Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-06-29/Op-ed

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• Seriously, anyone who's an admin sinks by default, in my estimation. Who would put themselves into a defamatory lion's den that has amply demonstrated that it lets through appalling bad apples and gives them status and power for life? It's power that some use to the detriment of the social fabric, with the guarantee of impunity through fellow admins who will protect them by wagon-circling, shooting bullets at anyone who complains. Twisting admin policy breaches into blame-the-victim is stock in trade. If you're an honest admin, your reputation is smeared, I'm sorry to say. Tony (talk) 02:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

• Maybe people who see stuff that needs to be done and step into the gap? WTF? ☆ Bri (talk) 02:37, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

• Why would they want to deal with the torrent of abuse known as RfA? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:05, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

• I am one of those editors who sees stuff that needs to be done and would like to step into the gap. Specifically, AfD and AIAV. But I am not willing to be abused just for the dubious privilege of volunteering my time to do something that needs to be done, plus I believe that there is a prejudice against those of us who are better at doing gnomish work than we are at creating articles. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:03, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

• While it's true that there is unfortunately a trend among a subset of RFA !voters to require recognized content and that back-in-the-day™ gnomes with no real content work (including yours truly) had a much higher chance to pass, I've yet to see a RFA fail just because the candidate was not a content contributor. Regards SoWhy 06:48, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

• In my journeys through the land of Wikipedia I often see user pages with the icon "Not an administrator but would like to be one someday". Well, let's scoop up about two dozen of those insane creatures loyal Wikipedians and give them their wish. New blood won't hurt the corps (unless it does). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:32, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

  @Randy Kryn: What's stopping you from nominating those people? Regards SoWhy 09:07, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  @Randy Kryn: a closer look are those useroxes will probably reveal that they were sometimes placed as the user's second edit. The first was to create the user page. Such userboxes often have an effect exactly opposite too what the user desired. Venturing an opinion here: Anyone who joins Wikipedia with the express intention of policing the project joined it for the wrong reason. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:50, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I can only hope to some day possess this gift of seeing into the souls and intent of individuals without ever having had a conversation with them. Oh, to be so singularly brilliant and all-knowing. All hail the infallible! Vertium ^{When all is said} _{and done} 14:22, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

• A good point I did not consider, Kudpung. Maybe put them in charge of protecting the perimeter. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:28, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  You know what we don't have, but maybe we should, is a road map of an ideal admin's progress to the position. Like a career guide. Maybe it's difficult because there are so many different standards people use for voting, but maybe not impossible. It would also be worth mentioning that there are many un-bundled permissions now, and what they are useful for if someone really wants to help. WP:Becoming an administrator is spectacularly unhelpful in this regard -- a bunch of spooky warnings about misuse of the tools and technical info on what the permissions do, and how to proceed at the moment of nomination for RfA, but not how to become qualified. "The RfA process allows other editors to get to know the candidate, and explore the candidate's involvement and background as an editor, conduct in discussions, and understanding of the role they are requesting" may be all it says. Explore the candidate's involvement and background, harumpf. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:36, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Oh, derp, there's a "how to" at Wikiversity. I'll go read that now. It might be what I just said we should have. (followup to myself) Nope, it was maybe a promising start but it wasn't finished and really says nothing about the cultural norms on English Wikipedia. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Then a new or edited document could be organized by a committee of administrators and others, with EEng thrown in for the clarity and humor, which could form a sense of purpose to attract new dedicated candidates. How about a search committee, an input committee which would locate at least some candidates who would fulfill the promises of the improved document of principles which would guide administrators on the path towards, and in the presence of, their honored responsibility. Admins should be among the best of Wikipedians, those who can guide cordial relationships between the editors, and the beneficial good faith welcoming and, above all, positive treatment of new editors, into the era of Wikipedia pre-, and then post, Nobel Peace Prize. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  If you look in the right places, you might find those committees today. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:58, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

• Most of the work that admins do are to the benefit of Wikipedia and its users. But. Admins should not be elected for life. In Wikipedia in Norwegian Bokmål Admins are elected for two years, then they have to be re-elected (a similar system in Wikipedia in Swedish, which we basically copied). Most all are re-elected, but having to stand for election both gives a chance to remove the one's that do not fit to the role, plus it connects with the society around us. Try explaining that admins have the position for life. Its not accepted, even in Norway, we have one royal family, that's enough. Ulflarsen (talk) 21:00, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

