Bureaucratship candidacies

Eleven users apply for bureaucratship

This week, after just two requests for bureaucratship in the last seven months, a record eleven users applied for bureaucratship. As of press time, six had withdrawn their requests, and as of press time, one looked likely to pass, with another RFB within discretionary range. All five remaining RFBs are scheduled to end on Thursday.

The series of nominations began after Majorly posted to Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship, asking for administrators to nominate themselves: "This is a general request for all admins: if you think you can take on the role of a bureaucrat, please nominate yourself for bureaucratship today! At the moment, there's only (I think) 3 really active bureaucrats, and I believe that a new face or two would be a good thing at this time." Many other users agreed, and on February 28, eleven users nominated themselves for bureaucratship.

Active RfBs

As of press time, the five active RfBs were:

Withdrawn RfBs

The following six users withdrew their nominations, as of press time:

New records

The occurrence of multiple bureaucratship nominations is not uncommon. In July 2007, a then-record seven nominations over a few days resulted in the promotion of two bureaucrats (see archived story). However, never have so many users (eleven) nominated themselves in one day, nor have so many users (six) withdrawn RfBs in one day.

RfB standards discussed

In the wake of the RfBs, users questioned what the current consensus was for RfBs. While the guide to requests for adminship's section on bureaucratship indicated a usual passing percentage of 90%, some noted that Andrevan's July 2007 RfB passed at just 86.7% support. A discussion and straw poll ensued on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship, with opinions ranging from 75% support, to 80-85% support, to 90% support as suggested RfB passing percentages.

Bureaucrat WJBscribe noted his opinion on consensus within RfBs:

I'm not sure that "consensus" is the right word to describe what is being looked for at the moment in promoting bureaucrats - we could add an adjective like "strong" before consensus but I'm not sure that would be pretty meaningful. It has been clear that the English Wikipedia community expects bureaucrat candidates to have significantly more support than candidates for adminship. ...

It is hard to point definitively to when 90% became seen as the marker that had to be reached, but I think one must acknowledge that this happened at some point. Instead of consensus, the language that has been used and I think best reflects the approach today is that RfBs require "no significant opposition". That is a high bar, hard (but not impossible) for candidates to pass. Its result is obvious, few new bureaucrats are created. Wikipedia nevertheless have more active bureaucrats than any other project - 12 bureaucrats have used performed crat actions in the last 2 months. The work is however unevenly divided amongst them. The community may of course discuss promotion thresholds for bureaucrats, reach a consensus that those should be lowered and bureaucrats will of course act accordingly. I agree with those who have pointed out that it would be unwise to alter the approach while requests are live as this would create uncertainty in an area where a reasonable certainty of outcomes is desirable. I do not believe a bureaucrat could function if a sizable proportion felt they had been promoted improperly. No doubt should there be an agreement to lower the bar for successful RfBs, we will be seeing more candidates in the future.

All five remaining RfBs are scheduled to close on Thursday; the Signpost will report on the results of these next week.




Also this week:
  • Wales' relationship with journalist
  • Bureaucratship candidacies
  • Domas Mituzas interview
  • Hidden Categories
  • Book review
  • WikiProject elections
  • WikiWorld
  • News and notes
  • Dispatches
  • WikiProject report
  • Tutorial
  • Features and admins
  • Technology report
  • Arbitration report

  • Signpost archives

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