Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

Requests for adminship and bureaucratship update

RfA candidate	S	O	N	S %	Status	Ending (UTC)	Time left	Dups?	Report
Elli	0	0	0	0	Discussion	16:53, 7 June 2024	5 days, 13 hours	no	report

Current time is 03:01, 2 June 2024 (UTC). —

Recently closed RfAs and RfBs ()

Candidate	Type	Result	Date of close	Tally
				S	O	N	%
DreamRimmer	RfA	Withdrawn by candidate	31 May 2024	45	43	14	51
Numberguy6	RfA	Closed per WP:SNOW	27 May 2024	5	23	2	18
ToadetteEdit	RfA	Closed per WP:NOTNOW	30 Apr 2024	0	0	0	0

Lack of candidates

I've been really struggling to find any suitable RfA candidates recently. Over the past fortnight, I've looked closely at about 50 established editors to see if any of them could pass RfA. The only one that I thought had any decent chance of passing right now flat out declined immediately claiming "inexperience" and wasn't interested in persuading otherwise.

A couple of highlights:

• An editor who has multiple GAs, regularly deals with vandalism, very good AfD stats, civil and polite - but has only been on Wikipedia for five months and has 6,000 edits.
• An editor with a good mix of content and NPP work, committed to the project, but has civility issues.
• A longstanding editor who has all the right skills, but made the mistake of dragging a popular editor to ANI for incivility early in their wiki-career, which has stuck.
• A very established editor with lots of FAs and GAs, good understanding of policy, but AfD stats are a bit hit and miss.
• An editor with a suitable mix of skills and experience who looks good on paper but has engaged in a small amount of paid editing (at least they're up front about it!)

All of these might pass RfA, depending on who turns up. But I don't want to put forward a candidate who's chances are hit-and-miss, as if it fails they'll get disgruntled and it'll look bad on me. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:41, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

You can try discussing it with them first. I recently nominated a failed candidate (they had a content policy challenge recently that I didn't know about, which I think was what derailed them) - other than that I let them know that they were not a shoe-in, but someone that I thought otherwise had a decent chance to pass, but to only bother if not passing wouldn't leave them disgruntled. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:49, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Some thoughts about those descriptors.

1. We got serious about Firefly after about 9 months of activity and I was willing to run him then. We decided to wait for 12 months which I think was the right decision. But given how his RfA went he'd have stood a reasonable chance then too. But waiting feels like a relatively low cost to pay given the time that would be required to wait after a failed RfA.
2. The civility is probably a DQ
3. I don't know what "has stuck" means but if this person has shown themselves to be genuinely helpful to others I think they could still pass. They would just need to be comfortable not passing with near unanimity like most recent passes.
4. Maybe not a problem if they don't want to close deletion discussions. If they're going to work say AIV and have good stats there, I think that candidate could be viable.
5. I suspect the paid editing would be a deal breaker too.

Also I have no qualms about putting up a candidate whose variance I see as high, as long as they know what they're getting into - it's baked into my checklist. I'm in the midst of vetting such a candidate now and they've indicated that they're OK with a potentially rough RfA. I don't know where this vet will end (trying to be extra thorough given what I know) but I think as long as everyone is aware of what might happen it's ok ethically/morally to put them forward. After all if I think they're a good admin I have to be willing to trust their judgement about that. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:08, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: "has stuck" is an Anglocism which in this context means, X earned a reputation that they have been unable to throw off over the years; opposite of teflon, perhaps  :) SN54129 14:21, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Serial Number 54129. I understand the wording but am not sure what it really means in terms of a wiki reputation. I perhaps should have said "What "has stuck" means will matter a great deal in the specifics for this instance but if..." Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:38, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I see. You mean, what it is that has stuck not just the sticking of the stickiness in the first place? Cheers, SN54129 14:44, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I am glad I waited. As Barkeep said, a small "price" for a lower variance. I would recommend that Ritchie's first candidate wait until they hit ~12mo activity, at which point if they keep up the good work they seem to be doing from the description here, they should pass with no issue. Candidate 4 should be fine - I wonder how many voters look at AfD stats these days. Mine is something like 95% delete, with a ~90% accuracy. I could very easily have gotten a "only pile-on votes at AfD, all deletes, deletionist!" vote, but... didn't. firefly ( t · c ) 15:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Afd stats tool

Tracked in github.com
Issue #13

There are also some issues with the AfD tools, at least in my experience, as it's only showing up AfD's I've started rather than all my votes. I agree with firefly's thoughts on the candidates. I also think that candidate 3 should be alright if its long ago. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 16:33, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@A. C. Santacruz: A box probably needs unchecking. You can also, for example, enter the name of your previous account to show the collective total number of nominations made with both. It's an excellent, and colourful, tool! SN54129 18:37, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I definitely agree it's very useful, SN54129. I didn't check the box, though, see [1]. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 19:03, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

This is a bug that results from the underscores in your signature (i.e., User:A._C._Santacruz). I have reported the issue in GitHub: https://github.com/enterprisey/afdstats/issues/13. DanCherek (talk) 22:35, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

That's interesting, nice catch DanCherek! A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:51, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

fixed Enterprisey (talk!) 00:03, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Look at what just unfolded with the most recent RFA and tell me why any editor would want to willingly put themselves through that level of scrutiny. We come back once again to the reason why there was so much dissatisfaction with the RFA reform. It seems like the principle of "you need a thick skin to be an admin" is a blank check to be as rude and nitpicky as possible to someone who chooses to run the gauntlet. WaltCip-(talk) 17:24, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I wish I could say that Sdrqaz's Ifnord's RfA was a blatant disaster the community will hopefully learn from, but I can already tell nothing will ever change. casualdejekyll 14:05, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@Casualdejekyll, what makes you say that? Enterprisey (talk!) 18:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Brain burnt. Meant to say Ifnord but mixed up the past two RfAs. I was referring to the whole feeding him to the lions thing that went on. I regret opposing to be honest. It seems to demonstrate the problem that perfectly suitable candidates are opposed over minor issues. casualdejekyll 19:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Many people withdraw their RfA early as they have a lot of opposes and they know for sure that they won't succeed, so also it could be a concern (only have a 90% chance to pass--> run; 70-90% --> NOTQUITEYET.) Thingofme (talk) 14:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I must say, everyone I've contacted recently have been not interested. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:18, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

• I tend to err on the side of caution when offering nominations; and even so, in slightly under three years of hunting for candidates, about 80% of people I have approached have declined, of about 25-30. I think it's fair to say that of late, it's been more common for people to not want adminship, sometimes, but not always because they think it's too much responsibility. Previously, a lot of negative responses mentioned the reputation of RFA. Perhaps this is a good thing; if we can sound the "we need more admins" alarm loud enough, some of these folks may change their minds. Vanamonde (Talk) 01:01, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Some reasons not to run for adminship

