Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Pbsouthwood

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Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:38, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

* Data limited to the past 5,000 edits wumbolo ^^^ 21:59, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SQL, your support seems predicated on dismissing the issues raised by opposers without actually addressing them, then declaring "Adminship should be no big deal." We should also have world peace, an end to hunger, and a cure for cancer. Adminship not being a big deal is the same kind of idealized wish-making (even if perhaps a goal to inch toward). Adminship has very definitely been a big deal for about the last decade, maybe more like 12 years. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but it is, and the community made it that way.

I think this is an organizational lifecycle matter. WP transitioned from a wild-and-wooly, early-adopters, visionary experiment phase into a global institution rather quickly, and that necessarily meant internal governance shifts which can't really be undone without starting from scratch (the way various failing companies sometimes do successfully). WP isn't failing, so there's not much incentive to go there. Despite various Chicken Little cries, the admin pool is actually stable and getting the important behind-the-scenes work done, so we are not in a position of having to approve iffy candidates (iffy because of temperament/competence or, as in this case, because of focus/rationale misalignment).

There might be a way to make adminship less of a big deal, but it's going to take a lot of work and lot of community buy-in, which so far has not happened, despite some clear ways of getting there, like unbundling more of the less dangerous tools to increase the pool of competent "quasi-admins"; have adminship term limits and reconfirmation, instead of for-life, all-or-nothing appointments; and various other approaches we all know are likely to be effective but which too few people will outright support due to sheer terror that any change to the adminship system will cause a trainwreck.

Maybe that is a discussion to have at WT:ADMIN, but I felt compelled to comment here because "opposers are wrong because I disagree" posturing isn't a real rationale, and "adminship should be no big deal" isn't a valid one today, either.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:06, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS: In fairness, Laser_brain also trotted out the "no big deal" canard. I agree with L_b's other sentiment, about broadening the admin pool to all competent editors, but this is another of the adminship reform ideas that's been proposed again and again only to be shot down by the community (and to an extent by WMF itself; they claim there's a legal reason that everyone can't just be made an admin automatically after some tenure as a constructive and non-disruptive editor).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:10, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I mean there is literially this link WP:NOBIGDEAL that says it isn't a big deal. {{u|zchrykng}} {T|C} 20:22, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed, Zchrykng; in 2003 :D You remember, when we used to be the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, prior to becoming—err—the fifth, etc., most-visited website in the world. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 20:29, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. At this point, I'm seriously considering a proposal to remove that WP:Argumentum ad Jimbonem material from WP:ADMIN, because it doesn't reflect current reality, and people take it out of its context which is entirely historical, not instructive.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the "no big deal" phrase can come across as dismissive of opposition. I do indeed dismiss most of the opposition's concerns as no big deal. Whenever these run, I can't help but to imagine what my own RFA would look like if it was held today. I don't go anywhere near AfD or any number of other areas where admins work, because I either don't care about them or I don't like them, and I'm bemused to imagine that people would find that reason to oppose my hypothetical modern RfA. Because I contribute well, and exercise good judgement and a thoughtful approach to situations. Those are the only criteria that should matter. That's what I (and maybe others) mean when we say it's no big deal. Someone buzzing around my contributions to point out that I don't have enough Portal Talk edits etc doesn't land on any useful conclusion. --Laser brain (talk) 20:35, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

