Wikipedia talk:Criteria for adminship

Proposed change

After recent confusion at my RfA regarding the amount of time that is preferred for an editor before running for adminship, I propose that this guideline be changed to read that one year is preferred instead of three months, as that seems to be what a large portion of the people who !voted there want to see in this day and age. TCN7JM 23:42, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

• Support: Definitely. Seeing as though that's what most users look for nowadays, that is something that should be known by future users who want to apply for adminship. If I had known that was what most users look for nowadays, I would have waited to apply for adminship (this is why my request for adminship failed). Lugia2453 (talk) 02:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support Per TCN7JM. This was partially also why I failed my RfA months ago. Thanks TCN7JM for proposing this. (✉→Arctic Kangaroo ←✎) 02:42, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support: After seeing the criteria, I do see why the criteria should be changes, and agree. --Pending^{(tell me I screwed up and where)} 02:51, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support in part: While I agree the guidelines need to be updated to reflect the current consensus, lets not fail to look that it was 4 or 5 ( counting the late vote) no votes to 10 yes votes. That is not even a majority of folks, that want it to be a year. I think anyone who has been active for at least 6 months, and shows good ability, and is able and willing, then there should be no reason, why they need to be here a year. The other argument is that they have had to strip bits because of inactivity, due to loose requirements to become an admin in the first place. The requirements for retaining adminship are way too loose, and it appears that people game the system to keep them. Lets change what needs to be changed, and not punish those who want & are willing to help the community. Lets look at changing the minimum for retaining adminship. Enfcer (talk) 03:32, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

  While I agree that one year is far more than enough time than the community should need to tell whether or not a user should be a good administrator (hey, I wouldn't have run if I didn't), the opposition was still enough to get me to fail, and people are entitled to their opinions; it probably isn't easy to change them. TCN7JM 10:17, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: A year is far too long. The English Wikipedia suggests "6 months to a year." I don't have as much as a problem with that. I agree with Enfcer, too, that only a few people said they wanted a year in the RFA. There wasn't a major consensus saying a year is required. Only (talk) 11:01, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

  But you agree it isn't three months? TCN7JM 11:03, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

  I personally think three months is okay. I'm willing to accept amending the criteria to say 6-12 months, though. I'm unwilling to accept "at least a year" as a standard. Only (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

  to expand: the reason I don't mind 3 months is that the majority of our users come to us with experience from other Wikipedia projects, especially English Wikipedia. We rarely have new users to Wikimedia start out there. Because of that, there isn't the need for a normal learning process about this project. Most of our users, especially the involved ones who want to become administrators, have experience with the policies and guidelines of other projects which are similar to ours. Most people can learn the differences between English and Simple in those three months. Only (talk) 11:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• What do other people think of changing the criteria to say that "six months to a year is preferred" instead of what I originally proposed? TCN7JM 11:23, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose - what we have at the moment is a guideline, just a guideline. And it works. I can not think of a person who has been opposed simply because they have served less than one year. It would be fair to say that an editor with only three months experience, and the minimum edit count, will have a much harder job to prove that they need, or are ready for the extra tools. They have to be able to demonstrate to the community that they are familiar with the processes and policies. When they can do that, then there should be no problem in a successful nomination.--Peterdownunder (talk) 11:30, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

    DJSasso opposed me mainly based on the fact that I haven't been here a year, and two or three people agreed with him... TCN7JM 11:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

