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User:Jorgenev/"RFA was better before"

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Forceful assertions that RFA is 'broken' have always been part of the RFA scene here on Wikipedia, as well as lamentations for the days of yore when RFA was better in some way: more civil, easier, more active, etc. This page seeks to document that by providing a quote from every month since RFA began of users talking about how RFA was better in some way before.

The point of this page is not to argue that RFA does not have problems, and of course RFA has always been getting harder, but instead that (1) we tend to over romanticize the past (2) even when candidates were being promoted at levels that we now think would think today are ridiculously too low to promote at people were complaining that RFA was too hard and (3) its likely that RFA will continue to get harder and that the WT:RFAers of the future will talk about how things worked just fine now.

It is only somewhat finished, help completing it would be welcome.

2004 edit

  • January
  • February
  • March
  • "I sense that there has been a creeping upwards of what is considered the minimum length of involvement and minimum number of edits to qualify someone for adminship, at least on the part of some voters. This trend started a year ago when the nomination process moved here from the mailing list and has continued over the last twelve months. I do not believe this is in the best interests of the project..."
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • "Some people IMO put far too much stock in edit counts. I've noticed something over time about this page. When the page was new people were made admins with but a handful of votes.(I think I had about 6) This was partially due to the fact that wikipedia was smaller then but also IMO partially to do with the fact that the only people who voted were those who actually knew the candidate concerned. When only actual friends and foes vote, then edit counts tend to be irrelavent, because people can actually discuss how trustworthy the candidate is based on the behaviour they have seen."
  • October
  • November
  • December

2005 edit

  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • "The feeling I get about RfAs these days (and indeed from reading this page) is that RfAs is some sort of glorified election process with a high pass-mark (80% or whatever it is). It is not, atleast it should not be, and it was not intended that way."
  • "So when did editcountitis take over WP:RFA?"
  • "This discussion underscores how ugly the process for rewarding merit on the wikipedia is. That people determine who should and should not weild admin powers while making moronic comments such as the above is a clear indication that this is a failed process."
  • "Strong Support, and through this support express my STRONG OPPOSITION to the Trial by ordeal the Rfa process seems to be degenerating into. This is how we lose so many excellent, talented and thoughtful contributors."
  • "I contend here and now that although it is not inherently flawed RFA has become flawed, RFA used to be an unbiased and untainted way for users who felt they had what it took to request community input on whether they were trustworthy enough to have adminship privileges. Over time this has been changed and dare I say corrupted..."
  • "I am astonished at how bad this rfa process has become, it seems to be constant arguing and point scoring contests."
  • "But honestly, I don't see why I anybody could be that optimistic about this. RfA is getting ridiculous."

2006 edit

  • "I support the jury-style voting, provided that other users are allowed to present evidence in the RfAr style. It is better than a mob curcus scene which RfA reminds me these days."
  • "I just don't like the stigma attached to a lot of RfA's these days, and am working to cut it down; this is part one - beginning to remove the reliance on pure numbers."
  • "I agree that the adminship process is broken and has been for quite some time."
  • "I see editcountitis has reached new lows."
  • "He will be a great Wikipedia Administrator and I am sure this nomination will succeed no matter how ludicrously high RfA standards may have become."
  • " I don't mind RFA that much. Although I do think the editcountis is getting out of hand."
  • "It's been getting gradually worse and worse. Actually some of the oppose votes are really getting my goat. To oppose someone because they have a sense of humour? To oppose someone because they are personable to vandals and newbies? Who the fuck to these people think they are , and why are they not banned from WP:RFA for disruption?"
  • "RFA has become a huge, bloated beast, and it would take a helluva candidate for me to support. I rarely actually go to the main RFA anymore, because looking at those things makes my eyes bleed."
  • "Nothing makes me more ashamed of Wikipedia than the disgusting rabble that RFA has become."
  • "I am hard-pressed to find somebody willing to go through the chinese water torture that is RfA on english Wikipedia at the moment. Let alone somebody who'll actually pass the damn thing."
  • "Since RfA has been broken, it's quite useless to point your opinions on WP:ANI, WP:3RR or other public boards."
  • "we used to get good candidates with low edit counts, we don't any more"