As someone who has a previous failed RfA in the Way Back When at this point, I thought I'd offer my own thoughts as to why I'd be reluctant to run again (I may have brought up some or all of this in prior discussions):

1. Almost all of my work here is gnome-work and I like feeling that I'm making a difference without investing a significant amount of time/effort. Why do I need the tools?
2. I'm not interested in content creation, and I have every reason to believe that will be held against me even if as an admin I wouldn't focus on areas in which content creation was a primary concern.
3. I don't know where more admins are especially needed, much less whether those are areas where I would be interested in focusing my attention, much less whether I'd be any good at assisting in those areas (Disclaimer - I haven't done my research lately either). There's not really an "admin help wanted here" list that I've seen, nor have I seen a good listing of "these are places where you might help out if you're an admin". If it's on me to think "I want to be an admin so I can help out in area X", then that's a valid approach, but I think then you're missing out on people who might be willing to help and good at doing so if only they knew what their options were.
4. As a non-admin, while I certainly try to be civil and such, I don't make any real effort to keep myself entirely beyond reproach...but from what I've seen at RfA, even one rude comment can spawn multiple objections, and I don't trust that someone reviewing my past interactions won't find something they could jump on, no matter how minor I perceived it to be. There's an argument that the best thing you can do to become an admin is not engage with anyone substantively prior to your RfA, and, if that's true, I think that's a troubling commentary on the process.
5. I don't believe I'm especially well-known here (perhaps mostly at WT:FILM), and as such, if I did run, I could see people being reluctant to support me because I'm not well-known, people I've had negative interactions with pouncing on it (I can think of one name without even trying) and calling out, as I noted above, things I felt were pretty minor as a non-admin but sufficient to compromise an RfA.
6. I've heard it said that I'm less likely to ever become an admin because I have a template on my user page in which I express interest in potentially becoming an admin. If that's the case, then I think it's terrible that a) that template even exists, and b) that people would both complain about a lack of admins and discard people who expressed interest in being an admin.

Anyway, I didn't see this conversation having much discussion as to why people don't want to go through RfA beyond the usually-mentioned reasons (perhaps there need to be more 'exit interviews'?), so I thought I'd do a bit of a deeper dive. Hope this is helpful! DonIago (talk) 04:05, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Very reasonable points, but I wouldn't worry about #5 (not being well-known) at all. Also #6 (template) shouldn't be too much of a problem either (especially if you remove it now....and wait a bit). Johnbod (talk) 05:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, Doniago, to echo Johnbod's point, there is a converse to your point #5; speaking as someone who is probably too well known, I can say that having a low profile is probably a bonus. In fact, pace the successful candidates, I'd say that description has probably applied to the majority of the last couple of years, at least. SN54129 19:16, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! #5 is a pretty mild concern. #6 though...why should I have to remove a template saying that I may be interested in being an admin if in fact I may be interested in being an admin? Sure, it's difficult to be an admin without 'politics' becoming a factor (I imagine), but the whole idea that I improve my odds of becoming an admin if I suppress evidence that I'm interested in becoming an admin (I wonder whether someone would call that out during an RfA...) kind of rubs me the wrong way, especially given that we're just talking about a userpage template versus my canvassing or such. DonIago (talk) 05:27, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree that being unknown is no barrier to running. I've had editors I've ended up nominating who were completely unknown to me before their name was brought my way who did very well. That said, I do think having a group of editors who really likes you is an advantage. In looking at our last three successful candidates I think Blablubbs was better known than Firefly who was better known than Modussiccandi and that's why you see their support totals in that order. Similarly I think the difference in CaptainEek's incredibly close RfA were the people who knew and trusted them from their experience together. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the userbox, it is a point that means little without context. On the user page of an editor with a demonstrated lack of maturity and an over-eagerness to act beyond one's capability, it suggests to me a view that adminship is something more akin to an achievement in a video game than license to perform (decidedly unglamorous) back-end website maintenance. On the user page of a generally well-spoken and thoughtful editor who is otherwise demonstrably mature, it suggests to me that such an editor is open to the role if approached (and, indeed, it places a category that may be useful for prospective nominators to find suitable candidates). You will find that a small but vocal minority hold the view that an affirmative desire to become an administrator is "prima facie" evidence of hat-collecting. I think probably the category ought be renamed from "Wikipedia administrator hopefuls" to "Wikipedia editors interested in becoming an administrator" or something similar and that "someday" (which seems needlessly whimsical to me) ought be dropped from the userbox, or at least replaced with something more objective and forthright, like "may consider the role in the future" so as to allow folks to set fort their potential interest in a more professional manner. Tyrol5 ▸ [talk] 00:43, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Incidentally, there is a slight variation on the userbox you display, something like, "This user is not an administrator but would like to be one someday", rather than "might like to be one someday". My sense is the former evokes a stronger reaction of suspicion, while the latter, which you've chosen, strikes me as somewhat more deliberative. Your mileage may vary, of course. Tyrol5 ▸ [talk] 00:50, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I honestly can't recall whether I noticed that there were two different versions at the time I chose the one on my page, or whether the other one even existed at the time, but personally I'd never say I would like to be an admin versus I might like to be an admin, as likely evidenced by the other things I've said in this thread. It's interesting to me that the "would" template does include a warning about the potential negative repercussions of applying it, while the "might" template doesn't include such a warning; I wonder whether it should, or whether the "might" template is so much less concerning that one isn't merited for it? DonIago (talk) 01:35, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

You're right, and I very vaguely recall the discussion that led to that note of caution. I'm indifferent. My general sense is that an editor with the clue of someone who might be a good candidate at RFA would probably understand that such a user box might ruffle a few feathers and be able to assess it on its merits. But I'm cognizant of not wanting to "hide the ball" either. Seems to me the better solution is a rewording of the user box and cat, or the selection of a different user box entirely, if one wished to indicate their potential interest on their user page. "Would like to be one someday" or "might like to be one someday" makes it sound like an aspiration to be (or a tentative interest in being) a firefighter or an astronaut or something. "Category:Wikipedia administrator hopefuls" is an offputtingly juvenile title for an otherwise useful category. Tyrol5 ▸ [talk] 20:55, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Gnomes can definitely pass RFA, but you need some content contributions. At least enough to demonstrate you know how to do an inline cite to reliable sources. Someone with just a DYK is unlikely to pass unanimously, but we don't require unanimous support. I wouldn't worry about one rude comment if it isn't recent, people do hold admins, and especially candidates for adminship to high standards, but an oppose based on a comment from over a year ago isn't likely to derail an RFA unless others can show that there is a pattern that still persists. If the rudeness didn't rise to the level that merited a block then I'd remind you that even formerly blocked candidates can pass if the block is from over a year ago and their behaviour has changed. !voters do like to see some indication that you are getting involved in an area where tools are useful, reporting vandals etc. If you haven't done any content contributions I'd suggest getting involved at AFD - adding references to articles worth Keeping and voting delete or merge if you can't find sufficient sources for us to have an article. ϢereSpielChequers 07:19, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts!

