No big deal

[Konveyor Belt]

Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Anarchyte (T-H-L)

Despite pretending like adminship is "no big deal", the community is about to reject a candidate with over a year of experience. Really goes to show how much Wikipedia puts an emphasis on edit count and time spent, even as they bold faced lie and say they do not.

Also proves that adminship is only becoming a bigger deal as the number of active admins dwindles.

[Randy from Boise]

Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Anarchyte (T-H-L)

Despite pretending like adminship is "no big deal", the community is about to reject a candidate with over a year of experience. Really goes to show how much Wikipedia puts an emphasis on edit count and time spent, even as they bold faced lie and say they do not.

Also proves that adminship is only becoming a bigger deal as the number of active admins dwindles.

Adminship has been a "big deal" for the better part of a decade.

This is an editor with barely more than a year of identifiable editing at WP and only about 3,500 edits to mainspace. Way, way, way short of optimum for an administrator. The screen is set fine to weed out bad actors; there will be some good actors with short tenures rejected as a result, but that is to be expected. Ya can't have it both ways.

I'm heartily in the NO camp on this one...

RfB

[Disgruntled haddock]

The NOBIGDEAL versus NOTQUITEYET fight that plays out in certain RfAs is a war of attrition; neither side will ever completely agree on the proper application of those doctrines to edge-case candidates. Of course, baseline edit count and tenure requirements are helpful; new editors with very few edits are almost universally unfit for adminship. But as a candidate's edit count increases, it becomes a fuzzier and fuzzier approximation of their experience, and at some point it stops being a key metric. The questions asked of candidates at RfA, on the other hand, will always be relevant, as they get to the heart of the candidate's experience and understanding.

Unfortunately, the questions tend to be all over the place. (One that always makes me roll my eyes is "what edit would you put on a resume"—an inane inquiry if there ever was one.) What RfA needs is fewer softballs and more questions where you can't just zip over to WP:WHATEVER to copy-paste your answer. I quite liked Ritchie333's question at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GeneralizationsAreBad (T-H-L) (it's #10). The answer to that question will immediately reveal whether the candidate has truly internalized Wikipedia policy/consensus or is merely regurgitating something they read. And you can't bullshit your way out of a question like that without someone calling you on it.

As for this particular RfA, not thrilled with the candidate's answers, but they're not terrible. Statistics are low, but they don't seem like a high-risk candidate. I doubt I'll vote.

[Randy from Boise]

The questions asked of candidates at RfA, on the other hand, will always be relevant, as they get to the heart of the candidate's experience and understanding.

Unfortunately, the questions tend to be all over the place. (One that always makes me roll my eyes is "what edit would you put on a resume"—an inane inquiry if there ever was one.) What RfA needs is fewer softballs and more questions where you can't just zip over to WP:WHATEVER to copy-paste your answer. I quite liked Ritchie333's question at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GeneralizationsAreBad (T-H-L) (it's #10). The answer to that question will immediately reveal whether the candidate has truly internalized Wikipedia policy/consensus or is merely regurgitating something they read. And you can't bullshit your way out of a question like that without someone calling you on it.

As for this particular RfA, not thrilled with the candidate's answers, but they're not terrible. Statistics are low, but they don't seem like a high-risk candidate. I doubt I'll vote.

Open book exams measure the ability to take open book exams.

There's nothing like 5 years and 40,000 edits to learn the ropes, demonstrate through real life that one is not a sock puppet account, and show any and all willing to peruse the edit history just why the candidate is writing for WP and how they respond to criticism and controversy.

Of course, that's a very high standard and few candidates are so well "proven." Allowances must be made. But 14 months and 3,500 edits to mainspace isn't sufficient even if the open book exam is aced...

RfB

[Disgruntled haddock]

Open book exams measure the ability to take open book exams.

There's nothing like 5 years and 40,000 edits to learn the ropes, demonstrate through real life that one is not a sock puppet account, and show any and all willing to peruse the edit history just why the candidate is writing for WP and how they respond to criticism and controversy.

Of course, that's a very high standard and few candidates are so well "proven." Allowances must be made. But 14 months and 3,500 edits to mainspace isn't sufficient even if the open book exam is aced...

RfB

Good point. Is there any way to make the questions less like an easy open-book exam (tougher questions or some means to limit the time a candidate has to answer a question), or do you think that'd amount to barking up the wrong tree?

I guess I'm looking for easy-to-implement ways to bridge the gap between perennial NOBIGDEALers and NOTNOWers. Preferably things any voter could do to lead by example. (For what it's worth, I agree with you that 14 months and under 5,000 edits to mainspace is pretty low, but presumably there is some edit count number at which our opinions diverge, and that threshold could be different for everyone.)

