| “ | Current Wikipedia policy is to grant administrator status to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community. Most users seem to agree that the more administrators there are the better.
|
” |
| — Camembert, Requests for Adminship, July 2003 | ||
| “ | Contrary to the Wikipedia mantra 'Adminship is not a big deal', it is — because of the very stressful and oft humiliating experience of the inquisition itself. The trials and tribulations of being a sysop come later.
|
” |
| — Kudpung, Wikipedia:RfA reform 2011 | ||
Will the new RfA reform come to the rescue of administrators?
16 May 2024
Jimbo's NFT, new arbs, fixing RfA, and financial statements
28 December 2021
Editors discuss Wikipedia's vetting process for administrators
26 September 2021
Administrator cadre continues to contract
31 July 2019
The Collective Consciousness of Admin Userpages
31 January 2019
The last leg of the Admin Ship's current cruise
31 July 2018
What do admins actually do?
29 June 2018
Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?
24 May 2018
Recent retirements typify problem of admin attrition
18 February 2015
Another admin reform attempt flops
15 April 2013
Requests for adminship reform moves forward
21 January 2013
Adminship from the German perspective
22 October 2012
AdminCom: A proposal for changing the way we select admins
15 October 2012
Is the requests for adminship process 'broken'?
18 June 2012
RFAs and active admins—concerns expressed over the continuing drought
14 February 2011
RfA drought worsens in 2010—wikigeneration gulf emerging
9 August 2010
Experimental request for adminship ends in failure
13 October 2008
Efforts to reform Requests for Adminship spark animated discussion
23 April 2007
News and notes: Arbitrators granted CheckUser rights, milestones
6 February 2006
Featured picture process tweaked, changes to adminship debated
27 June 2005
Requests for adminship (RfA) is the process for creating new administrators on Wikipedia. RfA has been around since June 2003, when Camembert created the page after discussion on a mailing list. Reform of the process has been discussed continually since at least 2005, but the process has remained virtually the same as when Camembert created the page in 2003.
The first major attempt to reform the RfA process was with discussions for adminship (DfA). Bureaucrats actually initiated many of the mooted changes before reverting to the old format pending discussion. The idea behind DfA was relatively simple—a week of discussion would precede the voting phase. This would combat voting that organizers felt was little more than "stab[s] in the dark" thanks to limited information about each candidate. They took pains to note that they were not looking to completely modify RfA, but they felt limited tweaks were necessary. Ilyanep emphasized the "ridiculously increasing high standards", "huge amount of instruction creep", and RfA's similarity to polling. Lar noted that while the process was currently working and "good enough", he believed "... 'better' is the enemy of 'good enough'. I think that even if this current process works pretty well, there may nevertheless be better ones out there."[1]
Also in 2006, Adminship renewal, proposing a term of office for administrators, was rejected. This idea is common; it had been proposed before and has been proposed many times since, which is why it is now listed on the perennial proposals page. In 2007, a large survey was conducted to attempt to find what the views of the Wikipedian community were. Around the same time, Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Reform was created to attempt to improve the process. The page quickly ballooned before participation suddenly declined, leading editors to conclude that it was "dead" and trying to draw consensus for RfA reform from it would be flawed. 2008 saw a major request for comment, where many of the perennial proposals were debated, but no consensus was found for any substantive changes. Interestingly, the request spawned from an attempt to delete the main RfA page. Many of the arguments against reform were based in the number of administrators promoted in the previous month (34), which led to the belief that with so many successful RfAs, the process itself could not be broken. As Deskana stated, "Many people desire that RFA be changed, to improve Wikipedia. Change can be good, and it can be bad. What a fair chunk of the people that argue for the reform of RFA don't seem to appreciate is that it isn't 'broken'. That's not to say that it can't be improved. Broken would imply that it's not working at all, which it is."[2]
The most recent and probably most in-depth attempt at reform was in 2011, with the aptly named "RfA reform 2011". The process was immediately spawned by My76Strat's RfA, which was widely viewed as a microcosm of the larger problems at RfA. In its aftermath, Jimmy Wales commented "RfA is a horrible and broken process", and the general feelings led to the creation of RfA2011 by Kudpung. Even this massive effort failed to break the RfA deadlock; although nearly all of the participants desired some sort of reform, they were unable to get their proposals adopted by the main RfA community. Worm That Turned (WTT), one of the coordinators of the initiative, blamed this on the inability to find a root cause of the problems at RfA: "Different people thought it was it was too hard, too easy, got the wrong candidates through, was too uncivil, had too many questions, could give votes without reasons, with [poor] reasons... there was a long list." Kudpung added that the participants were also discouraged by those who vocally voiced their opinion that the page would not accomplish anything.
