Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Discussion-only period

2024 Requests for adminship review

Status as of 15:55 (UTC), Friday, 13 September 2024 ()

• The trial of the RfA discussion-only period has concluded! You are invited to discuss its effects on the candidacies run in the trial period and on RfA as a whole.

Welcome back! Now that the trial of (Proposal 3b: Make the first two days discussion-only (trial)) has ended, we return to discuss its pros, cons, and (later) whether to retain it. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 09:06, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion close by Joe Roe is reprinted here:

After more than a month of discussion, there is a clear consensus in favour of this proposal. Eighty editors participated in the discussion and a 76% majority supported the proposal. The arguments against were sound but evidently not persuasive. Additionally, many opposes were qualified as "weak", and many concerned a preference for another variant of this proposal – none of which have been successful.

The details of this proposal were implicitly taken from the unsuccessful Proposal 3 above. For the avoidance of doubt I'll repeat them here (slightly edited for clarity):

For the first two days (48 hours) of a request for adminship (RfA), no !votes (comments indicating "support", "oppose", or "neutral") may be made. Optional questions and general comments are still allowed. After the first two days, !votes may be left for the remainder of the RfA.

This is to be a trial that applies to the next five RfAs that are not closed per WP:SNOW or WP:NOTNOW or to RfAs opened in the next six months – whichever happens first.

Neither proposal specified what should happen after the trial period. I assume another RfC should be held to determine whether there is a consensus to make this change permanently. – Joe (talk) 12:55, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

The trial was in effect through the RfAs of ToadetteEdit (NOTNOW), Numberguy6 (SNOW), DreamRimmer (withdrawn), Elli (successful), Pickersgill-Cunliffe (successful), HouseBlaster (successful), and asilvering (successful).

Open discussion

Welcome back! Now that the trial period has concluded, I have a few questions to ask of everyone participating. Hopefully, these make for good yardsticks as we examine the effect of this trial period.

• Were these RfAs more or less contentious than usual?
• Were these RfAs better or worse for candidates than usual?
• Were these RfAs more or less accessible for !voters than usual?
• Is there anything else you noticed about these RfAs that positively or negatively impact your perception of the trial period?
• Is there anything you would change about the discussion period?
• If you were to RfA (again, possibly), would you rather your RfA had the discussion-only period or not?

Cheers, and happy discussing-only! I plan to delay the retain/remove RfC for at least a week, but I'm happy to wait as long as needed for open discussion to hit all the major points. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 09:06, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

• We can't support/oppose yet? Is this RFA number six? ;-) –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:13, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

• The discussion-only period probably could have been 24 hours (rather than 48)
  — User:HouseBlaster, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/Opinion

  Aaron Liu (talk) 15:43, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

  Personally, I prefer the 48-hour period, as it better accommodates some discussion across a global community. isaacl (talk) 17:40, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

  But is the benefit of having more time when global peeps can't vote worth the additional stress? Aaron Liu (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

  Personally, I believe the tradeoff is worthwhile, which is why I said I preferred the 48-hour period. isaacl (talk) 18:01, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

• I'll raise several concerns that I have, none of which is a fatal flaw, but each of which seems to me to be worth serious thought.
  1. It seems to me that the discussion-only period did provide an opportunity for more positive feedback to the candidates, so that aspect was helpful in making the process potentially less stressful. However, it's also important to look at how that played out in RfAs that were neither of the two poles: neither snow-close, nor near-unanimous support. When the RfA was successful, but where there was also significant opposition, I had the impression that the opposition got less serious consideration than it would have gotten under the "traditional" system. Editors tended not to engage so much with expressions of concern voiced during the first two days, as though comments made before the voting started seemed to count less. Editors who expressed concerns during those discussion-only days ended up having to repeat what they said in their "oppose" comments, which makes me question whether the initial discussion was a waste of time, not taken seriously enough. And then the voting period was shorter, which tended to truncate the traditional pattern in which opposes have tended to emerge only after the first few days, perhaps because editors who are inclined to oppose tend to wait for someone else to "go first". If the only goal is to get more successful RfAs, then arguably that's a good thing, but so long as the community consensus is that we don't want to give out the permissions carelessly, then it might become a problem.
  2. It felt kind of frustrating, waiting before being able to actually express a support or oppose.
  3. After the actual voting began, the RfAs seemed to end much sooner than before, because the overall time was the same (5 days of voting, instead of 7).
  4. It might make sense, for the two reasons just above, to have just one day of discussion instead of two. Many editors have said this. On the other hand, does a single day of discussion-only really accomplish anything? Why have a single day at all (other than as an intellectually lazy way to arrive at a "compromise" in this discussion)?
  5. We had a prolonged period of not-very-many successful RfAs during the trial period, accompanied by a lot of discussion about whether we are heading towards too few admins. There's no evidence that the trial discouraged any good candidates, but there's no evidence that it didn't, either. If there's an uptick in successful RfAs after the trial period, that would be worth paying attention to.
• --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