    • I guess I should clarify, saying that you hadn't been here a year is a way of saying I haven't seen enough to trust you to use the tools properly yet. I find saying you haven't been here a year is a much less blunt way of saying I don't trust you. I have found when people outright say I don't trust you then the RfA turns into a dramafest. Whereas when you say someone hasn't been here long enough then generally they take the news better. But they both boil down to the same thing, haven't seen enough to trust giving the tools yet. Like I said on my talk page, there are people out there I would support at 3 months, others at 6, and others at 12+. That is why the 3 months is just a guideline. -DJSasso (talk) 14:07, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• There are several things to bear in mind. One is character. Since anyone planning to become an admin is obviously going to be on good behaviour, the rest of us need to see how he or she behaves in critical situations, like in the middle of a contentious argument, or when their own intrests are at stake. What we really don't want to have is to vote someone in, see inappropriate behaviour, and then vote them out after a painful and lengthy debate (it has happened).
  Another angle is that we do have admins who do nothing when it is obvious that something should be done, and admins who are so inactive that one wonders why they do not do the decent thing and resign the mop. It seems we need a higher level of commitment than some can give. I mean, it's just not right to come back once a year, do 101 edits and vanish again (some do).
  Few admins contribute significantly to article content (yes, Ep and Peter are big exceptions!). If they don't have much experience of writing articles, what are they doing supervising others? WP is about writing and editing articles. And we are a unique wiki in having responsibility for the way the articles and written and presented. That means experience gained on English wiki is not quite so relevant as proposers like to think. That is a justification in itself for asking applicants to work at the coal face for longer.
  We have more admins than we need to run the wiki. If a proposer is not an obvious shoo-in, they should not be supported.
  I think the length of time is a proxy for the things we really want to get at, which is knowledge about the proposer and trust in his/her character, and their ability to make sensible judgements and deal with difficult people in a firm but pleasant manner. The question is, not "is anything known against this person", but "will giving him/her the mop make the wiki better?" Guidelines are not absolutes, as Peter reminds us, and we can make exceptions for the (rare) individuals whose record is impressive. To sum up, I think three months is quite ludicrous, and six months not enough by itself to qualify, so I support the proposal. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:49, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• What Macdonald ross says here about time just being a proxy, is exactly the point I just tried to make in response above. Should have read all the comments first. -DJSasso (talk) 14:09, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• I don't really care whether this guideline is changed or not as it simply is nothing more than a guideline. Stuff written here are only some basic ideas, and I'm sure that there might be candidates who would have a successful RfA after being here for only three months. Even if that pages says that an user should be here for one year, then it still is only a guideline and not a policy. It would not really change anything. People could still nominate themselves or be nominated when they've not been around for the mentioned time. With that in mind, I really don't care if that page is changed. Something which comes right now to my mind is, that the part on when a request is successful or not is also just a guideline, that means that our crats can actually close requests as successful at maybe 50% support (which surely wouldn't be a good idea) and also close requests as unsuccessful whit 85% support. -Barras talk 00:12, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose changing it to 1 year but also Oppose having an actual set standard. I think if we delete all mention of an actual timescale then that might stop all arguments about dates. If the X months rule doesn't exist, then neither does the "hasn't been here X months" argument and the "but I've been here X months" argument. Kennedy ^(talk) 09:33, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - We need to look at the spirit of this guideline. At the end of the day, adminship is granted based on the community's evaluation of the candidate's suitability to act in a level-headed manner while performing administrative duties. It is for this reason that we do not grant adminship automatically like how autoconfirmed status is granted automatically. The guideline should be nothing more than a summary of the community's responses to previous RfAs (eg. the community has traditionally favoured candidates who have been contributing for X months...). What Kennedy says makes sense - I think we should delete the mention about X months or X years. Instead, a better idea would be to mention that the community's expectations may change depending on circumstances (or something to that effect), and maybe give a range of durations which successful candidates have spent on the wiki (eg. successful candidates typically have been active on the wiki from X months to Y months before requesting adminship). Chenzw  Talk  10:22, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. The crux of the matter is, the 3 month guideline is a guideline. This means that the community has the discretion to determine whether the candidate for adminship has the need for the tools and is capable of using the tools in the correct manner. If a candidate is able to show these two qualities, then the community can, irregardless of the guidelines, grant the candidate adminship. Hence, changing the three months guideline to a year would be moot, given that the community can always overlook the new guideline. Thus, as per Kennedy and Chenzw's comments, I would support the guidelines remaining as guidelines and having the X months experience guideline being removed and replaced with a general range of experience that the community has found acceptable (based on previous successful RfAs). --Beefball ^Talk 13:55, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Beefball sums it up. 3 months is a guideline. It isn't a rule. The community will always decide when they are ready for the tools or not. Anyone can make any argument for why a person isn't ready for the tools. And then the 'Crats weigh the arguments in the end. I am sorry that some of you felt that once you are at 3 months you can be an admin, the guideline certainly isn't written in a way to imply that. That being said leaving it as is or removing the 3 months completely won't get rid of the time arguments because stating someone hasn't been here x months is really just the nice way of saying I don't trust you yet. Especially when you have self-nommed. I generally recommend to everyone who wants to be an admin, never ask for it, wait until someone nominates you. Self-noms fail a lot more often because they don't really know what the community thinks of them or their experience. -DJSasso (talk) 14:03, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

