Meta talk:Requests for adminship/Archives/2007

Do we have enough meta admins?

I recently saw a comment in an RfA to the effect that there are already 80 or so meta admins and that more might not be needed.

I disagree -- I see delays >1 week in processing spam blacklist requests. Comments:

• I'm not complaining
• I'm not asking existing admins to work harder -- we all have lives off of Wikimedia and we are all volunteers
• I'm absolutely not suggesting someone should take this as a spur to go rapidly through the backlist making snap decisions -- I appreciate the existing admins' thoughtful approach. "Slow and correct" is still better than "fast and wrong"

Instead, I'm just suggesting more Meta admins might be helpful.

Several times, I've find a spammer will become very disruptive and move from spamming to vandalism and personal attacks once they're "outed" and their links removed. Blacklisting seems to make them give up on the vandalism and go away. In fact for this type of spammer-turned-vandal, blacklisting seems to work better than blocks (they're already experts at open proxies, etc.)

I'm not an admin on any project -- just another volunteer that thinks spreading the work around helps all involved (and gets tasks done faster).

Perhaps Meta participants could encourage a few potential admins from their own projects.
--A. B. ^(talk) 16:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

See my comment in Alnokta's talk page. --.anaconda 16:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

From my experience, Meta admins tend to be in short supply. It's absolute chaos on IRC when a link needs to be blacklisted fast and no Meta admins are around. -- Steel ^en:Steel 20:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Steel's statement. Cbrown1023 15:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I also think that more sysops can't be a loss. The more sysops there are, the more time do they have to work in their native projects. And the less long things like spam blacklist will need. --Thogo (talk) 17:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we can never have too many adminstartors or beuracrats. Cbrown1023 17:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Steel's right. We might have a good number of Meta admins, but not enough admins that are actually active. Most of them spend their time on their local projects, and sometimes it is hard to track down a Meta admin when you really need assistance. Nishkid64 18:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Nishkid64 and I perhaps know best about this. :) We have found it pretty hard to track down admins to delete pages for us when we need to do page moves and just regular CSD stuff. Cbrown1023 18:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, more admins would be better. I do plan to stand for admin here myself when ready and look forward to helping out... ++Lar: t/c 13:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreeing Lar's opinion, I also plan to stand for admin here myself when ready while I already administer eight Wiki sites. So far there is only one Chinese-speaking admin here.--Jusjih 08:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Basically all core meta editor are deeply involved into the project and occupied to some extent. We are therefore always in shortage of hand. My strategy is not directly recruit sysops for meta but for local projects I participate in. It reduces the tasks I need to care as admin of those wikis, and grow a pool of potential meta admin ... I guess it may make a sense for me or Jusjih, who find not many same-language people on meta. To increase the sysop pool of meta, we must encourage people to be more involved into the whole Wikimedia project, not to a particular language & interest project. --Aphaia 12:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

People, I finally understood. sorry for giving fellows hard time.--Alnokta 08:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Changes in the criteria

The current criteria says You have at least 100 valid contributions on another Wikimedia project. and You are an administrator on another Wikimedia project. .. may be I'm wrong here but isn't it trivial that an administrator on any wikimedia project must/should have 100+ contributions at minimum? I suggest that the first criteria removed /merged and the third one is more than enough.--Alnokta 08:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

From historical reasons, it isn't trivial. You can request sysopship for a just launched project without experience. And soon you can get candidate eligibility! It isn't hypothetical but happened once, heard I. Thus being an admin somewhere else per se isn't enough. --Aphaia 08:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I also would disagree. One could be a sysop with no experience anywhere and they'd still be eligible here. --Majorly 08:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Very new sites may have very new admins without edits there. For example, Wikisource was one multilingual site and I became an admin there before opening many language subdomains. Once language subdomains could be requested, only two other users and I requested Chinese Wikisource and only one other user and I requested new bureaucratship due to very limited Chinese-speaking users there. Once Chinese Wikisource opened, there was one temporary admin and I came here to request bureaucratship based on only two supports from Multilingual Wikisource. Once I became the first bureaucrat at Chinese Wikisource, I also appointed the other bureaucrat candidate. Based on my trusts from Multilingual Wikisource, I also got adminship at English Wikisource. I did not need 100 edits at newly opened English or Chinese Wikisource, but later candidates would require more experience.--Jusjih 16:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bureaucrat and sysop (not temporary either) at a wiki where I have less than 100 edits. So yes, it happens. drini ^[es:] _[commons:] 01:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Voters' requrements

First proposal

Considering some past votes, I think now it is good for us to draw a line who is welcome on meta admin votes. Same requirements shall be applied for confirmation votes.

My proposal is as follows:

1. • You have at least 100 valid contributions on the Meta-Wiki, when the vote begins.