With these many attempts at reforms, why is there still no consensus that RfA needs to be changed? Perhaps the answer lies in something simple: the natural conservative tendencies of Wikimedians, as most notably illustrated by Ironholds in the Signpost and on his blog. This is not to say most Wikipedians hold conservative political views, but that they are resistant to most forms of change. As Ironholds stated on both pages, "Wikimedians actually tend to put a fairly small amount of stock in changing things to boost the community or the social aspects of the movement. Whether it's WikiLove, help reform or any other project to ameliorate the less pleasant aspects of the projects, the same refrain comes from an annoyingly large chunk of the community ... people don't like change, and ... existing editors are largely comfortable with the current situation". This mindset is seen in the RfA archives with comments like "maybe it's better we stick with what we've got, and try and tweak it to perfection!" or "It's the worst system except for all the others." [3]
With the demonstrable issues with RfA's process and culture—its central two tenets—many strategies, some mentioned above, but most not, for addressing them have been raised. Perennial proposals may sum it up best: "While RfA is our most debated process and nearly everybody seems to think there's something wrong with it, literally years of discussion have yielded no consensus on what exactly is wrong with it, nor on what should be done about that." Reformist editors are therefore swimming against a strong current to even stay afloat, much less find concrete proposals that may garner support. Despite acknowledging these difficulties, there are those who still attempt to reshape RfA. The aforementioned RfA2011 was successful in implementing a editor review-style process which gives candidates a chance to catch possible problems before the public process of RfA. It was also able to put an edit notice above the main RfA page warning inexperienced candidates of their RfA's likely conclusion, and contributed large amounts of research into RfA which is still available for other editors to read through. The Signpost asked WereSpielChequers, Worm That Turned (WTT), Dweller, and Kudpung what changes to process and culture it would take to bring RfA to a level where it could help maintain the administrator core while not driving disheartened editors away after a bad experience.
WereSpielChequers' full views on RfA are available in his userspace, but he believes that RfA is 'broken' and that action needs to be taken to halt the decline in active admins—more than 300 since its peak in 2006. His solutions for RfA vary:
A counterpoint is provided by WTT, who says that his research conducted during RfA2011 has led him to believe that the process is not 'broken' per se, but "it's keeping the right people out and letting the right ones through. If people stopped considering it as a hell-hole, I'm sure they'd realise it isn't one. ... adminship is "no big deal", even if RfA is." Buttressing WTT's argument, only one editor has passed RfA with less than 3,000 edits since 2009, but he had over a million edits to other Wikimedia projects. Dweller agrees in that he does not think RfA is 'broken'. However, in his view the standards for becoming an administrator have risen—in some cases too high. The impact of this has been limited, thanks to the increase in highly-capable bots, but the "ordeal" of the process itself has a detrimental effect on the current efforts to retain editors: "Even more than good admins, we must value our editors, and bad experiences threaten ongoing participation and RfA is an area where bad experiences can happen." Kudpung takes a middle ground, saying RfAs have "become such a rare event, it's not possible to be able to say whether it has become calmer or not."
