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IPs: This is getting ridiculous

Recent interventions by IPs have been unhelpful to say the least. Is it time to consider prohibiting anonymous edits on any part of a current RfA page?: Noyster (talk), 15:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

No. Townlake (talk) 15:46, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

No, IPs are people too and should be able to comment, ask questions, etc. I can't think of any "unhelpful" IP interventions that occured recently anyway. --AmaryllisGardener 15:49, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Nope, Whilst I agree most IPs here are more vandals than anything I've not yet witnessed any stupidity from any IP on RFA pages so don't see much point banning them, and anyway If IPs do cause shit we simply use Twinkle .... –Davey2010 • (talk) 15:55, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Diffs would have been useful here. Based on what I've seen recently, though, IP participation isn't a problem. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 16:34, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm guessing this is what Noyster is referring to. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 17:38, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

But we see stuff like that from registered users too. --AmaryllisGardener 17:41, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Registration should have its privileges. Notwithstanding the project's history of egalitarian participation by anyone, including IP users, it seems to me that registration is an extremely small burden for the privilege of participating in the selection of the project's sysops. Please note that I am generally not in favor of banning IPs from various topics, but in the context of RfAs I am more inclined to view such a proposal favorably for one simple reason: it will encourage more IPs to register. The second benefit: other RfA participants will be able to understand who is commenting and associate an on-wiki history and reputation with the RfA comments.

As for "unhelpful" RfA comments from IPs, we have witnessed several in the last month, one of which triggered a storm of pile-on opposes and torpedoed a qualified candidate and vandal fighter. In that particular case, the "IP" had no prior edit history and was almost certainly a registered user commenting while logged out. And that does offend my sense of fairness and on-wiki propriety. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

• My 2 cents There are certain areas where anonymous commentary should not be allowed. This is one of them. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:28, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

• I'm with Dirtlawyer and Ad Orientem on this one. RfA tends to function as an actual non-anonymous election rather than a WP:STRAWPOLL - more than roughly a seven-tenths majority tends to be an automatic pass, for example, and only in a small range of actual vote count results do we pass discretion to the 'crats. For that reason I'm ok with requiring registration, maybe not to comment but certainly for voting. For the record I don't think there's clear evidence that IPs are more disruptive at RfA than registered users, at least not lately. Ivanvector (talk) 19:44, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

• FWIW, I do believe that IPs are already not allowed to !vote at RfA. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 19:52, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

IPs can edit and can therefore !vote. We have an editnotice discouraging it, and I assume that any IP that !votes has their edit removed. Since threaded discussion is supposed to be discouraged in active RfAs (and should be on the talk page instead) I'm still okay with a technical restriction from editing RfAs for non-confirmed accounts and IPs. Ivanvector (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: No, unregistered users (i.e. IPs) cannot !vote. It's not just in the editnotice, it's explicitly stated at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship#Expressing opinions, first sentence. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:37, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

That's what I meant to say. It is technically possible (not prevented by software) for IPs to post !votes, but (I'm assuming) either the 'crats disregard the !votes or the !votes are removed. I haven't seen it happen so I don't know. Ivanvector (talk) 23:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: When reading through old RfAs, I once saw an IP's vote struck and told something like, "Sorry, IPs can't vote on RfAs", so it has happened. --Biblioworm 23:47, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion any IP who magically finds their way to RfA for their first edits is clearly someone logging out of their account to avoid scrutiny. Just like we don't allow votes from accounts created the same day we of course should not allow what is obviously evasion of scrutiny. It is sock puppetry through evasion of scrutiny in a contentious area.

Unlike other debates RfA is essentially vote, let us not pretend it is anything else. Allowing IPs and brand new users is allowing vote stacking.

We need to be stricter about disruption, trolling, and people not using their main accounts to avoid scrutiny.

Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, that means we welcome anon users to edit the encyclopedia. Those is not some suicide pact where we have to allow them into every part of our process.

In AfD the closer takes into account the value of each argument as related to article retention policies. In RfA the 'crats have very little discretion. So no, we should not let anonymous people vote. They should have an account and it should be created before the RfA was started.

The only people this will effect are those who know Misplaced Pages enough to have an opinion on RfA but are abusing multiple accounts or logging out to avoid scrutiny. If you think about it then it is obvious. Chillum 20:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Oppose If there is a good reason to either oppose or support and RfA, then anyone should be able to voice it. —Gaff 20:09, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Should they get more than one vote? Because if we allow anonymous and new users to vote then there is nothing stopping someone from voting with their account and then logging out and voting again. Same goes with users created after the RfA. Chillum 21:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

That's been a risk since the beginning of voting on Misplaced Pages. It hasn't proven to be a meaningful problem. Townlake (talk) 02:54, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

To me, both you User:Chillum and, say, IP 0123456789, are anonyms. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 09:52, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

It has not been a problem because we don't let IPs and new accounts vote. By my memory it has been that way since I was made admin in 2006. Chillum 03:01, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Strong oppose We should be able to distinguish between constructive and unconstructive, rather than base our decisions a priori, on the shape of someone's username. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 09:52, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Support User:Chillum makes some strong arguments. I certainly believe a !vote should at least be dignified by a registered account. It shows respect to the community. An IP with an edit history of just voting in an RfA is concerning. A voter is a member of the Misplaced Pages community, who has shown some courage in registering, and showing responsibility for their editing career on WP. An IP, by their very reluctance to register, shows an ambivalence to the spirit of the project, and should not be trusted in such a critical community process as an RfA. Sorry if this sounds harsh to IP's of good will reading. So BLOODY REGISTER! Your Misplaced Pages needs you! :) Irondome (talk) 03:48, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