It might be includes also, but I am not sure if we need it, or if we shut out some good parts of this wiki, like people who are working on MediaWiki extentions:

1. • You have at least 100 valid contributions on another Wikimedia project.
   • You have a user page on Meta, with links to your user pages on other projects you participate in.

And, I think, "100 valid contributions" should be the maximum, since it is the same requirements for admin candidates.

Suggestions? --Aphaia 13:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

100 edits on Meta-Wiki is too many, imo. That's as many as it is to become an admin, which should be a more difficult position to get, than just being able to vote. I'd say more like 10-20, so long as they're active in another project (and those edits aren't all welcomes or whatever). Majorly (talk) 13:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Majorly. :) I agree with Majorly, but for purely selfish reasons: I think I only have around 70 edits on Meta, but I like to participate in RfAs when I see someone I know on the list. Sarah Ewart 14:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You can always give your opinions. That is far more important than a vote.Hillgentleman 07:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Hm, I don't think the meta admin should be the difficult position: if you are moderately involved, and you need it, so in most cases you are ready. "10-20" sound too low for me, since many users can earn them just with editing some humor and community building pages, like "Wikimedians by birthday" or whatever. I don't think it sufficient. Also from a selfish reason, I don't prefer to combine this requirement to the other project edit. It will make the whole process unnecessary complicated.

• To Sarah

I suppose it is not bad to make a selfish opinion, and also it is not bad to reject it just because it is so :) This argument arose some people thought themselves qualified to vote just because they found the names they knew, and some of us think in a different way. So this kind of comflict could happen, and personally I don't think 70 is sufficient in any given project, even though some of our projects have less requirements or even nothing. I will appreciate you to propose the alternative. If 100 is too high, what is your recommendation? --Aphaia 14:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think 100 is a bit too high; we're effectively saying that, unless you're eligible to be an admin candidate, you can't voice an opinion on the candidates, which seems a bit cliquish to me (note that this is entirely selfish as well; I've got a whopping 156 edits here,[1] though roughly 2/3rds of them are in my userspace, making me ineligible for adminship/!voting). I'd say 30-50 edits (and preferably with another Wikimedia account in existence where they're more active) would be sufficient, but I'll also readily admit that I'm not nearly as active in RfAs here than I am on en.wp, so there may be a history I'm unaware of. EVula // talk // 14:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Some people, mainly of English projects, particular from English Wikipedia come to vote and only, if people who know them are candidates. I strongly suspect there have been canvassing, but it is another matter. Some of them even didn't hesitate to create their accounts after the vote began. That is "the history" behind of this proposal. I oppose therefore strongly to combine to another project activity to here meta adminship argument, after seeing such non-meta editors seize the vote entirely. --Aphaia 14:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
    • If it's clearly a new account created just for the purpose of voting in the RfA, then the vote can be stricken as invalid. However, I think the minimum requirement should be around 30-40 contributions outside of RfA voting. Nishkid64 (talk) 15:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Passing comment - 25 non user talk space edits? Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've always been of the opinion that there shouldn't be a requirement at all. Voters should have a link on their user page to their main project, so we can verify they're established users. If there's a close RFA, the opinions of meta contributors should be considered more strongly than non-meta contributors (and clearly, users just jumping to Meta to support their candidate should probably be ignored). But a strict edit count seems rather rigid and unnecessary. As far as I'm concerned, the strict 75% limit's bad too, but that's an argument for another day. Ral315 (talk) 16:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Ral315. I feel everyone's voice needs to be heard. I think a blend of established users on Meta with established users on the other projects where the nom is active is actually best. Remember that many users keep Meta pages on there watchlist and read along. I often will not join a discussion or vote unless I feel I have something to add. (Full disclosure, I only have 53 edits on Meta.) Of course, editors that only come here to give a one word Support vote on a RFA should not to be given as much weight as a long thoughtful comment, no matter their number of edits. FloNight 16:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

One of those days so I will argue against myself! Taking FloNight & Ral315's points (& agreeing) by & large if you have found meta and edited even to a small degree you may well be a relatively experienced Wikimedian? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course. People don't generally come to Meta first... they are from other projects, and I believe they are often a good judge of whether someone will make a good admin regardless of whether they edit here or not. My earliest edits here involved voting on RfAs, and I would have been disappointed if I wasn't allowed to vote because of such a high number of edits required. I knew the candidates from my original home project, and so my vote should still be valid. Anyway, if the vote is a close thing (anything other than unanimous), I'd check the origins of users I didn't recognise to see how much I should weigh their opinion when closing. If we were to put in a rule for voters, I'd hope we'd never have to enforce it (which is why I suggested such a low number, 10-20 - I had even less than that when I started voting here). Majorly (talk) 17:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

