Wikipedia talk:RfA reform 2011/Archive 4
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Please consider this for a minute
5 June 2011. Various comments by User:Fetchcomms and responses. All now being discussed on respective RFA2011 sub pages.
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Note: This thread now needs copying to a more appropriate sub page - which one? Every time I say this, I get ignored or the discussion gets off-topic: The problem with RfA is NOT the process. It is the participants.
roux noted several month ago that we cannot change users' behavior without any incentive for them to change. Well, we obviously aren't going to be mass-banning people from voting in RfAs, so we need to be focusing on how to eliminate the things that prompt bad and/or annoying behavior. Some thoughts:
What kind of "reform" are we grabbing for? The only reform that is needed is for rude voters. Although there is no incentive for people to comment nicer, what we should be reforming is voters' attitudes and tones by leaving them gentle talk page reminders of how to make comments offend others less (it is almost always unintentionally offensive) and then just growing a thicker skin and ignoring the nonsense altogether. I'd really like "no badgering" to become a sort of rule or requirement at RfA, because all it does is cause drama, but I'd like to see how many agree with my sentiment, first. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:43, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Balloonman, I agree that a desysop solution is necessary (and I'm currently unsure of how it should be structured; any current system—recall, RfA reconfirmation—is quite easily abused if we make it mandatory; this is aside the point for now, though); however, just because voters should "prevent question admins from passing" does not mean they must do so in a manner that degrades the candidate. It is perfectly possible to oppose a candidate politely, taking time and care not to hurt their feelings (although, as I said above, sometimes sucking it up is needed). /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:39, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm late to the party, but let me just say that what "badgering" is is subjective, and it's completely called for if someone's opinion is wrong. Swarm X 04:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Fetch is right, but has the context too focused:
The "Holy Community" is the problem. See many of the {{humour}}ous essays; they usually have a fair bit of truth in them. The project's problem is its toxic community. It poisons everything. There's certainly a pretty strong consensus that RfA is broken, and it's pretty clear that the project is broken in many ways. As Tyler Durden said; just let go. See also: Humpty Dumpty. 125.162.150.88 (talk) 02:33, 21 April 2011 (UTC) Swarm, "not enough" is subjective. Your definition of "enough" differs from mine, I'm sure. If someone has the nerve to say that 86 FAs is "not enough", they're not wrong (I mean, it's based off their own view, not any fact—unless there is a universal definition of "enough" to which all users assess candidates), they just hold a radical view. Do you think that badgering such a comment will do anything? If they have the nerve to say that, they sure won't be changing their vote any time soon. Badgering only makes the atmosphere more hostile and unfriendly—we still have to be nice to the people with radical beliefs. If they want to look foolish, then it's not my problem or the candidate's problem—it's a single oppose that will be discounted in the end, and any 86-FA writer who takes such a ridiculous claim personally needs to grow a sense of humor. As I said before, a bureaucrat will come along, think, "Hmm, that's silly," and ignore the comment—badgering will do nothing but generate drama (and RfA pages are not the right place to gather pileons for an RfA ban). Kudpung, we just cannot prevent these things without incentive. What will prohibit that user who thinks 86 FAs is not enough from voting? In such extreme cases, humor should be applied, not a serious rebuttal—no crat needs five people to say, "That's the stupidest oppose ever" to realize it. Yes, things like a "three-strikes-and-you're-RfA-banned" will help prevent this nonsense, but we can't check every user's comments before they hit "save" and make it permanent (in the page history, at least). /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Fetch, you're dead right about it being the participants that's "wrong". You only have to get one or two nasssssties being unmuzzled and allowed to get away with it, and then you have the lynch-mob piling in. The 'penalties for being a dick' idea - that if you have to be 'politely requested to remove your toally dickish comment' by the clerks too often, or otherwise break the rules on the kind of interaction that would be considered on user or article talk pages, your voting rights are taken away for x-amount of time ... that might just stop (or at least muzzle and leash) the worse offenders. The main idea about clerking is that hopefully participants will be constantly aware that their behaviour is being observed, and may lead to sanctions, and so behave better. But you are SO right - it's the participants that have created the bloodbath we all know and ..... errrrrm ..... :o) Pesky (talk) 08:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