  @Ulflarsen: That's one of those perennial proposals that simply don't work on en-wiki. no-wiki has 42 admins, sv-wiki 63. That's 1,75 / 2,625 confirmation RFAs per month. On the other hand, en-wiki has 1,211 admins (as of today), which would mean 50,46 confirmation RFAs each month, far more than the community can reasonably handle. Regards SoWhy 09:07, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  To SoWhy: If the system we have in Wikipedia in Norwegian Bokmål is copied, then Wikipedia in English will have two elections each year, one in the spring and one in the autumn. In each 1/4 of the admins are on election. That would mean around 300 admins in each election for renewal. (see the admin page here, alas only Norwegian Bokmål). But the important issue is the idea, not how its implemented. It could be an indirect system, where users vote for a group that would function in such a way that admins are not elected for life. Ulflarsen (talk) 09:56, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  @Ulflarsen: Voting for 300+ people twice a year does not sound easier. For ArbCom elections we only have like 10-15 candidates and it already takes several weeks to vet those few. Who would have time to vet 300 people? Even if you only spend 1 minute on each person, it would mean 5 hours of work - 5 hours that could be used more productively clearing all the backlogs (not to mention that 1 minute is far too short to vet someone). I'm not generally opposed to term limits but so far no one has been able to present a convincing case why term limits are better than the current system. Regards SoWhy 10:05, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  So make the term limit ten years. That shouldn't take up too much time and would still have the benefit of giving admins at least a small reason not to piss everyone off. This also addresses the issues of changing standards and some long-time admins not keeping up with policy changes. And it migh weed out those few who have spent years doing just enough work to avoid triggering an inactivity desysopping. --Guy Macon (talk)

  That would still mean 120+ reconfirmation RFAs each year (or 10+ each month). Even at its heyday, RFA never regularly had 10 nominations per month. The question remains: How many admins like this actually exist whose continued adminship hurts the project? (NB: I'm not saying this because I would reach my term-limit in three months). Regards SoWhy 12:23, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  I question your numbers. You are assuming that all 1,200 admins are/will be active after 10 years. How many of those 1,200 admins have been admins for over 10 years and less than 11 years? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:17, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  If I did it right, this query should answer the question: 184 admins who are still admins have been promoted between 2007-07-01 and 2018-06-30 (not a perfect query of course since the logging table contains some duplicates but it should do the trick). Assuming we instituted a term limit of 10 years, we would have to reconfirm 184 admins (15,33 per month), including a number of admins I think I can safely assume are "wiki nobility". Regards SoWhy 14:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  It looks like we would have 10 years to reconfirm those 184 admins. Only the ones from 2008 would be up for reconfirmation this year. the ones from 2009 would be up next year. And (imagining that the system has already been in place for several years) the ones from 2007 would have been up for reconfirmation last year. We would have to deal with the fact that there is a backlog of 11-year, 12-year, etc. admins when we first started doing 10th year reconfirmations, but there are ways to space them out. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:11, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, 2006 to 2011 were the years with the most successful RFAs and a lot of current admins were promoted back then, so you would have huge backlogs at least until 2025. But even if it were technically feasible, I'm still waiting to hear a reason why it would be a good idea to waste so much time and energy on such reconfirmations. Not to mention that some admins would most likely stop making hard decisions if they have to fear reprisals in their reconfirmation RFA. Regards SoWhy 15:33, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was a good idea. I am just interested in the math. For a yearly reconfirmation, the monthly numbers should settle out as roughly the number of successful RfAs per month times the average number of years before an admin leaves - clearly too many to handle. For a tenth year reconfirmation, the monthly number should settle out to be the number of successful RfAs on this month ten years ago minus whatever percentage of admins quit before serving for ten years -- clearly a manageable number. Add one extra reconfirmation per month to reduce the backlog and it should still be manageable. Look at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Recent. Assuming a ten-year term limit and every admin sticking around for ten years, we will have one reconfirmation in April of 2028, zero in May, and two in June. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