Still, even if we are ensuring that only qualified candidates are applying, then there is clear evidence that the number of qualified candidates is falling. The administrator corps is currently in decline through attrition and a lack of new blood (see table, below). Whether RfA is 'broken' or functional, it seems to not be fulfilling its intended purpose of at least maintaining the number of administrators: there are 705 active administrators as of this writing, down from a peak of 1,021 in mid-2008.[4]
| Month\Year | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | Totals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 2 | 13 | 14 | 44 | 23 | 36 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 1 | ||
| February | 2 | 14 | 9 | 28 | 35 | 27 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 3 | ||
| March | 8 | 31 | 16 | 34 | 31 | 22 | 13 | 2 | 9 | 1 | ||
| April | 6 | 20 | 25 | 36 | 30 | 12 | 14 | 8 | 3 | 3 | ||
| May | 10 | 23 | 17 | 30 | 54 | 16 | 12 | 8 | 6 | 1 | ||
| June | [5] | 24 | 13 | 28 | 28 | 35 | 18 | 12 | 6 | 4 | ||
| July | 3 | 11 | 17 | 31 | 26 | 31 | 16 | 10 | 7 | 4 | ||
| August | 4 | 9 | 12 | 39 | 26 | 18 | 12 | 11 | 13 | 1 | ||
| September | 0 | 17 | 29 | 32 | 22 | 34 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 4 | ||
| October | 0 | 10 | 16 | 67 | 27 | 27 | 16 | 7 | 7 | 3 | ||
| November | 3 | 9 | 27 | 41 | 33 | 56 | 11 | 13 | 4 | 2 | ||
| December | 1 | 15 | 25 | 68 | 19 | 34 | 9 | 6 | 1 | 4 | ||
| Total promoted | 44 |
123 |
240 |
387 |
353 |
408 |
201 |
121 |
75 |
52 |
9 |
2012
|
| Total unsuccessful | n/a[6] |
n/a |
63 |
213 |
543 |
512 |
392 |
234 |
155 |
87 |
32 |
2248[7]
|
| Total RfAs, including by email | 44 |
123 |
303 |
600 |
896 |
920 |
593 |
355 |
230 |
139 |
41 |
4247[8]
|
Key
Ground shifts while chapters dither over new Association
18 June 2012
Foundation finance reformers wrestle with CoI
11 June 2012
Finance debate drags on as editor survey finds Wikipedia too bureaucratic
14 May 2012
Projects launched in Brazil and the Middle East as advisors sought for funds committee
9 April 2012
Funds, fiduciaries, and the Foundation: the complex dynamics of scaling
9 April 2012
Berlin reforms to movement structures, Wikidata launches with fanfare, and Wikipedia's day of mischief
2 April 2012
An introduction to movement roles
2 April 2012
Chapters Council proposals take form as research applications invited for Wikipedia Academy and HighBeam accounts
19 March 2012
Sue Gardner tackles the funds, and the terms of use update nears implementation
12 March 2012
Chapter-selected Board seats, an invite to the Teahouse, patrol becomes triage, and this week in history
5 March 2012
Finance meeting fallout, Gardner recommendations forthcoming
27 February 2012
Fundraiser row continues, new director of engineering
20 February 2012
Fundraising proposals spark a furore among the chapters
13 February 2012
Wikimania a success; board letter controversial; and evidence showing bitten newbies don't stay
8 August 2011
Negotiations among the chapters—the national Wikimedia entities—over the creation of an umbrella organisation appear to have stalled just weeks before the scheduled announcement of the arrangements for the new organisation at Wikimania in Washington DC (12–15 July). Meanwhile, in another move prompted by resolution of the foundation board at the Berlin conference in April, the first signs of a structure for user groups and thematic organisations were published on Meta on 18 June. These two new entities will comprise additional layers of real-world organisations—a significant structural change for the movement and a potential challenge to chapters' existing roles.
At Berlin, the 25 represented chapters (out of 39) agreed to establish the Wikimedia Chapters Association (WCA) in response to the ongoing reform of Wikimedia's organisational structures. The WCA is designed to coordinate the efforts of the chapters and advocate their interests in relation to the WMF, which distributes funding and resources such as the right to use trademarks to support chapters' work. The WCA will be designed to improve chapter transparency and accountability, and to develop best practices on relevant issues such as GLAM initiatives. The intention is to hire staff and to formally agree on a location for a centralised office for the WCA. The Signpost believes this will most likely be in the Belgian jurisdiction.
The chapter representatives agreed on a letter and a time frame to be pursued by an elected steering committee. An important aim was to finalise the arrangements in time for the announcement of the foundation's finance reforms at Wikimania; these reforms will be critical to the work of the chapters, which depend heavily on foundation funding for their promotion of Wikimedia-related activities in their areas. (In a related development, it is widely expected that the new Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) will involve much stricter auditing of chapters that apply to it for operating costs.)
However, preparations for the new WCA and its council—whose members are to be elected by the chapters—have run into trouble over communications on key issues between members of the steering committee, which is charged with preparing the standing orders that will set out the basic structures for the WCA. According to the schedule, where to locate the new entity should already have been agreed on, and the results published weeks ago.
