Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship: Difference between revisions

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Content deleted Content added
tweak close, no need to hat and you hatted the header
PumpkinSky (talk | contribs)
Line 160: Line 160:


Thank goodness the grammar of the section title has been corrected! [[User:Johnmperry|<span style="color:darkgreen">John of Cromer</span>]] ([[User talk:Johnmperry|talk]]) mytime= Thu 21:41, wikitime= 20:41, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank goodness the grammar of the section title has been corrected! [[User:Johnmperry|<span style="color:darkgreen">John of Cromer</span>]] ([[User talk:Johnmperry|talk]]) mytime= Thu 21:41, wikitime= 20:41, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
::Closed the day it was open, WTF? [[User:PumpkinSky|<font color="darkorange">Pumpkin</font><font color="darkblue">Sky</font>]] [[User talk:PumpkinSky|<font color="darkorange">talk</font>]] 23:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

{{archivebottom}}
{{archivebottom}}

Revision as of 23:43, 27 June 2013

RfA candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report
RfB candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report

No RfXs since 08:57, 27 September 2024 (UTC).—cyberbot ITalk to my owner:Online

Current time: 07:42:21, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
Purge this page

No RfX?

Let's talk about fruits in the meantime. Or we can have fruitless discussion of other topics too. :p—cyberpower ChatOnline 22:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I like raspberry's and pineapple! Kumioko (talk) 22:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

20+ questions is pushing the limits

I don't know who's watching this but 21 questions so far in this RFA is pushing the limits of what I think is reasonable. The candidate is passing by a landslide. There is no reason to bomb them with pointless questions. Kumioko (talk) 20:38, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The candidate is on their way to 200 supports, and I do not see any way they can fail, so that it is not that much important. It would be much worse if the candidate were close to the threshold.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:03, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PIle-on on questions - and although (almost) every one is entitled to their vote and opinions - some oppose votes, are purely disruptive in an RfA that is so obviously going to succeed. There is rarely a virgin pass however, because someone will always think it's clever to be the one to break the spell. It's interesting and not entirely surprising to see who broke the spell in this case. If there has been a trend in RfA since the WP:RFA2011, is has been a markedly higher turn out, and while over 100 supports is nowadays nothing extraordinary, going back over the last 7 years anything approaching 200 is still extremely rare, especially for a first run:

  • Fluffernutter 152
  • SarecOfVulcan (2nd) 166
  • HJ Mitchel (3rd) 164
  • VernoWhitney 151
  • DaBomb 188
  • Tide rolls 162
  • Tinucheria 174
  • MZMcBride (3rd) 203
  • Jake Wartenberg 151
  • PeterSymonds (2nd) 197
  • lustiger seth 151
  • Cirt 166
  • Epbr123 (2nd) 160
  • Werdna (3rd) 186
  • Jbmurray 161
  • VanTucky (2nd) 194
  • Elonka (3rd) 176
  • Anonymous Dissident (2nd) 165
  • Danny 256/118/9
  • Persian Poet Gal 179
  • Daniel.Bryant (2nd) 233/3/3
  • Newyorkbrad 225