[ats]

I guess I'm looking for easy-to-implement ways to bridge the gap between perennial NOBIGDEALers and NOTNOWers. Preferably things any voter could do to lead by example. (For what it's worth, I agree with you that 14 months and under 5,000 edits to mainspace is pretty low, but presumably there is some edit count number at which our opinions diverge, and that threshold could be different for everyone.)

The easiest way is to not have it be a lifetime appointment to basically be able to do whatever you want. That either means having ramping term of privilege or a ramping capability of privilege. Honestly, the easiest thing to do is to quantitize the term: First RFA is 6 months, Second is 1 year, third is 3 years, fourth is lifetime.

Though the weird entanglement of # of edits to ability to admin is a rather odd one. While there is some lower bound just to be familiar with the way the wiki works, it is certainly less than 5k edits. I've seen no evidence that the number of edits someone has made has any correlation broadly with their ability to be a good admin.

[Kumioko]

Although I do not think that editor has enough experience to be an admin yet I personally think the idea that being an admin is a big deal is a fallacy that needs to be squashed.

It is nothing more than a false sentiment that has been established by a lack of oversight of the admins, the inability for the community to do anything about them and the Arbcom's requirement that admins be taken to them for action and not be dealt with appropriately by the community.

It's just a few more buttons that mostly should be granted liberally to any editor who has sufficient experience on the project and should be easily removed when an admin screws up.

[Disgruntled haddock]

It's just a few more buttons that mostly should be granted liberally to any editor who has sufficient experience on the project and should be easily removed when an admin screws up.

I'm not sure I completely agree with the "just a few more buttons" view of adminship. I think you'd agree with me that administrators are granted a fair amount of deference. In many situations, don't administrators have discretion to undertake any administrative action falling within a reasonable range? Isn't that conferral of discretion an inherently big deal?

[Kumioko]

It's just a few more buttons that mostly should be granted liberally to any editor who has sufficient experience on the project and should be easily removed when an admin screws up.

I'm not sure I completely agree with the "just a few more buttons" view of adminship. I think you'd agree with me that administrators are granted a fair amount of deference. In many situations, don't administrators have discretion to undertake any administrative action falling within a reasonable range? Isn't that conferral of discretion an inherently big deal?

Oh I do completetely agree and in fact I think being an admin has ruined several good editors because it went to their heads. I do agree that the use of discretion can be a bigger deal but again if it wasn't for the culture o Wikipedia of admins not having to follow policy, I think it would work itself out. If they made too many mistakes they would just be desysopped without much fuss. But since it has to go to Arbcom even for obvious longterm problems most people won't even promote them.

[Poetlister]

It's just a few more buttons that mostly should be granted liberally to any editor who has sufficient experience on the project and should be easily removed when an admin screws up.

I'm not sure I completely agree with the "just a few more buttons" view of adminship. I think you'd agree with me that administrators are granted a fair amount of deference. In many situations, don't administrators have discretion to undertake any administrative action falling within a reasonable range? Isn't that conferral of discretion an inherently big deal?

There is an important distinction to be made between the technical powers of an admin and the influence an admin can have. The powers are far from trivial, especially the block button, though any block can be undone by another admin. As Captain Haddock says, admins are often treated with deference. Often, there is too much deference from other admins, who refuse to unblock even when it is clear that they should. That is of course a matter of culture, but would be hard to change.

[Kumioko]

It's just a few more buttons that mostly should be granted liberally to any editor who has sufficient experience on the project and should be easily removed when an admin screws up.

I'm not sure I completely agree with the "just a few more buttons" view of adminship. I think you'd agree with me that administrators are granted a fair amount of deference. In many situations, don't administrators have discretion to undertake any administrative action falling within a reasonable range? Isn't that conferral of discretion an inherently big deal?

There is an important distinction to be made between the technical powers of an admin and the influence an admin can have. The powers are far from trivial, especially the block button, though any block can be undone by another admin. As Captain Haddock says, admins are often treated with deference. Often, there is too much deference from other admins, who refuse to unblock even when it is clear that they should. That is of course a matter of culture, but would be hard to change.

You're absolutely right. The culture has gotten to the point where even obvious an obviously incorrect action by an admin is untouchable because there is no oversight over the admins and any admin can essentially do anything they want, to anyone they want (nonadmin at least), whenever they want, without regard for policy or the results.

BTW, have you seen the discussion about How badly are new admins needed here: linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _adminship[/link]. They block, ban or otherwise run off the editors that do those tasks and then they wonder why there are backlogs. Then they wonder why people are always criticizing the bad conduct of the admins when they do something abusive to editors and then wonder why no one supports an RFA unless the candidate has been around for years and then they wonder why there are no candidates because people don't want to go through the RFA process.