I should say upfront that this section isn't intended as a 'convince me to run for RfA again' argument. I wouldn't even consider self-nominating, and when an admin approached me about potentially running in 2020, in the end we both felt it likely wouldn't work out well.

If adding cites to reliable sources is generally considered sufficient content creation, then sure, I've done that (I'm pretty sure any editor with almost 95K edits has at some point), but I've seen objections on the basis that an editor hadn't written articles, and while I'd like to believe I'm a proficient editor, writing articles isn't one of my areas of interest.

I honestly have no idea how many of my (recent) past comments might objectively be considered rude or might bite me in the butt if I did run for RfA again. I'd like to think I'm more terse and to-the-point than rude, but I freely admit others might feel differently, and I'm not even saying they'd necessarily be wrong to feel that way. OTOH, I've seen many an admin act in ways that left me a bit gobsmacked...which raises other questions, but I won't get into that here.

I do have zero blocks! :)

I've had some involvement at AfD (especially CfD) including nominations, but I wouldn't count myself as a 'regular' at such, though I think I did precipitate a sea change in at least one categorization schema, if that would count for anything. Indeed, I'd say that contributing to policies/guidelines in areas where I have interest is one of my stronger suits...but you don't need the tools to do that, either.

In the end, I think there's some cognitive dissonance between the community 'requirements' to become an admin and the actual skillset needed to be a competent admin, and it's my perception that the desires/expectations that the community places upon those who wish to be admins are frustrating efforts to elevate those who might be perfectly competent admins but aren't rising to the level needed to pass muster by the community. DonIago (talk) 12:53, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• I don't want to run because if I wanted to subject myself to a week of abusive screaming about what a horrible person I am, I get enough of that at AfD. Reyk _YO! 19:46, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  My sentiments are similar. Cleaning up after petty ego-tripping is a part of this place that I don't like. Why should I create an opportunity for more of it, and at my own expense? Even if I felt confident that I could commit the time to do admin things (which is less and less true), I have no inclination to subject myself to that. XOR'easter (talk) 03:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

  This is contrary to the spirit WP:NOTCOMPULSORY... another of Wikipedia's various documents that earnestly document something other than Wikipedia as it actually socially functions (or dysfunctions). Yes indeed, it does seem that the expectation is more and more that to pass RfA it's necessary to do a ton of article writing, a ton of gnomery, to commit to keeping both of those up after being enmopped and to commit to an additional workrate of admin-only tasks. All while having the patience of a plaster saint, and the comms strategy of a politician spending their entire term running for re-election. And if by some miracle a candidate does pass such scrutiny, then subsequently slacks off on any of the above, it's taken as a rationale for why admin standards need to be even higher, in some cases to the point of ending up WP:POINTy. This is not the way to get healthy! 109.255.211.6 (talk) 06:32, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Where are admins needed: Category:Administrative backlog. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

It's good that there's a category for it, but that doesn't describe the kind of help that's needed or give any indicator as to how perennial those backlogs are. There's also the question of whether people who might be interested in being admins and helping with those backlogs are aware that that category exists. DonIago (talk) 12:49, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, it is the very first bullet under Wikipedia:Administrators#Places_where_administrators_in_particular_can_assist. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:07, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure that provides as much depth as might be desirable for potential admins, but fair enough. As I mentioned in my OP, I hadn't really looked into it of late. DonIago (talk) 13:29, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Point #6 genuinely baffles me. Is earnest enjoyment of Wikipedia and open appreciation of what it strives for now a bad thing? Is it really that hard to imagine that not everything is about collecting trophies? I refuse to bikeshed the precise wording of that infobox; treating it as a disqualification is just silly. XOR'easter (talk) 16:43, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

For me there's a #7: I don't want a specific userright that is bundled with the mop by default (CRASH). —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 19:28, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Just because it's bundled doesn't mean that you have to use it. There are an awful lot of rights in the admin bundle, and there are several there that I'm certain that I've never used - such as: Create short URLs; Delete tags from the database; Forcibly create a local account for a global account; Import pages from other wikis; Reset failed or transcoded videos so they are inserted into the job queue again; Revert all changes by a given edit filter; Set user's mentor; View information about the current transcode activity; and others. Will I get de-sysopped for not using those? I hope that better grounds could be found. Will I care if they're removed from the bundle? No. But I do care that some of these were removed from the bundle a few years back, some of which I had previously used without causing problems for anybody. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:09, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I have an existential gripe with PC writ large, to the extent I don't want the CRASH badge, full stop, even if I don't use it. In fact, that was the reason why I was deopped in 2010. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 22:16, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

As I understand it, from a quick look at the response to two proposals in the previous RfC there's strong opposition to the idea of any sort of 'admin, junior grade' sort of splitting. Anything that's framed that way seems a long way from ever happening. One might argue that a self-denying ordinance in which one stands in a full, normal RfA, but then voluntarily asks for certain rights to be removed could be different. But first there would have to be agreement to allow that, then the software would have to be tweaked for it to happen, and at that point there might be the concern that de facto it becomes the same thing. "Optional questions to the candidate: #umpteen. Will the candidate agree to my quixotic and whimsical [[User:MeMyself/Admin Criteria]] which requires them to give up some of the rights as I don't think they're up to using them," So I suspect that's still likely not to be a flier. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 03:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

That doesn't apply here because it is possible to not be an admin and still have a CRASH badge. That RfC was about unbundling the core parts of the admin userright; this is a peripheral one that has always been available sans mop. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 06:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Wait, what is a CRASH badge and what does it have to do with PC protection? @Jéské Couriano casualdejekyll 22:40, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Don't ask... Enterprisey (talk!) 20:35, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

RfA edit count statistics

Edit counts of successful RfA candidates over time.

Successful and unsuccessful RfAs

At my recently-closed RfA, 3PPYB6 asked the following question (which sparked some further discussion in the "General comments" section):

In recent years, our RfA processes have become increasingly stringent. You are currently an editor with less than 10,000 edits. Currently, any editor with less than 15,000 or 20,000 edits would generally be doomed to fail. What are your thoughts on this and how would you address the Wikipedia community about this issue?

