User:Delldot/RfA Review Recommend Phase

Welcome to the Recommendation phase of RfA Review. In this phase, you will be asked to offer suggestions and proposals to address specific concerns and problems with the current Requests for Adminship process.

The questions below are taken directly from the 209 responses from the Question phase, each of which offered editors' thoughts and concerns about RfA. Based on those concerns, we identified the most frequently mentioned problems and included them here. These are the elements of RfA that are currently under review.

Please take your time and read through the concerns below. For each item, you are invited to offer a proposal that addresses the concern. Where possible, you are encouraged to provide examples, references, diffs and so on in order to support your viewpoint. There isn't a limit on the scope of your proposals; the sky is the limit, here. The intent of this phase is to get ideas, not necessarily to write policy - recommendations that gain traction and community support will be refined during later phases.

Most importantly, Answer as few or as many questions as you wish. All responses are evaluated, so any information you provide is helpful.

If you prefer, you can submit your responses anonymously by emailing them to User:Ultraexactzz. Anonymous responses will be posted as subpages with the contributor's details removed. If you have any questions, please use the project talk page at Wikipedia talk:RfA Review.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. We stress that editors who didn't participate in the question phase are encouraged to participate now - more responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results.

Once again, thank you for taking part!

Questions

Selection and Nomination

A1. Editors note that the RfA process can be daunting to prospective administrators, and that the process itself may discourage otherwise qualified candidates from seeking adminship. How can this "Selection Bias" be countered?

• It seems to me the only way to do this would be to actually make RfA an easier thing to get through. I don't think we can do this by imposing rules; rather we'd need to form a consensus using WT:RFA about what counts as a good oppose reason. We actually have had some success with this, e.g. with the 1FA thing: people just kind of came to a general understanding that it was a lame oppose reason. And RfA regulars don't want to be uncool or disruptive to the process, so this social pressure is actually pretty effective. There's an attitude that discussion around opposes is "badgering" that I think is really unhealthy. Discussion everywhere else is encouraged, and discussion is really the only tool we have to form consensus (about the candidate and about RfA in general). I think if we were to see more polite discussion around opposes and supports, and more support that that kind of discussion is ok, we'd be able to form a better concept of good criteria to use in judging RfA candidates.

A2. Editors expressed concern over unprepared or unqualified candidates at RfA, noting that their candidacies result in NOTNOW and SNOW closures that can be discouraging. In lieu of minimum requirements for adminship, how can prospective candidates be educated about RfA and the community's expectations of its administrators?

• There will always be people who don't read up on whatever is put there for them to read. People who do lurk a bit before submitting an RfA will see that the requirements are strict. You can't force people to read up though, and the best way to deal with the fact that some will inevitably submit premature RfAs is to be kind about and treat it as the non-big deal that it really is. There's really no reason people should have to be embarrassed about having submitted a NOTNOW RfA, we should stop treating it as though there is by trying to come up with all these rules to avoid that "humiliation". It happens, just explain it gently and move along. If someone is treating a candidate unkindly, during the RfA or after, the problem really lies with them and we should be diligent in bringing that up with them and taking measures to stop it if it continues, the same as we do with other civility infractions.

A3. 44 editors expressed concern over excessive co-nominations. Some of these editors advocated a limit on co-nominations, perhaps capping them at one or two per candidate; others recommended asking prospective co-nominators to post a Strong Support in lieu of an actual nomination statement. How can the concern over Co-nominations be addressed?

• I don't see any problem with co-noms. Who cares whether people voice their support at the top of the page or in the support section? Really I don't see the point of nominations at all, as opposed to lengthy supports, but I don't really see them doing any harm. I think it's more harmful is this attitude that we should impose limitations on the process--inventing more rules always has unintended consequences.

The RfA Debate (Questions, Election, Canvassing)

B1. 60 editors expressed concern over the number of questions asked of candidates, and indicated that questions should be limited in number. How can this be accomplished? What limits could be fairly imposed? Are there alternative means for the candidate to provide information about themselves without the prompting of questions?