<gasp> You'd better get right on those Portal_talk stats! "I don't go anywhere near AfD" – Yeah, I actually tried to address the "XfD stats fetishism" issue in a thread below this one (and not for the first time). I regret that in my own !vote I didn't focus more on RfC closures and stuff where actual admin-style judgement is far more apparent and ungameable. May even revise it. On the "RfA has changed so much" sense that so many people have: I ran twice when I wasn't really ready (and before I observed what usually happened to the editorial productivity of people who become admins). It was toward the end of that era when everyone now says RfA was super-easy back then, yet I got crucified twice in a row (partially for legit reasons, but partly for bogus claims of having savaged a noob who was actually a troll/vandal and got blocked right afterward, and partly grudge-bearing by certain parties, back when ripping someone a new hole at RfA was just dandy). So, I don't really see it. There may be one of those "the grass is always greener on the other side" effects at work. (Of course, there really was a qualitative difference in the selection process back in the very early days when you just asked, and Jimbo said "sure" as long as you weren't a nutter or a flaming asshat.) Still, the semi-recent reforms have actually made RfA a much less hostile place than it was even a few years ago. It's been enough to shift me from "hell no" to "thanks for the vote of confidence, but probably no".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think this issue is often presented as a false dichotomy. The fact that we don't give adminship to everyone who's proved themselves to be competent at general editing doesn't mean that it's "a really special thing" (to quote Jimbo). It just means that, like a lot of things, you have to show you know how to use it properly before you can get it. I think a good real world analogy is drivers' licences. Nobody who isn't a teenager thinks that having one of those is really special, but you also aren't able to get one without demonstrating that you can be trusted to drive a car safely. Hut 8.5 21:08, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. I could make a similar connection with WP:NETPOSITIVE. Many supporters have trotted this out, as I myself have frequently done, but it hinges upon there being something to actually sum up. With basically no activity in any single relevant arena, we're left with a pile of zeros that, no matter how I try, I can't sum up to a positive number. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:19, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with that line of reasoning is that it assumes that some activities are "admin-related" and others are not. I beg to disagree. An obvious example is that having experience in content creation - and Peter just gained his first FA - helps admins to better understand how their admin actions impact the content creators. Having experience in politely and constructively dealing with disagreements helps admins to make better judgement calls when they are asked to referee when content disputes flare up. Peter's been active for over nine years here with 20,000 edits to article space and has extensive experience on other projects. That helps a potential admin have a sense of perspective and gives a depth of knowledge that no amount of button-mashing on NPP can create. Make no mistake, as soon as you start elevating AIV reporting, CSD tagging and suchlike to become the gateway to adminship, those button-mashers will be the only candidates you'll get. And if anybody comes back with the tired "the admin toolkit comes as a complete set" argument, I'll reply that it includes the ability to edit protected templates and Lua modules, but you don't see candidates' experience in that area being questioned, do you? If every sysop had to demonstrate their mastery of those, we'd soon be changing our tune.

