User:Durin/Admin criteria comments
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On WP:RFA there have been various stances taken in opposing the RfAs of various candidates. Some of these stances are non-contentious. Most aren't. RfA voters often end up repeating the rationale for their stances multiple times. This page is dedicated to providing rationale behind why RfA voters take these stances. This is not to say the stance is "valid"; such a certification would be purely subjective. It is up to each RfA voter to decide what their own criteraia are to vote in support or opposition of an RfA. The following merely provides a resource for RfA voters to turn to so as to not have to repeat themselves over and over again to "justify" their votes.
Any member of the community is welcome to contribute rationale to this page. If you'd like to discuss the merits of the various rationale, please go to the discussion page of this page.
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[edit] Activity level
Periodically, some admin nominees are noted for having a low participation level as measured by average number of edits per day and/or significant gaps in contributions over time. I frequently vote in opposition to these candidates depending on how low their participation is, and am nearly as frequently challenged on this point. A number of other voters on RfA have also expressed that activity level is unimportant.
[edit] Challenges
- How much an admin nominee contributes is not a factor; what matters is whether we can trust them.
- If you use this argument to deny adminship, then you should suggest de-adminning inactive admins.
[edit] Rationale
- Policies can and do change, and I've observed admins making errors in the application of policy. An admin who takes frequent breaks from Wikipedia may have a higher chance of being ill-equipped to properly apply policies on such things as speedy deletions. It is reasonable to assume that a lack of activity can (as one potential factor) be related to improper application of policy, as the admin may not be up to date on recent changes. While activity level is a crude measure to determine whether an admin nominee is up to date on policies, it is the best measure we have outside of the nominee's assurances.
Chart showing activity level measured by # of edits per day vs. success rate of RfAs
- Admins are often the focus of various disputes on Wikipedia. If an admin has a low participation level, situations they are party to can develop that lack their much needed attention. This can rapidly devolve or escalate into bad situations which could have been avoided had the admin remained engaged in the discussion. In essence, an inactive admin can do the unintended equivalent of throwing a grenade into a crowded room and walking away. Text based communications suffer from a number of serious limitations; misinterpretations can and often do happen. A well-meaning admin can state something, think the issue is resolved, disappear for a few days, and come back to a horribly escalated problem because there was another interpretation of their words or actions. A macrocosmic example of this happened at WP:RFA in October of 2005. This particular situation had to do with an Arbitration Committee action and not an admin, but the lesson is the same. An ArbCom decision came down that User:Stevertigo would have to undergo an RfA in order to maintain their adminship. User:Raul654, acting as a member of ArbCom and empowered by the decision, placed Stevertigo for RfA without his knowledge or acceptance. The resulting debate rapidly escalated. Raul654 effectively vanished from the scene less than two hours after the RfA was brought and remained absent for more than a day (as of this writing) from the RfA and resultings discussions ([1],[2],[3]). This situation could have been avoided had Raul654 remained involved. Putting a nominee in the position of adminship when they already have a low participation level is, in some people's opinion, setting the nominee up for failure as an admin and potentially harms the community.
- Some people feel it is a right and good thing to encourage admins to be more active, and not encourage low activity levels as being a good or indifferent thing. Admins are the janitors of Wikipedia. Sure, you can hire on ten janitors to do the job that one janitor could do. Here at Wikipedia, it would seem not to matter. We don't pay admins, and there is on the surface no apparent cost to Wikipedia to having 10 inactive admins vs. one active admin. However, some disagree. Giving ten people the mop and bucket vs. one person adds significantly more burden onto the Wikipedia community to ensure these admins act in appropriate ways. Reviewing one admin's work is considerably less time consumptive than reviewing ten. There is already a significant overburden in the dispute resolution process in place in Wikipedia. Many people nominate only on the basis of trust. These are well-meaning votes, but the reality is that many people who seem trustable end up not being so. By promoting ten admins with low participation levels compared to one with good participation levels, we greatly increase the chances that we will have a bad admin.
- In a short and currently ongoing study of admin ratios to various factors in Wikipedia, it was determined that the average number of edits per day made by all users as a ratio to number of admins is approximately 140:1. That's a bit of a sobering thought. That means each admin, assuming all are equally involved in vandal fighting, has 140 edits per day that need to be reviewed. That's the best case scenario. Reality is that many admins are not involved in vandal fighting, a number are inactive, and there is significant duplication of efforts in reviews. The actual ratio could be as high as 500:1 or higher. Putting a low activity admin in place does little to aid this situation.
- If a nominee has a low level of dedication to the project, why would you want that person as an admin? Some RfA voters feel that an appreciable dedication to the project is important for an admin.