I was curious to what degree the data on recent RfAs would support the premise of this question. I had previously come across this graphic at WP:RFA Guide showing edit counts for successful RfAs. Unfortunately, it's now more than a full decade out of date! Also, since averages are sensitive to outliers, it's probably not a good aggregation to use here. So I whipped up an updated graphic (right). It shows an individual data point for each RfA, plus a linear regression line of fit (which doesn't look linear because the y-axis is on a log scale).

A few observations:

• My candidacy (not shown in the graphic, since it was made before my RfA closed) was the first successful one from an editor with <10k edits since GoldenRing, who had a successful RfA in April 2017 with around 2,400 edits.
  • That RfA ended with a vote count of 178/88/14 and a ctrl+f for "edit count" brings up 82 results, so it seems their relatively low edit count was a significant point of contention.
• Between GoldenRing's candidacy and mine, there were 11 other completed RfAs from candidates with less than 10k edits, all unsuccessful. It's unclear to what degree edit count was a factor in those cases. (See second plot at the right which adds markers for unsuccessful candidates)
• The next most recent <10k edit successful RfA was in 2015. And in fact there are multiple such cases in 2015 and every earlier year going back to 2007, which is where my data starts.
• Since I know people will be curious (I sure was), the one really low outlier isn't an error. lustiger seth had 42 edits at the time of their successful nomination in 2008. But they also had 10,873 edits on German Wikipedia.

Overall, I think the data makes a pretty strong case for some form of "RfA inflation", especially when compared to the data from 2007 or 2008, when people were already raising the alarms about inflation. But I see it as an open question to what degree this is caused by the community turning away otherwise good candidates because of low edit counts, or if there's a selection effect where good candidates who could pass an RfA are discouraged from even attempting one because of exaggerated conventional wisdom around minimum edit counts (Barkeep49 put forward this hypothesis in response to the question quoted above, calling it "a great example of conventional wisdom about RfA that is wrong"). Since no-one at my RfA raised my low edit count as a point against me, I'm inclined to put more weight on the latter explanation. Colin M (talk) 22:01, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• This is very interesting data, thanks for compiling it Colin M. Looking through this I have two reactions: a comment/question and a suggestion. The comment/question is whether the regression line log-scaled the edit counts? I'd assume not, given the shape of the regression line. You are correct that averages are sensitive to outliers, but linear regressions are also sensitive to outliers in the form of high-leverage points. Consider, for example, the single candidate with over a million edits. It looks like the next closest editor had only a few hundred thousand, and most of the successful candidates cluster an entire order of magnitude lower, between 10k and 100k. In log-space (like the graphs), those high-magnitude observations are closer together and so have less influence on the trajectory of the regression line. It also makes intuitive sense distributionally and intuitively. With regards to the distribution, the data is probably not normally distributed, but instead is log-normal. This is a property of many time-growth phenomena, and log transformations are recommended when working with log-normal data. The log transformation also makes sense intuitively given what we know about RfA. If we add 9k edits onto someone with 100k edits, the difference is unlikely to change much, but add 9k edits onto someone with 1k edits and that could flip the whole thing. In without log-trasformation, those 9k edits are treated the same regardless of where they are, but by log transforming the data we can capture the "diminishing returns" aspect of edit count.
  As for the suggestion, if you want to continue with this work, I think larger regression models would be interesting. A linear regression predicting number of edits by a successful RfA candidate predicted by year of candidacy but also age of account would be an interesting next step and would allow us to get a sense of the relative contribution of both. A more complicated model, but probably very insightful, would be a logistic regression predicting RfA success based on edit count, year of candidacy, age of account, and their interactions. The effect sizes and significance of effects would help clarify what factors have been most influential. You may not have that data or may not be interested in taking that up given your new wikipedia-related time sink (congrats), but I always love seeing more data. Thanks again for sharing this and hopefully it prompts further insights. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:57, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

No, the regression was not applied to the log-scaled counts, and so you're absolutely right that it's not very informative. But the graphing library I was using added it by default, and I didn't bother to suppress it. Maybe when I generate an updated version with an added dot for my RfA, I'll just make it a simple scatter plot. Or it might be more useful to replace the regression line with a line tracking the median edit count for each year. (By the way, if anyone else wants to play with the data, for example to make their own visualizations, let me know. I'm happy to share. It has a few extra facets not shown here, such as separate counts for automated vs. non-automated edits.) Colin M (talk) 23:52, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Out of thirteen people with more than 1,000,000 edits, only five are admins - Ser Amantio di Nicolao, BD2412, Materialscientist, Bearcat and Tassedethe. Which one had passed the million before their RfA? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:29, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Requests for adminship/Ser Amantio di Nicolao Happy Editing--IAmChaos 23:38, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

While you were indeed under 10,000 edits, crucially the question stated an expectation of 15,000 - 20,000. Running even 15k as the baseline you'd see more people who've passed since GE - who is and was a bit of an anomaly in terms of edit counts. I would be curious what the chart and line of fit would look like since 2016 because I believe the reform effort that year marks a substantial change in RfA culture because of the expanded electorate it encouraged. Thanks for doing this work Colin. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, here are the number of successful RfA candidates having less than 15k edits for the last several years (denominator is total number of successful RfAs for that year):

• 2021: 0/7
• 2020: 4/17
• 2019: 3/22
• 2018: 1/10
• 2017: 4/21
• 2016: 2/16
• 2015: 3/21

(All of these were in the 10k-15k range except for 1 in 2017 (GoldenRing) and all 3 in 2015.) Colin M (talk) 23:59, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you enormously for this work, Colin. At least we have some stats now after years of begging (it's unfortunately something I don't know how to do). While they clearly depict the theoretical edit count 'bar', even if the logarithmic line is skewed by some exceptionally high edit counts, they do rely on the baggage the candidates bring with them in recent years where the vast majority of RfA are destined to pass and with healthy consensus, so let's not get too scientific about the results and how they were achieved. A count of 10 to 20K edits was nothing unusual in 2010 - 2012 and is probably more realistic than an exponentially growing bar.