2007 edit

  • "yes, the !has gone from !vote, RFA's no longer a discussion, or sensible consensus, but a damn popularity contest"
  • "RfA is reaching to new lows of triviality. RfA is already too uptight and bureaucratic, let's not make it more so."
  • "It's gotten so silly, I just don't bother to participate in RfA any longer."
  • "My threshold is very low here, but this is self-correcting at present since no one without need will go through the meat-grinder that is RFA."
  • "and people wonder why no one wants to go trough RfA anymore and others are renouncing their adminship.."
  • "Just the continuing decline of the sanity of RfA. It's become a gibbering mass."
  • "I very rarely vote on RFAs anymore because I feel like people have to jump through a million hoops to receive the tools."
  • "since when did RfA become all about attempting to find a single flaw to discredit the entire user's nomination?"
  • "People don't have twice as much time to spend on Wikipedia as they did 20 months ago. Due to editcount inflation, we're promoting an increasingly self-selecting crowd of admins, consisting of those who excel at repetitive tasks. [...] Editcount inflation is starting to exemplify the "madness of crowds" in much the same way as the Dutch tulip mania. Can we start turning back the tide?"
  • "The reasoning that justifies the appalling ordeal that RFA has become by saying that it's a test of the candidate's mettle is exactly the problem that has driven good admin candidates away and will continue to keep them away. We've got ourselves into the absolutely ridiculous situation where a little bit of extra power has been fetishized to the extent that only exceptional editors with a quite frightening dedication to becoming administrators are likely to even consider asking for it."
  • "This RfA is the best argument for RfA reform that I've seen in some time."
  • "I was going to comment on this RfA, but I'm just not liking the low level of civility I'm seeing from the community here."

2008 edit

  • "Based on the reasons being given for opposes in RfA's these days, and in this one in particular, it's about time somebody said something about this, so here it goes... What I see happening here (and in the RfA process in general) is the application of very arbitrary standards, based on RfA behavior rather than upon the editor's behavior in the encyclopedia itself."
  • February
  • March
  • "Unqualified fly-by votes are what destroy RFA. [...] Nowadays, it's an urge to vote on every single one."
  • "There is a growing loss of community spirit on Wikipedia, and these days nobody seems to care if a user has failed an RfA. A couple of years ago, scores of users would promptly issue encouraging messages to the unsuccessful applicant, and he or she would work harder and try again a few months later. Nowadays, I believe it's much easier for a user to wonder what's the purpose of staying on Wikipedia after experiencing an unsuccessful RfA and being treated like a grain of sand."
  • "Wow, I never kwew what RFAs used to be like. *sigh* I know a lot of perfectly good users who would not stand for RFA now simply because they are, frankly, afraid of what happens there."
  • "Community standards just spiral ever higher, and the number of people who kneejerk-oppose for minor transgressions and/or based on superficial reading of other oppose !votes seems to be ever increasing."
  • "Breaking up the toolkit seems to me to be the only sane approach to the insanity that RfA has become."
  • "Incidentally, since when has RFA become some sort of interrogation session?"
  • "I perceive that RFA has become a toxic environment, one where false statements, assumptions of bad faith, and borderline personal attacks are tolerated as the price of vetting candidates for the stressful situations that some administrators may face."
  • "I managed to get thru RFA back when it was temporarily kind-hearted (or, more likely, when no one was paying attention). If I didn't have my bit already, I would never consider going thru an RFA these days."
  • "I think we're losing sight of the forest for the trees when we focus too much on the namespaces that a candidate is active in. This is a trend I'm seeing in RfAs these days, and I urge everyone to consider the fact that there's more than a single path to improving the encyclopedia; trying to shoe-horn everyone into a single criterion for "how do you improve the encyclopedia" isn't, in the long term, productive."

