User:Jdforrester/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?

• Response: The entire concept of counting votes to "prove" competence is intellectually flawed. I don't think it's possible to respond to this in a logical fashion, as it begs the very question I dispute.

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?

• Response: Entering RfA should not be the first time a user is familiar with the community's expectations of sysop behaviour (or, for that matter, "normal" user behaviour). We must reach out much, much more, and inculcate knowledge and understanding of the community norms.

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?

• Response: Co-nomination suggests that the individuals nominating believe that their comments as nominators, as opposed to those had they merely "voted", are weighed more heavily (or, perhaps, cynically, read at all). I'm not sure that this is true (though my intuition says yes); if so, that is the problem (c.f. my response to A1), and this is merely a symptom.

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?

• Response: Opening statements are a possibility - no user can nowadays be reasonably expected to be familiar with every aspect of sysop life (even - or perhaps especially - after they've been one for some time), so instead the user could bring out issues with which they would like to be questioned: a statement discussing their work in the area of community management (POV warrior calming, informal mediation, etc.), for example, could lead to a fruitful discussion (not interrogation) on what the individual would bring to the sysop cadre. This would make the process somewhat more similar to our election processes (especially those for Stewards); whether this is a good thing or not is, of course, a matter for discussion.

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?

• Response: "Trick" questions are by their very nature made in bad faith with the intent of biting the newbies (with a relatively "extended" timespan for "newbie", admittedly). I can see nothing other than disharmony resultant from them.

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?

• Response: Err, scrapped? Again, see my response to A1; the RfA system has developed, albeit unintentionally, into a oppositional format where potential recruits must "prove" themselves against the onslaught of scrutiny and opprobrium. It isn't just "seen" as a negative process - it is so. And, frankly, "civility" is seen by many sysops as something for other people to worry about (or a convenient stick with which to beat up newbies) rather than a principle in any way directed at themselves.

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?

• Response: I am absolutely in the former camp; the by-the-numbers attitude has lead to editcountitis, and other, more serious, social illnesses in the community.

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?

• Response: I could envisage this becoming problematic (as those Bureaucrats currently appointed have been so on the basis of following orders, not making decisions, by a great many people), but I would be strongly in favour of assuming that Bureaucrats are sensible and should be allowed to exercise their intelligence. If one or two of them aren't, well, never mind, we can remove them (or, ideally, they will chose to resign as events blow up around them) - that's how a community grows.

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?

• Response: Canvassing was generally considered inappropriate because people who already knew you would have hung out on RfA; this concept, is obviously somewhat dated - most rational people don't go within a thousand edits of the cesspool out of which RfA rarely manages to climb. As such, what the hell, it can hardly make the process much worse.

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?

• Response: ...

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?

• Response: ...

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?

• Response: The community should feel empowered to censure sysops who behave inappropriately: call them on it and tell them they're wrong - not with an RfC or an RfAr (at least, not at first), but as concerned colleagues and friends looking to help them develop into better, more effective sysops. Self-improvement is a path along which we all should tread (and, at least, not retreat).

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?

• Response: Self-selected recall is, yes, logically inappropriate. However, it should not be necessary, as corrective action should be taken right from the start. See also D1 response.

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?

• Response: Scrap it; it's not merely useless, but more so, damaging the community when abused or ignored a leaving individuals with a feeling of individual entitlement (as opposed to community consensus) which they do not actually have. People become disappointed or angry when their "recall" request is ignored or denined, and subjects feel under attack from trolls. Neither builds trust, happiness, or community - and, crucially, neither helps the project become a better encyclopædia.

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)?

• Response: In order: badly; not long enough; it could, but it shouldn't; badly, again; a mess. In other words, this would be a bad idea, for all the reasons that this is listed as a perennial "don't even go there" issue. :-)

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 21:28 on 28 September 2008.