IMHO, I believe a lot of questions, particularly from those who have a history ofrcreating drama, and newbies who don't fully understand admishship or its process of election, do not contribute to the overall building of consensus. particularly late ones in an RfA that is almost certain to pass, and with exceptionally flying colours. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I think in general more than 10 comments is unnecessary, 15 is pushing it and 20+ is just ridiculous. Kumioko (talk) 13:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Editors should be free to ask as many questions they want, and candidates should be free to ignore as many questions as they want. GiantSnowman 15:09, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As much as I agree with you GS - I'd fear that ignoring questions could likely bring about oppose !votes that were not justified. Just a hunch. — Ched :  ?  15:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If an oppose !vote is not justified then the closing crat would simply ignore it. GiantSnowman 15:26, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see it as a problem - though it would be nice if editors voluntarily confined themselves to one question each. Think of an RfA as not just a process of choosing an admin but also one of giving other editors a voice and a place to air what they see as issues and concerns involving admins. If we restrict the number of questions, we also restrict the openness of the process and that would be a very bad thing. --regentspark (comment) 17:36, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • What I see is posturing. Just as some may have done in the past in the Neutral area, where they don't want to really participate, they just want to make some WP:POINT about RfA or admin in general, and they don't care who it hurts. People are on the interwebs aren't real, after all. I'm not sure what you can do to prevent it. I had 13 questions at my RFA in 4/12, which was considered a lot of questions at that time. Dennis Brown |  | © | WER 18:16, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • And I think 10 is probably reasonable or within a couple questions of that. But 21 questions for an RFA that is passing by a landslide is excessive. I think we should at least limit the number to 2 per submitter. Maybe 3 tops. Kumioko (talk) 18:20, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I had exactly ten questions at my July 2011 RFA (perhaps one of the most boring on record--which I'm rather proud of) and that seemed about right--providing enough insight while not cutting too much into time reserved for other things. The problem with limiting questions however, is that questioners might just split their questions into multiple-part questions to fit within the limit instead of cutting down on them. That's the tricky part, since limiting question parts would be difficult considering limiting questions themselves would be something of a long-shot. Tyrol5 [Talk] 18:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Limiting questions per questioner is probably better than limiting the number of questions. We don't want to cut people out just because they aren't online 24/7! Though I agree with Dennis that some questions are mere posturing or, at best, indirect WP:POINT types, but it is better not to try to control that. Subjective control is not good because it circumscribes (if that's the right word) thought. And, sometimes, it is useful to see how a candidate responds to a "What do you think of this absolutely unfair way of dealing with this really important problem?" type of question. --regentspark (comment) 19:13, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Limiting to two per person is a good idea. That means if you want a follow up question, you should only ask one question to start with. And the 3rd question should simply be reverted out. Compound questions with more than two questions should be simply reverted out with the instruction of "Limit 2, try again". 2 is pretty reasonable, more than that may stop someone else from asking something worthwhile because they may think that there have already been too many questions. Dennis Brown |  | © | WER 20:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think editors should be encourage to post only one or at most two generic questions that would apply to all or most candidates, on the theory that if more than a handful of editors post multiple questions, things will quickly get out of hand. I would be less prescriptive about questions addressed to the specifics of a particular candidacy, as these often are helpful in clearly up specific issues that might be of concern to the !voters (although again this, too, shouldn't be overdone). Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:19, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • FWIW - I had 27 questions in 2009 (counting an a. b. c. question as 3). meh - whatever. — Ched :  ?  21:25, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm at the other extreme, having gotten no optional questions at all in my RfA. (But the community made up for it big-time on the questions page at the ArbCom elections; last year it felt like I spent a wiki-month answering all of those.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • That is an interesting point, but if I really have a question about an activity, say their participation in a previous Arb case, I can always hang in the Neutral area and say "I'm concerned about [link] and can't commit without know why he considered $x to be a violation of policy." The candidate can chose whether or not to address it or not. That would be a proper use of the Neutral section, instead of using the question section trying to create drama and make the candidate look bad: to persuade my posse. I was lucky that all the questions at my RfA were solid policy questions, except #11, which was still valid, although I now disagree with that answer. Dennis Brown |  | © | WER 22:45, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I very rarely ask questions on RfA - and I just as seldom give much weight to the user questions and their answers. Unless a question has exposed something really egregious, I base my votes on my own research. It seems quite obvious to me that a great many voters do little or no research at all; evidence has shown in the past for example, that opposers have piled on to an oppose vote that has subsequently been proved wrong, and in some cases even retracted, but the piler-oners don't even come back to change their own votes as a consequence. Extensive research data and discussion on RfA questions here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:27, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Most "optional" questions become "mandatory" and most questions have an ulterior motive[citation needed] in my opinion. Most people who run at RFA are doing so because they believe they could be a net gain i.e. can spot a vandal at five yards and block, i.e. can spot an abused page and protect. Many "optional" questions wander into the obscure and irrelevant, but gain traction because of various cliques[citation needed]. I've deliberately "cn'd" myself because I'm not going to get involved with finding diffs etc to prove the point, but anecdotally we're seeing perfectly reasonable candidates opposed for the most esoteric reasons which would put off the most qualified folks. Back to basics. Can you edit a page? Can you spot a vandal? Do you have a clue? Three ticks = admin. If you blow it, well let's de-mop you. And maybe therein lies the rub, that community desysop doesn't have a clear framework. If it did, we could be awarding flags to everyone knowing that we could protect Wikipedia from rouge or even rogue admins going "broken arrow". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bullying