• I'm not sure this is as big of a deal as everyone says (you know RfA is going to take a lot of time so you set aside a week where you can handle it), but I can see how it's stressful for candidates and a big time-waster. Again, I think the answer is not to impose arbitrary limitations, which will inevitably have bad side-effects (e.g. what's to stop my friends from filling up the question queue with low-balls?). Rather I think it lies with discussion and forming a consensus about what type of questions are good to ask. If someone asks a bad question, we should gently point this out to them. Again, most RfA participants really aren't trying to be jerks and don't want to annoy the community. We should also try to discourage opposes based on failure to answer the questions--they're not in the spirit of the "optional" nature of the questions.

B2. Editors expressed concern over the content of questions, with 43 editors disapproving of "Trick questions", 8 disapproving of questions that require only a quotation from policy to answer, and 54 favoring questions that relate directly to the candidate and their experiences, contributions, conflicts, etc. How should the scope of possible questions be determined? Conversely, how would the decision to remove bad-faith or problematic questions be made, and by whom? What subjects should be specifically off-limits, and why?

• Once again, I don't think we can impose strict limitations on this, because exceptions are going to need to come up. If people object to the questions, they should be able to voice that under the question. If the candidate doesn't want to answer, they should be supported in that, and we should bring this up with people who oppose based on not answering. I don't think the questions need to be removed--they can simply be ignored. I think it'll cause more drama for anyone to remove the questions, because most of them will have been made in good faith, and there are inevitably going to be fights about whether they should have been removed. Again, if someone feels that a question was inappropriate, they should be encouraged in discussing that with the person who asked it.

B3. Editors note that RfA is seen as a negative process, with issues such as badgering of opposes, personal attacks, and a general lack of civility being prominent concerns. How can the RfA process be changed to address these concerns?

• RfA is stressful, that causes emotions to run high. That's because adminship is seen as such a big deal. Short of a major change in the way the community views adminship, I don't think there's a lot we can do to make the process less stressful--the stakes are just high. Again, my approach would be to calmly discuss any civility problems with the perpetrators and enforce the civility policy as usual.

B4. The very nature of the RfA process was disputed. Some editors desire rationales with every vote, and favor a more discussion and consensus-based process similar to other processes on the English wikipedia. Other editors desire a more vote-based election, where the raw numbers of supports and opposes are the critical factor. Is there one of these methods that would provide a clearer consensus on the community's view of a candidate? Or, alternatively, is a hybrid of the two preferable, and how should that be structured?

• I'm not as anti-voting as a lot of people are, but I do agree with the general consensus that it shouldn't be a straight vote. Bureaucrats can and should dismiss nonsense votes and reasons that are widely agreed are invalid (e.g. power hunger). However, I don't think 'crats should be dismissing votes other than those of the type the community has agreed not to accept, otherwise you're venturing too much into the area of personal opinion. I don't want to see the community hand off responsibility for choosing admins to 'crats--while tempting, it's a cop-out. They're humans too.

B5. The amount of discretion held by Bureaucrats to remove or discount problem votes was also discussed, with some editors favoring increased discretion for Bureaucrats. 25 editors also favored a detailed closing rationale from Bureaucrats, detailing the specific factors that resulted in the candidate being successful (or not successful). What changes to the RfA process or format could clarify community consensus on this issue? Should Bureaucrats take a more active role in managing (or clerking) ongoing RfAs?

• I think a closing rationale is a great idea in any borderline RfA or case where the outcome is surprising; in other cases it's a waste of time. I think a 'crat should be willing to provide one if it's asked for, but I've never heard of a case where they weren't. I think in cases where a crat notices a vote they think should be discounted, it's only fair for them to note it under that vote (although this is bound to cause some drama). That way the person can clarify, supplement, or withdraw the vote. However, I don't think it should be a requirement to mark any votes before discounting them; it would take too much time. Crats can also make it known what kind of votes they will discount.

B6. 68 editors noted that a limited form of Canvassing or advertising would be acceptable, if such canvassing was done on-site and in a neutral fashion. How could a candidate advertise the fact that he or she is a candidate for adminship, while being completely neutral in the audience to which he or she advertises?

• I think user page notices are ok, but anything else is probably a bad idea. If anything, it's suicidal for the candidate because you know someone's going to object. Maybe a clerk or someone can notify relevant wikiprojects the way we do for FACs.