2009 edit

  • "It's s sad that RFA has become into this idiotic witchhunt over the past eighteen months."
  • "Has a level of experience and tenure that would have been considered more than sufficient in the days when RFA worked properly,"
  • "The second point (and this is not directed at A Nobody, but the participants of RfA in general) is that I have seen a disturbing trend of cherry picking points of contention along the lines of 'That's not what I would have done.'"
  • "The Wikipedians who closely follow the RfA process lately often look to me like they're treating it as some kind of social club in which they want to help choose who gets to enter or not."
  • "if only more of our admins were like Billinghurst. But I see RFA is more broken than ever. Note for 'crat: those who actually know this guy support giving him the bit; the opposes are from people who don't know him, but think they can cover for their lack of actual interaction with a few arbitrary metrics and ten minutes snooping around."
  • "This oppose is very illustrative of why RfA has become hell for candidates. No diffs, no real reasoning other than a veiled "fuck you, no way". ..."obvious problems with attitude". Christ, borderline personal attack."
  • July
  • "RfA is getting more and more picky while our admin corps is dwindling fast (100 active admins lost over the last 18 months)."
  • September
  • "As far as the supposed "canvassing", well, not everybody who actually contributes content to the encyclopaedia frequents the cesspool of policy wonkery that RFA has become. So neutrally expanding comment in the spirit of IAR outside of the RFA regulars does more good than harm, IMO."
  • "RfA is now sufficiently intimidating as to dissuade most editors from embarking upon it, and most of the rest from re-applying after a failed candidacy."
  • "RFA is becoming a hell hole like no other. The standards are getting more and more extravagant"

2010 edit

  • January
  • "Combine the availability of alternative tools with the process of running the gauntlet that RFA has become, and it should be no surprise that many potential admins conclude the infliction of pain is not worth it."
  • "If RfA weren't so ridiculous these days, this would certainly be the easiest pass of 2010 so far."
  • "I also think that some of the more recent RfAs became dangerously unintelligent: Totally inappropriate extra questions, unreflected drive-past supports, and blatant character assasination by the opposers. A British Army promotion board is less humiliating than what our current process has become."
  • May
  • "RfA is broken, or at least a very substantial number of people think so. The number of active administrators is in decline, and the ratio of unsuccessful to successful RfAs has gradually grown over the last several years. RfA has also been substantially more contentious and confrontontational."
  • "Seen RfA lately? It's not something I'd wish on a friend."
  • "RFA is a feculent sinkhole of hatred and rage, the one place on Wikipedia where people are tacitly allowed to vent their spleens with no filters, and finally say what they actually think about someone without much fear of being blocked. This is, of course, a problem; RFA used to be a fairly simple process, and now it's much more of a trial by fire than anything else."
  • "That is exactly what Administrators do and why getting the bit has become the monstrous hell week that RfA has become."
  • "I know of a few users who aren't running because they don't want to deal with the hostility RFA has become."
  • "Not taking into account the fact that RfA has gone completely batshit insane and that they made such a big effing deal of adminship; that's another problem."
  • "The long and short of it is that RfA has become, to some editors, a vicious nit-picking, agenda pushing, battleground warring, zombie voting, mess, and it is the fault of misguided (most), immature (some), or malicious (some) users."

2011 edit

  • "Some of the debate seems to have reached a new low for RfA."
  • "Good people who know how to use automated tools are what keep this thing functioning. If that's a negative at RfA then that's a toxic trend that threatens the entire encyclopedia."
  • "As most of our active admins were appointed some years ago when RFA was less dysfunctional any term limit proposal is pretty much guaranteed to exacerbate the admin shortage."
  • "He, however, is too afraid of the monster that RfA has become to go through it."
  • "Admin backlogs are massive, but the trial by fire that is RFA is noways impossible for all except the very best to have a shot at, which is a real shame."
  • June
  • "Opposing over his signature (when it's clearly not the sig of a 12-year-old using a paragraph of mark-up) and the answers to trick/ridiculous questions are no doubt part of the reason that RfA has become such an ordeal."
  • "The bar for human intelligence [of RFA voters] gets set lower and lower with each passing week these days, so anything's possible."
  • "I believe RFA's golden age ended in 2008."
  • "The point of this thread on this page is why RFA is in decline-- if anyone here doesn't see the relationship between that and the MF situation, I really can't help, other than to say, y'all brought it on yourselves, and this very thread makes it clear how and why"
  • "... the slough of despond that RfA has become ..."
  • December
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