• I also want to point out that this in no way goes against our "The encyclopedia anyone can edit" philosophy because admin elections are not part of the encyclopedia. Anyone can edit the encyclopedia but admins are chosen by the actual community. Chillum 03:55, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

• IPs aren't allowed to vote, but there's no reason they shouldn't be allowed to offer non-disruptive comment. No one should be allowed to offer disruptive comments, so singling out IPs here makes no sense. (Of course, making a coherent argument for why your friend isn't a good candidate for administration isn't disruptive; it's the whole point). WilyD 12:10, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

• The kind of IP participation at RfA recently and which has sparked off this thread smacks of block or ban evasion, and proxy servers. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:13, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose to a disgraceful proposal To summarize: The original proposer proposes to ban IPs from these discussions. The OP does not list any examples of IP "misconduct", and other editors can only think of one. The "misconduct" is an IP editor demanding evidence that the nominee actually is ignorant of CSD as accused. At the time of this writing, that evidence still has not been provided, so the IP has a good point. Meanwhile, various editors accuse the IP of being a banned editor, even though they could be a long-time IP editor whose IP hopped, or a long-time registered editor who forgot to log in. And wouldn't a block evading editor come here to trash the nominee in retaliation for their role in getting them banned? This one is defending the nominee from criticism. Frankly, I consider the IP conduct at the nomination much better than most of the registered users commenting here. Seriously, this is disgraceful, these claims that this guy is evil because of numbers in their usernames. Major WP:AGF violation. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:35, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Oiyarbepsy, that's a very strong comment. While you list a lot of relevant reasons why we may be wrong to disapprove of IP particpation on RfA, I feel you have perhaps not only insufficiently examined those arguments, but that you may be stretching our AGF policy a tad too far. Experienced editors have long since learned to recognise and interpret the patterns often associated with IP editors and they have a right to be skeptical. That said, the en.Wiki still has the most lax rules of all the major Wikipedias; perhaps because the others (e.g. de, fr, sp, it, etc.) having been created later, have seen the loopholes in our systems. There is a lot of call for change in our admin (s)election method - essentially what we need is improvement. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:56, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

If someone has to register just to participate in RfA we will be questioning their motives if they have no other edits under that username. The Moose is loose! 07:41, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Judge the post, not the posted, until you have genuinely good reason to believe otherwise. Genuinely good reasons does not include prejudice and stereotypes. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC

Oiyarbepsy, just to recap: Experienced editors have long since learned to recognise and interpret the patterns often associated with IP editors and they have a right to be skeptical. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Kudpung, often doesn't mean always, and not all of us are automatically skeptical of IPs. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Yng, I know it doesn't - it was me who said it and I felt I had to repeat it. But I never said I was automatically skeptical of IPs. That's what I mean by having the experience to recognise the signs. The skill can be acquired of course, but 3 months and 3,000 edits don't cut it. Depends where you work most on Misplaced Pages, how often you are prepared to spend literally hours untangling intrigues, and how many years you've been doing it. I enjoy that kind of detective work, some don't. Gut feeling and intuition often start with recognising stereotype behaviour. Younger/newer editors tend to be more casual in their approach to such issues whereas old codgers like me are plodders, leaving no stone unturned. That's why we dig up the dirt on RfA - but also give credit when it's due. No wonder we end up sounding cynical ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:12, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm touchy on the topic. I have quite a bit more experience now than when I passed RfA, including some dark, dark stuff. I just got done reporting yet another incarnation of a long-term cross-wiki vandal who edits both as IPs and as a registered user. But I'm all too aware that some anti-vandal patrollers - many of them relatively new - are unreasonably biased against unregistered editors. And I hadn't realized how bad that was until relatively recently. Patterns are one thing, but bias is real and hurts us in many ways. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:43, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• There are plenty of admins who have a trigger finger when it comes to blocking new accounts or IPs. There's a reason we have stages of {{uw-vandal1}}, {{uw-vandal2}}, etc. But, many admins ignore this and block after too few warnings. So much of our content is contributed by new users or IP editors, yet we casually disrespect them and do not give them the courtesy we tell ourselves we're to give them. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Allowing IPs to participate invites trolling and double-voting (even if the second vote is not counted, it may create a discouraging atmosphere). RFA noms should be s-protected from their moment of creation. bd2412 T 18:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comments from IPs are easy to moderate (we've tolerated far worse disruption from people with actual accounts, if anyone remembers kmweber or a half dozen other RfA trolls over the years). I don't recall that IPs have ever been allowed to vote. I'm okay with this arrangement. Nathan 18:35, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks to all who have presented good arguments on both sides. Unfortunately, some contributors here assumed the discussion was about whether IPs should vote in RfAs, even though - as Redrose points out - the RfA page states only editors with an account may place a numerical (#) "vote". My post was to ask whether IPs should be permitted to comment in the voting section, or pose questions to candidates. This is not because of any belief that IPs are inherently "evil", but purely from seeing the effect of their particular interventions in recent RfAs. OK, IPs can start new accounts, but these are more easily discounted and can't be covered by "forgot to log in" or such excuses. Anyway, belatedly, here are recent examples as called for. Leaving aside plain vandalism and challenging of legitimate #votes:

Weak attack couched as a question.

Attack couched as a question, had an arguable case but quoted a weak example. The very fact that the question was posed by an IP enabled claims that the RfA had been "derail"ed by a "trolling IP" and led to much ill-feeling.