That is why I think such requirement is necessary. Your logic seems to me just same with the jumping in people. Meta adminship is a meta issue, not of any other wikis. After seeing some admins who are not following meta policies and guidelines but only on their home wiki, caused troubles and finally leaving this project, and because they were granted here the sysopship thanks to their home wiki and no-meta user votes, I think it highly questionable the logic you are supporting here. Not meta active user (only with 100) supported by users who have only user pages and their favorite RFA pages? I don't think it is our community vote. --Aphaia 17:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Wait: I thought Meta was a collaboration of all Wikimedia projects? It's a much more global project than say enwiki (much like Commons, where users with very few edits will vote on RfAs too). People come here regarding access requests, steward elections, spam blacklists etc - all which don't affect this wiki. To expect such a high amount of edits before one can vote is not good, imo. Unless we were to raise the number of edits for adminship (which is supposed to be 100, but most only get by with a lot more) I still do not agree with this. Majorly (talk) 17:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, it is. But sysop is a job. A sysop should be competent. Those who hire a sysop should also be competent to judge.Hillgentleman08:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• Majorly,

  I would have been disappointed if I wasn't allowed to vote because of such a high number of edits required. I knew the candidates from my original home project, and so my vote should still be valid.

  <----Your opinions would have been very welcome; however, the decision should be left to those who had been familiar with the project.Hillgentleman 08:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

40-50 non user talk space edits (meta), 100 non user talk space edits (extra-meta main project) and double link--Nick1915 - ^{all you want} 17:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I am of two minds about this. I don't think having a bunch of SPA (single purpose accounts) turn up here to support admin candidates with little to no exposure to the meta culture is a good thing. But do we really have a lot of that? I think 100 edits here is too high for a voter eligibility requirement. I think it might be too LOW for an admin eligibility requirement, and would support raising that number somewhat as a better way to get high quality admin candidates. I'd support 100 (or even 200, or 400) elsewhere, crosslinked, and some reasonable number of edits, not confined to just user talk. 20 might be a good threshold but 100 just seems far too high. Meta after all is the wiki that serves other wikis, no? Finding meta is non trivial. ++Lar: t/c 17:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Meta serves other wikis, that's true, but it doesn't justify those admins I mentioned above to delete, sometimes even speedy resources which meta people collaboratively had grown, just because those monoliguals and not meta-policy and culture familiar people don't understand that. And those people called it improvement. Why were such people promoted? Because their locals said they would be okay here. Despite of that both candidates and voters were not really involved and didn't understand meta policy. Simply I don't want to see it again, and to reject them, 20 edits are too low in my observation. --Aphaia 17:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Hum - we like to participate in Rf* of "people we know" but we don't want others to participate in Rf* of "people we don't know". I know - simplistic - but there is a sense in which that is true. I recall participating in admin confirmations when I was probably below these limits based on whether I "knew" them and what others had said (& my strong feelings on inactivity). Was that right? Would I be de-motivated if I could not do so? A vote of mine was ignored on an en simple wiki RfA - would I be in a hurry to return there? Personal thoughts but we all have them and they affect us. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

To find the best way, all concerns should be on the table and considered. It doesn't mean every each concern should be weighed equally. Thank you for your summary, Herby, it kind of makes a sense. However my concern is not if I know them, but rather if they know meta and get involved. For example, five edits including their user page and "subculture affliated Wikimedians' lists" is not the case, imo. --Aphaia 18:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I think maybe before we talk about the right value for the numbers then, we need to know what problem we are trying to solve by changing the numbers... If I understand Aphaia's concern it is that there are now, and may be in the future, admins here that are not really aware of, and aligned with, the "meta way", who do things that are inappropriate. Rightly or wrongly, they bring their practices from other wikis, which are not appropriate here or may cause friction. Another part of the problem is that these admins get supports from people who are even LESS in tune with the "meta way", because they've come just to support. Is that a fair summation, Aphaia?

Commons, as another wiki that spans projects, has had similar problems. But on Commons they seem to be addressed by people being a bit more participatory in the discussion... we've had several admin candidates lately that did not succeed after it was clear that they had a number of locals and the regulars questioned things more closely. So I would say, if that's a fair summation of the problem, are there other ways to address it than tweaking the raw numbers? I'd note that sometimes, having people come by just to support things isn't all bad... consider some of the CU elections recently, on small communities, that would have failed if there hadn't been some support from people who were not heavy contributors there. ++Lar: t/c 18:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict and agreeing with Lar) Well after a shower & a glass of wine I'll have a go at "devil's advocate" (a rare role for me - ask anyone!). Someone comes along and makes the required number of unexciting edits - their vote is valid. Another person - maybe a 'crat elsewhere or even a mere admin has less edits (IIRC my position in the en simple vote) - so they are ignored? They could even be a passing arbcom person (:-)) with inadequate edits....? Maybe what we mean is do we feel their vote is valid and how can we arrange the rules so that that will be the case... Sure - any SPA votes will be suspect (& should be) but we all know that folk will "turn up" from their local wiki and vote (it happens a bit on Commons) but I honestly do not have a solution to that other than to "vote" with thought myself. I'll go and find somewhere else to cause trouble I think! Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Lar, thank you for your fair summary. That's my concerns. Principally mere inactivity doesn't matter to me. "Vote only people" or "not involved people" do. And the edit count is a horrible and soulless criteria, it would be better than any contribution based judgement, like "you are okay, you are not". The latter will be easily turned into subjectivity.