  Can you show me a static of inactive admins? If there are just as many inactive vs active, then that means those inactive have contributed less than active non admins, and therefore do not need those admin tools. If an admin can't defend their beliefs on why they should have the tools, they shouldn't continue to have them. A reconfirmation demonstrates an admin's continued commitment to make meaningful contributions with the tools they are privileged to have access to, and not just hollow promises to the masses. Neovu79 (talk) 03:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• There is an old saying among the gnomes... "Some of my best friends are admins!" As quaint and systemically biased as that may sound, it's undeniably true, at least in my case. Okay, it has to be said... I wouldn't be an admin if they paid me to be one. A few of the reasons are depicted on this page, and a few more are described on the Q&A page. To me, being an admin is not at all like being an officer and the rest of us are enlisted troops. No. Being an admin is more like being a no-striper or a one-striper that we hand the rakes and mops and floor buffers to while the rest of us outrank them. I do like the idea of electing admins to limited terms. That way, if an editor decides they don't like being an admin, then they can easily choose not to run for reelection. I've seen up close what admins have to face everyday, and the only thing about being an admin that I like is that they've been vetted by the community and have our trust, which is to me the best part about being an admin!  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  12:02, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
• While I tend to agree that most admins work to benefit Wikipedia, I do not agree with a system that gives volunteers access to be judge and jury over what is technically an organization. If a person is voted as an admin, I think they should be seen as a true representative of Wikipedia because of the power that they wield. There has to be a system of accountability in an organizational level to protect the good and honest admins or attacks by non admins will continue to go unchecked. I find this to be the root of the problem of an all-volunteer non-organizational workforce and why there are so few RfAs in the past five years. Many of us non admins feel there there is no safety net there to protect from the seldom backlash they would receive if they too become admins. On the flip side, a system where admins have to be re-elected every x-number of years will ensure that any "bad apple" admins will not continue to abuse their powers. This will ensure better trust in admins by non admins. Neovu79 (talk) 00:53, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
• While I have had tremendously positive experiences with most admins, and this is by no means intended as a personal attack, I do feel the need to call into question the validity of this Op-Ed from an admin defending admins. Perhaps it would carry more weight if written by someone not in the role. Admins are both necessary and valuable, and I have participated in more than a few RfA conversations. In those cases, absent a clear indicator that someone has done harm to the project or simply doesn't have sufficient experience, I !vote to give the candidate the mop because we do need admins! That said, Admins are more than administrators of the project, they are influencers of the members as a whole. Every interaction that an admin (or anyone with enhanced privileges, myself included) has with an editor can determine that individual's desire and likelihood to continue editing in a constructive and meaningful way. Most admins understand this innately and do an incredible job at it. Others do not understand it and don't seem interested in learning more about it. I have long stated that the process for Adminship needs revamping. There are no specific criteria, and it's open to subjective assessment of those who participate in the RfA and ultimately, the decision of a Bureaucrat who makes a judgment call based on those selective assessments. Further, once someone is an admin, editors are loathe to complain about them or even nominate them for recall due to fear of retaliation. You might say such fears are unfounded, but it doesn't really matter whether they are or are not. The perception becomes the reality and it drives people away from the project. It's time to have terms of adminship, 2 years, maybe 3 and then, the admin should have to reapply and the body of work performed, and their interactions with Wikipedians should be the determinants for continued privileges. Vertium ^{When all is said} _{and done} 12:01, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

The validity of your comment would be apt if it were at least accurate - the article is a synthesis of what 32 admins had to say about their work. There were no opinions expressed by the reporter. That said, many journalists write about topics in which they are not only interested but in which they may even have some first hand knowledge. It's perfectly legitimate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:54, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• An admin nearly killed me. I was an admin, many times, and I created the AN — and I absolutely regret it. The complete lack of civility on Wikipedia is pathetic, and whilst I used to love working on the project - devoting hours and hours of my time, there is no way in hell I would spend any time on it any more. You can thank WWGB and another fellow Australian for that. I remain disgusted by the way I was treated. - tbsdy Chris.Sherlock (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