Yes, adminship is a big deal. But do we really want it to be? If we'e ever going to get rid of that albatross, we ought to be challenging those who argue against "Adminship ought to be no big deal". You know who you are. --RexxS (talk) 23:13, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't feel particularly challenged, though. I've laid out (here and at link in a forthcoming sentence, and prior discussions from which The Signpost has been pull-quoting me) reasons why it is a big deal, but also some actually practicable ways to move it toward no longer being one. These are not the pretense that adminship presently isn't a big deal (or !voting that it's not a big deal, without having a real support reason beyond that, but using the wording "shouldn't be", which is just a verbal misdirection). On the "do we really want it to be?" matter, see the discussion thread over at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/Op-ed. On "assumes that some activities are 'admin-related'", I don't think that's really the conceptualization (whatever clumsy wording might end up getting used). Rather, some activities like NAC, CSD tagging, XfD nominations, sock and vandal reporting, etc., give us a much clearer indication of someone's potential administrative mettle (because they're the same sort of judgement matters) than whether they have FAs and how many, how often their late !votes at XfDs go with the already-known consensus flow, how many edits they've made, how long ago they registered their account, etc. That said, some of us do care about involvement level, on this project. Edit counts are a weak metric, but 20K edits in 9 years is much lower that I would have expected (about 1/5 my own editing rate, minus automated tools like AWB), and suggests a scattershot approach. One challenge for admins is that WP:POLICY pages change and interpretations (which often become precendential) change, and it takes frequent in-depth involvement to keep on top of it, to avoid making decisions the community will reverse or censure. Being competent and enthused isn't enough if the regular time-commitment isn't happening (something I learned the hard way in wrangling meatspace volunteers at a nonprofit). People who work in collaborative software development projects also deeply understand this issue.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The other meaning of "no big deal" is that being an administrator is no big deal. It mostly allows you to do a bunch of unpaid and thankless maintenance work. In particular, it doesn't gain you any advantage in content disputes. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:10, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But a) no one really cites that Jiboism with that meaning in mind, and b) it doesn't officially gain you an advantage, but we all know it actually does provide a slight one in discourage backtalk, and it does gain you an official advantage in many non-content disputes, which can sometimes be more important (depends on the nature of the dispute).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) x2 Plus one on pretty much everything by McAndlish (yes, really) SN and LB. It is a big deal nowadays, as I think many Admins would probably agree, if they thought about it fully. – SchroCat (talk) 21:12, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We can easily nitpick what we believe to be the most important aspects of adminship...but I'm also of the mind that an editor who is a content creator, and knows what goes into getting an article promoted from creation to GA and then FA, and who has the patience and good temperament to collaborate well with others, gracefully accept criticism of their work, and is willing to discuss issues without losing patience, are typically the ones who have the best shot at morphing into an excellent admin. After all, disruption typically begins with a content dispute, and while behavior is the primary focus of admins, it doesn't hurt to have an in-depth understanding of what it takes to create content and get it promoted to the highest level of acceptance. After all, we're here to build an encyclopedia whereas dealing with behavioral issues is the side-effect. No candidate is "experienced" at being an admin before they become an admin - this particular candidate already has some limited admin experience. There are many different aspects of the job, and we need admins in all of them. We already have our share of admins who contribute on a spotty basis and they were probably approved because of a particular strong point in one area, or perhaps many - and...???? I think this particular candidate can morph into being a good admin over a broad range of areas because he comes to us with the desire to work, he has a clean record, he already has some admin experience at another project, and it seems to me those are the things that far outweigh any of the potential concerns I've seen expressed by oppose comments. ^{Atsme📞📧} 23:20, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that being a solid content creator is a must. Some of what you've said inspires some responses that could easily be entire threads.