The steering committee has not responded to on-wiki inquiries regarding the state of play—even to queries by the new chapter-selected WMF trustee–elect, Alice Wiegand, who enquired in May and again in June.
English Wikipedia arbitrator Kirill Lokshin represents Wikimedia DC in the WCA process. He told the Signpost, "it's obvious to everyone that the process is far behind schedule", but that this is unsurprising given what he believes is an "unrealistically aggressive" timeline. He emphasised that the standing orders drafted by the steering committee as well as the two alternative proposals, of which he drafted one, contain the required basics and that disagreements are focused on procedures rather than substance.
"There has been a great deal of confusion," he said, "both among the steering committee members and among the participating chapters, between the location where the WCA is to be incorporated and the location where the WCA should operate." The steering committee "has interpreted its mandate merely as providing recommendations to the WCA Council on these topics. Since there is currently no mechanism for the Council to make any decisions—and, indeed, no real indication of who the members of the Council actually are—this has made it impossible to proceed towards a decision even if the steering committee's recommendations were to be finalized." However, the chair of the WCA steering committee, Tomer Ashur, disputed this view: “I am not sure this was indeed the initial plan. We do not interpret the mandate as merely providing recommendations rather than providing recommendations that if not challenged [will] become decisions.“
Kirill told the Signpost that he remains hopeful of progress before Wikimania on the three major infrastructure elements: recommendations for a location, and drafts of the job description for the Secretary-General and of the standing orders.
To make things more complicated, the biggest chapter, Wikimedia Germany, elected its representative, Markus Glaser, to the WCA by membership vote last week. He has stated that his priorities will be to achieve "far-reaching decision-making power" for chapters over the Wikimedia projects in relation to any controversial changes to the technical platform, and to partially roll back the foundation board's financial reforms by arguing for financial autonomy of the German chapter in relation to what he referred to as "sovereignty" over donations to the movement in Germany.
Regular chapter status is generally bound to activities in a nation state (with the notable exception of the two US chapters, Wikimedia DC and New York). The inflexibility of this model came to a head during an application for chapter status to promote Wikimedia's mission in the Catalan language, which is mainly spoken in Spain but is also the official language of Andorra.
In response to this, two participatory models are under development by the foundation's Chapters Committee (soon to become the "Affiliations Committee", if the WMF board approves its new charter): user groups and thematic organisations. Recognition as a thematic organisation would be a necessary step for using Wikimedia trademarks and applying for funds from the WMF, and would require a relatively formal structure consistent with local jurisdictions. The suggested minimum number of people involved in a thematic organisation is 20.
On the other hand, many Wikimedia communities have meetups and other informal groups that have no official status, and which currently cannot apply for support, grants and the ability to use trademarks to help them in their work. No formal incorporation will be required to gain recognition under the new user group concept, which will give limited access to Wikimedia trademarks and possibly other resources.
The upcoming Wikimania will be one of the most important events for the movement for some time: during the event, the WMF board will consider approving the new Affiliations Committee and the two new participation roles, as well as debating the new financial structure to distribute movement funds. At the same time, chapter representatives will attempt to finalise the shape of the WCA.
| 0–20% 20–40% 40–60% | 60–80% 80–100% |
The following is a brief overview of the current discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia.
This week, we turn to WikiProject Punk Music for an alternative view of Wikipedia's coverage of music topics. The project has grown from its modest beginnings in April 2006 into a refuge for Wikipedia's punks along with the 5 Featured Articles and 27 Good Articles they watch over. WikiProject Punk Music is home to the Good Charlotte Task Force and oversees two child projects, WikiProject The Clash and WikiProject Green Day. The project maintains a to do list, a portal, and a newsletter that is delivered to anyone listed on the project's participant page. We interviewed Jasper420, Guerillero, Benzband, and Pjoef.
What motivated you to join WikiProject Punk Music? What is you favorite Punk band?
The project claims 6 Featured Articles and Lists plus 26 Good Articles. Have you worked on any of these? Have you learned anything about the FA or GA process along the way?
In comparison to other music genres, how well does Wikipedia cover Punk music? Are there some aspects of Punk that tend to be over-represented or neglected?
Are there any challenges to taking pictures of notable musicians and venues? What are some images the project could use help acquiring?
