[WikiEN-l] Analysis of Request for Adminship

[Steve Bennett]

Hi all,
I just came across this excellent analysis of the problems with RfA at
the moment, written by Tyrenius, who had his application rejected on
the basis of insufficient edits (he had 1331 at time of application,
and apparently works offline a great deal, making that figure
misleading), age (not sure, older than 3 months) and supposedly not
doing enough "project work".

It's worth a read - he has every right to be annoyed at not being
granted adminship, when he has followed the letter of the law, and was
rejected by an RfA culture which does not reflect that policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship
----paste (hope he doesn't mind...)--------

An examination of policies and guidelines for RfA

I have been somewhat taken aback and disappointed by the 4 oppose and
1 neutral votes to date, not because they are "rejections" but because
of the arbitrary imposition of personal preference over not only Wiki
guidelines, but also over Wiki policy (I expand on this below). The
only way a community project can succeed is if there are communal
rules and understandings, which are respected and fulfilled. I do not
consider the "oppositions" meet those standards. I am used to dealing
with contention in my non-Wiki life, so that doesn't worry me. What
does worry me is the undermining of objective standards. I should
point out that I am not suggesting that there is any malevolent
intent, more that standards have slipped. I hope that, whatever the
outcome of this RfA, it may at least stimulate a debate about the
process and lead to some self-examination.

I believe the first 4 oppose votes and the first neutral should be
discounted on the basis that Wiki guidelines and policy have not been
followed in making them.

In order to provide a proper context, I refer to Wikipedia:Policies
and guidelines, which states:

    This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has
wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all
users should follow.

Thus the nature of a policy is clearly spelt out, namely:

    a standard that all users should follow.

The page then expands on this:

    A policy is similar to a guideline, only more official and less
likely to have exceptions. As with guidelines, amendments should
generally be discussed on their talk pages, but are sometimes forked
out if large in scope. One should not generally edit policy without
seeking consensus first.

A guideline is defined on the same page as follows:

    A guideline is something that is: (1) actionable and (2)
authorized by consensus. Guidelines are not set in stone and should be
treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Amendments to
a guideline should be discussed on its talk page, not on a new page -
although it's generally acceptable to edit a guideline to improve it.

And also:

    In addition to the generally accepted policies listed above, a
very large number of guidelines have been proposed and adopted by
Wikipedians. These are used to provide guidance in various situations
that arise on Wikipedia. They cover everything from naming conventions
and sensitive terms that should be avoided to how to get along, and
why not to bite the newcomers.

Even guidelines, therefore, being "authorised by concensus" should
normally be followed with only "the occasional exception". I suggest
that in the RfA process the exception has become the rule. This may
necessitate the rule being changed through the proper process, but in
the meantime it is an an example of bad practice, which needs to be
redressed.

However, a policy is an even stricter requirement, and "a standard
that all users should follow" and "even less likely to have
exceptions." There must be extreme conditions for it to be ignored,
yet the current practice on granting admin rights allows voters to
blatantly ignore policy as a matter of course. Again, if this policy
needs to be changed, then it should be done so through a proper
consensual process and established as such, but meanwhile its abuse is
a deterioration of standards for Wiki. Such deterioration would not be
tolerated in articles with POV and there is no more reason that it
should be tolerated in RfA.

Wikipedia:Administrators states:

    Administrators are Wikipedians who have access to a few technical
features that help with maintenance ("SysOp rights"). Wikipedia policy
is to grant this access to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia
contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of
the community. [my underlining]

I cannot stress strongly enough that this is stated as "Wikipedia
policy". According to Wiki policy, there are therefore only two points
to be considered:

    * if the nominee has been "an active Wikipedia contributor for a while"
    * if the nominee is "generally a known and trusted member of the community".

If the nominee fulfills these criteria, then it is Wiki policy that
that person should be granted administrator access. In regard to these
two criteria:

    * I have been "an active Wikipedia contributor for a while".

    Please note that this policy does not specify any requirement for
the amount of activity, only that the nominee has been "active".
However, even Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship, gives a
guideline of probably at least 1,000 edits, which I have exceeded, and
Wikipedia:Miniguide to requests for adminship gives an "informal,
minimalistic guide" of "at least 3 months", which again I have
exceeded.