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I would like to report the behaviour of User:Kudpung. He has tried to literally bully away my no vote in the current RfA.

Reading his statements above he simply labels no votes as disruptive. How at all can RfA be even remotely democratic if no votes are not allowed?

Having 200 supports doesn't grant you immunity from critiscm, and Kudpung should not be bullying other users in this manner to stop them voting no. I am disappointed this goes on in Wikipedia. RetroLord 10:41, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also note that Kudpung is the CO NOMINATOR of the RfA he accuses me of being disruptive in. How is this sort of behaviour permitted from an admin? The co-nom telling no voters that they are disruptive? RetroLord 10:43, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, can you provide a diff showing where you're beign bullied? Failure to substantiate your claims is uncivil, and a glance across this talkpage or in the current RFA show no such behaviour. Also, recognize that a comment on your behaviour is not typically inappropriate. (✉→BWilkins←✎) 10:56, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Kudpung doesn't need me to fight his battles for him, but I'll just note that a) the thread above refers to pile-on questions as disruptive, not Oppose !votes and b) there is no way any neutral observer could construe Kudpung's comments on your talkpage as bullying. He has at no point told you that you are being disruptive. Yunshui  10:55, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Above statement about the preceding thread struck, although I'll add that no specific !vote was singled out for criticism. Yunshui  10:58, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There are only two. RetroLord 11:01, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"...someone will always think it's clever to be the one to break the spell. It's interesting and not entirely surprising to see who broke the spell in this case. -- "the one to break the spell" might be thought to refer to the first oppose, and the whole quote seems to me to be way too hostile. It's not going to change the result, so why push him like this? --Stfg (talk) 11:09, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Could you link/diff that Stfg please? That seems rather hostile.