From what I see, concerns brought up in the discussion section were extensively discussed. I don't see how oppose !votes referencing/restating comments in the discussion sections means that the section was disregarded. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:34, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, that just means that you didn't see what I did. I'm trying not to personalize this by naming individual RfAs, but there was one where I laid out my concerns in the pre-discussion, then found that I had to repeat myself in the main event. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Regarding a change in the degree of back-and-forth discussion, I think that was an intended goal: let people raise their points, pro and con, without framing them as part of support or oppose positions, so there's less tendency to reflexively argue against dissenting views. Regarding feeling frustrated at not being able to set forth one's support or oppose viewpoint as soon as it is formed: it's a tradeoff to give everyone some buffer time to evaluate the candidate independently. I trust that many of those who feel that urgency to express their views will be understanding and patient with those who need more time for examination and consideration of the candidate's record. isaacl (talk) 04:15, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Everything you describe seems to me to be desirable outcomes. But it all assumes that everyone pays close attention and thinks seriously about the merits. In reality, what I think I actually saw was a significant number of people (not everyone, of course) just paying less attention. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:55, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The goals of reducing back-and-forth and giving people time to consider their viewpoints independently are still met, whether it is because participants are paying less attention during the discussion phase or other reasons. It's theoretically possible that if commenters were paying less attention, their analysis missed some points, but whether or not that affected the usefulness of the end outcome can't be evaluated for a while, if ever (since separating out that factor is hard). Personally, I don't think either format is much different in how easily someone can choose to drop in and express their viewpoint without paying attention to the comments of others. isaacl (talk) 21:52, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think that the existence of a discussion period makes much of a difference either way. But IMO 24 hours is unthinkably short. Even to just get a comment in would mean an editor having to notice and comment within one of their 8-16 hr. editing periods. And an actual discussion/exchange would mean squeezing 2 or more of those cycles into one 24 hour or less period. North8000 (talk) 01:45, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

  I guess we could make it 36, but that might be too complicated. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:54, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

• To me, the trial illustrated clearly that a brief discussion period does not do anything to fix problems RFA may have, and creates some new problems. Most people with substantive concerns about candidates rarely brought them up, instead reserving them for the oppose section. A lot of people - myself included - posted comments that are !votes in essence. Speaking for myself, it was because I wanted the candidate to feel the comfort of support during an undoubtedly stressful time. And a considerable number of people made comments and posted questions that verged on the inane, which, in my view, happened because Wikipedians feel the urge to participate in open proceedings, but were severely constrained in how they could do so. I am opposed to extending this trial, as I was opposed to starting it. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:24, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
• As a ORCP frequenter, IMHO this two-day trial period didn't affect the outcome of any of the trial period processes. At first we saw the surprising runs of three unready candidates (none of whom had gotten likes from ORCP commenters) each of whom crashed so hard we were rethinking this very trial, and then we saw runs from five fully qualified candidates, each with little baggage. In a way, I'm glad we had three initial trial period crashes. RfA is not a place where a candidate feels warm and fuzzy. It is not a place to seek validation. Is is a place where each and every one of our previous behaviors may be closely scrutinized, however trivial. I remember TLC suffering because of a non-standard archiving experiment. Even some of our finest admins did not pass RfA on the first try. IMHO, we shouldn't be doing anything to make it more pleasant to RfA. It's a job interview. BusterD (talk) 11:13, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  There is consensus that RfA has problems. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:32, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  I see nothing incompatible between these positions. A job interview for a lifetime post obviously SHOULD be challenging, daunt job seekers, and quickly screen out the grossly unready. RfA is not a platform for mere popularity. This proposal, based on our test cases, doesn't appear to help us in any measurable way. This proposal didn't meaningfully affect any of the test cases. This proposal wouldn't have affected my choice to run. This is my opinion. BusterD (talk) 11:58, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  I should add, IMHO this proposal was intended to make early opposes less damaging, not to correct all RfA injustices. At this point, I'd prefer to identify and remove recidivist "corrosive" troublemakers from the process. My solution might be unpopular but be more measurably effective. Again, my opinion. BusterD (talk) 12:10, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  How would that address such opposes? No individual RfA proposal is supposed to fix everything, and such standards would be unfairly harsh. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:31, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  There is consensus that the level of scrutiny is problematic, and all this does is have the scrutiny discussed. If you think it didn't change anything, why not keep it, especially with the potential protection against unproportionately-spoiling opposes? Aaron Liu (talk) 17:29, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

