Wikipedia talk:2015 administrator election reform/Phase II/Clerking RfC

Unique section titles needed

@Biblioworm: please give each section a unique title so that when we save an edit we are returned to that section. As it is, I get returned to the first section that has the same section title. Thanks. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:55, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Biblioclerk is on the job! ;) Biblioworm 22:58, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

 Done Biblioworm 23:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Please split "Managing questions"

Please split "Managing questions" - it really should be two questions. An editor may support clerks (or any editor) removing irrelevant questions ONLY, without supporting other forms of "managing questions". Or, an editor may support clerks doing one of those two tasks and "any editor" doing the other of the two tasks. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:04, 21 December 2015 (UTC) @Biblioworm: sorry forgot the ping. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:04, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Missing question?

Should the RfC not first ask whether people want RfA clerks, then ask what we want them to do, if we want them at all? SarahSV ^(talk) 23:07, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Note: I already gave my opinion on the issue here. Biblioworm 23:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

My understanding of the close of the earlier RfC was that the community wanted to discuss clerking further, not that the community wanted clerks. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:25, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The "status quo/effectively-no-clerks result" will be a result that excludes non-'crats from clerking or which gives no powers to clerks. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:32, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

This doesn't work, as it does not seem to stop the bureaucracy attached to 'Implementation details' being created. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:23, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

• A general question of this sort might have been simpler. I went through the long list of options in one shot with some answers then lost it all to an edit conflict. To avoid further conflicts, I then edited the sections separately, resulting in numerous edits. The process was quite tiresome. Andrew D. (talk) 01:18, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

• It's very unclear to me how an editor who considers the status quo ideal should respond. ETA: In particular how is one supposed to oppose the creation of the bureaucracy described under 'Implementation details'? Espresso Addict (talk) 02:14, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Biblioworm, you wrote on your talk page that "if the proposals there gain consensus, that would naturally imply that there is consensus for clerking." No, it wouldn't imply that. People might mean "if there is clerking, I would prefer X, but overall I would prefer no clerking." So the RfC should begin with an option to say yes or no to clerking; otherwise there won't be consensus to implement the results. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:39, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I'll try to make some improvements on the RfC and then ping interested parties, but I'm afraid I don't have the time right now. I'll get back to this in a few hours. Biblioworm 06:23, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The Implementation details section is lacking Support/Oppose/Discuss subsections. That seems to solve the questions above. Anyone can add those subsections (in fact, I'm adding them now). Apart from that oversight I think Biblio has done a great job here. Thanks for that, Biblio. Begoon ^talk 13:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, Begoon. Biblioworm, thank you for setting all this up and thinking about what to ask. I've given the implementation question its own section by making the previous text sub-sections of Introduction. So the second section is now devoted to whether people want this to be implemented. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:20, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the implementation details are simply about the details of how clerks will operate. If it fails, then that does not mean that clerking will not be implemented; it just means that we will not create a clerk log, clerks' noticeboard, etc., and essentially allow clerks to clerk without all the formalities. Biblioworm 18:59, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

B1 verbiage

• "If you support authorizing any other group to clerk RfAs, also specify if you support or oppose having bureaucrats oversee RfA clerking."

Why is this excluding comments? Presume someone does not support others to clerk in general, but should it pass anyway they should be able to weigh in here. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:55, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Thoughts on this RfC

I came into this RfC not really knowing what the intent was, and my first comment was that I supported anyone clerking without having actually read any of the page. I've thought about it some, and here's where I think we're at, as a base point for entering this RfC. There are some actions proposed here which there's already broad community consensus (prior to this) that any editor may perform (e.g. general cleanup), some which there is no consensus that anyone should perform (e.g. removing votes), and some which haven't developed consensus because we haven't really talked about them before. I'm going through this now thinking that it might be a good idea to have some technical actions performed by a disinterested group of users who can be relied upon to be neutral moderators, actions which a user could read motive or controversy into if the performer were not among a trusted neutral group, and/or could lose their privilege. For example, if we were to decide on criteria for removing votes, then they should definitely be removed by a neutral person, not someone involved in the discussion. That would be a role for clerks. I don't know what else, and there's not consensus for any of this yet, I'm just thinking out loud. Anyway, I've changed a number of my comments with this in mind: that some actions can be performed by anyone, and some maybe would be better of performed only by a trusted group. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Basic provision