RetroLord 11:10, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake its in the post above. Kudpung is quite clearly acting in a hostile manner, with the aim to remove my vote on the grounds it is disruptive. RetroLord 11:17, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Kudpung posted a message on a no voters page, politely informing them of attempts to make RfA a nicer place. It is subtly a way of saying, change your vote. Such behaviour is innapropriate, hence the warning I posted on the page. I did this so others do not feel pressured to change their vote if Kudpung questions it. Kudpung is clearly trying to stop no votes, and his position as admin could intimidate some new users. RetroLord 11:00, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Again, provide a diff that provides proof, or retract your accusation - you know how this works Retro - you've been around long enough (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:02, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
PS: If your concern is related to a very kind, non-threatening message that Kudpung placed on your talkpage, I would wonder about your command of the English language: there's no threat, no bullying ... nothing that could humanly raise any negatives (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:05, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Bwilkins, stay civil. Kudpungs message is quite clearly an attempt to get me to change my vote. If you combine that with his comments on this page, he is clearly labelling all no votes as disruptive, especially those from "newbies". RetroLord 11:06, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, YOU stay civil. There's nothing in the English language in their statement that calls YOU disruptive, and no attempt to get you to CHANGE your vote. The polite suggestion merely to review it based on the comments below it - and is actually a very common thing to do on RFA's when significant discussion has occured after a !vote. Was your !vote wrong - yes. Do you need to change it - no (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:12, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok Bwilkins. He labelled the no votes disruptive. There are two of them. You are even labelling my vote as inherently wrong somehow, so I would politely ask you yo excuse yourself from this conversation as per WP:Involved. RetroLord 11:14, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Have you ever read WP:INVOLVED? How am I considered to be involved? Yes - in my personal opinion, your !vote was not based on either policy or reality, but you're entitled to your opinion (as am I). Are the 4 editors who discussed your !vote also disruptive for daring to try and get you to change your mind? (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:20, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok Bwilkins. Because you feel so strongly about this RfA it is probably a good idea for you to not participate in discussions regarding it. Kudpung attempts to label my no vote as disruptive, plain and simple. That fact is quite obvious from his statements above this post. Please do read them Bwilkins. RetroLord 11:22, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I feel strongly about this RFA? I don't even think I have !voted in it. I feel strongly about the English language, and disruption by people who clearly cannot read it (or who choose not to read it). Obviously that "fact" is NOT obvious, because you're the only person on the planet who believes it. You've still failed to respond to your uncivil accusation that I'm "involved" (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:25, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Proof as insisted upon by Bwilkins is visible on my talk page and at the end of the post directly above this one. He quite clearly labels no votes as disruptive. RetroLord 11:04, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think if Kudpung really wanted to bully people into not opposing, I doubt he would have made this post, which ended any drama that might have been caused in that thread. By contrast, these three recent diffs from the RfA are both an overreaction and have more potential for drama than Kudpung's comments: [1][2][3] Acalamari 11:17, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cheese and Rice. Retrolord appears to be simply begging for a block for disruption - WP:POINT and WP:SPIDERMAN are his MO (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:23, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The way I see it, Kudpung does appear to have stepped over a line here, he's labelled the oppose votes disruptive - that's unfair, people are allowed to have an opinion. A couple of negatives on such a large positive are not going to affect the outcome and in my opinion they will show the candidate their fallibility and how the community will judge them in the future. They don't make the process more unpleasant, they show things how they will be. Indeed, I could make a comment about admins defending their friends and silencing the opposition...
    In any case, whilst I believe Kudpung stepped over a line, he didn't do it in a bullying manner, nor was he uncivil - he was expressing an opinion. In other words he didn't overstep the line. As a nominator of the candidate, it's an opinion which is to be expected. So, Retrolord, nothing's going to happen here, you're unnecessarily escalating the situation, please do let it go. If anyone else tries to "bully" you into changing your vote, let me know and I'll talk to them. WormTT(talk) 11:23, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Case closed. Kudpung stepped over a line, but not the line. Thankyou for your input Worm That Turned. I'll be closing this discussion assuming Bwilkins has no further violations of WP:Involved to ad. RetroLord 11:27, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Stop citing WP:INVOLVED unless you decide to actually read it. You misread Kudpung's comments. You failed to discuss with them first before generating lines upoin lines of drama - and now you're merely trying to disparage the person who called BS. Cut it out, it's not becoming of you. Go, eat some crow, and don't make further pointy edits to the RFA based on your misreading (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:51, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok Bwilkins. Clearly you haven't taken the time to read ALL of Kudpungs above comments. Especially his borderline personal attack along the lines of "its not suprising who it was that broke the spell". A consensus has been reached of valid editors. Your opinion is invalid as you continously violate WP:Involved, because you said my vote was "wrong". RetroLord 11:56, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sockpuppets

Why don't we refer new accounts that come to RfA to make their first edit to SPI? I am fairly sure most of them are sockpuppets.

Also, please note

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JustAnotherWuBanger

Who seems to fall into this catgeory of single purpose RfA sockpuppetry account.