- It has been suggested, though no concensus has been reached, that inactive admins should have their priviledges temporarily suspended pending their active return to the project. Reasons include security issues.
[edit] Edit summaries
A number of RfA voters find the frequency of use of edit summaries by a nominee is a potential factor in voting for or against a nominee.
[edit] Challenges
This point has been challenged before, usually by the nominee. Some of the challenges are:
- Nominee does not use edit summaries when editing own user space pages.
- Nominee does not use edit summaries on minor edits.
- Nominee does not use edit summaries on talk page.
- Edit summaries are useless; a vandal can put in an edit summary just as easily as anyone else, and it can mask their actions.
[edit] Rationale
For some RfA voters, these arguments do not hold up under scrutiny. The rationale behind the requirement to use edit summaries frequently are:
- "Would I vandalize my own user pages?" might seem like a reasonable question to ask, but for some it has no relation. For example, a doppelganger account could be used to make an edit to your user page. The human eye, when scanning, does not always recognize these edits as by doppelgangers. So, the edit might go ignored if all we went by was whether it was the user editing their own user page. That's why it's important to have edit summaries even on edits to your own user pages.
- Whether an edit is minor or not really has little relation to whether it is a good idea to have an edit summary. Another editor following behind you might want to understand why you made the change, rather than just assume it was minor and therefore above review. Furthermore, vandals can and do tag edits as minor as a way to get past RC patrollers. Note that Special:Recentchanges has the capability to hide minor edits. Good RC patrollers do not hide the minor edits, thus having edit summaries on them is every bit as important as on non-minor edits in helping to identify vandal and non-vandal edits.
- Vandalism is not limited only to non-talk pages. It can and does happen on talk pages. In fact, it happens everywhere on Wikipedia, and talk pages are no exception. Providing edit summaries helps RC patrollers to identify what may or may not be vandal edits.
- Providing edit summaries on talk pages can help a person following a discussion understand who the editor is responding to, or on what point they are responding. Limitations of the editing interface sometimes prevent an editor from properly maintaining within the edit who it is they are responding to. This can lead to confusion. By providing an edit summary, such as "Responding to Redwolf24", a reader can gain some insight on how an edit fits into the the conversation.
- If a vandal uses an edit summary, and does so in a way intended to confuse or obfuscate the nature of their edit, a good RC patroller is far more likely to go after that vandal with increased energy. The vandal is intentionally trying to not just vandalize, but hide their vandalism to boot.
- Providing edit summaries is proper Wikiquette. It can be considered as being polite vs. being impolite. Not providing edit summaries can be seen as akin to a sport referee blowing a whistle, calling a foul, and then never stating what the foul was.
- Providing edit summaries, especially on contentious issues, can help to avert revert wars.
- Since admins are often looked up to as examples of wikipedians, their behavior should mirror that which we find to be the best.
- The vast majority of vandalizing edits are done without the use of edit summaries. By providing edit summaries, you help to make the bar higher for vandals to get edits past the watchful eyes of RC patrol.
[edit] Related links
[edit] Time on wikipedia
A measure used by a number of RfA contributors, and (to me) seems to be used more often by long time Wikipedians, is the amount of time that a RfA candidate has been at Wikipedia.
[edit] Challenges
- How long a nominee has been here is not a factor. It's how long they've been actively contributing.
- A person who has been here a year may not know any more about Wikipedia processes and policies than a person who has been here a month. It depends more on where they are contributing.
[edit] Rationale
- How long they have been here is a better measure of their experience level than number of edits or level of activity. The more time a person has been here, the more likely they have come across policies and procedures regarding the management of Wikipedia.
- How long a nominee has been actively contributing is an ineffective measure of how much a nominee has read. A nominee could spend considerably time reading and understanding policies and guidelines while doing very little actual editing. Result; this nominee could know considerably more about policy than a user who conducts 300 stub sorts in a single day. A nominee could become an expert on Wikipedia policy without conducting a single edit. Thus, activity level doesn't measure how much experience a nominee has.
[edit] Demonstrated user interaction
A measure of how much user interaction the nominee demonstrates as determined by the number of talk and user talk page edits the nominees has relative to the overall number of edits. This is usually ascertained using Kate's tool.
[edit] Challenges
- Requiring user interaction removes from consideration a number of quiet, hard working editors who are diligently working on building an encyclopedia.
- Lack of user interaction can demonstrate a reserved, patient nature when working with others.
[edit] Rationale
- Adminstrators are often the focus of debates, as use of admin functions generally affects other editors. A demonstrated ability and willingness to engage in discussion is an important attribute given the nature of the use of admin functions.