    * I "generally a known and trusted member of the community." I am
sufficiently well known and trusted to have been awarded two barnstars
for my contributions. I cannot see that there is anything in my
history at Wiki not to show me as trustworthy. I have not been
involved in edit wars; I have not made 3 reverts in 24 hours; I have
not vandalised any pages; I have not been abusive or uncivil; my
articles have not been disputed for accuracy. On the contrary, I have
reverted vandalism and left the appropriate "test" templates; I have
notified an admin about some consistent abuse and been thanked for my
vigilance; I have intervened to help settle disputes; I have left
welcome messages on new contributors' talk pages; I have held
dialogues with other editors where necessary to consult about points I
was unsure of or to inform them as to why I was removing material that
they had contributed.

There is, according to Wiki policy no reason not to grant my request
for admin rights.

I am particularly concerned that potentially good administrators are
being either put off altogether from applying due a process that can
be perceived as a "kangaroo court", where the law is not administered
fairly—and are unwilling to submit themselves to its arbitrariness—or
are applying and being rejected because of subjective opinions, which
violate policy. It is one thing to have a request denied because it
does not meet the requirements of guidelines and policy, but a highly
different one if the nominee has studied the guidelines and policy,
fulfilled them and is still turned down. That is something that will
obviously cause bad feeling and lack of faith in the system and other
editors.

It is a poor example when voters assessing someone's fitness to uphold
Wiki's policies, guidelines and procedures, are themselves in breach
of those same rules, and seemingly unaware of their existence. This
situation needs to be addressed.

The means to do this is also stated in Wikipedia:Policies and
guidelines, namely:

    You are a Wikipedia editor. Since Wikipedia has no editor-in-chief
or top-down article approval mechanism, active participants make
copyedits and corrections to the format and content problems they see.
So the participants are both writers and editors.

    Individual users thus enforce most policies and guidelines by
editing pages, and discussing matters with each other. Some policies,
such as Vandalism are enforced by Administrators by blocking users. In
extreme cases the Arbitration Committee has the power to deal with
highly disruptive situations, as part of the general dispute
resolution procedure.

I trust that the obvious concern of the voters so far for the
betterment of Wiki will cause them to "self-police", in order to
redress matters at the first stage, now that this situation has been
pointed out.

Guide to requests for adminship

In respect of my own request, I address points on the page
Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship, with the text from the page
in italics and my comments in normal type:

    What RfA contributors look for
    RfA contributors want to see a record of involvement and evidence
that you can apply Wikipedia policies calmly, maturely and
impartially. What are often looked for are:

    Strong edit history with plenty of material contributions to
Wikipedia articles.

I have detailed the nature of my editing already.

    Varied experience. RfAs where an editor has mainly contributed on
one subject have tended to be more controversial than those where the
user's contributions have been wider.

I concentrate on art, but have edited a much wider range of articles
to a lesser extent, including military, naval and geographical
subjects.

    User interaction. Evidence of you talking to other users, on
article talk or user talk pages. These interactions need to be helpful
and polite.

I have fulfilled these criteria.

    Trustworthiness General reliability as evidence that you would use
administrator rights carefully to avoid irreversible damage,
especially in the stressful situations that can arise more frequently
for Administrators.

I have already given a relevant statement on this.

    Helping with chores. Evidence that you are already engaging in
administrator-like work and debates such as RC Patrol and articles for
deletion.

Again, I have already made the point that I am zealous as regarding
vandalism, which I regularly look out for.

    High quality of articles – a good way to demonstrate this is
getting articles featured.

My work has been commended by Solipsist.

    Observing policy A track record of working within policy, showing
an understanding of policy.

I trust the previous observations show my understanding of, and
attention to, the correct application of policy.

    Edit summaries. Constructive and frequent use of edit summaries is
a quality some RfA contributors want to see. See Wikipedia:Edit
summary.

I always try to make use of edit summaries, and have 99% on major
edits. I am surprised it's as low as 49% on minor edits and don't
understand how this happened, but it will make me more vigilant in
future.

Tyrenius 11:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

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Steve