• On this candidate: "I think this particular candidate can morph into being a good admin over a broad range of areas" is almost certainly true, but it's also true of most candidates. The questions before us are whether the candidate would make a good admin now, and whether their expressed motivation makes sense within the project's/community's expectations of admins. My rede is "no" because he explicitly wants the tools just for a portal subpage deletion run. It's like "Please make me a Navy SEAL so I can go shoot at a particular enemy target. After that, I want to go try being a pro surfer, or may be an accountant." When asked what other admin stuff he'd do, he deflected and just indicated a vague openness to suggestions. We expect admin-hopefuls to have a clear idea on this and to have already been working in the chosen areas in a non-admin capacity. (Maybe not everyone expects that, but it's a common expectation; I'm talking about RfA reality here, not "what if" scenarios).
• On FA subculture: What you say might be true sometimes, but it's not the only way to judge collaboration capability, nor is it a sure one, nor even the One True Metric of "great content editor". See for example the "FAC Anti-MoS Shitstorm of Doom" as I like to call it, back in late 2016, wherein at least two FAC regulars decided that rather than tolerate "those MoS nutters" giving their FAC clubmates any gaff (despite MoS compliance being part of the FAC checklist), they'd instead propose that FAC should invent its own "anti-MoS" and declare itself immune to system-wide guidelines. (And of course that idea went nowhere, being deeply silly, territorial, divisive nonsense.) So, no, being FA-focused is not a guarantee of "patience and good temperament to collaborate ..., gracefully accept criticism ..., willing to discuss issues". It may (depending on the party) be indicative of insular, shortsighted, wikipolitical, cliquish nonsense that really is anti-collaborative beyond the clique.
• On FA and broader content work: Further, many FAs are rather lonely, mostly-one-author affairs, of researching and polishing something to the point of excess, then tolerating a few tweaks from the GAN then FAC review crowds, with little meaningful real collaboration (or maybe only with a particular party). I've said it before and will do so again: It's of far more value to the encyclopedia and its readers to spend one's limited WP time making 5 miserable micro-stubs into B-class real articles, or creating 10 solid, properly sourced stubs on actually notable subjects, or fixing 50 mangled-English "sentences" in 50 articles, than to spit-shine one GA into a marginally better FA. It's a matter of more utility to more readers. FAs seems mostly about editorial pride and backpatting. I'd bet serious money on the FA rate falling through the floor if the FA userspace badge templates were deleted. [Honestly, I think we should just do away with the FA thing, merge it into GA, and slightly increase the GA standards, to be a procedure for reaching A-class articles. I.e., make all three of our "way better than average" ratings be one rating with a unified process for getting a badge on the page. But anyway ...]
• On FA and broader content mindsets: FA badge collecting isn't really much different in motivation from permissions "hat collecting"; if I see a strong steak of it, especially given any evidence of WP:OWN / WP:VESTED antics, it's a strong red-flag to me. Meanwhile, a bunch of GAs, a whole lot of properly sourced and notable stub creation, a metric ton of constructive gnoming, or any combination thereof – what I consider meaningful content work – will be a green flag, verging on a requirement. The fact that I decline to participate in chrome polishing beyond the GA/A stage doesn't make me a bad admin candidate (being a curmudgeon might, though) or not a "real" content editor. It just means my sense of a what WP is all about differs from that of the FAC crowd, and perhaps that my patience/attention mode differs from theirs. I can do WP all day, but I get worn out doing it at the same page. I doubt I'm alone in this. (That doesn't make FA-focused editors bad or wrong or lesser, just different.)
• On disruption, causes, and handling: Disruption is often over a content dispute, but that's just because this is a content-first site. It's important not to mistake statistical correlation for causation. Depending on what you do and concern yourself with here, you may find that your experience of wiki conflict is more often about policy interpretation (and modification), or CoI and trolls, or socio-political bias in the administration of the system, or article and category naming conventions, or something even narrower like source reliability standards in a particular field. The topical nexus of the dispute isn't indicative of administrative mettle; the handling of the dispute is – both in the sense of not losing one's shit at people or thwarting resolution out of spite, and in the sense of presenting policy- and sourced-based reasoning instead of fallacious, subjective nonsense. This is one reason that WP:NAC history is one of the best actual indicators of whether someone will make a good admin. Do you detect supervoting? They're failing the emotionality prong of the test. Do you detect pure vote-counting in favor of a popular but wrong argument? They're failing the rationale analysis prong.
• On admin-like experience models:: People who do NACs, who CSD tag, who nominate for deletion, and get these right (and perhaps more importantly rapidly learn from getting it wrong and then more consistently get it right) do in fact have admin experience, on this project before becoming admins, since the judgement processes are identical; you don't close differently after getting the bit, you just have the power to close discussions that NACs can't close. Resolving disputes is a more important admin activity that banhammering people or temporarily locking pages. Being an admin at some other wiki really doesn't tell us much of anything, since the policies and procedures at other projects are wildly different, what admins do there may be mostly dissimilar, the editorial cultures are very different, and the process of becoming an admin at one of them may be more like the rubber-stamping en.WP had back in 2003 or so.
• On clean records: Having a clean record doesn't necessarily mean much. I would rather have an admin who got blocked back in the day and strongly learned from and changed as a result of that experience, than someone with a "not gonna shift gears in response to criticism, since my way works for me" attitude, who's never been blocked because they've not crossed a line (yet). A real-world principle we need to look at is that credit and even some misdemeanor criminal records (in some systems) eventually get expunged (at least to casual examination). A problem at WP is that people will dredge up crap from years ago, and we probably just need a hard-and-fast rule that sets a cut-off (or a different cut-offs for different kinds of issues), such that an oppose can be administratively removed or redacted if it relies entirely or partially on evidence that's too old. WP:AE and WP:ARBCOM and WP:ANI already have a similar principle (you can even get boomerang-sanctioned for relying on too-old evidence).