Obscenity and fake signature. Once reverted, they resorted to sockpuppet accounts and the RfA had to be restricted to auto-confirmed users: Noyster (talk), 18:55, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Number 1 was weak critism, yet still constructive to the discussion. Number 2 was very valid criticism (possibly the most important comment in the whole discussion). Number 3 was the only one that was inappropriate. All of these could have been done by registered users. Number maybe could have been an argument against IPs, except for all the sockpuppetry, which an IP ban wouldn't have done anything about. And blaming the IP for a registered editor's bad faith and prejudice? You're joking, right? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:15, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Comment I just noticed my technically incorrect references to IPs !voting upthread. However I still hold to my original points. Only registered eds should comment in an RfA. A comment can be as powerful as a vote. Think of the (to my mind) unconstructive contributions of IP 190.245.75.48 that helped screw up Harry's recent nomination, which in addition lost us an excellent ed and potential admin. Again, a process as serious as an RfA should only have participants who wish to be part of, and take responsibility to the community by their actions. At least a registered ed who is disruptive can be slagged off, or even sanctioned. I see no sinister development if this proposal comes to pass. Just another incentive to register. Irondome (talk) 00:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't "trolling," I was voicing legitimate concerns that many other editors shared. Were they all "trolls?" If I were you, I'd be more careful about my choice of words. Note that neither my question nor my reply to TParis' response to Townlake's oppose was reverted. Anything even remotely reminiscent of trolling would've been reverted, you can take that to the bank. Thomas.W was not a suitable candidate for adminship, and it was necessary to have his deficiencies in the department of interaction with new users accentuated as early as possible in the process which, for political reasons, was only possible for an IP user to do. You've only been around for two years so you don't yet fully understand the more advanced aspects of the RfA process, but believe me: it was for the best. It's regrettable that Thomas decided to quit rather than change his gruff demeanor and try again at a later date, but what can you do. We have plenty enough of incivil administrators who value their own opinion above everything else already; appointing another one would've been a mistake. Disallowing questions/comments from unregistered users would be a mistake too. 190.245.75.48 (talk) 05:49, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I have struck the term from my post. It was an inappropriate use of a highly provocative term. For that I apologise. However it appeared that you had made up your mind quite comprehensively in terms of the interaction patterns of the candidate. You still appear to adhere to that view. I still disagree as to the suitability of T.W. as an admin. I do not understand your need for using your IP id for "political reasons" in !voting. I think you are adding unnecessary drama by using this comparison. Let's remember what we are here for. To create and maintain a unique piece of work in human co-operation, and at least vaguely enjoy the experience while we are doing it. I also sense a vague animus towards the unfortunates among us who happen to be admins. Only over the Xmas period we saw an admin dysopped for attitudal issues. The justice of that case aside, do you really have such a lack of confidence in the intelligence of the community that T.W would not have been given a dry slap if he got out of line? Did you not take into account the greatly respected colleagues who nominated and supported the application? I just find it puzzling. On me and my experience I have been around for 2 years and 8 months. I know this is but a blink of an eye compared to yourself, who is obviously a wikipedian who I suspect has been with the project from the beginning. However my understanding of the hidden layers of the RfA process and it's complexities may be more sophisticated than you assume. I have dabbled in real-world politics, I learn fast and I am the wrong side of 50. In any event, I am glad that you returned to continue the dialogue. Regards Irondome (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm guessing this may in fact be a reply to moi - hard to tell when identities keep changing. Please re-read, I didn't call you a troll but others did, and because you made that possible it weakened your case, which would very soon have been made by others. No more can I see why a politician couldn't operate under their recognised name - you mean they should put on disguise outfits during a campaign?: Noyster (talk), 20:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it Irondome, trolling is the only reason the user would hide behind 190.245.75.48. His proxy has now been blocked, and that is as clear a reason as any why IPs should not be allowed to participate on RfA under any circumstances whatsoever. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:21, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Oppose.

1. I remember an occasion when a single purpose account was created for the sole purpose of opposing in an RfA. (I checked two years after the RfA, and the account had made no more edits at all, confirming my impression that it really was a single purpose account.) The editor's reason for opposing was totally out of line with policy, common practice, common sense, and everything else that makes any sense. Several editors patiently tried to explain to this person why their reason was totally off the point, but he or she persisted with WP:IDHT, whether out of stupidity or as deliberate trolling. (I suspect stupidity.) If we ban IP editors from participating, it will simply mean that anyone who would have been a disruptive IP editor at RfA will instead create a disruptive account like the one I have just described. How will that help?
2. In all kinds of situations, including RfAs, it is much easier to detect IP sockpuppetry than it is to detect sockpuppet accounts, because anyone can easily check whether the IPs are all from one ISP, or different ISPs at the same location, whereas only CheckUsers that can do that for accounts. (I say that as an administrator with a significant amount of experience of dealing with sockpuppets of both kinds.) Forcing editors to create accounts to edit (whether at RfA or anywhere else) would therefore be counterproductive in detecting and stopping "double-voting". It is dead easy to create twenty new accounts that don't look as if they have any connection to one another, and takes only few minutes, but it usually takes much more effort and much more time to switch among twenty (or even five) IP addresses which look as if they are unrelated to one another. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 21:35, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

James, that does'nt cover the registered user who is deliberately hiding behind an IP addres, or as in the case of 190.245.75.48 who is a blocked proxy. Remember, the use of the CU tool is extremely tightly controlled, and fishing expeditions are not allowed. IMO, there can only be dishonest reasons for editing RfA from a proxy. And trolling is one of them. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:13, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