Prohibition of canvassing could be an opinion, while we have no clue how to prevent it and if done, detect it. I don't think adminship is solely matter of trust (while it is one of the principle), trust and integrity to the existing community. I understand people want to say "he or she is okay, I know that". But adminship shouldn't be a popular poll. So your alternative to raise up the bar could be another option. But still, I think, some requirements still necessary. Not intend to personal attack, Majorly accepted the vote from an account created just after the vote began, I don't think it acceptable. I feel I should have stroke the vote, when I found, even the guideline says nothing. --Aphaia 18:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I didn't. The consensus with or without that particular vote was always going to that Thunderhead would be promoted. There were 0 opposes, so why should the user not be promoted? That the user who just created an account voted is really irrelevant as it made no difference. If, as I said above, there were many users coming here from other projects, I would look more closedly at it. Majorly (talk) 19:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

(now up to 54 edits and counting) :) I understand your concern, Aphaia. I don't think RFA should be decided by loads of first time Meta users. Nor do I think RFA should be decided by Meta regulars after quick look at a noms statement and edit history. But I think both of these type votes are fine because they help connect users to the Meta community. What needs to decide a RFA is thoughtful comments by a mix of user types. Regardless of their edit count, if an user makes a strong statement pro or con based on in depth knowledge, it needs to be considered strongly in the decision about whether to promote. They can influence other users to consider or reconsider their own opinion. I feel that cutting off the flow of information based on edit count is not beneficial to the project. FloNight 21:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me that an meta admin needs two things: (1) good understanding of meta policy and process and (2) to have a good track record on projects they are involved in - especially those where they are a sysop. Meta regulars are likely to be best placed to address (1) and people from the candidate's home wiki are likely to be best placed to answer (2). There doesn't seem to be a need to exclude people - meta bureaucrats are surely capable of factoring in the history of the participants where someone's candidacy is contested, especially if concerns are raised by meta regulars. I would have thought the meta community would on occasion welcome input from people who know them from the home wiki - there's only so much you can tell from 100 or so edits to meta. Meta does not stand alone as a project - otherwise why require adminship on another project? The contributants at RfA should surely reflect the 2 relevant interested parties - those familiar with Meta and those familiar with the candidate. Those who have experience of both are a bonus. WjBscribe 21:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Point taken, but it didn't prevent that we have meta policy-unfamiliar sysops, that is our lesson. Those enwiki-based people are only helpful to have our resource speedied. Moreover those rogue sysops remain, not removed through confirmation because he was okay from the view of enwiki/vote-only people who don't care meta policy and community. Even if they are not familiar with meta policy nor active, those enwiki people don't care. Because they are okay for them. So your saying is theoretically good, but history says it is not beneficial for meta community. --Aphaia 01:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Also, I suppose you and I disagree on one point: I think candidates should have been involved into meta activity to some extent, while there is no good reason to grant them the flag. So in this case they are already familiar with meta community. From my experience, I have seen no benefit to accept those who are not unfamiliar with us, meta community. If someone is known as "a good sysop" on a certain project, say, English Wikipedia, doesn't assure us he are not enwiki-centricism and force meta community to obey English Wikipedia policies, and not meta own. --Aphaia 07:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the best solution is for established users on Meta to point out the lack of experience that an user has after they confirm that this is true. As I pointed out before the established users on Meta need to take the time to closely evaluate noms to find out if they feel the nom will follow policy and procedures. A few questions to a nom might clear this up if the nom is unknown and it is unclear about their level of experience. FloNight 02:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• Should there be requirements on participations on the meta and meta talk namespaces?Hillgentleman 08:08, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments from one of those dreadful non-admin, virtually monolingual, mostly enwiki meta editors some other metans find troubling:

