[Wikipedia-l] RfA

Tue Feb 3 21:51:48 UTC 2004

The basic thing wrong with all this is the illusion that sysops have a lot
of power. They don't and failures in some respect have few negative
consequences.

Fred

> From: Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 13:35:22 -0800 (PST)
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] RfA
> 
> Summary: Current RfA ineffective. Proposed
> automated software evaluation of Wikipedia
> contributors. only users with high score will be
> able to get lised in RfA. Please comment &
> criticise.
> 
> The current RfA (Requests for adminship) process
> cannot serve Wikipedia anymore. Wikipedia is now
> a very popular big site and I am afraid the RfA
> process we are using can only support small
> communities.
> 
> Currently 1 user who had less than 100 edits is
> nominated. Another user with about 200 edits
> requests adminship.
> 
> In the past, a user who acted in the
> "politician's way" requested to become an admin
> numerous times: make me admin and I will do this
> and that... Of course the request was ridiculous
> and nobody was taking him seriously.
> 
> Also, on January 12, 2004, a user was nominated
> for adminship. A developer promoted the user to
> administrator just 21 minutes after the
> nomination, even before the response of the
> nominated user (a nominated user has to respond
> in order to accept or reject the adminship).
> Although everyone, including me, supported the
> nomination (after he was made an admin!), and the
> admin is now good and valuable to the project, I
> think the quick developer's action was
> unnecessary. I say this, not in order to rise an
> issue with the developer (who is useful and
> valuable to the project) but only to show that
> the RfA process has "holes".
> 
> The current RfA ineffectivity has been
> demonstrated many times.
> 
> One of the main problems of the current RfA
> system is that everyone can nominate any person,
> many times not for Wikipedia's good but only for
> personal reasons etc. Uneducated
> nominations/requests are also common and waste
> our time.
> 
> To put it in one sentence: It is very easy for
> someone to nominate a user for adminship, or even
> request it.
> 
> I think RfA should be more difficult, so that
> whenever someone is listed on it, it will be more
> or less sure that he/she is already wanted or
> trusted by the community up to some degree.
> 
> Requests could be go away. Personally, I prefer
> nominations. Or, the policy and the system could
> be formulated in such a way that it would be more
> difficult for someone to request adminship, than
> to be nominated for it.
> 
> 
> A semi-automated software system for user
> evaluation may be needed, IMO. Just like most
> auction sites (eBay etc): Other users will
> evaluate a user's edits.
> 
> The system will work like this: In Page history,
> or in the version differences page, we could have
> three option boxes, one textbox and one button,
> all under the caption "Evaluate this user's
> edit". The option boxes will read: 1. Positive,
> 2. Neutral, 3. Negative. It will be required for
> the evaluator to write a summary in the textbox
> and justify his/her evaluation. When the user
> presses the button, the system will record the
> evaluation in the user's evaluation log. These
> logs will be public (accessible via the user's
> page), and updated/maintained by the software.
> 
> Because abuse is possible, we can have evaluation
> moderators. When a new evaluation is submitted,
> it will not be written in the user's log until a
> moderator aproves it. The log will refer to the
> particular edit and article an evaluation was
> about, and it will keep some statistics, such as
> how many different users made a positive or
> negative evaluation. Evaluations which were not
> approved by the moderators will be kept in a
> separate log but not counted in the "official"
> user's score.
> 
> The user's score will be calculated by software
> from data gathered from the evaluation log. I
> suggest the score's algorithm to pay more
> "attention" on recent evaluations. For example,
> evaluations one year old can be multiplied by
> 0.5, evaluations 6 months old by 0.75, while the
> evaluations from the past 2-3 weeks will be
> multiplied by 1.5. Also, evaluations from
> evaluators with a high score will count more in
> the final user's score (for example, multiplied
> by 1.33). The number of user's edits will be
> taken into account, too: The higher edits, the
> higher the score. So the score is not simply the
> number of positive evaluations, but it is based
> on more complex analysis and considerations.
> 
> ***the algorithm which calculates the score
> should be published in wikipedia, written in
> simple pseudocode so that non-developers will be
> able to understand it***
> 
> I suggest that the moderators should be appointed
> directly by Jimbo.
> 
> There will be a page called "Great contributors"
> maintained by software. In this page only users
> with a high score will be listed.
> 
> In RfA, a user may be nominated for adminship
> *only* and *only* iff:
> a) he or she is listed in the "Great
> contributors" page, AND
> b) the user has made at least 500 edits.
> Otherwise, the nomination will be automatically
> rejected.
> 
> I do not think users with less than 500 edits
> should be even considered in RfA.
> 
> I ask for comments and criticism on these ideas.
> Also, please, suggest your own ideas and propose
> the changes you would like to see in RfA. I hope
> we can built a better and more efficient RfA
> system.
> 
> --Optim
> 
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