A possible effect is that candidates don't come forward because they believe such a 'bar' would disqualify them. However, the sample size is so small nowadays that my thoughts are more towards a general disinterest in adminship, or the Sword of Damocles that will be hanging over them if they choose to work at the coal face. On the other hand, seeing how rare RfA are these days, they probably believe adminship to be almost unobtainable anyway. There are no indications that the trend will change. Users such as Ritchie333 who actively scout for candidates will know more, but will probably confirm the same as I did when I used to be actively looking for candidates. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

The next useful information would be a profile of the voters such as we did here, almost 11 years ago to the day. Since the 2016 reforms that increased the number of voters two or threefold, today's profile would look very different. Firstly because most RfA pass so those opposing would be very few by comparison, but more importantly it would reveal who are the most regular participants, who are admins, who are just drive-by supporters, and what their own 'qualifications' are for voting at all. That said, on Colin's RFA, for example, with the exception of around five, the participants would pass any personal criterion of mine. IIRC, Scottywong's computer ran all night to get those stats, but more modern technology would probably do it quicker. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:23, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Kudpung I'd be down to run the code if I can find it lol. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 08:46, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I have no idea, A. C. Santacruz. It was probably something he devised himself. Scottywong was quite a whizz-kid for developing useful scripts and stuff but I don't think he has the code for that any more - or the time. You'll have to see if he answers the pings. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:10, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty bogged down with university work until Summer so I might see if I can build the code then if Scotty can't in the meanwhile. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 09:39, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Scotty is definitely around. If he doesn't chime in here, ask him on his talk page. He might be able to give you some insights how he did it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:34, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

@A. C. Santacruz: I posted source code for my public tools somewhere around the time that toolserver folded (you'd have to dig through my talk page archives to find it), and many people grabbed it and ported it elsewhere. There was an RfA stats tool that was ported, but it appears that it no longer works. I dug around on my computer and found a version of the code for that tool. I'm not sure how useful it will be since it's 10+ years old, but it might have some good regex and SQL queries that you can pull out of it to make your life a lot easier. I pasted it here if you're interested. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 16:45, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

• No dispute that the minimum edit count required was inflated rapidly in the early years of RFA. However I'm not convinced that the criteria have shifted much in the last decade. Average edit count of new admins is not a good indicator of the threshold for minimum edit count requirement, as the community ages we have more and more longterm editors available to persuade to run for RFA. As for minima, many editors make a sharp distinction between manual and automated edits, four thousand edits by an FA writer might represent more work and more Wikipedia experience than 40,000 edits by someone using highly automated tools. To get a feel for minimum edit count requirements I would look at RFAs where there were opposes on this issue, and trends in RFA criteria by people who publish their own criteria. I'm pretty sure that those who would auto-oppose anyone with fewer than 10,000 edits would be an outlier, and that an otherwise excellent candidate with four thousand manual edits could still easily pass (though one with less than 2,000 edits would likely be a snow fail). ϢereSpielChequers 16:07, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

  

  Non-automated edits only.

  Since you mentioned the automated/non-automated distinction, I decided to see what the plot would look like if it were limited to non-automated edits. This time I included myself in the graph (I'm the rightmost dot, with a bit under 8k non-automated edits). Overall there still seems to be a trend of inflation, particularly of the lower end of the distribution. Successful candidates with around 4k or fewer non-automated edits are rare over the last decade, especially in recent years, though that doesn't necessarily disprove your hypothesis. (Minor caveat: This graphic excludes a small handful of editors whose edit counts were so high that the XTools API gives up on counting them. But since we're most interested in the floor rather than the ceiling, their omission shouldn't change much.) Colin M (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for that. We had one unsuccessful candidate a few years back who had over a million edits, but that was a special case. I think your chart shows that there was a change about a decade ago, and there may be a slow increase since, or it may just be an indication of the decline in the number of RFAs generally. ϢereSpielChequers 19:25, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Does lack of content contributions really matter when it comes to adminship?

Back when I ran for adminship, one of the reasons I got opposed was because of lack of serious content contributions. Back then, I didn't contribute any content and all I did was yell at people about "breaking the rules".

And over the years, I've seen other users' RFA's get opposed because of lack of substantive content contributions, without giving any other reason.

Now if you would've asked me in 2009, I would've said lack of content contributions doesn't matter, but since being unblocked in 2012 and having actually contributed content or added references to articles since then, I'd say a lack of content contributions does matter, as it's one way to tell whether a user understands what should or should not be done to a sufficient level that they're suitable for the tools. If nothing else, content contributions (whether small or substantive) demonstrate a users understanding of certain policies and guidelines, especially when it comes to BLP and copyright policies.

Even though many users (once they become admins) tend to focus more or mainly on the administrative side of the project, some of the most extensive content contributors I've seen happen to be admins. And quite a few RFA's I've seen where the nominator or co-nominators will talk about how the user they're nominating has many DYK's, GA's and FA's under their belt.

It seems the argument for not supporting an RFA unless the candidate has contributed content or contributed substantive amounts of content is if they're actually here for the project aims and/or actually dedicated enough to the project to be an admin. While patience, temperament, familiarity with community practice, clue, etc, matter too by all means, over the years, I've changed my stance when it comes to admin candidates lacking any content contributions, because I actually did start contributing content after my 2012 unblock.

What has been your observation when it comes to RFA's passing or not passing based on content contributions? —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 17:53, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

It depends on the candidate. The more accomplished you are in other areas the less you absolutely need content creation in order to pass. The more you do work that requires a lot of deletion of stuff the more you need content creation. But also you can run effectively as a content creator these days even if you don't have a ton of FA/GAs to your name. Good content work is an easy way to assure the community that you can be trusted with the tools and that is ultimately what it's about - can you get the community to trust you or not. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:02, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Did you happen to read the section immediately above this one? It's got lots of data and discussions thereof on this very topic... --Jayron32 18:35, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

That is a great section but edit counts is a completely seperate topic from content creation. People accumulate edits at very different rates including temperaments (do you do many small edits or fewer larger ones) and areas of work (countervandalism editors will generally have more edits than other profiles). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:39, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit counts is the only way we really have to quantify and get data on content creation. There's not a really convenient metric to go by otherwise. --Jayron32 18:42, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I can think of quite a few metrics, many of which get mentioned at RfAs. Number of FAs, FLs, and GAs. Number of new articles created. Number of articles created that have been deleted. Average edit change in bytes. Even % of edits to mainspace. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:24, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

My essay explains the reasons in depth. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:46, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Very well put together essay :) —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 18:54, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

It's also why we have a number of admins who were, are and will remain, content creators par excellence yet hardly dip a toe into admin work. Happy Days! SN54129 19:03, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I think you're spot on when you say that "it's one way to tell whether a user understands what should or should not be done to a sufficient level that they're suitable for the tools." That is the reason that content contributions are usually considered important. In the absence of extensive content contributions, a candidate wishing to be successful at RfA will need to provide evidence to demonstrate their understanding in different ways. Showing extensive content contributions is the easiest (and most standard) way of demonstrating this; other ways of demonstrating it are more difficult and will require a bit of creativity to effectively communicate. I was not (and am still not) an extensive content contributor when I passed my RfA. But, I did have extensive experience in all of the various deletion forums, new page patrolling, and I had created a number of tools and bots that provided valuable services. That seemed to be enough to convince most people that I at least kinda knew what I was doing and probably wouldn't do anything extremely dumb. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 19:29, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