  You may not have known it, but I asked a couple of other people over IRC and got some feedback, then I nominated myself. I've gone through this before on other wikis, it's not like I was just going to jump right in without knowing anything about what anybody else thought of my work. (What I'm trying to say about this is there's absolutely nothing wrong with self-noms.) TCN7JM 21:45, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

  I think the point DJSasso is getting at is that this wiki has seen many cases of users self-noming and failing. In the past, there have been several users who decided to game the system by self-nominating themselves repeatedly after a short duration (usually a month or so) until they became admins. And unfortunately, these users decided to use the time argument, claiming that they have reached a certain user's X month experience requirement and hence deserving their vote. This is why I think it would be ideal if kept the guideline a guideline and stripped any mention of a fixed time requirement. --Beefball ^Talk 06:58, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

  Yeah Beefball pretty much sums it up. I was not specifically talking about you when I made that comment. That being said, people on IRC often will say a lot of things. If they think you should be an admin then really they should be willing to put themselves on the line and nominate you or else its just talk. Self-noms are fine, but more often than not a self-nom gets less credibility when running then someone who is nominated due to the age old idea of "Those who want to lead should not." (slight modified to being an admin as opposed to a leader) -DJSasso (talk) 12:28, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Support. I support a one year internship before Admin is granted. A year will give the candidate time to become familiar with Simple English Wikipedia, with its processes like RfD, VGA, Simple Talk, the site's editors and admins, and the chance to demonstrate character and a commitment to Simple. A candidate's status as a admin on another wiki should not be considered for promotion. I also suggest a candidate be required to enter a particular volume of content, and a VGA on a topic suggested by current editors and admins in good standing. RunsWithScissors (talk) 03:54, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Different editors can have different ideas of how long a nominee should be here before becoming an admin, whether three months, a year, or no time at all. That is what we saw in your RfA. It might be inconsistent and frustrating, but that's the way it is. The only change I'd support is to say that some editors consider how long a candidate has been here when deciding whether to support or oppose. --Auntof6 (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

The mention of any preferred timeframe in this guideline is removed and replaced with a line that states that different members of the community expect different levels of experience in an administrator.

• I support this as the proposer, although if anybody has any idea on how to reword the last part of the proposal they should state them. Since this seems to be the most supported option above, I thought I'd make an official proposal to change the wording to read as such. Since different members of the community have different requirements for an administrator, there should be no set timeframe that is "preferred", and it should be judged on a case-by-case basis. TCN7JM 15:12, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Capitalization errors

"Administrator" and "bureaucrat" are most certainly not proper nouns. The English Wikipedia (correctly) does not capitalize these terms on their respective information pages. Why are we suspending simple, well-established conventions of the English language on this particular project? This is especially concerning, as SEW is often used by those who are attempting to learn English; it's therefore even more important that we get things right. --Joefromrandb 15:53, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

I think I agree. Although common nouns are capitalized when used as titles (for example, president or king), we don't really use administrator , bureaucrat, etc. as titles here: they are functions. For example, we don't officially refer to people as "Administrator Foo" the way we use a term such as "Queen Elizabeth", where '" Queen"' is part of her designation. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:15, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Some changes in the RfA system