I'd say the biggest participant problem is that the prospective candidate often appears to be blissfully unaware of how their dirty laundry, if they have any, will be put on display during an RfA debate and, for that matter, blissfully unaware that their laundry is dirty. My opinion is that we should get rid of sponsored nominations altogether and make every candidacy a self-nomination, but introduce a structured clearing process. How many editors are there who are suitable for adminship, but never bother because they don't regularly cross paths with those involved in the RfA process? To an outsider taking an interest in the process it appears that self-nomination is usually the surest route to failure. Have a gentle process whereby candidates are reviewed by a couple of volunteer admins (following a defined checklist) so that they're at least aware of potential problems and given the opportunity to sort them out prior to being exposed to the masses. Catfish Jim & the soapdish 13:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC) Re "badgering": I do not think that is desirable to prohibit users from commenting on other user's opinions contained in a !vote. If you don't want users to comment on the rationale given by other users, you should prohibit users from giving a rationale to support a !vote in the first place. I am not saying that this should or shouldn't be done, merely that the half-way position that is being suggested shouldn't be done.James500 (talk) 14:01, 4 June 2011 (UTC) Can I suggest that: (1) All reasoning should be confined to the talk page of the RfA in question; (2) That the talk page should be laid out in the form of "pros" and "cons", and that the reasoning should be laid out one issue at a time in a logical order with no repetition; and if necessary the page should be refactored in order to achieve this. The object of this would be to separate !voting from argument altogether.James500 (talk) 22:15, 4 June 2011 (UTC) Or perhaps you could allow them to give a minimal rationale like "for reasons numbers 1, 4, 7 and 8 listed on the talk page".James500 (talk) 22:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
Note: This thread now needs copying to a more appropriate sub page - which one? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:36, 5 June 2011 (UTC) |
Restating some things
Note: Copied to Wikipedia talk:RfA reform 2011/Voter profiles - Please continue the discussion there. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:25, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
Continues at Wikipedia talk:RfA reform 2011/Voter profiles
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I wanted to restate a few things said elsewhere which should be commented on here. In one example I asked how viable it would be to transclude an RfA but not set the timer until 100 participants sign up as jurors. This implies that perhaps all RfA should be from the same size jury. Additionally I suggested that these participants should not actually vote until around day 5, leaving the first 5 days for questions and comments. Are there any valid points to glean from these considerations? My76Strat (talk) 01:01, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Please see the stats below. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
'Low' turnout passes (under 100):
Compiled by Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:04, 18 April 2011 (UTC) What about Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Vejvančický (90/1/4) from October 2010? Alzarian16 (talk) 20:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC) High turn-out 'unsuccessful': 100+ !votes
(some may have since passed)
Complied by Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:24, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
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Can you participate in a survey to help us improve the RfA process?
10 June 2011. A request for participation in an external survey. Nothing ever came of it.
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The Communicative Practices in Virtual Workspaces research group in Human Centered Design and Engineering department at the University of Washington http://courses.washington.edu/commprac/ is inviting editors like yourself to participate in an online survey that allows us to find connections among users in Wikipedia. We are particularly interested in the Wikipedia Request for Adminship (RfA) process. The survey will allow us to better understand the RfA process and to research tools that could make the process easier for members of the Wikipedia community. The survey will only take about 15 minutes to complete and no personally identifiable information will be linked to your survey responses. We want to research how the community is managed and how it makes decisions, specifically the process in which a person is decided by the community to be promoted to administrator status in Wikipedia. Questions in the survey will ask you how you evaluate an RfA candidate, what characterisics are most valuable when evaluating the candidate, and what information you use to evaluate the candidate. Here is the link to the survey: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/commprac/135246 Thank you and please share this opportunity to help our research group with other Wikipedia users you know. --Avdelamerced (talk) 06:51, 26 May 2011 (UTC) (Copied from user's talk page) --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:24, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
(Note: The 18 and over confirmation is standard practices in research. It was required to include this in our survey.) --Avdelamerced (talk) 05:49, 10 June 2011 (UTC) |
I apologize to Swarm
Please disregard my parenthetical gibes.TCO (talk) 22:44, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
TCO opinions
1. huge amount of discussion, some debate, not that much analysis. Before wrestling with options for change, set the baseline of factual understanding. The voting patterns is a step in the right direction, but there needs to be MORE of that sort of analysis, and more sophisticated. for instance cluster analysis of voting patterns. Also the "dearth of admins" has been cited, several times by Kudpung, but we lack data on what processes are too backlogged (or for that matter...what articles...or real product...are being negatively impacted). Or reading rationales (for some subset of course) and analyzing the actual words and grouping them manually into categories. Yes, this is "a bit of work", but it is how people solve problems and "do work" as business analysts at companies all the live long day. Why not stop the chat, chat and divvy up tasks that anyone can agree will inform the discussion and have usefulness?