If an editor doesn't have content experience, then they don't have experience participating in (and resolving) content disputes, and if they don't have content dispute experience as a participant, then they won't be able to help resolve content disputes as an uninvolved admin. They won't know who to block, when to protect a page, or when to delete a page. They won't know what to do when faced with an edit war if they've never had someone revert them (or had to revert someone). If they've never participated in a contentious RFC or talk page discussion over some content issue, they won't know the difference between a normal content dispute and bludgeoning, POV pushing, misrepresenting sources (vs. just a good-faith difference in interpretation of sources), or other types of disruption. They can't judge consensus if they've never participated in reaching consensus. "Content experience" means a lot of different things--it's not just creating articles from scratch or having a certain number of FAs--but what Ritchie writes in his essay about "front line experience" is exactly on point. In my experience, there is a direct 1:1 correlation between how good a particular admin is at resolving a content dispute, and how much content experience that admin has. Levivich 19:40, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I have been around since 2018 and I have participated in a few RfAs. I never did oppose someone for lack of content contributions, but it was something I kept in mind and I used to have a section in my RfA criteria about it [2]. My reasoning involved trusting someone with the autopatrolled right, since it used to be bundled automatically with the admin toolkit. Admins can still technically assign the rights to themselves, so I can see why someone would still find content creation relevant. Ultimately, we are here to build an encyclopedia, so there's that, too. I also agree with the general sentiment of Ritchie333's essay and Levivich's comment above. Clovermoss (talk) 19:45, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

You should be an admin btw Ymblanter (talk) 13:16, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Reading that was surprising. I'm curious about what prompted you to say that. But there are definitely things I would like to be more confident in and have much more experience in before I would even consider running for RfA. It's not a never, but again, definitely not soon. There are other concerns I have as well, to be completely honest. Clovermoss (talk) 14:50, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

There are a lot of people who do good work for the project, both on the writing and maintenance side, but don't particularly want to be admins. I recognise this group exists, and it's a bit of balance act to convince someone who doesn't want to be an admin, that actually they do. In your case, Clovermoss, I would only get involved in the maintenance side if it's something that particularly interests you; nobody should complain if you just stick to content. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:56, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

I've never really been just someone whose just focused on content. My comments were focused on that because the thread was about whether admins need to have experience with content creation and I thought I'd chime in with my thoughts. Most of my edits in mainspace are relatively gnomish in nature, even if I've technically created enough articles to have autopatrolled. I wrote a GA once, but most of my other content contributions are a cited paragraph here or there.

I already have experience in the maintenance-related areas of the project. In my opinion, not enough to justify running for RfA and not enough to make certain judgement calls. So, in my mind, I'm a WP:NOTQUITEYET. I also have some other concerns that would make me hesistant to run. Clovermoss (talk) 15:27, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Not all admins need to make all judgement calls. I'm not trying to peer pressure you into running, as your other concerns or lack of want are probably well-justified, but thought I'd point that out. — Ixtal ⁂ (talk) 16:06, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

• I agree that the reason we're collectively here is to create content. I consider my meager collection of 6 GA articles to be a more important contribution to the encyclopedia than the 1000's of blocks or page deletions I've done. For some things that an admin does, having a good grounding in content is important. Anything that touches WP:N or WP:V for example. Many of the WP:CSD, and a lot of WP:AfD. But, a lot of stuff is more technical. I don't need to know anything about creating content to recognize blatant vandalism. Or to be an effective sock-hunter at WP:SPI. Much the same is true of the folks who keep the system running. If you're writing front-end code for editors, skins, or citation tools, you'd better have lots of experience producing content, because how else will you know if what you're writing fills the needs of content producers? But there's also a need for people who know about operating systems, databases, routers, and traffic management. One size does not fit all. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:35, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

How to ask an optional question?

In Special:Diff/1084614762, I pondered over the instruction to "Add your question above this comment", which seemed rather odd, but I went along with it. But that was obviously not the right thing to do because my question is now out of order. Rather than try and fix it myself and possibly make things worse, could somebody who understands better how RfAs are formatted just Do The Right Thing for me here? Is the instruction in the comment just wrong? -- RoySmith (talk) 15:12, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

I have fixed it. The problem here is on me because I didn't follow instructions when adding my optional question which was the first one and then everyone (reasonably) followed my lead. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:41, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit summary usage?

I just noticed that a standard part of the RfA boilerplate is a link to the Edit summary usage for the candidate. Why? Are we really evaluating candidates on how often they use edit summaries? Can we lose this? -- RoySmith (talk) 20:20, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

there have been opposes/neutrals based on this in the past I think. But this definitely comes up in ORCP. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:32, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

It's one way to see how much an editor communicates with others. Given that it's just a rough measure (simple counting stats can't tell you the effectiveness of the edit summaries), my impression is that it's used as a quick, basic sanity check. isaacl (talk) 22:00, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Note that mobile replies in discussions do not even allow you to give an edit summary, so editors that use mobile a lot appear to have lower edsums. Not that the difference would disqualify anyone, really, but it is a rougher measure than desktop-only editors realize. — Ixtal ⁂ (talk) 22:03, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

It's sad that not only do we have editcountitis, we also have editsummarycountitis. I just checked; my percentage is 98%. The vast majority of my edit summaries are generated automatically by scripts. Of those that aren't, the majority are boilerplate like "fix". When there's something worth saying, I'll say it. If we're actually getting opposes at RfA based on low edit summary percentages, those people are not doing a good job of evaluating candidates and we shouldn't be encouraging them. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:23, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

My feeling is that only a value very near zero would raise questions. I was going to mention the prevalence boilerplate edit summaries in my previous comment but forgot. I think people are well aware of them though and so aren't going to distinguish between different percentages to any great degree. isaacl (talk) 22:32, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

For an example where edit summaries were considered somewhat important, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hawkeye7 3. —Kusma (talk) 22:37, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Gaaah. That's exactly what I'm on about. That kind of stuff is exactly what has given RfA a bad name. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:51, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

My apologies; I clearly forgot about the discussion in this request for administrative privileges. I know my views on edit summaries are in the minority (I find them useful and provide them in all namespaces), so perhaps this bias is causing me to underestimate the number of people who look at this metric. isaacl (talk) 22:53, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