The project oversees three task forces focusing on individual bands. Have you been involved in any of these? How much collaboration goes on between the task forces and the parent project?
What are the project's greatest needs? How can a new contributor help today?
Anything else you'd like to add?
Next week is the start of the WikiProject Report's first Summer* Sports Series. In the meantime, stretch your legs in the archive.
*Winter for our friends in the south
Reader comments
Three featured articles were promoted this week.
One featured list was promoted this week.
Four featured pictures were promoted this week:
The Committee opened and closed one case this week, leaving a total of three open.
The case concerns alleged misconduct by Fæ. MBisanz claims that Fæ "has rendered himself unquestionable and unaccountable" regarding his conduct because he responds rudely and personally attacks those who question him. MBisanz alleges that Fæ mischaracterises commentary about his on-wiki conduct as harassment and while Fæ has been mistreated off-wiki and possibly on, his violent responses to on-wiki commentary "has become the issue itself."
Proposed decisions are due by 26 June. Clerks have been authorised to remove uncivil comments and accusations where there are no diffs to support them; the users responsible will receive a single warning. If further incidences occur, clerks may block the user for a period of time at their discretion. Users are reminded that no speculation is allowed, and submissions must be factual and direct; where submissions contradict those of other editors, sufficient diffs must be provided.
The case was referred to the committee by Timotheus Canens, after TheSoundAndTheFury filed a "voluminous AE request" concerning behavioural issues in relation to Ohconfucius, Colipon, and Shrigley. The accused editors have denied his claims and decried TheSoundAndTheFury for his alleged "POV-pushing". According to TheSoundAndTheFury, the problem lies not with "these editors' points of view per se "; rather, it is "fundamentally about behaviour".
Proposed decisions are due to be made by 30 June.
The newly opened case filed by P.T. Aufrette concerns the suitability of the new move review forum, after a contentious requested move discussion (initiated by the filer) was closed as successful by JHunterJ, and several views suggested that the move was not supported by consensus. After a series of reverts by Deacon of Pndapetzim, Kwamikagami and Gnangarra, the partiality of JHunterJ's decision was discussed, as was Deacon of Pndapetzim's own academic interests.
Evidence submissions and proposed decisions are due on 28 June and 12 July, respectively.
GoodDay has been indefinitely prohibited from making any edits or participating in discussion concerning diacritics anywhere on the English Wikipedia. The topic ban includes the conversion of any diacritical mark to its basic glyph on any article or page (broadly construed) and any edit that adds an unaccented variation of a name or word as an alternative to diacritics. GoodDay was warned that should additional violations of Wikipedia's conduct policies (especially of the nature recorded as findings of fact) occur, stronger sanctions (up to a ban from the project) may be imposed without further warning from the committee.
Reader comments
| “ | In May 2012:
|
” |
—Engineering metrics, Wikimedia blog | ||
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for May 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project). Two of the headlines for the month have already received coverage in previous issues of the Signpost (work on a new universal language selector and a Wikidata/RENDER summit followed by a hackathon, both hosted in Berlin). Other headlines selected for the report comprised the publication of the second volume of Architecture of Open-Source Applications, which contains a chapter on MediaWiki; a new and easier way to view a wiki's interwiki map (Wikimedia blog); and the surpassing of the one million milestone for images uploaded using Wikimedia Commons' Upload Wizard, which was first deployed in December 2010 (see previous Signpost coverage).
Elsewhere, the roundup contained details of a new Wiki Loves monuments mobile app; the conversion of the final aspects of the other Wikimedia apps that used screenscraping to instead get their data from the MediaWiki API; and the rapid upgrade and renewal of the Foundation's oldest servers (many of which were over four years old). Readers who recall the WMF's assurance in early February to undertake a full review of Gerrit three months after the Git switchover will also appreciate the inclusion of the news that Brion Vibber has agreed to lead that review, publishing his conclusions in early August. The report also noted that the outgoing bugmeister Mark Hershberger has completed a guide for triaging new bugs to allow volunteers to understand and more frequently contribute to the process.
On the negative side, code review was a significant issue in May, with the number of "unreviewed" commits nearly doubling to 250. The figure – although muddied by methodological problems – is already pushing on the target code review limits, less than three months after the Git switchover when it was approximately at zero.
Corrections:
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Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.