1. While I regret that I never had the opportunities in my life to get the language education so many other metans have had, I think monolingual metans can still make useful contributions here ... even monolingual meta admins and, perish the thought, even monolingual en.wikipedians.
2. I recommend raising, not lowering, the required meta experience for candidates to several hundred edits. I think this will do more to produce meta-aware and acculturated admins than disallowing RfA comments from editors with <100 meta edits. Greater meta experience also affords other metans more opportunities to learn about admin candidates prior to their RfA.
3. If rogue admins are a common problem here, then consider an admin recall system beyond the current annual reconfirmation system.
4. Canvassing should be ruled out; candidates should not canvass on either meta or any other project. I suggest explicitly adding an anti-canvassing note to the top of meta's RfA page. This is because some projects seem more sensitive to the canvassing issue than others; many don't seem to have an explicit canvassing guideline similar to en:WP:CANVASS.
5. Participants in meta RfA discussions should have had meta accounts established (and actively used) for some specified duration (30 days? 90 days?) prior to the start of the RfA. That will make it harder to flood an RfA with meatpuppets from the candidate's "home project".
6. Meta policies, guidelines and procedures -- where they exist -- should always trump enwiki's ways of doing things, however I think the big Wkipedias (en, de, fr, etc.) provide useful starting points for situations where rulesets on meta and smaller projects may be silent. en.wikipedia probably has the most broadly developed set of policies and guidelines; perhaps they get excessive at time, but they probably encapsulate Foundation-wide shared values in most cases.
   1. Examples of policy vacuums (as of 3 months ago):
      1. Only 2 Wikipedias appeared to have a spam guideline.
      2. Only 16 Wikipedias appeared to have an external links guideline.
      3. Only 18 Wikipedias appeared to have any sort of conflict of interest guideline.
   2. Meta:Index/Policies and guidelines#Meta-Wiki identifies just 3 Meta-specific policies:
      1. Administrators
      2. Deletion policy
      3. Inclusion policy
   3. Even Meta's "Administrators' reading list" notes:
      1. "A more detailed list is available at en:Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list."
7. I leave it to others to figure out the minimum number of edits on meta needed to participate in RfAs -- I think some of the suggestions above may be more useful.

That's my 2 cents worth. --A. B. ^(talk) 18:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Revised proposal

Thank you for your research. [= A. B.'s] Administrators' reading list is useful for some extent, but I point out that it was brought from somewhere (English Wikipedia?) by an anon whose sole edit on meta was this posting. I personally don't think the meta community is bound to it, even if it works sometimes useful index. If people think the remark you referred could be a ground English Wikipedia policies should be effective here, I propose just remove that line: it has no higher priority than any other community, it should be treated as helpful reference, but no more than that.

Also I would say the incidents I keep complaining were matters of "written" policies of meta. Those meta-newbies didn't care written policies of meta, much worse they were sliding into VfD, and said loud "it isn't relevant to meta" against documents translators developped. I won't be fatigue to repeat that was caused by the convention giving vote to right to less involved people, so I strongly oppose to keep it open for everyone, even for the people who has no edit as we are doing now. I think it sensible to leave the decision and judge to meta editors, not just found a certain request occasionally, or brought by canvassing: their comments will be welcome, but no thank them for their votes. Those people just messed up the request pages, even our meta editors were occupied with other operational things, and soon gone. Luckily they are now gone, but our policy has no barrier against them, still now. I think, we have no good reason to allow them repeat that, and it should be prevented by several means.

Reviewing this discussion, I however notice my first suggestion unpopular and was taken "too high". I think adminship no big deal, specially on meta, so all involved and regular editors could be granted adminship, so still have no reason to amend that, but perhaps I would miss something you found. So, I propose to set the bar for 50 edits. Also a certain length involvement could be included, say, 3 months from the first edit on meta or so.

Raising the bar for sysopship are proposed: I have no reason to oppose, and would like to know how many edits or length of involvement seem to you guys to be appropriate. hundreds edits were suggested - I admit 100 edits, the current bar, could be too low, if we want them a seriou involvement. But we would not like to miss that many of good or at least not bad sysops on meta started from this line. So it might be better to put another kind of cliteria (like length of involvement), or avoid some edits like user namespace including subpages.

Regarding ongoing votes, I think encouragement of comment won't be the whole compensation. There are somehow length comments, but the supporters of the candidate didn't give the reason why those concerns can be ignored. So, comments are strongly welcome, but it won't solve everything.

Not only setting requirements for voters, I think we need to forbide explicitly canvassing about meta sysopship. It might be okay for steward candidates, since it would directly affect their community, but for meta adminship, I have no good reason to promote it in other projects. Already we have recently seen what could happen from such advertisement: even if the candidate didn't intended, it brought questionable vote(s). It is on meta recentchanges and all meta visitors may notice there is a vote. I think it enough for us. It could be on Babel, since it is a meta matter. Or on the experimental list meta-l? But I think the further isn't necessary; it is my personal opinion, of course.

Not originally mentioned, I think those changes should be applied for confirmation. Or someone could argue that such new bars are better to go to confirmation and only, since as the rule says, confirmation is primarily based on his or her activities on meta, not limited to meta activity though, so it would be more natural to say "only meta active editors can vote: other people are invite to comment each admin". But it's just assumption, and I still the current one year term from promotion to confirmation is too long if we accept non-meta people vote.

