 hours or less we know it has no chance. I've been seeing this often lately in the case of users that do not come close to meeting the commonly accepted standards for RfA. I'll comment specifically on the proposed guidelines separately. - Taxman ^Talk 12:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

A personal note

I'd like to make a personal note into the discussion of this proposal, and I'll try to make it brief and clear: The situation right now is that there are a lot of different points of view on what to do with overwhealming failures, and the bureaucrats who are active at RfA are hearing very loudly from both sides (pro-"early closure" and pro-"leaving open") on a daily basis.

At this moment, every individual decision to close early or to leave open is being used as a forum for discussing the broader issue of whether closure should happen at all, and that is producing problems: specifically, it produces criticism of the individual bureaucrat's decision to close, when the desire is not to criticize the individual decision, but to discuss the greater question of how such decisions should be made. This kind of personalization of global issue is causing hurt feelings and angry exchanges, and needs to stop, now. The way for this to stop is for there to be a discussion of the real issue, the global issue, and for people to direct their comments to that discussion, rather than individual closures.

So, whatever your feeling on creating extra policies and guidelines, there does need to be a discussion of this issue. It doesn't have to lead to a set of guidelines, or a strict policy, but there does need to be a place for people to say "This is what I think about this issue" without having to use individual decisions to do it. It's fine to say "I think this call was wrong" when you really think the call was wrong, but it's just not right to pick at an individual RfA in order to make a global point. I don't think anybody really believes the bureaucrat staff are making bad decisions by closing early, but it comes across that way when an individual decision is used as a vehicle for discussion of a global standard.

So, please, say your piece here, get it all out, write up some guidelines if you like, or come to a community consensus that the current situation is fine. But come to some kind of a consensus so that there is something definitive to point to and say "The community has decided that...." It doesn't matter what is decided in the least, as long as something is decided. It's the only way the issue is ever going to be resolved. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 07:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

No numerical guidelines please

Rather than a numerically based guideline I'd like something reminding everyone that bureaucrats have been chosen as those whose judgement is trusted. If we make a decision to close one early, there shouldn't be any fallout as long as a few editors remind people that that is our job. I also don't agree with the last one that if the user has requested it not to be closed that it shouldn't be closed. That's probably a good reason to extend the range of discretion to meet their desire, but not as an absolute. Some cases where only bad blood is being reaised and the candidate has no chance of succeeding shouldn't be continued just because the candidate wants it too. There are other places to get user feedback, RfA is to decide on consensus to promote, nothing more. - Taxman ^Talk 12:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me Taxman, but I don't think this should be about reminding anyone about the judgment of bureaucrats, but rather an attempt to communicate how the community would like bureaucrats to act. Stripping this down to a "we trust b'crats" statement accomplishes little, whereas having more specific qualitative or quantitative guidelines will hopefully give candidates a clearer idea of what to expect and protect bureaucrats from some of the criticism that early closes can draw. Dragons flight 02:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually it accomplishes a lot. It allows ending disasters early without controversy. By all means have a discussion about whether people want them closed early, but don't try to pin it down to numbers. That will invariably miss important issues and dehumanize the process. Sure it makes it easier to deflect criticism, but my proposal does that too. If you want to break it down to a numerical recipe, might as well have a bot do the early closings. - Taxman ^Talk 11:13, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposal dead?

Given significant opposition, this proposal is effectively dead in the water. --Durin 15:54, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The adoption of a specific proposal may be, but it's still good to have the discussion, even if the only consensus reached is that there is no consensus. I'm wondering if this has been publicized through all the normal channels, whatever those may be these days. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 16:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• Given the significant debate that has already occurred elsewhere, I think we can safely say there is no consensus. --Durin 16:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps so. We should mark this as a rejected proposal then, and I would advocate for adding it to the bottom of RfA as well, in the same spirit as the various rejected desysopping proposals are listed. This will give us a place to point the next time the issue comes up. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 03:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)