Thanks, RetroLord 08:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that we often don't know who the master is. In any case, this particular sock has been taken care of.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:37, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Surely we could just check their IP and see who else uses that IP? Or is there some rule against doing that RetroLord 08:47, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We can do that given enough evidence. It's being handled and I'm sure it will be checked.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:48, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are there fewer editors willing to go through the process?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I'm not sure if there is a trend of less editors wanting to through the process of RFA, but it seems like it. An admin that I respect said that he can't wait till I decide to go through the process. I do appreciate it, but it is hard for me to see why anyone would want to go through the process. I don't ever see myself even considering it even 5 years or so in the future. SL93 (talk) 03:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can't speak for other admins, but I can't say that I really enjoy being an admin. It keeps me involved with Wikipedia at a time where I have run out of ideas for content creation and where I get quickly bored with routine tasks such as copyediting, finishing articles for lazy editors, or translating articles from other languages, and I suppose I do like the forensics that come with the admin tools and a good knowledge of policies. As an admin however, unless you gnome away at deletion cats and avoid contentious areas such as ANI and RfC/U, someone has to do it. It's very often on their RfA that they get their first taste of the flak that they're almost certain to get as an admin even if they are just doing their job. Some people can be as mean as hell, especially when they go candidate baiting in concert like a pack of wolves. Whether candidates are likely to pass and come out of the process relatively unscathed is very much up to them. If they have any skellies in their cupboards, or too many duff CSD tags, or civility issues, they should at least read all the advice first, and take a year to prepare themselves. Those who are in a hurry to get the bit probably shouldn't be getting it, and usually they don't. The downside is that the longer you wait, and the more you get involved in the areas that are expected of admins, the more enemies you make. If you keep your nose too clean you'll be accused of not having a thick enough skin for the job, and if you participate at adminiy discussions too much, you will get accused of trying to climb a greasy pole. It's all a bit of a Gordian knot, but generally, for better or for worse, the vast majority of RfA conclude with an appropriate closure, so no serious candidate should be really afraid to run the gauntlet for 168 hours. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:10, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there has been a huge fall in the number of successful and unsuccessful RFA runs since the 2005/7 peak. It isn't easy to tell why as there are clearly several interacting factors, but yes I think that many good candidates being unwilling to run is part of the reason for the decline in RFAs. I haven't looked at your edit history SL93, but speaking of candidates and potential candidates in general; A large part of the decline is because the de facto standards have risen, editors with less than a years blockfree editing rarely run and would be unlikely to pass, as would be editors who can't point to reliably sourced content that they have added (or at least unsourced content that they have been able to reliably source). My fear is that RFA's reputation is become far worse than the reality. Your five year comment could perhaps be an example of that. I have seen individual opposes for lack of tenure even of people who've been editing for over a year, and while I haven't seen a successful candidate with less than 3,000 edits in some years, anyone opposing a candidate with much more edits than that will usually have a better reason than lack of edits. Similarly you now need to be a content contributor in order to pass RFA, and a question of I've trawled through quite a few of your edits and not yet found one where you've cited a reliable source. Can you show me some edits of yours where you have cited reliable sources? Would derail an RFA if the candidate was unable to give good examples. But an unadorned "not a content contributor"oppose would hopefully be deservedly ineffective, pretty much anyone can get the odd oppose for not being a content contributor, I've even seen a candidate with featured content opposed for "not being a content contributor". It's the sort of oppose that really requires the opposer to state their definition of a content creator and be prepared to reconsider if they have missed something. So if any of the non-admins reading this are nervous about some of the more bizarre opposes at RFA, I would suggest not worrying about the outliers as unanimity is not required. ϢereSpielChequers 07:23, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There are less editors; it follows there are less editors willing to go through the process. I was quite nervous about the process, and put it off for several months after an admin suggested I do it; it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. That said, there's no need to become an admin; if you're worried about the animus you're likely to face during the RfA, you're not going to like the animus you face once you start taking admin actions. WilyD 08:32, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we have fewer editors than at peak in 2007. But the decline in RFA has been far steeper than the drop in editing levels, on its own the drop in editing levels does not explain the drop in RFA numbers. Worse, if it was just a problem of fewer people editing then we wouldn't have our growing wikigeneration divide with an admin cadre who have mostly been admins since the 03/07 era administrating a site where a growing proportion of the active editors have only