An intertesting history. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• • Ditto the rationale for my diminshed level of activity on the project and in the financial contributions I've made. Mine isn't with the same individuals, but it's for the same reason. Vertium ^{When all is said} _{and done} 21:00, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Vertium, anyone who has ever had a brush with an admin has brought it upon themseves. This does not mean however, that the admin's reaction or reaction was always the best, but admins don't go around randomly blocking people for no reason at all. Also, while not all admins may be academics or teachers, many of them do have a good sense of project management and won't hesitate to intervene and assist when a group of very young but well meaning people are really using Wikipedia as more of a club rather than pro-actively producing some output. As an example, the WP:CVU still works extremely well many years later without its former bureaucracy . Looking back, I see several admins offering some very sound and reasonable advice there. In the meantime bots and filters have taken over much of the detection of vandalism and WP:AIV is not backlogged. There is so much to do on Wikipedia that people with real skills are always wanted and welcome in other areas, such as WP:NPR, for example, where such work used to be generally quite lonely and haphasard until I turned it round. In just over a year, motivated individuals have been able to reduce a 22,000 page backlog to under 600, but the work needs to continue to keep it there; without introducing hierarchies, it now needs replacement leadership to continue the coordination of that work . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:29, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

"anyone who has ever had a brush with an admin has brought it upon themseves"—that is just the kind of arrogant comment that drags the reputation of admins in general down the drain, and keeps it there. Tony (talk) 06:46, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Re: "Anyone who has ever had a brush with an admin has brought it upon themselves"^{[Citation Needed]}, so it is never the case that a completely innocent party is reported at ANI or Arbcom? --Guy Macon (talk) 07:31, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Kudpung for making my case with such clarity. And my opinion is that it's a wee bit self-serving to claim that WP:CVU is working extremely well, as you were the one who declared you were taking it over and rebuffed conversation with anyone who disagreed with you, and at the same time co-opting the rubric without so much as a thank you to those who developed it. And I take your point that other areas need attention, but perhaps editors would like to have some say in the areas they volunteer since, it *is* volunteer work, and we might want to do things that interest us instead of taking direction from you or other admins who seem to want to direct our efforts. In any case, it's probably best that we discontinue the dialogue, as this is exactly the type of admin attitude and behavior that pushes me away from the project, and I don't need the admonitions. Vertium ^{When all is said} _{and done} 15:19, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

For the rare time you have ever contributed to this encyclopedia Vertium, I will take you recent return as pure harassment. I'm a thick skinned admin and can take a lot of fake flak, but before making thing things up as the reason for not having edited for four years, perhaps you should refresh your memory. There were several admins gently explaining to that bunch of kids that Wikipedia is not recess or break time at school, and neither of us breezed in laying down the rules and syllabus like the director of an education district. You had every opportunity to take on some leadership there, but nobody followed. Get over it - Wikipedia does not need you.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:46, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I haven't no interest in arguing facts from long ago with you, and perhaps my suggestion to discontinue dialogue was too subtle, though I did suspect that if you replied, it would be pietistic in tone, and you did not disappoint. The notion that someone doesn't edit enough by your standards is offensive on its face and exactly the point I was making in my original post on this article. I'm glad you don't need me, as the feeling is quite mutual. Vertium ^{When all is said} _{and done} 01:03, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

""anyone who has ever had a brush with an admin has brought it upon themselves"" This just isn't true. 1) Sometimes an editor and an admin just disagree fundamentally on the best way forward. The best solution is - if, as an admin, you are getting nowhere with an editor and feel your fingers hovering over the "block" button to "shut them up" ... get out of the bearpit and ask one of the many other admins to have a look. 2) On seriously contentious ANI threads, a group of admins can "circle the wagons" around you and make you bang your head in frustration that nobody who respects your viewpoints wants to turn up to the debate for fear of having their head ripped off. (I've seen this happen to me first-hand). It also means that while in principle I think term limits are a good thing, or at least bring positives (I have been an admin elsewhere three times, each elected to a 1-year term limit and it was fine); but I can't get excited about it because I don't have any confidence I would pass RfA again as I've rubbed too many admins up the wrong way. 3) I recall several people saying it's just a plain old fact of life that some people do "not play well with others" while simultaneously being some of the most talented and productive writers. It happens here, it happens in other projects (Linus Torvalds is infamous for his complete lack of tact and civility despite widespread acclaim for his contribution to the IT industry), it happens in the real world - it's just a plain old fact of life that you can either have a better encyclopedia, or you can have a Dolores Umbridge approach where everyone plays nicely-nicely with each other without any actual real work done. I don't particularly like this set-up, sure I would rather have super-productive writers who are also the poster boys of civil and respectful behaviour, but in a voluntary project that can't "fire" people per se, you have to use what you have. The admins that don't get this are the ones that scratch their heads wondering why the peanut gallery on Wikipediocracy and Reddit are being so utterly mean to them for "no reason whatsoever". There's always a reason. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