My RfA as well had some opposition based on edit summaries. I'm not sure about what percent I was at at the time, probably around the 60-70% range. I'm going to be completely honest, I still don't see the importance of leaving them (even though I mostly do), but then again I never did things like vandal patrol so I dunno. ansh.666 07:28, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

This was introduced more than 15 years ago, and was part of a cultural change towards more edit summary usage in general. As it is linked from the edit counter, I don't think the extra link from the RfA is really needed anymore. It is less potentially harmful than the "AfD stats" link though. —Kusma (talk) 22:20, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

RfC on display of vote totals

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Withdrawing proposal. Thanks everyone for your thoughtful rationales. Enjoy the rest of the week and good luck editing ^u^ — Ixtal ⁂ (talk) 12:18, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

---

Should information about the vote distribution of RfAs in progress be displayed at WP:RFA? — Ixtal ⁂ (talk) 22:16, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Examples

With vote distribution information (current):

RfA candidate	S	O	N	S%	Status	Ending (UTC)	Time left	Dups?	Report
Example	37	2	3	94	Ongoing	00:00, 1 January 2000	1 day, 1 hour	No	report

Without:

RfA candidate	Total votes	Status	Ending (UTC)	Time left	Dups?	Report
Example	42	Ongoing	00:00, 1 January 2000	1 day, 1 hour	No	report

Survey

• No, as proposer - I think it influences editors before they read the nomination and Q&A, so while I think it is important that other people's votes are public and displayed on the request page, we should try and avoid the subconscious effect the vote distribution has on editors that haven't yet read the nomination. Editors should be voting as much as possible by their own standards and be encouraged to do their own due diligence rather than bandwagon, and I think that being shown the vote distribution before even being able to open the request is a minor detriment to RfXs. I understand this is a minor change and not some ground-shaking improvement on the RfA process, but I think it worth proposing. The vote tally inside the request page is very small and a bit out of sight, which makes it so that those that do not want to read it don't have to, so I think leaving that there is alright. — Ixtal ⁂ (talk) 22:16, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
• Yes – after I participate in an RfA, the display makes it easy to stay updated on its progress without having to click through and scroll. I'm not convinced that there is enough of a "subconscious effect" to outweigh that convenience, though I appreciate the intentions of this proposal. DanCherek (talk) 22:21, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

  DanCherek I like using the report link for that as it gives me a chronological perspective (e.g. has someone recently uncovered some serious faults in the candidate that is swinging the RfA?). — Ixtal ⁂ (talk) 22:24, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

  One way to address your workflow is to only change the display on the RfA page, and for you to transclude the table (with the count breakdown) onto a page in your user space. isaacl (talk) 22:35, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

• Yes Let's not try to hide publicly available information to make a point. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:25, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. Careful making RFCs before you're sure that there's support for your idea. Sometimes discussion or an informal survey is better. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:11, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

  Novem Linguae An RfC ensures that the discussion stays on topic, while informal discussions on RfA proposals in my experience end up becoming an "Everyone is proposing their own ideal solution and venting about a different part of RfXs" type of discussion due to how many problems editors have identified with the RfX process. I had a particular idea I wanted to propose here and I think an RfC is an appropriate format. — Ixtal ⁂ (talk) 07:44, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

• Yes Happy Editing--IAmChaos 06:59, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Status quo. I'm willing to accept that there is a "subconscious effect" - but there is the same effect when you make one more click and look at the page. It's the first thing you see after "Voice your opinion" - the current vote total. If we want to deal with the subconscious effect - we'd need to move away from bolded, counted votes - and the community doesn't want that. Alternatively, we could move to secret ballot, more like a vote. but the community didn't want that either. In all, I understand where you are coming from, but making this change without making the others means we'd have all of the down sides (less information easily available) and none of the upsides (possibly improving the RfA process) Worm^TT(talk) 07:50, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Keep my deckchairs the way they are. If you want to do something in this direction, go further towards things like secret ballots, or at least do away with having separate sections for supportive and opposing comments. —Kusma (talk) 07:58, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Leave as is - primarily for the reason given by DanCherek. Additionally, I would imagine this is slightly more likely to nudge people towards support (we have very, very, few borderline RfAs these days) Nosebagbear (talk) 08:05, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Leave as is I am not convinced there is a priming effect that is being assumed, or even what direction the effect is supposed to be. IMO (fwiw) both the effect size and its direction are likely to vary amongst !voters (see Replication crisis#In psychology and this letter by Daniel Kahnemann for the reasons behind my skepticism). As such the proposal, while well-intentioned, doesn't address any actual issues with RFA. It just makes the process of keeping track of an RFA (mildly) more inconvenient . Abecedare (talk) 08:50, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Leave as is I use this all the time, especially following the links if there are new minority votes (like a new single oppose or single neutral) to quickly navigate to that section. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:19, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Leave as is because the consensus reflects mostly by the power of discussions, only partially by number of votes. And I could keep track new RfAs often. Thingofme (talk) 10:24, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Status quo not sure a sufficient problem has yet been identified to necessitate action. SN54129 11:05, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Leave as is While the problems with RFA are so well known at this point, it's almost cliche to bring it up, this is absolutely not one of them. This kind of change is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Utterly pointless and will have no effect on making the situation any better. --Jayron32 11:51, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Courtesy blanking of failed RFAs

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/力 2 has been blanked by the applicant, reverted and then blanked again. Personally I don't have any particular problem with this, but should it remain in Category:Unsuccessful requests for adminship. My view is that it should (i.e. just blank the rest of the page), but I don't want to edit war without discussing first. Is the a precident for this? — Voice of Clam 20:59, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

I've been reverted too, for blanking my own old RfA. My RfA is ancient history. I think the presumption should be in favor of failed candidates. (It's in the damn name, "courtesy blank." Schierbecker (talk) 22:18, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Is there an official policy on this? I'm surprised it's allowed, but it seems to be accepted practice. Looking through the archives, I see more than one argument about whether it's allowed or not. It seems like we should decide one way or the other and document it to avoid future confusion and conflict. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:51, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm also surprised. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 01:04, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I've self-reverted, un-blanking the page. I hadn't fully considered the implications of RFAs being noindexed and removed from the category. Doing that poses, at least potentially, an audit and accountability problem, and the community should weigh in on that rather than it being decided by a single editor (no matter how brilliant and handsome he is). Thanks, Clam, for bringing this up. Levivich 03:59, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

RfAs are largely discussion pages, the rules for which are at WP:TPG. If you have created an RfA page (whether to nominate somebody else or as a self-nom), you may blank it provided that nobody else has posted to it. As soon as there is a post by somebody else, WP:TPO applies (The basic rule, with exceptions outlined below, is to not edit or delete others' posts without their permission.) and so not only is blanking unacceptable, repeated blanking may be actionable as well. Whilst an RfA is in progress, it may sometimes be permissible to remove certain posts, as described in the bulleted list at TPO. It may be argued that any oppose vote is a "harmful" post, but RfA has a somewhat broad attitude to what you can say about the candidate.