become active after the RFA drought began in early 2008. ϢereSpielChequers 08:48, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't a "content creator" when I passed in April of '12, I was a gnome who patrolled AFD and ANI. I didn't get a GA or FA until after I got the bit. Of course, I had 18k edits over 5.5 years before the bit and passed with only ~81%. There are several editors who will oppose if your content is less than ~50% and if you don't have at least one GA, but the majority of voters aren't that way. Wikipedia isn't new, back in '06 when I started, there were still plenty of people who didn't know what Wikipedia was, now everyone knows what it is. We don't have the inflow of users who just "discovered" Wikipedia anymore, pretty much anyone of age already knows we are here and has formed an opinion. Dennis Brown |  | © | WER 09:26, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a problem? To the average content editor, the wikiworld seems to function reasonably adequately with the number of admins we have now. The only people who really seem to make this an issue are existing admins complaining about their workload. If that's the case, they need to do a better job of persuading non-admin editors that there are good reasons for them to become admins. Although there are obviously some editors who see becoming an admin as an aspirational target, those are probably not the sort of people anyone should be encouraging. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:50, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is a mild to moderate problem when too few admin do the majority of admin tasks. I think we are better served if there are more hands doing fewer things each. Not only does that allow more variety of thought but it frees up admin to do other things. I sometimes struggle to edit articles when I see that SPI or other boards are backed up. I think that "too many" admin would be a better problem than "too few". Concentrating all the administrative control in too few hands brings its own problems. Dennis Brown |  | © | WER 11:15, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't agree more. Kumioko (talk) 11:44, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comparison of the number of new admins to the number of total editors isn't the proper comparison; one should either compare the total number of editors to the total number of admins, or the number of new editors to the number of new admins. Those are the apple to apple comparisons, and the relative differences are much smaller. Yes, a growing proportion of editors have only been active since '08, but a growing proportion of admins have only been admins since '08 as well. Neither proportion is really all that large. WilyD 10:07, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My personal opinion is three fold on this particular matter:
  1. First, the decline can be partly contributed to multiple factors including, but not limited too, the decline in editors in general; the nightmare the RFA process has become; the toxic nature of what editing has become in general; and the general hypocrisy of the attitude that many of us that have the skills for the job can't pass it but many that do pass it don't have the skills because you have to be meek and a mediator in order to get the tools.
  2. The second part is that there are about 1400 admins but its the same 30 or so that do 90% of the admin actions. The vast majority of those admins seem to just be hat collectors who never or rarely use the tools. Most of those that do 't use them all. They focus on one or two specialty tasks.
  3. With so much more content in Wikipedia these days needing the tools to edit, it is becoming increasingly frustrating to edit. Add to that the attitude that it seems every edit is against some policy or will upset someone for some reason, the odds that people can get enough edits and skills to get the tools without pissing someone off is next to impossible.
I personally hate the us and them mentality displayed between many admins who feel that adminship is just below godhood and I think the term administrator should be abolished and the toolset broke up into modules. But neither of those will ever happen. Just like myself (and a number of others) will never be allowed to be an admin eventhough I do primarily admin related stuff. So frankly, I don't have any sympathy for the admins being overworked and under-appreciated because there are more that should be helping out and aren't and there are a number of us who would help out if we could, but aren't allowed too. Kumioko (talk) 11:05, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the responses. I was wondering what was going on when I barely saw any RFAs this month. Among other issues with RFA, it seems like people may not know that they have enemies but then RFA could bring them out. SL93 (talk) 14:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Regarding the supposed us-vs-them mentality: My personal favorite essay on Wikipedia is User:Antandrus/observations on Wikipedia behavior. I believe observation #31 is pertinent here: " People who loudly accuse the community of some vice are almost invariably guilty of, but blind to, some variant of that vice themselves." Some of the participants in this thread spend a lot of their time attacking admins as a group, helping to create an us-vs-them mentality by tarring us all with the same brush and are somehow unable to see the irony in that... Beeblebrox (talk) 19:18, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think its only a small % of the admins that do it. Unfortunately its a vocal and active minority giving the other 1380 a bad reputation. I do think the vast majority of the admins are guilty of allowing their peers to get away with things that shouldn't be allowed though. So for that I suppose you could say they are guilty of at least benign neglect. Kumioko (talk) 19:22, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank goodness the grammar of the section title has been corrected! John of Cromer (talk) mytime= Thu 21:41, wikitime= 20:41, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closed the day it was open, WTF? PumpkinSky talk 23:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.