(1) Actually, Kudpung, I think it does cover the registered user who is deliberately hiding behind an IP address. My point is that anyone who wants to hide anonymously will still be able to do so, by creating a new account to do so, instead of by editing from a new IP address, and that applies every bit as much to someone who has previously edited from an account as to someone who hasn't. (2) As for proxies, if no administrator has identified it as a proxy and blocked it, then it can equally well be used anonymously or via an account, and if it has been identified then it will normally have been blocked for both anon and logged-in editing, so either way banning IP editing would make no difference to an editor's ability to use the proxy. HOWEVER, it does make another difference: anyone with a little knowledge of proxies can try to check whether an anon editor is using an open proxy, but only a CheckUser can do that with an account, so banning IP editing would force abusive editors to use sock accounts the effect of which would be to make it harder to detect their abuse. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:33, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support per Chillum. IPs can't vote for ARBCOM via SecurePoll; does that encourage SPAs? I also support the indiscriminate use of CU to chase SOCKs away. If you're too much of a coward to voice your opinion at RfA logged-in then you don't have any business voicing an opinion, at all. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

  @Chris troutman: It's not possible to create a SPA account for the purpose of voting for ArbCom: SecurePoll is given a list of valid login IDs that is several weeks old - for the most recent ArbCom election, which began on 24 November 2014, the voting criteria include "has registered an account before 28 October 2014" and "has made at least 150 mainspace edits before 1 November 2014". --Redrose64 (talk) 14:17, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

  I know; maybe a bad analogy. I disagree that IPs should be allowed for fear of encouraging socking. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:30, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support for all the reasons given above. IPs can't be admins themselves for obvious reasons; I see no reason they should be allowed to !vote in an RfA. It takes all of 15 seconds to log in or create an account. Softlavender (talk) 00:52, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

  @Softlavender: I think that you're misunderstanding the proposal. It's not about IPs !voting (they are already prohibited, see my post of 23:37, 2 December 2014 above), but about "prohibiting anonymous edits on any part of a current RfA page" - that's not just !votes, but also covers non-!vote comments. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:17, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Opposes based on AfD "inaccuracies"

I was just wondering what people think about !voters opposing RfA candidates because their AfD votes are supposedly not accurate enough. In my opinion, all this does is create a fear of voicing your true opinion (that's what AfDs are for, right?) and encourages going along with the crowd. Besides, how would having a different opinion interfere with your ability to judge the consensus of others and close debates properly? --Biblioworm 19:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree 100% that analyzing RfA candidate's AfD stats (without looking at their !votes) is harmful. Really, as long as someone's reasoning is rooted in policy, and not in "I don't like X", etc., it's fine, IMO. --AmaryllisGardener 19:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the point is (or ought to be) that AfDs are not about one's opinions per se but about how one understands the policies and applies that to the articles under scrutiny. If the candidate has frequently got it wrong, that shows that either they do not understand the policies or they deliberately ignore them in debates. The former is clearly a disqualification; the latter may show that the user would be tempted to supervote, or to close based on numerical !voting instead of policy arguments when this suited their opinions. You are of course right that this would not be true for some users and therefore going by AfD percentages alone, without examining their actual opinions and actions, is problematic. BethNaught (talk) 19:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

A candidate brave enough to have participated in many close, controversial, or complex AfDs will inevitably get it "wrong" quite often, whereas one who mostly piles on in clear-cut AfDs will be "accurate" according to the numbers. Adrian J. Hunter 02:55, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The point about AfD is that in spite of saying we're not, Misplaced Pages is in fact a democracy and anyone is allowed to vote at AfD. Quite often AfDS get closed on simple count and even on the weight of the arguments, but not infrequently , some of those convincing argument that lead to a close are founded on opinion rather than fact-based policy or guidelines. I don't think anyone really votes with the apparent majority just to make their AfD performance look good - IMO RfA candidates dob't usually look that far and if they do they are the ones who are going to fail at RfA anyway. It would be nice indeed if the voters at RfA would all take the trouble to do some proper research before putting their oar in or simply piling on. My unbroken research into RfA over the years tends to demonstrate that the 'oppose' voters are the ones who have genuinely examined the candidate before voting. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:29, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• While I do consider AfD participation on some level to be pretty close to obligatory if you want my support at RfA, I don't get too worked up over the breakdown in votes. If there is a truly glaring or gross discrepancy then a closer look may be warranted. But otherwise I tend to agree with many of the above comments. Independence of thought and a willingness to take a principaled stand in close cases is more important to me than "getting it right." Point in fact if anyone dug around in my own AfD record they would find a number of cases where I was on the losing end of the debate. Heck, in some of those cases I was even wrong. ;-). -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Any AfD !vote based on this kind of criterion ought to be discounted as invalid by the crats, as a matter of principle. The whole idea of judging AfD participation in this way is just outrageously wrong. It is based on the assumption that the "winning" side of an AfD must automatically have been "right", and anybody who voted in the opposite way must have been "wrong". This assumption is poisonous, not only for RfA but for the entire environment of consensus-based discussion. People who cast votes like this ought to be ashamed of themselves. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:01, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you, FPaS, for saying what needed to be said. Possessing a minority opinion should not have any bearing on an administrator's ability to judge consensus, which is what AfD is all about. Opposing someone because they voted against the end result on a regular basis is silly. Kurtis 23:11, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• It is a bit more complicated than that, though. If someone has voted keep on many obviously non-notable articles or the other way around, it's obviously not a good sign. If they've been wrong on many close calls, then that's where this issue comes into play. ansh666 23:21, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• So then instead of presenting raw statistics, participants should give actual examples of arguments that the candidate has made at AfD and explain how it demonstrates an overall subpar grasp of Misplaced Pages's notability guidelines. "Just last week, So-and-so argued for deleting an article about a high school by saying that there were no citations provided to back up its assertions of notability, when in fact a simple Google search would have revealed numerous third-party sources which can easily be used to verify that this is a school with several hundred students and a very noteworthy fine arts program" is a much stronger argument against granting sysop tools than saying that "80% of the time that So-and-so argued delete, the article was kept."