2. If "RFA is not a vote", then there is nothing wrong with expecting the candidate to answer a lot of questions. Actually perhaps that is the best part of the process. Not the voting. Not the Swarm badgering of opposes.
3. I'm not so sure the process is broken. I'm pretty happy that a lot of candidates aren't making it through. Especially the ones that do dramatic "black retiring template" displays afterward. They've shown there inability to keep their cool.
4. This whole thing seems very process oriented (too much so). The goal of Wiki is not to have admins. The goal of Wiki is the free encyclopedia. If you convince me that more admins, lower standards, etc. will make for better articles, then you will get my support. I have not seen a fleshed out discussion to really show this. (In contrast there is very strong evidence that the editor mode user interface, makes writing on Wiki harder, limiting our content quantity and quality...and driving away a lot of great writers. There is a reason why our CEOess is driving improving this. Same with making the videos actually play for the over 50% of users that surf in on IE.)
5. I don't want the candidates to be crushed by the experience. And I do a lot of opposes and am happy when the candidate I'm opposing doesn't get the nod. But I don't do it to crush them. I do it because I think high standards emphasis will pay off in terms of our Project. But actually looking on the people who oppose...I really have NOT seen that much visciousness from the opposes. Some unfair opposes (but often pretty terse). Some opposes that some of you all disagree with (content, age, experience, etc.) but usually pretty plainly stated.
Really, I just think the process is inherently un-nerving and gauntlet-like even though the opposers are not really going for the balls (I mean...I could show how it's really done...but Wiki doesn't tolerate that. And really...I don't want to hurt the candidates. Yes, I think some of them are misguided in "wanting to be a moderator", but I don't want them to cry or feel bad about themselves when the fail.) And really...this inherent, perhaps even unplanned trial by fire is a good thing. Because they are going to get EXACTLY that on user interactions. and they need to keep their cool.
Like, I love Mall-man, and would trade a LOT of moderators here, for all the effect he has had in encouraging young content creators (e.g. NYM, me, etc.). That said, he showed he could not keep his cool. Twice. And it's some of the same behaviour he has on Wiki. Similarly 76er (who I think was the cause of this whole committee) went down in flames and could not get it, that he was too wordy and vacuous. Even with Jimbo telling him that. And then he went and posted the big black template and put us through some silly drama. Pretty much PROVING that he did not have the leadership and poise to do the moderator job.
So, we don't need to make plebe year harder...and we shouldn't delight in misery...but it's really working fine, from my perspecrtuive. Now, FAC...that could be a little more encouraging. After all FAs are what really matter and encouraging quality content creation WITHOUT dropping standards is the most important thing.