Hello. I have some plans of changes in the WP:RfA system, where there is currently a "support", "oppose" and "comments" section. I planned to add a "Neutral" section where users without support or oppose can add a comment/vote in that section, and other changes is that the bold text without the "Support", "Oppose", "Neutral" text can be replaced with the {{Support}}, {{Oppose}} and {{Neutral}} templates. Any Questions, ask below :) -- Psl631 Leave me a message! my changes email me 16:17, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Neutral votes are unnecessary, in my opinion. A neutral vote is effectively a comment anyway. J991 17:09, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Not everything needs a template. It's not useful to have a section for neutral "votes": people who neither support nor oppose can just use the comments section if they have something to say. Besides that, {{neutral}} is already a template with a different use and could not be repurposed for this. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:12, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Rejected in the past I believe. If you don't want to make a !vote you just comment in the comment section if you need to comment. -DJSasso (talk) 02:34, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

As much as we accept that a comment is effectively a neutral vote, having a separate section for a "neutral vote" may give rise to status quo bias. Allowing "neutral votes" implies that editors can simply vote and be done with it, as compared to the higher standards for comments; this is, after all, a process determined by consensus, not mere vote counts. Chenzw  Talk  03:36, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

As far as I remember: To pass an RfA (or Bureaucratship, or other rights), there is a percentage of support you need. This support is a percentage of the total votes. Having 3 votes, you need two support, to get more that 50%. Suppose you had one support, one oppose, and one neutral you only get a third of the votes. In that context, saying either you support, or oppose is clearer. Looking at it that way, your "neutral vote" is in fact an oppose. To avoid this unclarity, we clearly said that there are no neutral votes, as these are comments. The person closing the request will take comments into account, but they will not influence the vote counting. And yes, I know that EnWP (and probably other wikis) allow neutral votes. We don't, for the reason stated. --Eptalon (talk) 07:02, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, when an user add a "Neutral" vote, they can add a "Neutral" vote in the "Oppose" section, but add "Neutral" instead of "Oppose". I understand. -- Psl631 Leave me a message! my changes email me 07:30, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I can understand to add "Neutral" votes to the "Oppose" or "Comments" section, it is optional. -- Psl631 Leave me a message! my changes email me 07:34, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

@Psl631: No, you don't understand. There are no neutral votes, only supporting or opposing. If someone wants to say something without either supporting or opposing, then they can make a comment (not a vote) in the comment section. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:41, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

As it counts towards oppose (because of the number) as outlined above, a neutral vote is in fact an oppose vote. There are three options: You support a candiate, you oppose a candidate, or you don't care much either way. The don't care much either way is called comment. - If you vote neutal then this is an oppose vote, even if it says neutral. If it is a comment, then it is basically extra info for the closing admin/bureaucreat, but does not count towards the total number of votes. --Eptalon (talk) 08:36, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Eptalon is correct, I totally forgot to mention that because its been awhile since we had to come down to making a call based on the required percentage discretion range. It is likely that Chenzw for the same reason has forgotten that in the end it does come down total vote counts with a slight range that us Crats are allowed to have discretion in when it comes to Rfa. -DJSasso (talk) 11:44, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Clarification of voter eligibility

In Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TDKR Chicago 101 2 a vote was stricken. There are some uncertainty about whether it's an SUL or local account. I then propose that WP:CFD under who can vote to add the date of creation of named account should be based on the date of creation of an attached local account in this wiki. Ideas?--Cohaf (talk) 04:13, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