• At this point surely until and unless there's an uptick (or a downtick) in RfAs, as Tryptofish suggests above, we have no evidence other than anecdotal to evaluate the trial. My anecdotal evidence is that the trial caused me, twice and for two different reasons, to step closer than i have ever been to making a Request: First, at the beginning it seemed as though no one was going to, so i considered it exactly so we'd have some evidence then, after two or three unsuccessful RfAs i felt that i might step forward as someone closer to the average candidate than the first few; fortunately, Elli and then several more did so. Much more important than mine, though, would be the experience of the candidates who did go through this process; while i recognise that some or all mayn't want to rehash, i'd very much like to hear from any of ToadetteEdit, Numberguy6, DreamRimmer, Elli, Pickersgill-Cunliffe, HouseBlaster, and Asilvering on their views of the experience. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 13:36, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  I personally liked the idea of the discussion-only period, and the proposal to end it early resulted in me running when I did. I've been meaning to write a debrief with my overall thoughts, but haven't been sure quite how to put everything together. My opinions are overall positive though. Elli (talk | contribs) 13:43, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  My thoughts on the discussion only period was divided. The pro is that it allows the editor to rethink twice before voting. The con though is it can put the candidate into much more stress, as what happened in my application where people were bringing up every ounce of my mistakes which forced me to stay away from Wikipedia for a whole day. In my opinion the discussion only period should continue. ToadetteEdit (talk) 14:48, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I'm not sure what to make of the delay between HouseBlaster's RFA and mine - was it scaring off other potential candidates? We go with gaps that long sometimes, so who knows. I did delay the start of my own run in the vague hope that someone else would take the last spot, but obviously it didn't stop me from running entirely. I'm also not sure that the "Wikipedians feel the urge to participate in open proceedings" thing Vanamonde mentions make much difference for my RFA in particular - ie, I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have had basically the same experience with questions if voting had opened at the outset. Perhaps I'm just well-trained by academic conferences, where people ask you mind-bendingly irrelevant questions all the time, some in earnest good faith and some not at all. The game is to come up with a much more interesting question in your head and answer that one instead, without unintentionally communicating to the questioner, who probably has no idea that their question is inane, that they said something stupid.

  My RFA wasn't contentious, so I don't know that my experience can say much about whether the discussion period helps with keeping the temperature down. I do think, though, that framing concerns as a "topic for discussion", like happened in my RFA, did really help in that case. Other editors responded and disagreed, but because they could disagree by saying something like "eh, I don't think that's a concern" or "I agree with asilvering here" rather than effectively saying "I disagree with YOU PERSONALLY because of YOUR VOTE", it looked much less like hounding than lots of responses to oppose votes have in the past.

  What I didn't like about it was that it added another "beginning of your RFA" point, and that's just unnecessarily exhausting no matter what emotions you feel about it. -- asilvering (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

• I think we've learned that a discussion-only period isn't helpful.—S Marshall T/C 22:37, 10 September 2024 (UTC)