6. I heart Kudpung for wanting to get something accomplished. So I understand the need to limit scope. That said, I also worry that the "side" saying "RFA is broken" or "let's make it easier for young, inexperienced, non-article-writing participants to be moderators" is a bit advanced by cutting off some of the legitimate concerns on how diametrically opposed the "admin culture" is to writing articles. I mean even Jimbo and our CEO (or Brad, heck he said in the WR in 2009 he would write more, haven't seen it). Where's the leadership by example? Even one FA a year. No. Nothing. And I'm a little wondering if there is some back channel Jimbo-Kudpung coordination to try to get "something" pushed forward on this initiative.TCO (talk) 04:50, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- If you take a moment to look on the related pages of this project, you will see that there has been an enormous amount of statistic gathering, and the stats are shortly to be updated yet again. It would pay to review at least the last 200 or so Rfs (as we have), and the pioneering work made by WereSpielCheckers who demonstrated with stats, and a detailed article in the Signpost what the problems are. I assure you that there has been absolutely no 'back-channel' discussion between me and JW (or anyone else at he WMF) - in fact I'm not even sure that he is aware of my existence - at least he has not acknowledged in the public pages that he has is following this project, although the WMF is sure to be aware of it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:06, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- Will read the Signpost, will look at more of the pages here, do appreciate the volume of discussion and that some definite grunt work has been done, just not seeing the shape of enough analysis yet (and there was a lot of early solutioning and sort of a bias, in the early postings on here, before analyses had been done. Appreciate the comment about Jimmy...totally retract my "I wonder"! P.s. Cut where you edited into my post, but was this same info.TCO (talk) 06:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- TCO, I don't think that anyone's concern here is that people who fail are / aren't the ones who should be failing, it's with the brutality, unnecessary snark, incivility, and biting-and-stabbing that goes on in the process. It should be perfectly possible for a community of intelligent, civilised people to be able to run what is to all intents and purposes a 'job interview' effectively, ruling in th ose who should be ruled in, ruling out those who should be ruled out, without it ever becoming the bloodbath that it does become. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:46, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
- Will read the Signpost, will look at more of the pages here, do appreciate the volume of discussion and that some definite grunt work has been done, just not seeing the shape of enough analysis yet (and there was a lot of early solutioning and sort of a bias, in the early postings on here, before analyses had been done. Appreciate the comment about Jimmy...totally retract my "I wonder"! P.s. Cut where you edited into my post, but was this same info.TCO (talk) 06:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
As I see it, Rfa reform 2011 is bogging down
29 June 2011. The complaints here did not serve to move the project along
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I have hesitated to add anything at all to this sprawling mass of proposals and comments. I'm inclined to agree with those who object to the limits imposed on the discussion, that it is not about:
I don't think we can have this discussion under these limits. Also, I was involved fairly heavily in the failed 'Community de-adminship' proposal WP:CDA which soured me on the process, seeing as the admin vote was was killed the proposal in the Rfc. As I have already said on my talk page (under the heading 'Task Force'): It is my strong opinion that most issues dealing with entrenched admins, many of whom became admins five or more years ago when standards were considerably more relaxed and whom would not pass an Rfa today, require thinking outside the box. Deliberations on adminship by a community whose true identities are unknown, by their nature generate more heat than light, go on at excessive length, and wind up turning reasonable voices away. I go on to suggest an appointed council, with binding powers and accountable to the WMF, as a solution; however, this would require substantial change in itself. But if not that, there has got to be a way found to cut the Gordian Knot, and I believe facing that very fact is the first step towards fixing the problems this task force is supposed to be dealing with. Jusdafax 22:27, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
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Admins to be desyopped after 12 months of inactivity
A proposal has been passed by an overwhelming consensus to remove admin rights from sysops who have not made any edits for 12 months.
Admin accounts which have been completely inactive for at least 12 months may be desysopped. Completely inactive is defined as "no edits or administrative actions in those 12 months". This desysopping is not to be considered binding, or a reflection on the user's use of, or rights to, the admin tools. If the user returns to Wikipedia, they may be resysopped by a bureaucrat without further discussion. This resysopping is contingent on there being no issues with the editor's identity and contigent on the fact that they stopped editing Wikipedia while still in good standing or not controversial circumstances. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page and via email (if possible) one month and several days prior to the request for desyopping.The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural.
