[WikiEN-l] RfA reform

[Oldak Quill]

On 07/04/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Having looked at some debates on this mailing list from before when I
> joined it about how RfA is broken as a process, read tonight's
> 'Request for Arbitration' read the almost surreal RfA for Danny, and
> (most importantly) read Mackensen's statement in his Request for
> Bureaucratship, I have a half-formed idea for a replacement system
> might be organised. Thought it best to try here rather than by putting
> up a proposal because the audience is more select and thoughtful
> (flattery will get you everywhere).
>
> The key problem with RfA that too many people have identified is that
> although it is formally 'not a vote', it is a vote in effect and in
> practice. The second problem is that oppose notvotes are cast for
> reasons which have little importance on  Any replacement needs to move
> away from a system of pure votes. However, it does need to offer an
> opportunity for editors at large to evaluate a candidate's editing to
> assess whether they are likely to fall into any of the problem areas
> for admins.
>
> The system I have in mind would involve an expanded list of questions
> to ask the candidate in more detail about their contributions and how
> they see themselves fitting in. Then, instead of asking editors to
> support or oppose, editors would be asked to assess the candidate's
> contributions in several different aspects. That might fall into these
> divisions (this is just an example):
>
> * Article writing
> * Interactions with other Wikipedians
> * Contributions to Wikipedia internal debates
> * Vandal-fighting and cleanup
> * Miscellaneous
>
> Instead of 'support' or 'oppose', editors judging the candidate would
> comment on whether the candidate's contributions in each area were
> worthy of commendation or indicated unsuitability. They could add, if
> they wanted, a recommendation to the closing bureaucrat that the
> candidate had such serious problems that they should not be promoted.
>
> At the end of the debate, the bureaucrat would ascertain whether any
> problems with the candidate taken overall made them unsuitable, not by
> counting numbers but by qualitative assessment. The way this might
> work is that the candidate who registered an account last week and has
> 10 edits would fail almost immediately, as now. The candidate who has
> no involvement with copyright checking but has good experience in
> everything else would pass because they can pick that experience up
> later if they need to. The candidate who edits controversial articles
> and is inevitably accused of bias and targeted by trolls, will pass if
> it is clear they react calmly.
>
> I recognise this proposal vastly increases the discretion of the corps
> of bureaucrats but that would probably be inevitable in any change. I
> am not suggesting that RfB procedure should be changed. Also, I think
> I should declare an interest in that I'm rather hoping to go through
> RfA myself sometime in the future.

Many of the jobs that admins engage in can't be divided into having
been done "well" or "not well". Grunt tasks are just a matter of doing
repetitive work for the sake of the encyclopaedia.

Admins have a few more powers which can be used to benefit Wikipedia:
article moves, protection, blocking, &c. They also have a capacity for
abuse. The greater number of users who have them, the better. We just
need to ensure that the users that do have these powers do not abuse
them.

RfA should be reduced to a determination of whether the user is
trustworthy or not. Their ability to make intelligent decisions should
come into it somewhere.

-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)