Training and Education

C1. Though 73 editors responded favorably to the Admin Coaching programme, 39 were critical of the process for "Teaching for the test", or for being an RfA preparation programme rather than an Adminship preparation programme. In what ways could Admin Coaching be improved to focus more on adminship itself?

• I don't feel strongly, but I guess I'm with the folks who say the whole idea should be scrapped. See C2.

C2. In evaluating New Admin School, some editors noted that a Mentorship element would be of great benefit to newly minted administrators - something that Admin Coaching provides in a direct one-on-one coach-coachee team. Similarly, 15 editors characterized Admin Coaching, a primarily pre-adminship process, as being invaluable after the RfA, which is traditionally when New Admin School is used for training. Are there areas where the two processes overlap, and can be made more complementary? Are there common themes or elements that could be shared between the two processes, in order to improve the effectiveness of both?

• Why not save admin coaching for after RfA? Let coachees dictate the kind of help they'd like to get, be that a place to ask questions or a more directed tutoring. So I'd be for a merge of the two processes.

Adminship (Removal of)

D1. Editors noted that the current voluntary Admins open to Recall process is redundant to Dispute Resolution process such as Requests for Comment and Arbitration. In the absence of Recall (i.e. if it were removed altogether), how could existing processes be adapted to more effectively deal with issues of administrator abuse?

• I guess we'd have to lower the bar for what counts as consensus that the bit should be removed in existent processes like RfC. Since the project is so big and diverse these days, it's hard to find consensus to do anything; therefore the status quo is heavily favored. We'd need to form a consensus that we need to lower the bar for consensus: now there's a catch-22 for ya.

D2. Editors cited the voluntary nature of the Admins open to Recall process as problematic, and 40 went as far as to recommend a mandatory process for all administrators, either as a mandatory form of Admins open to Recall, or a more formal version of the process administered by Bureaucrats. As a separate process from WP:DR, how could the current recall process be standardized for use as a mandatory process? Who would be responsible for such a process?

• This would basically institute a new kind of DR, like RfC or RfArb but specific to admins. So I see that as redundant; rather we need to work on strengthening those processes if they're not working.

D3. 44 editors criticized the recall process for being too open to abuse, both through spurious or bad-faith calls for an admin to be recalled, or through administrators who fail to follow through on a commitment to stand for recall. How can the recall process be amended to address these concerns?

• The AOR process is inherently based on good faith. If people turn out not to have it, there's not much we can do with that toothless process. That's when we initiate other processes like RfC. In a way, AOR is worse than useless because it lends a false sense of security.

D4. Some editors recommended that administrators be required to stand for some form of reconfirmation after a given period of time. How would such reconfirmation be structured? How long would an admin have before such reconfirmation would be required? Could such reconfirmation be triggered by an effort to recall an admin, and how would that be handled? What form would such reconfirmation take (RfA, Straw Poll, etc)?

• I don't see making everyone do this, wouldn't that take up a lot of time? Maybe if a straight majority (or 75%, or whatever) of trusted participants in an RfC requested a recall, the admin would have to re-stand. But by the time you got that kind of outcry, they'd be getting desysopped through other means soon anyway.

Overall Process

E1. The earliest version of the RfA policy states that adminship is granted to "anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community." Current policy leaves the definition of a "trusted editor" to the community. Editors offered a wide range of basic characteristics desirable of administrators, including Trustworthiness, competence, and communication skills. How could the RfA process be amended to either A) more fully ensure that editors selected as admins do indeed have the full trust of the community, or B) more fully fit the community's expectations for administrators?

• Response: ...

E2. Editors expressed concern over the format of the Requests for Adminship process. Some suggested that RfA has become a form of high-impact editor review, while others expressed concern over the view of Adminship itself as a goal or "trophy" that all editors should attain after a certain period of time. In taking the RfA process as a whole, what elements work well? What elements should be removed or amended?

• Response: ...

Once you're finished...

Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process.

Your responses will be added to Category:Wikipedian Recommendations to RfA Review, which will be used to review the responses after this phase is concluded.

Footnote

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 00:36 on 29 September 2008.