Leaky caldron, Espresso Addict, Samwalton9, SlimVirgin, Ivanvector, Peacemaker67, Davidwr, Clpo13, Stfg, Tiggerjay, Happysquirrel, Samtar, NinjaRobotPirate, Od Mishehu, Tryptofish, Beyond My Ken, Andrew Davidson, Johnuniq, Nyttend, Graeme Bartlett, DaGizza, Dat GuyWiki, Guy1890, Carnildo, Xaosflux, SQL: I have created a "Basic provision" section, which is for discussion about whether we should have clerks at all. Please cast your opinions in that section. Thank you. Biblioworm 19:53, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Biblioworm, I changed the heading to "basic proposal" instead of "basic provision." SarahSV ^(talk) 00:24, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it appears to me that the RfC has been set up under the basic apprehension that the community is pining to institute clerking at RfA; i.e. all the options which are consistent with maintaining the status quo are stated in the negative, while those which propose changes are stated positively. I think that such a situation potentially biases the responses, since people generally don't like to be negative and want to agree with reasonable-sounding ideas to solve a problem. The thing is, I don't really think that we've sufficiently established that a serious problem exists on RfA, and even if we have, there was (if I remember correctly) no agreement that clerking was the consensus solution to that problem.

My own opinion is that the "RfA problem" has been drastically overstated, and that the give-and-take which has been so decried is simply part and parcel of having a diverse community of people with somewhat dissimilar ideas about what they want to see in an admin. We already have a system in place to police the worst of any disruption, and it's the same one we use elsewhere in the encyclopedia: editors take action, sometimes BOLD action, and other editors agree or disagree. In the end it all gets sorted out, and if a straight count of votes doesn't put the candidate over the top, we have the Bureaucrats to decide how much weight to give votes - which is basically what we do at XfD. I've yet to be convinced that the system is so broke that a radical solution is necessary, nor am I persuaded that the community as a whole -- as opposed to the tiny sliver of the community which will participate in this very long and rather tedious RfC (sorry, Biblioworm) -- thinks there's a crisis, or is behind the idea of RfA clerking. BMK (talk) 06:57, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Some more coherent thoughts

There seem to me to be some problems with this RfC. First off, I think a bland, easy-to-understand 'do we want to introduce some form of formal clerking or retain the status quo?' would be appropriate. I think it is necessary to distinguish between formal clerking and the informal process that is currently going on, that includes at least some of the actions proposed as 'clerking'. Second, I believe there is a problem with broadly slicing the RfC into actions & actors, when at least one editor (me) would want to consider whether each action proposed should be done at all/by bureaucrats only/by clerks/by non-bureaucrat, non-clerk editors of a certain type/by any logged in editor (not banned from RfA participation)/by anyone (not banned from RfA participation) including IPs. Third, in some cases people seem to be responding in complex ways to questions of the form support/oppose proposal vs support/oppose allowing any editor to perform this task in clear cases, which is likely to make consensus hard to determine and reduce the utility of this RfC in changing policy. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:57, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Espresso Addict, I agree. This has been set up in a way that could make it hard to close. The first question should have been something like: "Do we want to create formal clerkships at RfA?" If that gained consensus, a second RfC could have explored how to go about it. If it failed to gain consensus, a second RfC could have asked whether we want bureaucrats to do more, etc. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:28, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