  What I am against is the notion that an editor's participation at AfD can be measured solely by how often their votes align with the end result, and that having divergent opinions will inevitably taint anyone's ability to impartially judge consensus. Raw percentages alone are not enough reason to disqualify a person for adminship. Also remember that they are called notability "guidelines" for a reason. If there was a black and white "right" or "wrong" answer, then we wouldn't even need AfD.

  An oppose based on anomalies in AfD participation would have to be very well substantiated for it to give me pause. I'd need to be convinced that the evidence presented gives strong indication of certain character traits that are incompatible with adminship. Take for instance my "high school" example from above. Their vote in that AfD could signify an unwillingness to do some basic research before coming to an informed conclusion (particularly if it can be demonstrated that this is part of a general pattern, rather than a one-off misguided comment), which would indeed be an issue if they were an active administrator, as this could imply a possible tendency to act on instinct rather than doing the necessary grunt work beforehand (e.g. deleting a page tagged for speedy deletion because it looked like it satisfied A3, when in fact the article was just created ten or so minutes ago, thus giving its author no time to expand upon it). If someone's voting "keep" on biographies which cast their virtually unknown subjects in an unduly negative light, and they're not giving a particularly strong reason for doing so, I'd question their understanding of BLP, let alone their commitment to it. Certain AfDs relating to these sorts of biographies should be deleted even if the numbers would normally result in a "no consensus" closure (which defaults to "keep"), as BLPs are held to a higher standard than other articles due to the real-world implications they could have for their subjects. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable trusting an editor with closing deletion discussions if they've shown such an inability to appreciate the sensitive nature of biographical content. Those are just examples, and by no means an exhaustive list — but they are the sorts of things I'd be looking for in an oppose based on an editor's AfD participation, as they demonstrate convictions and attitudes which would be problematic for an administrator to possess. Kurtis 02:17, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• The idea that votes ought to be discounted by the crats is silly. If someone has a quality that one or two people thinks means they wouldn't be a good administrator, this will turn out to be irrelevant, and they'll sail past RFA without difficulty. If there's something that a large minority (or a majority) of the community thinks is a necessary quality to be a good admin, then the crats should not ignore it. Of course, as noted, just using straight percentages from the auto-counter is a bad idea. For example, someone who completes AfD noms for new/inexperienced editors gets counted as a delete !vote, though obviously that's a commendable behaviour, and one I'd take as a sign someone would make a laudable admin. Other situations are possible (though that's the only one can I recall off the top of my head having seen when I've looked through someone's AfD history). WilyD 10:19, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Fut.Perf. says it rather strongly, but I agree. Only in a minority of cases are policies enough to decide whether an article should stay or go. It usually comes down to consensus (the key policy, after all). When an article is kept one month and deleted the next, how can the winning and losing sides be called "right" and "wrong"? Performance at AfD matters, but it's the quality of the arguments and receptiveness to other editors' comments that counts, not being on the winning side, which is easy to accomplish just by confining ourselves to "me too" votes with the obviously emerging consensus. --Stfg (talk) 10:30, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• I've found very few cases where someone's AFD record was poor but their arguments and application of policies and guidelines to be adequate. Perhaps I'm wrong but while we're right about a "record" not being an absolute relationship to the quality of someone as an admin, there's a reason why it's been a benchmark for a long time. It's one of the many metrics editors can and should not feel poorly about applying when evaluating someone. There are always exceptions to the case but when these exceptions are far and few between, then editors can simply take that into consideration. The proposal that a person's !vote should be outright discounted as invalid is one of the least thought out arguments I've seen here -- especially when sysops are specifically tasked with closing discussions against CONSENSUS. Mkdw 02:57, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
• The only grids on the AfD chart I'm interested in are delete votes where the outcome was to speedy keep, as even a single one of these indicates the candidate's utter cluelessness, and delete votes where the outcome was to keep, as too many of these indicates the candidate is likely to misuse the deletion tool. All the rest is irrelevant. Deleted articles the candidate wanted kept, etc.? Who cares; not deleting an article has nothing to do with admin tools. As far as the numbers, 100 AfD votes in total is the bare minimum. If you don't have that, you've no business applying, plain and simple. 190.245.75.48 (talk) 05:49, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  I got the mop in October 2011. I certainly didn't have 100 AfD votes at the time, and I don't think I've got as far as 100 AfD votes yet: would you like to start the desysop process now, or wait until I delete something that I shouldn't have? --Redrose64 (talk) 09:04, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  Why must people have 100 AfD !votes to run for RfA? For that matter, what's with all the arbitrary numbers people are starting to set? Suppose the candidate does not wish to work in AfD, and they have a very strong record in other areas. They shouldn't be admins merely because they have not reached some minimum threshold? (By the way, are you a registered user editing behind your IP address? It seems that you know quite a bit about the internal workings here.) Oh, and according to your standards, I've blown it big time, since I made a single errant nomination where the outcome was speedy keep. Guess I'd better pack up and forget any ideas of ever becoming an admin. --Biblioworm 13:28, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  Oh, I wouldn't say that. It's early days yet - give it a couple of years and I'm sure you'll get the mop. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:18, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  I was actually joking, Kudpung, but in any case, I don't plan to run any time in the immediate future. I might start thinking about it around November or December of this year... --Biblioworm 04:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