So let me summarize the revised proposal:

• Voters should have done 50 edits until the nomination (option: and their first edits had to be done prior to X months).
• Option: Candidates should have x hundred edits until the nomination (and their first edits ....)
• Canvassing is forbidden. A notice on your home wiki could easily turn into canvassing despites of your intention, our experience says, so it is also discouraged.
• Same requirements are applied for confirmation.
• Informative and thoughtfull comments are welcome, from both qualified voters and other parties.

Thoughts? --Aphaia 12:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is better. I think 3 months is too much though; I think 1 month is fine. You can become an established editor, with knowledge of policies and guidelines in a week if you were clueful enough. I don't care much for canvassing, but I don't mind as much when people do it. If there's a reason someone should not be promoted, it'll be brought up and the Meta regulars will oppose. The closing bureaucrat should of course bear this in mind when closing RfAs, instead of looking at it as a pure vote.

You mention RFDs. These, in my opinion are slightly different. There's many pages here on meta which are frequently reference from other projects: such as The Wrong Version, Stewards, Inclusionism etc. I'm not saying these should be deleted, but often on RFDs, such pages sometimes come up, and other communities will be affected by whatever happens to the page. This is when "outsiders" should be welcomed with open arms, as we value their opinion. Majorly (talk) 12:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Majorly largely

Canvassing - well I agree with Aphaia but it will happen.

Raising the bar a little on requirements for RfA - looks sensible to me.

However I am not at all sure about the voting requirements. Edit counts are not my thing and I cannot be bothered to check but I guess I had around 5000 edits on Wikibooks when I discovered Meta. Meta covers the global Foundation community. I think I would not be happy if I had to make 50 edits to be able to speak (& if I had to wait three months or whatever I would be unhappy).

It does concern me that there can be a sudden arrival of voters for an RfA but I am not certain of the answer. Were I notable I would have a quote on en Wikiquote which I have used many times in my life - "I am always wary of simple answers to complex questions".

It is important that we seek quality admins for Meta (& I feel more strongly here than elsewhere that there has to be a need for the tools). However I'll not agree with Aphaia on the emphasis on policy I'm afraid. I find I delete what I deem rubbish & block those I deem disrupt the Wiki in question according to my own views. I will always be prepared to justify what I do and will apologise and rectify anything I get wrong but I would prefer to be judged by my actions than an adherence to policy. One issue is that it does vary from wiki to wiki so I could be right on one and wrong with the same action on the next. As a cross wiki admin often dealing with disruption I'd prefer to continue as I am. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:00, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

At the very top of this page, it was mentioned that at first, to be an admin here, all you needed was to be an admin somewhere else. Those days are clearly gone. Too bad but it is what it is. I think 100 edits, mixed across a wide spectrum of namespaces, with enough interaction to show style, and adminship elsewhere, is enough to be an admin here. But I am not opposed to raising the edit requirement. I would prefer that people more actively debate and discuss instead of just posting supports though. I do not support raising the voting requirement to Y months and Y edits for values of X > .5 and Y > 20-50. I fear that restricts input. We need input from others, as long as it wasn't canvassed for. The numbers I gave are upper bounds, some smaller requirement would be OK with me. Or, some requirement for significant participation elsewhere. But again, what really is needed is better discussion during the candidacy, and good analysys by the closing crats that isn't just nose counting. All IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 15:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, guys. First of all, I would like to keep it mind Polls are evil. Yes, polling is evil - specially only if it is mere a head-counting. And we all would like to avoid, I believe. So, still personally disagreed, I think I am aware the basic idea of "no restriction for voters". All should be invited to give their opinions. Yes, diversity of opinions is the heart of our project. So I strongly agree with Lar and other folks that we should go to the direction to encourage discussions, or give the rationals of support.

I agree on that any opinion should be encouraged and welcome, but at the same time I concur with Hillgentleman, "voting is no sole way to address their opinions" - regardless who they are, opinions are welcome. But I am unsure if it is equal to voting. Specially there is canvassing possibility, either intentional or unintentional.

So, the next point - prohibition of canvassing. If we make it effectively, we have not to be nervous about voting eligibility? Even pessimistically, I think this position unrealistic, it would be hard to detect. I am even inclining to remove this line as long as some eligibility requirements of voters and candidates are introduced.

But what is required? Amount of editing is an ugly measure, but perhaps only measure we can have. I am sure we don't want to rise the line as high as unnecessary, and kick out good candidates. Not as same as Majorly, I don't think 3 months are too much; count your own first 100 edits, and see how many days it took. For most of us it took three months or more, sometimes over one year. I checked Majorly made his first 100 edits almost in a month, but it is doubtful you were ready at that time. For me, it took three months, but including several user page edits, so as for me at least three months could be still too low [I was no admin then, though]. I happily agree some very smart and wiki-savvy people find no difficulty to get involved here, and thus for those people even one month would be a higher bar. But most of us took one month or more to fill the current required 100 edits on meta, I think it pointless to write down "the first edit of the candidate should be one month prior to the nomination day": or we have not to write such, since we are sure all candidate fill that. so I think, unless we rise the edit counter bar, only "three months" or higher type restriction is worthy to add, and "one month" might be an useless remark. And I am sure we would not like to expand the rule unnecessarily lengthy.