• To summarize, I'm afraid it's simply impossible to please everyone, so I do not plan to make any major changes to the RfC. If I had laid it out the other way, people would have said that it is so inefficient to require multiple RfCs on one narrow topic, that it wastes time to vote on mere concepts (that was one complaint in the Phase I RfC) and that we should make actual proposals instead, etc. Biblioworm 01:15, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid it's unclear to me how This was a nuanced discussion. I think the community would like to discuss the idea of clerking at the next stage of the RFC. The valid concerns are that it would lead to stifling of discussion and force !votes to be less candid. So these are things to look out for in the next phase. translates into this RfC, particularly in its original form. The problem with an RfC where people disagree with the form of some or all of the questions is that the results can be either inconclusive or fail to convince those of the community who disagree with the result, whichever way it goes, that a fair & balanced discussion was held. One thing that will be essential is to convene a neutral closer who is experienced with dealing with complex RfCs and has the community's trust. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:26, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I compromised and added the section for the basic proposal and pinged every user who had participated thus far. With that done, and my bending over backwards to make sure that every previous participant knew of the addition (it wasn't easy putting together that list of users to ping), I don't see how it could not be a fair and balanced discussion. However, the discussion would have been even more fair and balanced if the watchlist notice hadn't been reverted without any prior discussion. In regard to the last part, I certainly agree that we need a neutral, experienced, trusted closer, but I'll just note that such users are rather scarce and that getting one is not as easy as it might sound. As they say, it's easy to criticize other peoples' actions when you're not the one who has to make the decisions. I can't get everything right the first time, and I more than likely I'll never get it "right", because everyone has different ideas of what is right. Biblioworm 01:41, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Penny for my thoughts?

• Why support/oppose sub-proposals when you oppose the main proposal?
• Why is B5 required when it's essentially the same as the basic proposal?

Read this? Thank you. --QEDK (T ❄ C) 08:24, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

• Because it's perfectly valid to oppose the basic proposal and still express opinions on how it should be done if it passes anyway. I can tell my wife I don't think we should paint the spare bedroom this year. There's nothing wrong with also saying, at the same time, that I don't think it should be orange if she decides to do it anyway.
• Because it is not the same. You could, I suppose, support B5 and also the 'specific tasks' part of the 'basic proposal' and extra bureaucracy of the 'implementation' sections. I don't, but I imagine someone could.
  (also, the "basic proposal" and "implementation" vote sections were added later; they were not present in the original RFC text.)

Yes. You're welcome. Begoon ^talk 13:17, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

• As I was wondering, kinda like a fail-safe.
• I wonder who would...

Thanks for explaining, though. --QEDK (T ❄ C) 14:52, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

• Not really a fail-safe, just ensuring you express an opinion on all possibilities. It's actually the sensible way to vote whether or not you support the basic proposal.
• There are already voters who have - read Nyttend, Graeme Bartlett and Tiggerjay's comments, for instance. They make perfect sense to me, as expressions of their opinions.

I hope that helps. Begoon ^talk 12:22, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Fed up already

I started entering my votes but in spite of me being an ardent supporter of the need for clerking, as soon as I realised that this is another marathon RfC requiring 2 hours of my attention, I'm out. Also, I don't see many of our more thoughtful, influential editors clambouring to take part. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:22, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

You have only one of two choices when running a serious, orderly RfC: (1) Run a long "marathon RfC" that has several options and allows the community to build their own custom system; (2) Put together a policy proposal and have an RfC on that. However, I have pointed out elsewhere that detailed policy proposals (with its terms completely written by the drafter), is almost certain to fail, because many people will disagree with at least one aspect that you thought was a good idea, but which they find to be too bureaucratic, or something else. Can anyone find me at least one pre-written RfA reform proposal that actually succeeded? In contrast, the multiple-option "marathon RfC" format was at least semi-successful. Also, I fought to get this RfC on the watchlist notice so that it could attract more attention, but I was reverted without prior discussion by an administrator who did not respond to my comment. Meanwhile, on the talk page for MediaWiki:Watchlist-details, it appears that no one wants to reinstate it for fear of wheel warring. Biblioworm 17:06, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