  I disagree that this record (!voting "delete" on articles which were kept or speedy-kept) is a sign of cluelessness. Much more commonly, the reason an AfD closes as "speedy keep" or "keep" is because the article has been improved during the discussion. If the improvement happened after the person voted "delete", their "delete" may have been perfectly legitimate. --MelanieN (talk) 21:19, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  People who're !voting to delete articles that should be fixed, rather than deleted, are not good admin candidates. "Hastily argues for deletion without doing appropriate legwork first" is a terrible quality in a potential admin. WilyD 12:22, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• In the recent case of Ethically Yours, I pulled up his AfD stats specifically because he said he wanted to work in that area. I've called about 500 AfDs, and my score has gradually dropped to just below 80% correct now. I don't think this is because I'm getting worse; rather, this is because AfD activity is down and more and more debates are getting closed as "No consensus", which accounts for about half of the remaining 20%. I've got a redirect closed as "Speedy keep", but that's because the nominator withdrew. I've also taken an article to DYK that was previously AfDed as "delete". Ritchie333 17:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

  This idea of "score" is fundamentally flawed. The bolded part of an AfD comment is the least important part of the comment, as AfD is not a vote (and unlike RfA, it should not be). We need people who are willing to take part in contentious discussions and bring good arguments, not people who try to score points in the AfD game. If somebody has the "correct" result on 100% of their last 100 AfDs that raises a red flag to me more than if somebody has 60% "accuracy". —Kusma (t·c) 14:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

The purpose of adminship

I recently proposed unbundling "viewdelete" (i.e. access to deleted pages and revisions) from the sysop toolkit at the village pump, within certain parameters. Specifically, my idea was that it could be restricted to those who've gone through a community-driven process for it, which could possibly address the legal concerns that were raised the last time this idea was discussed. The overwhelming consensus is that this would be too much bureaucracy when there's already RfA, where you can get the whole toolset in addition to viewing deleted pages. My rebuttal to date has been the argument that some people just want specific tools to help them in their editing, and are not interested in everything that the position entails. If someone came to RfA and said "I'd just like to access deleted content without having to go to an administrator for it", I could not imagine them gaining the support of the community unless it was very specific in nature and for a fixed duration (Carrite, for example). People complain that RfA is too hard to pass — is that partly because we expect our administrators to fulfill a certain "role" within the community by demonstrating sustained activity in a diverse range of related areas?

In other words, is there any point in requesting for adminship if you're not planning on investing some serious time into areas such as dispute resolution, deletion discussions, sockpuppet investigations, or really any other venue that requires the responsible use of discretion? This obviously does not cover extremely specialized cases (e.g. Lustiger seth, Jason Quinn, Trappist the monk), where adminship is clearly needed.

Let's say for example, somebody comes to RfA with ~15,000 or so edits and have over three years of fairly consistent activity under their account. In their answer to the first of the standard three questions, they list out Category:Misplaced Pages protected edit requests, Category:Requests for unblock, ITN, and CSD. They do not express much interest in places like AIV, RFPP, AN3, AE, ANI, or AFD — in fact, they seldom partake in deletion discussions and are not big on anti-vandalism. Do their areas of interest cover a broad enough spectrum for them to be seen as an overall benefit to the project as an administrator?

Actually, let's go a step further. What if their only real justification for requesting adminship was so that it would make their life easier when editing articles? Things like fixing spelling or grammatical mistakes on fully protected articles, moving pages over redirects, restoring deleted fair use images with a proper rationale, or viewing deleted material to access content that can be used to good effect elsewhere. Is that sufficient reason to grant someone the sysop flag? Kurtis 23:30, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Your last example, which is quite contrived, would be a clear fail, while the rest wouldn't be rejected, at least not because of the areas they wanted to work in. As far as view-deleted, the big problem is by letting someone view a deleted page, you are effectively letting them restore it, by copy/pasting, which is a huge problem if you don't trust the person who has this right. It is essentially impossible to let someone view a deleted page without letting them restore it. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Well first if all, "viewdelete" permission wouldn't be handed out to just anybody, but to people who are approved for it by the community. This is about whether someone can be trusted with adminship if they don't plan on using it all that much, or just to make their editing easier. In the latter case, it would seem that their rationale is insufficient for granting the dystopia tools. I disagree with that viewpoint, but I suspect I'm in the minority in saying that I don't believe non-specialized administrators should be expected to involve themselves in resolving conduct disputes or doing other arduous tasks that may be associated with the role. Kurtis 12:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

@Kurtis:"...Granting the dystopia tools." I'm sure you were autocorrected, but maybe this is a case of accidental wisdom :) Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:30, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I definitely needed a good laugh today; that was great. (BTW "dystopia" = "sysop", it was indeed a case of autocorrect.) Kurtis 22:49, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Getting the mop is easy enough for anyone who has been around Misplaced Pages long enough to demonstrate that they didn't join the project with the main intention of being an admin, has sufficiently operated in enough maintenance areas to convince the community they know what they are doing, and can collaborate with others in a mature and civil way. Provided they have at least some problem-free experience in the major admin areas, it is fairly common to give them the mop even if they have expressed an interest in working in specific areas. RfA is only 'hard' for those who are not sure they stand a chance, and if they don't, then they shouldn't be running. As recent NOTNOW closures have demonstrated again (two in the last few days), people who refuse to read up on the RfA advice pages are people who possibly wouldn't read advice, policies, or guidelines properly if they were given the tools, and they are going to get short schrift from the opposers for wasting our time. Kind of: If you ignore the red 'Don't walk' sign and cross the road without looking and get run over by a truck, you don't be surprised if you get hurt. Otherwise, for candidates of the right calibre, RfA is nowadays a relatively mild experience. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:08, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• The idea that RfA is too hard, so we should replace it with three RfAs (deletion, protection, and blocking being the only real admin tools) is just bizarre. Anybody who'd pass a single tool RfA would pass a three tool RfA (and they'd get given the same hassle if they were found wanting). WilyD 08:00, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