See RfC: Suspend sysop rights of inactive admins. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:11, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
- Yup, good; good start. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, and if you look at the comparison table of other language Wikipedia that I added yesterday, you'll see that we still have a long way to go. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:51, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
- This is certainly good news, and I'm glad that this has finally passed. This shows that reform can happen if done in the right way. CT Cooper · talk 12:02, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
- Good news indeed. My76Strat talk 06:07, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
- I must say this information cheers me up, though I have not investigated the details. Still, it appears to be a fine first step. Jusdafax 16:43, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
- Good news indeed. My76Strat talk 06:07, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
While this is certainly good news, it's not really helpful in terms of RFA reform. Inactive admins are the least of our problems, because they simply aren't there to be a problem. It's admins who are active, and abuse their powers, which make people more wary when voting for new ones. What is needed now is a simpler way of desysopping abusive admins, rather than jumping through all the DR hoops. AD 17:43, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
- How many admins would we be left with, were this enacted automatically (rather than by request as it appears to be)? It is certainly a great step forward, not so much because of what it acheives, but because it shows that the community is listening to freshn RfA reform proposals which have been well thought out, despite their perennial status. WormTT · (talk) 19:11, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
- It doesn't matter how many we're left with, we'll still have the 700 or so that are considered active according to our vey low criteria. Although from the active names I see around, I would suggest the true number (upwards of 300 edits a month) is very much lower - probably as low as 50 - 60. But by and large, they seem to be coping with the work load. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Requesting an RfA nomination
As you may or may not know, I've recently run through the gauntlet myself and come out the other side smelling of roses. Lucky me. But before I ran, I was thinking about nominations and wondered if anyone would nominate me. I did actually ask someone, who was a little too busy, so I jumped in and self-nommed. However, I think there's a lot of people out there who could be an admin but are worried about running the RfA process and there's a lot of people out there who are a bit too cocky and shouldn't really run.
On the radical alternatives talk page I suggested requiring a nominator. Also, we have the idea of a software fix to stop transclusion under a minimum requirement. To mitigate these ideas I've come up with a new concept - User:Worm That Turned/Request an RfA nomination. It's currently in my userspace, but I'm planning to take it to WT:RfA soon and then on to Wikipedia space.
It stands up on it's own, there's no need for either of the two proposals to go through for it to be there, but it may help against some arguments on those proposals when they are ready. The hope is that it will reduce SNOWs and NOTNOWs, and increase overall admin levels. It may not work, but I think it's worth a try. If it goes ahead, we can create a category and possibly even a userbox to go with it.
For now, I'd just like a little feedback on the idea. Any thoughts are welcome. WormTT · (talk) 10:13, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
- What if a candidate was qualified but their previous history makes no admin willing to nominate them? Since a failed RFA will nearly always reflected negatively on the nominator (blaming them for not scrutinizing the candidate effectively enough), many editors could be unwilling to risk their reputation nominating someone they think may be a border-case candidate. Your proposal would bar those editors from RFA, even if they are qualified enough to be an admin. Also, some candidates will surely dislike the idea to be associated with some editor for the rest of their wiki-"career" just because they nominated them. Previous discussions showed that the community was more in favor of less nominating than more nominating, often arguing that the number of nominators should be restricted to two or three because it's not the nominator's job to check whether a candidate is fit for adminship, it's the community's. Forcing to have a nominator would only serve to enforce the idea that nominators have special responsibilities that !voters don't. If a candidate wants to be presented by someone else, they are free to ask someone to do it. But if they want to present themselves, they should also be free to do that. Regards SoWhy 10:26, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
- I would expect this to be a personal decision taken on the part of the editor (never said it needed to be an admin who nominates) to see if they are willing to nominate. If they are not willing to, the only thing I'd expect is that they explain why they won't.