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship is not a big deal. At all. It's seen as a big deal because a minority of people treat it as such; that does not make it so. And it is a minority; that's why so many RFAs fail at 60-70% support; it's that 30-40% minority of editors, many of whom are admins and got their admin bits when it was a hell of a lot easier to get them, who believe RFA candidates should be adhering to ridiculously high standards, should have clear needs for the tools, should answer every question perfectly first time, and so on, and so on. A truth: being an admin is, for the most part, really easy. If there is something you are not comfortable doing, you ask for a second opinion, or leave it for someone more knowledgeable in that area to do it and go and do something else, there are always backlogs. It is really not complicated. If you fuck something up technically, you must be prepared to personally undo your fuckup and apologise. That's it. Nothing gets permanently broken, it can always be undone. This false assumption that it's a tough "job" and you must be hardened, massively experienced in every area of the Wiki, is incredibly damaging. Fish+Karate 14:53, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I gotta agree here. The tools are dead simple to use - so much so that they are given to users with under 100 edits on small Wikimedia wikis, and were given at one point to users who had only been on enwiki for a few months and had a few thousand edits. The only difference between small.wikipedia.org and here are the policies, and those are also not particularly hard to understand. Anyone who has been around for a while and has a willingness to learn and an ability to admit they are wrong would do absolutely fine as an admin. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:32, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So how to we convince the rest of the community this is true? They collectively balk at virtually every RfA/adminship reform (or even minor tweak) idea, ever proposed by anyone. My suspicion is that it will simply have to limp along until it hits a crisis point where there is literally no choice left but to overhaul it in more sensible directions, to make the "should be no big deal" back into an actual "is no big deal" again. But we're nowhere near that point. The "actually is a big deal" shift continues, in that direction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:42, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll draw a distinction here - the actual sysop tools and role is not a big deal. The status that we have given adminship is. It's exclusive (significantly higher standards expected of new admins than most admins when they passed their RfA), a life-time appointment (weak activity standards and a perceived difficulty in removing "bad" admins), and the monopoly of the block button causes a massive divide between the Content Creators™ and the admin corps. I doubt a crisis point will ever actually arrive, because most admin work is done by a core group of people who make thousands of actions per month. Not that I need to tell you this; you've articulated it quite nicely on the signpost talk page. As for solutions, I'm more and more interested in the idea of "extreme unbundling" rather than trying to work against the bulwark of changes that would be needed to reform adminship and RfA itself. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 22:19, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Adminship was no big deal before admins started wanton blocking /16 ranges with no real pattern of abuse other than kids being kids (or childish adults being childish adults), as if blocking certain ranges is going to stop that from happening on Wikipedia in an age when someone dying to see what happens when they write "poop" on an article can go down the street to Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts to evade the {{anonblock}}, or pull their iPhone out of their book bag to evade the {{schoolblock}}. Since that started happening, less and less people have been becoming editors, and articles are starting to go to crap because they aren't updated or they get vandalized and no one notices. I agree wholeheartedly with the person who suggested that we have a community-based recall process; it might deter heavy-handedness if administrators knew there is a chance they could be made to go through the "week of hell" again. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 21:57, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  There is a problem with over-blocking, both here and at the global level. But that isn't going to be solved by yelling at admins from the sidelines, but rather by developing more intuitive blocking tools that show potential collateral damage and better tools for checking the collateral damage of existing blocks. It's an infrastructure problem, not just a people problem. The average internet user no longer uses one static IP at home, but our core blocking toolset hasn't changed significantly since 2004. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 22:26, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  But that isn't going to be solved by yelling at admins from the sidelines. Which is why I'm not calling anyone in particular out on it (though they'd know who they are if they read this). The average internet user no longer uses one static IP at home, but our core blocking toolset hasn't changed significantly since 2004. That's just it; in 2004 when it was ironically less common for sysops to put absurdly long blocks on shared IPs, there weren't as many ways to evade a block. We can block people's schools or workplaces and keep them from writing "poop" from there, but that won't necessarily stop them from writing it, whereas it will stop someone at a school or somewhere else where a lot of people connect from the same IP from casually fixing someone else's garbage, updating outdated information, etc., and in light of that, I'd rather deal with 100 nonsense edits to get that one good edit than to still deal with the 100 nonsense edits and not get the good edit. Not to mention, it's easy enough to watch a problematic IP or range belonging to a school and snipe the garbage edits that aren't caught by the WP:RC patrols, and to call and complain if a pattern of specific behavior develops (the same words being used, the same names being posted, etc) but if they hide in a sea of wireless traffic, good luck with that. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 23:23, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  But I agree, a technology solution that stops the action rather than the IP is likely the better answer. We have the edit filter, maybe we need to work on improving it rather than blocking the planet, which didn't work very well for Conservapedia. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 23:25, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I like this idea! When blocking an IP - or an IP range, the software should say something like "This block will affect x editors (logged in within the last y days) - Are you sure?" if the block affects > z editors. SQL^{Query me!} 03:24, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't know that I like that; right now admins mostly softblock IPs unless they are also CheckUsers, but if an admin sees that no one edits from an account on an IP, they may issue an extended block as a hardblock. Fast forward a few weeks and I get someone else's dynamic IP that was used for vandalism (which has actually happened to me before). A softblock wouldn't affect me at all, whereas I would have to request unblocking if it were a hardblock, which means I would be forced to reveal my IP address. Besides, what if the 100 accounts affected are all sockpuppets? No thanks, I don't see much benefit in this at all. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 20:27, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Would someone kindly move the thread of replies to the second oppose (by Bbb23) to this section? I only noticed just now that it was an IP that started the conversation. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:27, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Or just move it to the talk page, which I think is the normal procedure unless there's obvious trolling going on. If I'd already replied substantively to someone who can't actually !vote here, I would be irritated at having my response censored out of existence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:13, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I said? Perhaps inartfully. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:25, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Derp. I had an eye–brain failure and misread that was "Would someone kindly remove the thread of replies" and didn't see the "to the section". I will re-connect by coffee IV.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:38, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

