Wikipedia talk:Redundancy is good

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Non encyclopedic - I'd suggest deleting this page David n m bond 12:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Sure. Why does this need to be formalized, though? ~~ N (t/c) 18:10, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

It's supposed to be an answer to "We don't need any more bureaucrats." As long as there's no harm in having them, we should promote them. Andre (talk) 18:12, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

To what extent does redundancy = top-heavyness = stratification ≠ egalitarian? -Splash 18:55, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe they are necessarily related. Currently it's something like .14% of users are admins - see Wikipedia:Statistics. The ranks of admins or bureaucrats will probably not become top-heavy any time soon. Andre (talk) 18:57, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

I first look at what "Too many X" tries to prevent. From what I've seen, either people assume there's this default quota that should not be breached (this is untrue, so be bold), or they accept that more X leads to higher possibility of X abuse. I won't argue with that, it's a numerical fact, but opposing specific people with this in mind could quite possibly be bad faith. Worth formalising. --Soir (say hi) 19:48, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

This is a straw man. Redundancy is good does not refute the claim "we have lots of admins, (or bureaucrats) so we can afford to be picky." -- Norvy (talk) 14:28, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Being picky does not really work with 'adminship should be no big deal'. As for bureaucrats, the ad-hoc current opinion seems to be at least as choosy as for admins, and possibly more so: [1]. But, really, people should not deny support on the grounds that there are too many X (with the mindset of 'if there weren't too many X, they wouldn't object'). If they have a genuine problem with a candidate, even if it's rather small, they can voice it. If they don't.. well, redundancy is good. -- Soir (say hi) 16:23, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

You could characterize voicing a genuine, yet rather small, problem with a candidate as "being picky." I've often wanted more context for the "This should be no big deal" quote. Is he expressing a hope that it won't be controversial? Is he saying that admins are the same as everyone else? Is he saying that the nomination process will weed out bad eggs? -- Norvy (talk) 16:56, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Heh. That's a good question. I consider it may relate to how a user doesn't necessarily have to do anything above and beyond the call of editing to gain adminship. Not that this should disparage doing such things, of course. The nomination process seems quite successful, at least based upon the list of those who have lost adminship being not exactly huge compared to the number of admins as a whole. (But this feels like an incomplete picture, and I'll welcome contrary opinion.) -- Soir (say hi) 17:58, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It seems like the real issue is not one of redundancy, but teamwork. Even if one administrator was working on our backlogs with all his available time, it would take ages to eliminate them. Hence, we have more than one administrator to do the job. It is not a question of having backups in case one is incapacitated, but of having all of them available at once. Also, in general redundancy in administration is confusing. For example, I don't understand why we really need Wikipedia:Village pump (news), Wikipedia:Announcements, Wikipedia:Goings on, and Wikipedia:Signpost. Another example would be the profusion of meta-like wikis(i.e. grants wiki, Wikimedia Foundation, Meta) I think that type of redundancy(which is plentiful on Wikipedia) is bad. So, I think this policy is good-intentioned but flawed, and I oppose it in its current form. Superm401 | Talk 20:39, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Policy to discount RFA votes?

Do we need a "policy" that merely lists a set of arguments that are regularly brought up when someone requests bureaucratship? Is this sort of opinion piece better placed on meta? Do we want to invite the creation of Wikipedia:Too many cooks spoil the broth or something similar? (Please, nobody create such a page—it would just be making a WP:POINT.)

I haven't seen any adminships opposed on the grounds of 'too many admins already' and IRC ops aren't elected or approved here on the wiki; it would seem that this policy/guideline is directed toward the perennial argument raised during bureaucratship nominations. This guideline, as written ("...redundancy should be sought in any situation where there are few negatives to having it...") begs the question of whether or not the risks of having additional bureaucrats (or even admins, for that matter) are safely negligible.

Making the bald statement

This makes the reason "we have enough X; more X are not needed" for not wanting more X (admins, bureaucrats, mediators...) invalid. Redundancy is good. There is no quota.

would seem to be directed at discounting the votes and opinions of good-faith participants in the Requests for Bureaucratship process by presuming that their legitimate concerns are unfounded.