Thank you for following my rambling thought. Lar suggested some clear ranged requirements, but I am not ready to answer: what kind of involvement does those requirements correspond with? It's a tough question, and I think I need more time. --Aphaia 13:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

This really is a hard one (& important).

Voting - I like the idea of giving reasons a lot however I would be reluctant to see too great a period before allowing people to vote - a month would be a maximum for me. 50 edits probably ok but there are people who may be 'crats on a wiki who visit Meta quite rarely, for example, is their vote not of worth? There are so many possible "exceptions" that might be made on this and I am uncomfortable disenfranchising any sensible voter.

Admin eligibility - I agree with raising the bar however I am conscious that my usual time between activity and RfA on a wiki is around 1 month. I never planned it like that (& for anyone wondering I have no plans to become active on any other wikis for now!). I've seen people edit a lot for long period who I might not be fully comfortable with - I can think of one person who is currently not eligible who I would nominate/vote for without hesitation as I've looked at their contributions elsewhere. However raising the bar here with more questions and reasons seems good. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I consider to your "somewhere bureaucrat, here first edit" case, comparing with past actual such cases. There was a user who claimed meta had no community and he deserved adminship here on meta since he was an admin on English Wikipedia. There were a dispute on here and email and many supportive votes came from English Wikipedia. Some of those votes were their first edits. I think it ugly and painful, and do not want to see it again. The past experience says English Wikipedians tend not to consider what is argued on meta and casually cast their votes, and gone, never caring what is going on meta. I don't see any benefits from such attitude, and voting eligibility should be introduced, since those people don't care for existing discussions and don't hesitate their canvassing. --Aphaia 12:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind my "bureaucrat" was with regard to voting not admin eligibility and was merely an example. I did not suggest their first edit made them eligible - maybe I was not clear enough --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I took so, sorry if my example was not clear. The candidate filled the requirements (admin somewhere, 100 edits on each) and many votes came from somewhere and they said "this is my first edit on meta but I am a bureacurat/sysop on English Wikipedia with thousands edits". And they don't care what was argued on meta, nor giving any rationale than "he is okay". He claimed meta had no community so gave no respect but "he is okay" according to those English Wikipedia admins. So I don't agree with your argument. Being a bureaucrat doesn't mean those meta newbie cast thoughtful votes. Please see also the link I referred, thanks. --Aphaia 13:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

You are being overly precise about my generalisation - I would vote strongly against that sort of approach as you know. However bear in mind preventing people from voting may prevent oppose votes as well as support ones --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Theoretically you are right, but I haven't known informative oppose votes from those people without edit history on this project. Also I would like you to bear in mind I don't oppose them to give their opinion in general: they are invited to give their comments, and the existing community may consider. And currently we have no way to avoid this sort of approach. --Aphaia 15:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Aphaia, thanks for all your work on this issue. I followed the link you provided; I sensed some of the enwiki hubris you've written about (as another enwickipedian, I sure hope I don't come across the same way.)

Maybe it would help for someone to come up with an essay outlining what makes this community different and special from other projects. --A. B. ^(talk) 19:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your understanding, I admit I am a bit reactive in this iusse, but experiences told me their patter of behavior cannot change with discussion , anyway they don't care (imo) the meta community; their concerns might be only if he or she is their friends on their home wiki. And the discussion on this page suggests lack of involvement doesn't seem to English Wikipedia people a good cause to keep their voices, and they aren't satisfied only to comment, but insist they should vote, I think, it is a reasonable reaction for this kind of hubris and overintervention to have a written restriction to say this kind of unthoughtful actions clear "no". Regarding to the differences of sizes between two projects, as protection of their intervention, I believe barring this kind of canvassed vote is necessary. --Aphaia 04:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Admin stats

FWIW, for comparison's sake I did a quick analysis of admin experience based on the list of existing admins at Meta:Administrators. Almost all have 300 edits or more. --A. B. ^(talk) 20:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your interesting stats, A. B. I agree with you most of admins have 300 edits or more. On the other hand not every admin has 300 edits still now (though we don't know if they are re-confirmed at their next confirmation period). Also we'd like to remind those 300 edits were probably made after gaining adminship. So I am afraid "over 300 edits" for candidates would be unfairly high, since we know many of us start our activity as admin from the lower bar. So I assume the reasonable line would be between 100 and 300 .... 150 or 200? I am not sure the exact number though. Since no admin has edits less than 200, I think it might be fair to expect an candidate 200 or more edits. --Aphaia 04:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A fresh discussion may take place here --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

"other Wikimedia project"

cf. WM:RFA#HappyDog

Hi, I would like to make it sure what is consider "other Wikimedia project" in the current requirement. HappyDog is now requesting for sysopship on meta, and he is a mediawiki.org admin. Whilst mediawiki.org is not listed as "official project" of Foundation, I feel it okay because

• It is hosted by the WMF also, and serving for usability of our technical infrastructure, MediaWiki.
• Conventionally it was treated "Wikimedia project", at least once when we were very keen to this definition. We allowed people to vote from mediawiki.org in Board Elections, and this year one vote was cast from there.