The reason I support unbundling one or two of the privileges accorded to administrators (namely "viewdelete" and "editprotect") is because they can be used in situations that would not conceivably allow using the main functions of deletion, protection, and blocking. Kurtis 12:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Adminship is about trust and competency. If you give a user only one of the tools and not all three, is it because you only have 33% trust and he is only a third as intelligent as a full admin? Anyone who wants one tool should be clever enough to convince the community that he would be competent with all three. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:03, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Heck, it's not even that hard - I don't need to trust potential admins are competent at everything, just that they have good enough judgement not to mess with things they're not competent at. WilyD 15:44, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I just thought that many editors who were interested in a few aspects of the role may not be looking at getting the full toolset. It has nothing to do with a lack of trust. Kurtis 19:59, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Deletion, Protection, and Blocking are inter-related--it is quite usual for a particular edit or article addition to lead to all 3, & it would not make sense to need 3 different people to do them. The type of judgment necessary for all 3 of them is also very similar--they all require discretion as well as knowing the rules. Viewdelete in my personal opinion is less consequential. 99% of deletions are not for privacy related concerns, but just ordinary advertising or lack of notability. The problem is the 1% that are sensitive. Now that we have rev del, it might be possible to use this for all privacy-related matters, and keep that restricted to admins. But this would not deal with the tens of thousands of sensitive deletions made in the past--it would be absurdly difficult to go back over the several million prior deletions and sort them out. But what I think personally is irrelevant: regardless of the merits of separating out viewdelete, on the basis of their previous statements I do not think the Foundation would let us give that permission with any less community scrutiny than the current procedure. DGG ( talk ) 20:02, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I just had a thought; if old revisions cannot be shown to non-admins, would it be a bad idea to at least make it to where users could view the histories of deleted pages? Dustin (talk) 21:06, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

@Dustin V. S.: Don't we already have that? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point would be on "deleting" an article if its content and history are still accessible under your proposal. Aside from the copyright issues mentioned by Philosopher, it opens up a wide range of other problems such as people intentionally creating pages that do not meet the current criteria (i.e. vandalism pages, or BLPs), knowing full well that they're still viewable and accessible to anyone. Even if you had to click through a link to get to it, clicks are considered a very low barriers to users. One only needs to consider how many keystrokes and clicks an average user does per day. You're then looking at a much more complicated three tier deletion process that would need to include delete but "not deleted" (anyone can view it), actually deleted and accessible by only admins, and then suppression. Mkdw 03:59, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with DGG about the Foundation's views and would note another concern with expanding the ability to view deleted pages: "legally improper" edits such as copyright violations and defamation. Expanding access to these would increase the potential legal liability of the Foundation, so they would need to be sequestered as well. I don't think even a two-tiered deletion system would work in practice, though, as many copyvio/defamatory articles are deleted for other reasons, such as notability. So the separating out of a viewdeleted-type-right just isn't going to happen. That said, with the large number of users who are making it through RfA recently, I think we may be beginning to go back towards the "no big deal" philosophy that adminship should be and which just requires that admins "just that they have good enough judgement not to mess with things they're not competent at", to borrow WilyD's words from the comments, above. – Philosopher  02:51, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Dunno about 'large' - I remember the good old days. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:28, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, yes. And the year that my mop was issued seems to be the one that started the downward spiral.  :( Perhaps November 2014 slanted my perspective just a bit. I had the impression that around 2/3 of serious candidacies were passing and that that was an increase since 2013. The percentages for 2013 and 2014 are surprisingly similar, though. 22 pass to 17 fail - 56% pass in 2014 compared to 34 pass to 27 fail - 55% pass in 2013. Regardless, the other points about granting rights stand. – Philosopher  01:29, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Philosopher, it's not surprisng that 2008 seems to be the year that started the downward spiral. After the watershed year of 2007 before which all you needed were around 2,000 edits and 20 supports to get your mop, instead of the bar getting higher, the !voters started getting nastier and naster and nastier. Yours was no exception, the opposion was mostly DDD - Disingenuous, Downright Disgusting, and that trend stayed with us for the next 4 years or so. That's why, and only why, the number of cadidates dropped off alarmingly, halving each year. Most of the opposers on your RfA hadn't more than 3 figures of edits at the time, most of them have not edited for years since, among them there were socks and blocks, and bans and other smelly things, and by March 2011 even Jimbo Wales himself was calling RfA "a horrible and broken process". People still complain about RfA but in the last couple of years it has finally cleaned itself up significantly - untill you get totally irresponsible opposes on RfA that are clearly going to pass with flying colours from day 1 (just look at the current situation) - Schadenfreude, that's all it is, and by people whom I have met, and that makes it a whole lot worse. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:21, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Not going to disagree. The Commons admin process was a great deal less stressful than the one here. And if it was 2008 again, I probably wouldn't recommend that anyone go through RfA. Still, I agree that it has "cleaned itself up significantly" and I have hope that that will continue. In the meantime, I'll keep insisting - as I did in my RfA - that adminship is no big deal and hope that people listen. – Philosopher  00:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