• Better watch it, folks. I see signs of a push at the Signpost newsroom to censor from story talk pages any reader comments that one or more SP contributors don't happen to like. One solution, apparently, would be to "do away with the comments section altogether". The thread here, apparently, contains "admin bashing" by people who should "should stay off the Signpost and go to one of the Wikipedia hate sites". Included in the deplorables is "Esp. gobbeldygook from non En speakers". Nice, guys—could we be more sensitive toward non-native speakers? There was a time when the SP actively sought global inter-wiki readership, and occasionally made an effort to cover issues of concern on other-language WPs. Tony (talk) 09:17, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

This thread on Commons seems to make all the above arguments far better than I could. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

• I see that the censorship of commentary has started, with the hatting of a comment I made about moves at the Signpost's newsroom to do just that: censor views that one or more of the SP's editors may not happen to welcome. It's disgusting. Tony (talk) 06:17, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

• [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtYU87QNjPw ] --Guy Macon (talk) 08:41, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

• I do agree that any project reliant on volunteers needs to take their needs and quirks into account. However this leads me to a different conclusion. It's a false dichotomy to say that the two choices are super-productive editors or stronger responses to rudeness and other non-collegial behaviour. There are too many editors who use belligerence as a weapon to achieve their goals, which takes advantage of the numerous editors who assume good-faith and look for a way to keep as many editors as happy as possible. There are also many editors who aren't contributing in accordance with Wikipedia's guiding principles, and because the community's decision-making structures aren't able to wean them out, rudeness can seem like the only tool available. There needs to be a way to reward desirable behaviours and discourage undesirable ones. Unfortunately, with English Wikipedia's current decision-making tradition, it's fairly random if any action is taken against negative behaviour: among other things, it depends on how many people notice and who shows up at any discussions about it. isaacl (talk) 08:53, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
• This is late. Perhaps it might be usefully repeated or updated later somewhere. With respect to the number of administrators on the English Wikipedia and their levels of activity: From Wikipedia:List of administrators: "A list of all users who are currently administrators (sometimes referred to as "sysops") in the English Wikipedia can be found here. There are 1,214 (as of now) administrator accounts (active and otherwise), 525 of them active (as of 2018-07-23). Activity is defined as 30 or more edits during the last two months." There are 475 semi-active administrators. "These administrators have made fewer than 30 edits in the last 2 months but at least one edit in the last 3 months." There are 213 inactive administrators, who are "Administrators who have not edited in at least 3 months." Many of these may be headed toward the list of "Former administrators" who have not made an edit for more that one year. Of course, an administrator who is desysopped for inactivity can ask for automatic reinstatement during the following two-year period without having to go through an RfA. It appears that at least half of the administrators may make just an occasional edit to keep their mop active or semi-active. It seems to me that the number 1200+ put forward as the number of active administrators without looking at activity levels reflects an overstatement of the administrative capacity of the project as well as not a good indicator of the possible reduction in numbers over the next few years. Turnover is inevitable for a variety of reasons. Also, if even a fraction of the inactive administrators head into former status without corresponding reinstatements, considering the few new administrators being installed after RfAs, the number of administrators will continue to decline. This will increase the burden on the others. And of course, the need is acute in some administrative areas where the withdrawal of just a few skilled and active administrators would create even bigger backlogs and even in more active areas on certain days and at times. Donner60 (talk) 04:50, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
  • A count of the de-sysops and re-sysops for the past year at Wikipedia:Former administrators shows 62 de-sysops by my manual count and 15 re-sysops, all of which are shown on the first page of Lists of Administrators as well as in the cited article. So in fact corresponding reinstatements are not being made for administrators who become long term inactive. To complete the math, there have been 11 successful RfAs during the same 12-month period. Donner60 (talk) 05:32, 24 July 2018 (UTC)