Thoughts? --Aphaia 16:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, especially since MetaWiki and MediaWiki are so interlinked. Majorly (talk) 17:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Majorly, I think it certainly falls within the confines of the Foundation, even if it isn't an "official" sister site like Commons or Wikinews. EVula // talk // 17:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree, mediawiki.org is close enough. One of the determining factors should be if they are feeding information from here (such as global notices, spam lists, interwiki list). xaosflux ^Talk 05:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Archival

Who exactly is in charge of the archival of the RFAs? It is not being done. AnonymousDissident 10:40, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is "in charge", (as per how things are done on most wikis) but on many other wikis whoever closes and possibly promotes (typically one of the bureaucrats, certainly if it's a promotion) does it. I'll take a look to see if there are some loose ends there later today :) ++Lar: t/c 13:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The temporary requests should stay till the durations end. I normally archive a few days after it ends. And, anyone can :) Majorly (talk) 13:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Subpages for votes

I've noticed the page can get very large, and often people are archiving RFAs without actually adding them to the archive, which means they're lost in the page history. I propose we start using subpages for RFAs and transclude them on. This way it will be easier to archive the requests, and it will keep the main RFA page easier to track. Thoughts? Majorly (talk) 01:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea! I actually thought the same thing the other week. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • Wikipedia)} 02:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I remember being surprised that this wasn't the case for RfAs here, given my experiences at Wikipedia and Commons. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Hm, it's not necessary for such a small project, but it won't hurt either. So why not. --Thogo (talk) 17:52, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm also in favour of this idea as it would make it easier to look at how individual requests progress as the related edits will be in the page history without other requests. Adambro 17:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Subpages make it WAY easier to archive things, so that would be a good move. Also, to help reduce forgetting important bits, I suggest changing MediaWiki:Makesysoptext to give the instructions for what needs doing at the time of a promotion, the way commons:MediaWiki:Makesysoptext does. There is stuff there now, but not much. ++Lar: t/c 12:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow the Commons one is big! Yeah, it could do with more text here. We don't have our own "congratulations" template, but perhaps one could be made. Majorly (talk) 13:09, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah .... big and instructive. However could we rely on our new sysops to update related documents and make the messages (both for b'crats and for sysops themselves) more concise ... since we're sure they know already what sysops are? --Aphaia 14:28, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

We can crib from the welcome template as we like, what I like about that one is that it's multilingual. What I don't like is that it doesn't quite subst right, you get warned about no edit summary if you save it as a new section. :) I'll take a cut at beefing up our [[MediaWiki:Makesysoptext]} if I get a chance and someone doesn't beat me to it. If we ask the new sysops to do some of the work (update documents/lists etc), we should put that into the welcome template :). We can beef up now and then once we have a template pull back a bit. ++Lar: t/c 16:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

• Discussion here regarding possible new archiving system. Thanks. Majorly (talk) 23:08, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

New archive system proposal

It appears that now we're using subpages for RFAs, I think we need a better archival system. I think monthly pages are insufficient for the task, and we should do as is done on enwiki, where each subpage is transcluded, then later broken down into smaller (yearly?) lists. At the moment, some of the month archives hold only one small RFA, which I think is pretty pointless. I can put all the old requests into their own subpages if needs be, and the old archives can be deleted. Thoughts ? Majorly (talk) 23:05, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense. See also (for additional ideas) how Commons does it: Commons:Administrators/Archive which is a list of links to the individual pages. It's all on one page. I had a todo at some point in the distant past to do a better job of organizing the page using tables but this seems to be working so I was able to get away with letting that slide :) . Everything is there, admins, bots, 'crats. and CUs (Commons has no oversighters as of yet) but it seems to work as well. The one deadminship Commons had is also in there. ++Lar: t/c 00:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Makesysoptext

Has been enhanced from commons. Not everything is the same of course, so there may be some bobbles in what I did. Please review/comment/correct. I also created Template:AdminWelcome/en and Template:AdminWelcome/lang (the selector to allow other langs to be viewed). Once we are happy with the ../en version of the welcome template, we can create other langs. Comments on tnat also welcome. Both of these may be subject to a bit of change if the archiving strategy changes a bit. But they should be good to go. We have a candidate closing out fairly shortly to try this new stuff on :) ++Lar: t/c 03:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Admin eligibility criteria on Meta

This section has been moved to a sub page devoted to this & voter requirements here --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)