I would encourage any members of the pro-redundancy camp to appeal to the reason and good sense of RfB voters—explain why more bureaucrats are necessary, why the risks are low for particular individuals, why redundancy is a good thing. I would strongly discourage any attempt to create a policy or guideline to give some sort of official imprimatur to one viewpoint in this debate. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:36, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Good points. I was not advocating the discounting of those votes, I was merely trying to discourage their existence to begin with. As for "Too many cooks spoil the broth," which is an expression saying that working together with too many people on a project is bad... that would kind of be anti-wiki, wouldn't it? Andre (talk) 02:41, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, but sometimes too many cooks do cause trouble. Cleaning up after Willy on Wheels we regularly have problems because multiple admins are trying to undo the same damage. I'm not saying that I believe we have too many admins, but sometimes we do step on each other's toes. Burn me for a heretic if you will. :D

I think it should be up to the bureaucrat candidates to discourage the existence of those votes. All candidate bureaucrats are self-nominated—they should be able to express clearly and convincingly why they want and need the additional privileges of bureaucrathood. They should be able to engage the community and persuasively argue the merits of their case. Giving them the 'out' of citing this document lets them off that hook.

Unlike those given to admins, the new tools which bureaucrats receive are meant to be used most sparingly, and generally with little urgency. The bureaucrat toolset doesn't help in maintaining articles or fighting vandalism. Having twenty or two hundred bureaucrats would likely make little difference to Wikipedia's day-to-day function, though the occasional wheel war in the latter case would be epic. Unlike adminship, bureaucratship should be an uphill climb. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:09, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree about your characterization of bureaucratship, but that's fine. I took the proposed tag off of the page because you convinced me that it was better suited as an essay/meta piece, but it was added back, which I'm also fine with. Andre (talk) 03:20, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

What exactly is this proposed as? A guideline? -- Norvy (talk) 14:28, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It was, yes. A guideline a la "be bold." Andre (talk) 15:44, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, you're right. I wonder if people will now start opposing admins because of this (and WP:BEANS). ~~ N (t/c) 16:01, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Not policy -- and not Notpolicy, either

I find this page overgeneral. There is a valid argument to be made in favor of redundancy, but this is so basic to all technique that it means little standing alone.

Redundancy incurs costs, too. I would not be so foolish as to found Wikipedians against redundancy -- but neither would I endorse any given proposal merely on the strength of its redundancy.

My initial reaction is to think of this page as trivial, but then, I don't find trivial content worthy of attack. I should not participate in any attempt to destroy this.

I have removed the {{proposed}} tag, without prejudice to later restoration. This is ineligible for policy, because it does not promote or suggest any action. I am tempted to strengthen it into a possible policy statement, thus making it more transparent and eligible for consideration as policy, but I defer that move. Perhaps another editor will Be Bold and make such a move. I have gone so far as to indicate what I believe to be a general direction in which such a move could be taken.

Please note that there is a great deal written which is not article content, yet is also not policy -- accepted, proposed, or failed. There remain opinion and general statements of fact; this page falls somewhere in this range.

— Xiong熊talk* 00:28, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

I have re-added the {{proposed}} tag. The maze of pages in the Wikipedia: namespace can be extremely confusing and intimidating to new users. Many of them are policies, and many of them are guidelines, and editors refer to items in the namespace them by gnostic-sounding abbreviations constantly. It is unfair to those users to put things in the Wikipedia: space that are neither fish nor fowl without some attempt to indicate what they are looking at. If the {{proposed}} tag is not perfectly apposite, it is still the closest thing we have.

If having that tag on the article really bothers you, then I suggest that Andrevan could move this page to his user space, or to a subpage of the village pump until he figures out what it is. I say this without prejudice or without commenting on the merits of the essay in any way. Nandesuka 12:01, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Already here?

Wikipedia:Abundance and redundancy already exists. This page does approach it from a different angle (redundant editors rather than content) but I don't see how this couldn't be condensed to two sentences and placed in the existing guideline as a neutral statement of how redundancy is also viewed. Also, I'd like to second SuperM that redundancy in administration can be a bad thing. Insofar as it does expand things it over-generalizes and may I say that also that it's a touch repetitive or internally redundant (if you like). Marskell 18:01, 18 September 2005 (UTC)