A Note to Experienced Editors Considering RFA

As anyone familiar with RfA knows, one of the criteria weighed is the candidate's experience in the adminny end of things. While non-admins are severely limited as to how far they can go in adjudicating at AfD, there is a constant backlog of discussions in need of closure that can be found at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure. And unlike AfD, many of these discussions do not require you to be an Admin to close them. Even if you are not planning on having a go at RfA any help is always appreciated. (Side note: Only experienced editors should attempt to close controversial discussions.) -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:25, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Can you suggest some for non-admins? I'm not finding any obvious candidates. I'd rule out any "redirects for discussion" or "templates for discussion" because a non-admin will be biased towards a "keep" closure, as they can't delete. I'd steer clear of topic bans and ban appeals related-closures as well. As for "controversial topics", this list is full of them: NAC Deletes, Male murderers, Climate Engineering, Kenya–Mongolia relations, Statements regarding term "God the Son" not existing in the Bible, you get the picture. We do have a shortage of experienced admins willing to make difficult decisions. There's no easy answer for that. Maybe I'm missing a few easy closes that may be lost in this sea of difficult ones, perhaps they could be separated into a Misplaced Pages:Noticeboard/Requests for closure page, just as Category:Misplaced Pages protected edit requests has sub-cats for non-admins. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Isn't WP:ANRFC basically for those difficult closures that nobody is willing to do and therefore are left open for too long? The list is super long but most of it isn't non-admin friendly. ansh666 16:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

That's because the easy ones get closed relatively quickly, the backlog is mostly sprawling or heated disputes which no one wants the hassle of closing. Sam Walton (talk) 19:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I concur. There are certainly some discussions which really need an Admin to handle. But often there are others that can be addressed by experienced editors. Yes, those can be long and highly detailed with lots of heated back and forth. Hence my post here. Admins are expected to be able to handle things like this. And let's be honest, there are limited opportunities of this kind for wannabe admins to demonstrate their skills. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:35, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I highly recommend that no one who is not an admin make any closures. I tried to help, as was suggested, and I was bitten by angry admins in response. Arfæst! 01:06, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Counter malfunctioning

The !vote counter seems to have gotten jammed, it is not displaying the current totals. Is that done by Template:RfA tally or some other function? Would appreciate someone taking a look. --MelanieN (talk) 19:39, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I gave details of bot and owner at User talk:Titodutta#Problem with vote counter. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

See this message - all bots went down at 18:00 (UTC) today. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:08, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

All bots?! I better get Twinkling if ClueBot's down! --AmaryllisGardener 21:38, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

There has been some vandalism on the RfAs. I reverted a couple of times manually. Also been manually reverting stuff on my watchlist. I'm not seeing Cluebot in action Irondome (talk) 21:44, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Not all bots, User:HBC AIV helperbot is working fine. Chillum 21:49, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

LOL "Shameless boasting"?! I am always deeply ashamed..some time later Irondome (talk) 21:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Head for shelter from vandals, ClueBot's down, so it's the WikiApocalypse! --AmaryllisGardener 21:54, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

We're doomed! Irondome (talk) 21:58, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Woe, woe is Misplaced Pages, for the great bots have fallen! Seriously, though, I guess this explains why the vandalism rates are so high. Most of my recent activity has been on Huggle. --Biblioworm 23:00, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I am noticing an uptick in vandalism on the recent changes page. Of course it may just be missing cluebot. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:15, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I updated it manually, I really I hope I didn't break it when the bot resumes (I'm already living in fear of a world without machines to do work for us). Doing it old school. Do we call this BB (before bot) and (anno bot)? Mkdw 23:08, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

You updated User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report, but the counts at the top of the individual RFA pages come from User:Cyberpower678/Tally. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:28, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Just love watching me slave away? :). User:Cyberpower678/Tally needs to be updated in two places above and below the IF enable statement, and User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report can be updated in clear. Mkdw 23:51, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The tallybot appears to be working! --MelanieN (talk) 23:54, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@MelanieN: No, it's not - Mkdw fiddled the figures here and here. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:59, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Oops. --MelanieN (talk) 00:05, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Legobot's working too I believe. --AmaryllisGardener 00:09, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Cyberbot I, which normally runs continuously, restarted at 00:00 and seems to be running normally. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:19, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

AnomieBOT is ok. Thank goodness, wouldn't it be horrible if maintenance tags weren't dated for a day or so? *sarcasm* --AmaryllisGardener 01:37, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Not all bots run on labs. My bots are not dependent on labs being up. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:13, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we should set up a redundant lab 2 to handle such cases at least for essential bots like ClueBot NG. --117.198.91.210 (talk) 15:50, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Closers for at least one RfC

As noted at WP:CENT and elsewhere, there's a proposal to create a vandal fighter user-right that includes restricted blocking and page protection abilities. There was an RfC on non-admin closures of deletion discussions that began on December 12 that I just closed. It seems to happen about once a year that we get a series of RfCs on user-rights, and apparently that's what's happening now. As always, I've asked at WP:AN for another couple of closers; as usual, there aren't any takers (yet). As always, I'm asking here (now) for additional closers. I'd like for the closers to make a short statement at the 2-week point, and the first vote was on the 22nd. (I hope I don't sound burdened here, I don't feel that way; it's an honor that people let me perform this role every year, sometimes solo.) - Dank (push to talk) 13:23, 25 January 2015 (UTC)