In short: don't blank out an RfA even if it's old and was unsuccessful. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:36, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Thats not a great argument IMO. If it were as simple as "don't blank because of TPO", we'd never blank any discussion page. But WP:CBLANK is all about blanking discussion pages, including user talk pages and AFDs (also covered by TPO). TPO doesn't make blanking unacceptable because TPO doesn't say "never refactor" (and we refactor for various reasons, including collapsing threads, redacting, moving to talk page, etc). "Always" and "never" aren't the answers here, because CBLANK is about exceptions. I think better questions are "when" and "how" rather than "whether". Does everyone remember when a candidate had a heart attack in the middle of their RFA? No one questioned the CBLANKing then. (And don't say "IAR" because, again, the question is when and how to do IAR not whether.) Levivich 13:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

My default inclination is to preserve the record of discussion as it stands, and I fear once we start routinely blanking discussions because editors are uncomfortable with them, there'll be many to consider (other requests for permissions; contentious disputes, a lot of the incidents noticeboard). Specifically regarding requests for administrative privileges, though, I'm not that concerned about the category, since the lists of requests continue to exist and the categorization could easily be preserved, and the __NOINDEX__ keyword can be removed. isaacl (talk) 15:30, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, there's a reason why a courtesy blanking is called a courtesy blanking. One banned user's RFA got courtesy blanked, because that banned user went on to harass one of the participants off-site, so it was blanked so as to not point to the user they harassed. As to the general question as to whether or not user's should be allowed to blank their own RFA's, I could probably turn around and courtesy blank my three RFA's, because they're old, but I'd rather the community have them to see if I ever decide to run again, even though a lot of the opposes would likely be "Mythdon did X back in 2009, he should never be an admin". And even though a category just for failed RFA's (in some ways) feels a bit like gravedancing, I'd say in general RFA's should be kept un-blanked for historical reference, for one, so the community has them to look at in case that user decides to run again and so potential candidates can read through them and use them as part of a how-to with regards to running (without having to back in the page history). Even WP:CBLANK itself says that courtesy blanking "generally is not done except under rare circumstances, such as where public view of the discussion may cause harm to some person or organisation", which seems to mean that RFA discussions (or any discussion for that matter) should not be blanked just because "I want to blank it".—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 16:02, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

• Bad idea Community discussions need to remain accessible to everyone. Records exist for a reason. The current RfA has hit a speed bump in large part because an editor stumbled on a comment by the candidate on another RfA. If your not comfortable with your RfA becoming a permanent record, you probably should reconsider asking for the tools. FWIW my own RfA was absolutely brutal. It needs to be available for anyone who wants to peruse it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:13, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed! GiantSnowman 16:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I've restored the blanking, as a courtesy (hence the name) to an editor who made this request upon leaving the project. Given that the editor has retired, and that the existence and contents of the RfA remain accessible if any need to access them were to arise, the blanking is harmless. Obviously the RfA of an active editor who was seeking permissions would be a very different situation. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:18, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to uncategorize RfA pages, even if courtesy blanking might be sometimes justified. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:20, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

NYB, I think I can count on one hand the number of times you've been wrong, but I think this is one of them:

1) Retirements aren't enforced. We have a number of users, including admins, who retire and un-retire on a seemingly regular basis.

2) I'm a firm believer in accountability for everyone who runs for admin. That means keeping track of who ran when, and what the outcome was.

Having said that, I have no objection to deleting/RevDel'ing particularly problematic things. I know it's more work than to just "blank it" and move on, but that seems to me to be a far better balance between privacy and accountability. Jclemens (talk) 17:56, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

• Meh if it is old, and obviously marked as courtesy blanked such that anyone can see the discussion in the history, I don't really care. They probably should still stay in relevant categories (e.g. Category:Unsuccessful requests for adminship) though. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:02, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

  There seems to be consensus the category should be there. So I've added it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:36, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

  Confirming that I have no objection to that. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:46, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

• Anyone experienced enough with Wikipedia to have run all but the briefest of RFAs knows how to view history, so I'm having a really hard time seeing what the blanking is accomplishing besides stirring up entirely-predictable drama. —Cryptic 19:10, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

  Blanking destroys Whatlinkshere data and makes it more difficult to perform gnoming maintenance tasks (Linter fixes or other updates; I wouldn't like to have my RfA look like this and not have a readable version). Neither seem particularly useful. On the whole I think blanking should only be done in exceptional circumstances. —Kusma (talk) 19:21, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed - the RFA should be restored. GiantSnowman 20:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

  I was going to write this, Cryptic, because it's my two cents on the matter, too. Even if an RfA gets courtesy blanked (as happened at my RfA's talk)... that stops no one who already knows their away around the site. Courtesy blanking also does not magically prevents diffs from before the blanking being used again, so anyone who remembers and has the desire to go hunting will find that diff, and the courtesy blank will be at least 50% defeated. Blanking RfA and, I'd argue, their talks is dishonest and ineffective. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 21:25, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

• I don't really see the harm in the blanking. The record still exists in the page history and can be accessed by sufficiently interested editors. If this editor ever seeks RfA or other similar permissions in the future, this is an easily reversible action, and we definitely aren't going to overlook a previous RfA. Mz7 (talk) 19:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
• I had asked this question to myself years ago, when I saw a farce RfA courtesy blanked from the early days of Wikipedia. With courtesy blanking even a logged out editor can see the entire RfA in two to four clicks. Most of the editors know how to view previous versions. So what are we achieveing other than edit reverts, and discussions like these? It is the candidate who directly asks (self-nom) for scrutiny or consents to (acceptance of nom). If the RfA is not SNOW-worthy then candidate should very well know what happens at RfA. If they can't accept the RfA going sideways, then maybe they shouldn't run. Regarding "courtesy blanking", the RfA is not user's talkpage or subpage. Generally the candidate doesn't even contribute more than 5% to the RfA. I agree, the RfA is a discussion solely about the candidate, but it's either they asked for it, or consented to. If there is something harmful (outing, or some stupid vandalism, or severe profanity), it can be either reverted, rev-del'ed, or even suppressed. Also per Kusma, Red Rose, Ad Orientem, and Cryptic. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:57, 1 May 2022 (UTC)