- So, if it's a borderline case, or the candidate has a "history", then all that can be expected is to explain to the candidate why no nomination is forthcoming. I agree that your point of view would be a big issue with respect to my "radical" proposal, but what about right now - putting the essay out there to allow potential admins to request a nomination? WormTT · (talk) 10:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
- SoWhy makes some salient points - which I think most of us are aware of. I would personally feel I had failed miserably if I nominated someone and they failed. As it happens, all those who I have mailed and suggested they would like to run have all said 'not until RfA is a civil environment' - and these are all well established editors with nary a blemish in their history. I was fortunate to have two strong nominators. In fact for a long while I declined their, and others' suggestions to run, much for the same reasons, and also because I thought that my work on RfA reform, which goes back a year and a half, would go against me. In the past we have had all kinds of noms, some from editors who are not much more mature than the people they nominate. Some users systematically oppose self nominations. I think that's wrong - not all candidates see adminship as an award scheme, or as an access to a power hierarchy. On some Wikipedias, self noms are the standard thing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:44, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
- I think this is a great suggestion. To imagine a borderline candidate who would both both pass an RfA, but not be able to find a single admin to nominate him or her is fantasy. If a candidate can't convince 1 out of X admins to nominate, how are they going to convince a clear majority of 100-odd users to !vote in their favour? Even though the original suggestion didn't limit nominators to admins, I think it would be reasonable to do so given the number of active admins Jebus989✰ 21:15, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
- SoWhy makes some salient points - which I think most of us are aware of. I would personally feel I had failed miserably if I nominated someone and they failed. As it happens, all those who I have mailed and suggested they would like to run have all said 'not until RfA is a civil environment' - and these are all well established editors with nary a blemish in their history. I was fortunate to have two strong nominators. In fact for a long while I declined their, and others' suggestions to run, much for the same reasons, and also because I thought that my work on RfA reform, which goes back a year and a half, would go against me. In the past we have had all kinds of noms, some from editors who are not much more mature than the people they nominate. Some users systematically oppose self nominations. I think that's wrong - not all candidates see adminship as an award scheme, or as an access to a power hierarchy. On some Wikipedias, self noms are the standard thing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:44, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
James500's thoughts
11 July 2011. These points are discussed at WP:RFA2011/CANDIDATES and WP:RFA2011/VOTING and WP:RfA/C
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I don't know if this has been suggested before, but I think that opposers should be prohibited from posting remarks:
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Where to?
Activity here in this task force has seemed to dwindle since the beginning of July and I can't help but wonder if this project might die out and become one of the many failed attempts at RFA reform. Having said that, I'm proposing a few courses of action below that the task force can take to progress RFA reform, or at the very least, make RFA a bit less brutal than it is currently. These proposed courses of action are by no means set in stone as of yet and are purely subject to the consensus of the project; they're just listed here to hopefully generate some discussion and, hopefully, begin acting on proposals/rolling them out to the community.
- One promising possibility is the clerks proposal. I've said this several times before and I'll say it again for the sake of this discussion: we need to introduce the option of having clerks moderate a candidate's RFA at their discretion, thereby allowing willing candidates to utilize their RFAs as 'testing grounds' for the proposal. I think it could work. This is the most realistic and logical course of action this task force could take in its current position, IMO.
- Open a request for comment on the nature of RFA questions, to allow admins and non-admins alike to verbalize their opinions regarding the matter and, hopefully, introduce a mandate to the community regulating the usage of questioning at RFA.
- Begin consulting past RFA candidates unsuccessful and successful (especially those who have underwent the scrutiny of more than one), in order to allow them to verbalize their opinions regarding the nature of the entire RFA process and provide some feedback as to what, exactly, should be done with RFA (even minor, albeit helpful things).
- Begin helping possible administrator candidates prepare for their RFAs. It is absolutely imperative, IMO, to address possible issues with the candidate before their RFA even begins. This can be done by listing administrators or experienced editors who would be willing to help prepare a candidate for RFA on the RFA nominations page itself. This would help avert the uncivil/controversial atmosphere of some RFAs and mitigate the need for WP:SNOW/WP:NOTNOW closures at RFA that so often chase away editors that would otherwise be invaluable to the project.
Again, these proposed courses of action are subject to discussion, and I'm certainly open to feedback and more possible courses of action that might ultimately make RFA a more pleasant place than it is currently. Having said all this, I leave the other members of this task force with a question that is, appropriately, the title of this thread: where to? Tyrol5 [Talk] 14:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
- Treating your points as if they were numbered:
- Yes.
- No. Some feel that RfA should be more qualitative and lose the voting aspect altogether, others feel that we should just make RfA a straight vote and stop kidding ourselves that it is anything else. The opinions are too divergent to bundle that discussion in with the other things we are aiming for.
- Not opposed to it, but I don't see the point. We have a pretty good idea of how past RfA participants felt about the experience.
- Absolutely.