XfD vote counting without any detailed examination is worse than Compassionate727 describes. It's trivially easy to rack up a nearly perfect "score" at XfD by never commenting until the outcome is already certain, and never nominating anything for deletion unless the outcome is stark raving obvious. People have been taken to task in previous RfAs for appearing to follow this pattern. Rather, what we want to see is general involvement in XfD and in CSD nominations without any apparent "shaping and grooming", with a high level of concurrence with consensus. If I were doing that kind of analysis of a candidatem I would completely ignore any XfD in which they commented late, and any where CSD could arguably have been an option.

We get a good sense of candidate deletion savvy when they propose borderline stuff, after careful analysis and an attempt to salvage the material, conclude that it should go, and the community agrees. Or when they're one of the first to comment in a borderline case, and consensus agrees. When these patterns are consistent they're meaningful. Not that deletion is the be-all and end-all. I honestly care more about the judgement I see in RfC and RM and similar-process WP:NACs, and wish more RfA respondents would shift toward those as a metric. If a candidate has closed 50 discussions and only 2 of them have been challenged and 1 reversed, that means way, way more than if they late-voted correctly in 1000 no-brainer XfDs.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:11, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dear SMcCandlish. If we were discussing about someone with 191 AfD contributions, it would be useful to go into more details than Keep 24%, Delete 56%, Match 78%. Yes, I totally agree with that. On the other hand, when there are only 12 contributions, we can be rock-solid sure that the provision "If a candidate has closed 50 discussions... " doesn't apply. Pldx1 (talk) 07:39, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:36, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I know there's no limit on the total number of questions; but we need some good-faith thoughts on how to have some sensible limit on the same. Lourdes 17:32, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, although we should expect more questions for RfAs in the discretionary range, as !voters might well require them. The real issue is that a number of questions here are clearly unnecessary: Q10 is from a sock; Q15 should've been dealt with in the nomination statement; Q18 is trivial to look up and could've been clarified in the nom/comments; Q26 and Q27 are clearly inappropriate as a user shopping their RfC. 22 is... okay well it's quite a lot, but closer to what could be expected? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:57, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would also expect to that RFAs split so closely down the successful/unsuccessful line be ones of more uncertainty and therefore generate more debate and more questioning. Opposed to RFAs that are so clearly one way or another. While it's definitely exhaustive burdensome for the candidate, I have also seen the questions turn the tide on close RFAs and I would be weary of potentially taking that dynamic away. It may simple be one of those unpleasant but neither good nor bad aspects. Mkdw ^talk 04:02, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, maybe this deserves a discussion at another place, but I'm agreeing with Amorymeltzer and saying questions 26-27 are idiotic. I can't see ANY relation between the answer to that question and whether he'd be a good administrator, and I'd suggest that future questions like this should be removed. /rant. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 16:19, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As much as I agree that questions 26-27 were stupid, I don't believe that setting a precedent for deleting questions perceived to be "bad" is worth it. Frankly, it's not as though they took much time to answer. Either you have an opinion on Wikipe-tan, one way or the other, you think the controversy is stupid, or, like in Pbsouthwood's case, you aren't aware it's controversial in the first place. None of those scenarios require much of an explanation, so the overall wasted time is minimal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:28, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Plus, it doesn't hurt the nominee's appearance any to correctly answer a few easy questions. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:35, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There's a storied history of this sort of question; it's on Kudpung's (excellent) compilation of questions. If anything, things have probably gotten better more recently. There have been some cases of questions being struck following discussion/shaming by participants, but I think more frequently the candidate just ignores them or answers them briefly or dismissively, as done here. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:51, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not against shaming people who ask stupid questions, but I don't think ignoring them as ever been a viable choice for candidates who wish to appear "for the people". Can you imagine going to a group job interview where some wise-ass says, "Do you prefer pepsi or coke" at the end and you elect to just stand up and walk out of the room? --Laser brain (talk) 03:52, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Pepsi of course; what a silly question :D ​ Lourdes 05:07, 5 June 2018 (UTC))[reply]