• As I was the person to initially bring up the concern of how the wording stated Account. I believe the intent is for it to be a local account, but with the wording it does not specify and could indicate a WMF SUL account. I purpose that the wording indicate that for all RfA/RfB/RfCU/RFOS that the voting account must be created locally prior to the start of that Rf? to be a valid vote. The wording in question Named editors cannot vote in requests that were already running when they created their account. --Enfcer (talk) 04:41, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • On a second thought, this may not be hard with tools such as Krinkle Global SUL which many SMWT members use just to skip captcha. In short, the script will automatically create an account in all 738 WMF wikis. But yes, local account makes much sense.--Cohaf (talk) 04:50, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
    • I presume though, that the guideline was written when SUL was not as widespread hence the needed change. I don't think this will be controversial anyhow but I support the proposal. Hiàn (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Please conduct this discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for adminship. That way, we'll have the record of it connected to the page that it affects. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:24, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Not much of the community, save for the few who watch that page, will notice it there. I was under the impression that the purpose of ST was to conduct discussions like this for community consensus. Vermont (talk) 04:30, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

@Vermont: You are right: few people notice a discussion on a page that they aren't watching. It's valuable to have the discussion attached to the relevant page, though, so what I try to encourage is having the discussion at that relevant page but publicizing it at Simple talk so that more people are aware of it. Since it was already mentioned at ST, the publicizing was already done. We can also use ST to periodically remind people that the discussion is ongoing. Does that seem reasonable to you? --Auntof6 (talk) 05:18, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

The intent was it to be a local account, so people couldn't get their friends to come over from en.wiki to vote for them and overwelm the local community. Certainly support rewording to make it clear the local account must be created. I would even go so far as to indicate they need an edit here as well possibly. To be honest I am a little surprised this has come up as confusing since its always been understood to be that, but I suppose we have had a fair amount of turnover on the wiki since the last time a vote was struck. -DJSasso (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

I support rewording to indicate the account should exist on simple prior to any voting activity. I'd also support having some edits under their belt too. Operator873^talkconnect 16:25, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Requiring an account before voting isn't the issue: that's covered by allowing only registered editors to vote. The issue is whether to require that the account exist here account before the RFA is even created. The purpose of that (as with the similar requirement for RFDs) is that we don't get new people voting on things when they've never been here before. We see that at RFD sometimes: an article gets nominated for deletion, then suddenly accounts get created here whose only edits are on the RFD and/or the nominated article. We want the people who are voting to be here to help the wiki in general, not just one piece of it. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah I agree; it’s a bit of a no-brainier – if they arrived here after the discussion started, they can’t be familiar enough. Also, there is a possibility of cross-wiki sock/meatpuppetry, which is likely to go unnoticed. IWI (chat) 18:37, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

• Since the above, it seems that the local account part is settled (i.e. the account must be locally registered (no matter if it is automatically attached or created). However, there is a very rough consensus that some changes are needed. Based on enwp, there isn't. Some wikis requires 500 mainspace changes. Any suggestions? Personally I feel 100 total changes (or 50 changes to mainspace) will be a reasonable one. Ideas?--Cohaf (talk) 05:23, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • We do not have to follow other sites. Require more than a token number of edits (such as just one) could be problematic. Do we want the admins to have to count edits for everyone they're not familiar with who votes in an RFA? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:27, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
    • Actually, to count edits a js script can be created and at Chinese Wikipedia there is one, including deleted edits. If there is consensus I can possibly ask for the script.--Cohaf (talk) 09:29, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
• The current text is "Named editors cannot vote in requests that were already running when they created their account." I propose changing it to "Named editors cannot vote in requests that were started before they made their first edit here." That would require an actual edit, not an account creation that happened just because they visited this site (which can happen accidentally). --Auntof6 (talk) 08:27, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I have a concern for 1st edit, if admins import pages and the option of distribute edits to local accounts if they exists, then there'll be edits given to these editors even if they didn't edited here before. I understand NOTBURO and it is really a very small issue but just to raise it up for consideration. Thanks.--Cohaf (talk) 11:06, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Yeah that change is fine with me. All I was getting at was making a single edit, not multiple edits so I don't think we should have some arbitrary number. We already state editors with "very few edits" may or may not be counted so there is no point coming up with a number higher than one. (Its up to the crat to decide to count it or not as part of their discretion). Also I have no real issue with the importing as this so rarely comes up that something like that can easily fall in 'Crats discretion. -DJSasso (talk) 16:47, 22 January 2019 (UTC)