This RfC still needs careful planning and feedback from a more diverse group of editors; that's why I abandoned the RfC that this RfC nearly copied in verbatim to write up a new one. Esquivalience ^t 03:43, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I have successfully launched a number of major RfC. I drafted them on the KISS priciple. They all had a reasonably high turnout (100 - 500 participants). The only RfC I lost was the recent BARC one, but that was partly because it was sabotaged by some editors, including a former Arbcom member, telling lies in order to discredit the authors of the proposal. Fortunately, I had only launched that RfC as a favour to the community - I wasn't 100% sold on it myself. Anyway, I just can't face the prospect of wading through another of these unusual, convoluted RfC, and I'm pretty sure that others share my opinion. It's a shame, because this is by far the most important of any RfA reforms; indeed , as I've been saying time and time again for over six years: Fix the voters, and RfA will fix itself. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:23, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

• RfC questions are too cheap to write and too often not well enough planned. This problem would be improved if all RfC questions required a seconder. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:32, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Not necessarily a 'seconder', but most of the best RfC are carefully prepared by a team of experienced users . THe problem here is that clerking is in fact sorely needed - it's the only reason we need any reforms to RfA, but if this RfC tanks we'll have to wait another two years or so for the dust to settle. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:02, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, glancing at what you say above, I suppose if you'd had a suitable window in the last six years we could have voted on one of your carefully crafted and invariably successful RFAs on this crucial issue, and it would all be in place now. I've been critical of aspects of this RFA but I really think your implication that the work that went into it has set "the cause" back "2 years" is pretty unfair. I was feeling bad about the criticism I'd made of this RFA and its predecessor, in an effort to help, knowing the effort that had been invested. Your last couple of posts put that in context. Thanks. Begoon ^talk 12:38, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

It also implies that this RfC was carelessly drafted by a newbie (which would have to be me, of course, and in part Esquivalience). We don't have to wait two years, and as Begoon pointed out, why didn't anyone ever draft a clerking RfC in the many intervening years between late 2015 and the last failed one? I'm one who likes to get things done, not wait around forever in the hope that someone else might do it. Besides, I think the simple fact might just be that the community is against clerking. The last RfC was in January 2013 (drafted by Scottywong [a highly-respected contributor to RFA2011]) and it appears that Kudpung was wholeheartedly for it and at the forefront of its defense. What happened? It failed, rather badly, actually. (Even WSC, another highly-respected member of RFA2011, opposed the RfC.) If we're going to try anything like this again, I think we have to make the proposed system a bit different from the one proposed in the past two RfCs on this issue. However, I think it would be best to wait at least a few months for a new RfC on this. Persistence does pay off, but sometimes much of it is required. In any case, I'll be taking a little break from RfA reform for at least a few months, although I probably wouldn't mind doing some work on drafting a new clerking proposal, as long as others were involved in the drafting. All the other ideas I have are simple to draft but for certain reasons must wait for a few months to be effective. Biblioworm 16:17, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your work, Biblioworm, whatever the "result" of the RFC I think it's been valuable, attracted some very useful opinions, and will help move this discussion forward. Begoon ^talk 01:40, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Second that. Whatever the result, it has been a lot more informative and useful than the endless stream of whingeing that goes on at wt:rfa. --Stfg (talk) 11:06, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Not sure which thoughtful and influential editors have failed to clamber to participate. It has been widely notified and indeed, reopened. While disagreeing fundamentally with the concept of appointed quasi-administrators to manage RfA discussion creep, the overall exercise has been successful enough to dismiss the 2 years delay theory mentioned above. Leaky Caldron 14:08, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Even though this RfC is against a static group clerking RfAs, it is heading towards allowing any editor to perform the basic clerk tasks. Esquivalience ^t 16:24, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Which is, of course, what happens now. As I said elsewhere, all processes on WP are "clerked" already by experienced editors. It has always been so. The RFC will give some insight into what the editor base feels about how that should be done in the particular case of RFA, and I think that is very useful, and well worth the effort. The concept of special "mall cops" to enforce that in this particular area is not doing so well, though, and we should be aware of that. Begoon ^talk 18:24, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

new "user group"