If some wiseass at a job interview asked me tht I would naturally reply with "Sorry, I thought this was a serious company. Good day". That said, I've never been so desperate for a new job that I would need to take such nonsese. Their loss, not mine. A RfA candidate is perfecly in their right to ignore such inappropriate questions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:18, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I feel the consensus for Wikipedia talk:Wikipe-tan#RFC had already gone against me and do not view my questions as canvassing. With respect to question 27, I suspect many others would oppose an RFA if the candidate indicated that they intended to display sexualized (eg moe) imagery on their talk page immediately following their promotion. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 05:06, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Billhpike: My general impression is that most editors don't believe that Wikipe-tan is a lolicon. Obviously, there is a very vocal group that does, but I believe that if a large portion of the community agreed with them, it wouldn't still be around. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:26, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lourdes:, Re:

With no disrespect to either Joe or epic, frankly, it's disturbing to see the trend of supporters being badgered for being honest about their opinions

On the contrary, supporters are very rarely asked to substantiate their assertions about the good character of the candidate or the sinister, misguided motives of the opposers. (Not that I would call either "badgering"). You only have to compare the number of replies in the two sections of this RfA to see that. On the other hand, putting your signature under oppose seems to open you up to unlimited nitpicking, misrepresentation, and accusations of bad faith. Pointing out that nobody actually said what-you-just-said-they-said doesn't seem over the line in comparison.

You yourself took it upon yourself to summarise the views of the ~60 opposers (inaccurately, in my opinion). It seems rather hypocritical to then complain about general comments in the other direction. Either this is a discussion or it isn't. – Joe (talk) 17:10, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

re: your second para. I intended to comment on that, but just decided to pursue something more important then. After they craftly " judged" the entire opposes and "determined" the motives of bureaucrats to cement their view, they went on to tactically forecloses further analysis with rather self-contradictory statement ..."I don't think second-guessing the crats here is appropriate ", " I don't think...., but I already do it to reinforce my view....." –Ammarpad (talk) 18:12, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with both of you (leave the misspelt "craftly"). This is a discussion of course; nothing to debate on that. My statement does appear hypocritical (not intended, of course). The foreclosure was a deliberately made one (which I don't intend to strike out; unless you have extremely strong views about it). Discussions do create such impressions and have such deliberately made statements. I don't think this is worth creating a talk page section on. Again, only my opinion; you're free to comment further. Lourdes, 23:50, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Do closers spend much time considering responses to !votes? I generally find them annoying unless they include new information (or at least a harmless bon mot). I think they tend to be of more value in an RfC (if not repetitious) than an RfA. (No need for a response as this was somewhat rhetorical.) O3000 (talk) 01:16, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]