On 4/13/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/10/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
To be quite honest, is there any reason why the
community should even
have a say in appointing admns? Why not just have candidates be vetted
by bureaucrats (or some similar group if preferred)? Would the project
be worse off?
I don't think that RFA should be replaced by such a system but this
post got me thinking about an alternative way of selecting admins to
operate alongside RFA. I would call it "Plan B" and here's how it
would work.
It wouldn't be an "open nomination" system like RFA. A candidate would
be selected and vetted by "some group of experienced wikipedians".
Bureaucrats, your "similar group", stewarts, the foundation, a group
of admins, Jimbo's secret cabal (tinsc) etc. The point is that the
candidate would be somebody that "insiders" have investigated and
believe would make a good admin.
The candidate is then presented to the community for discussion. The
presentation could be paraphrased something like this "This is
user:JoeShmoe. He has been on Wikipedia since $DATE, has worked on
$THESE_PROJECTS and done $THESE_THINGS. We think he would make a good
admin and we trust him with the tools.
The community would then be invited to comment. It would not be a vote
and there will be no "questions". The only way that the candidate
would not become an admin is if somebody in good faith presents a
"DAMN GOOD REASON" why JoeShmoe should not be given the tools, perhaps
something that the nominators had missed about his past behavior. What
would not be considered is anything that the nominators have already
considered such as his edit count, his work or lack of on a FA, his
votes in AFD/RFA, his experience in article space vs policy
discussions. Irrelevant or ambiguous comments would not be considered
such as "no need for the tools" or "He's a Scorpio" :)
When should "Plan B" be used? I don't know, that could be decided later.
If someone is unlikely to be opposed, there is no reason for "Plan B". If,
on the other hand, someone is unlikely to pass RFA, then a "back door"
method of promotion isn't likely to be worth the disruption it causes.
On the other hand, if there was an emergency need for admins, additional
admins could be promoted on a temporary basis by Jimbo, the bureaucrats, or
the stewards. The key point being promoted on a temporary basis.
The key issues is one of need. Is there a situation in which we would need
more admins on an emergency basis? If there is such a need, why could it
not be met by the existing pool of "reserve admins" - people who are admins,
but rarely perform admin duties, and people with admin powers who aren't
active? If there were a short-term emergency need for admins, it would be
easy to activate existing admins. If it were some sort of a long-term need
for more admins, it should be possible to communicate that need to active
RFA participants.
As for Plan B - any non-RFA promotions should be done on a temporary basis.
Temporary promotions for a specific purpose would be far less
controversial. Of course, I don't know what sort of emergency situation
might require this.