This discussion is a huge mess. We have a large number of editors opposing the various tasks that clerks could do because they don't want a new "user group". It sure would be nice if people would read thru the entire page before voting, but they clearly aren't doing that. The best answer I can see, if it's not too late, is too move the "who can clerk" section above the "clerks tasks" section, so people can see that it wouldn't be a new user group. I do hope the closing admin strikes all the "new user group" votes, since it indicates that the voter didn't read the page. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 13:01, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I hope the closer does not "strike" anything, since that would be inappropriate. I hope the closer applies judgement to the arguments presented, and trust them to do so.
Also, moving sections around at this stage would be so wrong I can't believe you suggested it.
As for implying that a vote for an option implies "not reading the page", well, I think if anyone is looking for something to "strike", that might be an excellent candidate, given the implications it has. If I had voted already, I'd be appalled at that concept. "Striking" is only generally done by the original commenter, by the way, if my meaning is in any way unclear here. Begoon ^talk 13:13, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I read through the entire page before voting, and then the entire page was changed. And there is nothing illogical if one opposes the concept of formal clerking, and then opposes proposals to assign certain tasks to clerks. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:30, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Let us not assume that people who oppose creating a new user group are assuming to a MediaWiki usergroup; they could simply be referring to a group of users. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:03, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

True, but the issue is whether some selected people are in that group and others are out and therefore precluded from helping WP in that way. That's what I oppose. --Stfg (talk) 16:14, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

There probably isn't any point in spending much time on refining the proposals as the basic question is not likely to pass. Stifle (talk) 09:27, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Watchlist this?

There is a discussion on going at MediaWiki_talk:Watchlist-details to determine if THIS RfC should be added to the watchlist notice, if you have an opinion one way or the other, please drop a line there. Thank you! — xaosflux ^Talk 18:30, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Note: This was readded to the watchlist notice. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:15, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

missing responsibilities from phase I?!

Am I missing something or did we omit half of Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform/Phase I/RfC#M: Active clerking at RFA? Specifically points 2, 3, and 4? Or is that considered resolved already? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 23:13, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Closing Wednesday

The 30 days will run on Wednesday (near midnight, UTC). The edits have slowed down, so I don't see a reason to prolong the RfC. This is just a courtesy notice, in case anyone was waiting until the end to comment ... the end is nigh. - Dank (push to talk) 17:36, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Other approaches to reduce acrimony

To address Dank's question regarding reducing hostility, my proposal in the Phase I RFC described an approach to structure the discussion itself to reduce acrimony between editors. Incidentally, it also covers Dank's second-to-last point: by shifting the emphasis to the pros and cons of each choice, it is easier to determine how each person views the different options. Of course, there is no consensus support for this option. Based on the discussion in Phase I, I believe most people prefer to keep the existing approach of using a straw poll on the options, with adjustments made afterwards if deemed appropriate. isaacl (talk) 18:36, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I guess I wasn't considering this option because the closer found "a lot of valid opposition". I thought it was an interesting idea, though. - Dank (push to talk) 21:21, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, you asked if anyone one could "point to any comment made in any of these RfCs that suggests an approach to the hostility problem other than what some are calling 'clerking'?" If you are only looking for those that passed through phase I, options B1, B2, and B3 were proposals to reduce hostility without discretionary clerking. isaacl (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I meant "that might be relevant to this RfC". I'll add that. Thanks for checking. - Dank (push to talk) 01:10, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Since this RfC is on the clerking proposal, I'm not sure how comments about other approaches are relevant to your closure. I assumed you were just posing a question out of your own personal interest, rather than looking for further information regarding this RfC. If that is the case, then I don't think any further refinement of your statement is needed. isaacl (talk) 01:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)