Wikipedia:Requests for adminship

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Note: Although this page is under extended confirmed protection, non-extended confirmed editors may still comment on individual requests, which are located on subpages of this page.
Purge page cache if nominations haven't updated.
Requests for adminship and bureaucratship update
RfA candidate S O N S % Status Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report
Numberguy6 0 0 0 0 Open 01:36, 1 June 2024 6 days, 13 hours no report
Current time is 11:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC). — Purge this page
Requests for adminship and bureaucratship update
RfA candidate S O N S % Status Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report
Numberguy6 0 0 0 0 Open 01:36, 1 June 2024 6 days, 13 hours no report
Current time is 11:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC). — Purge this page
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Requests for adminship (RfA) is the process by which the Wikipedia community decides who will become administrators (also known as admins), who are users with access to additional technical features that aid in maintenance. Users can either submit their own requests for adminship (self-nomination) or may be nominated by other users. Please be familiar with the administrators' reading list, how-to guide, and guide to requests for adminship before submitting your request. Also, consider asking the community about your chances of passing an RfA.

This page also hosts requests for bureaucratship (RfB), where new bureaucrats are selected.

If you are new to participating in a request for adminship, or are not sure how to gauge the candidate, then kindly go through this mini guide for RfA voters before you participate.

There is an experimental process that you may choose to use to become an administrator instead of this process, called administrator elections. Details are still being worked out, but it is approved for one trial run which will likely take place in 2024.

About administrators

The additional features granted to administrators are considered to require a high level of trust from the community. While administrative actions are publicly logged and can be reverted by other administrators just as other edits can be, the actions of administrators involve features that can affect the entire site. Among other functions, administrators are responsible for blocking users from editing, controlling page protection, and deleting pages. However, they are not the final arbiters in content disputes and do not have special powers to decide on content matters, except to enforce the community consensus and the Arbitration Commitee rulings by protecting or deleting pages and applying sanctions to users.

About RfA

Recently closed RfAs and RfBs (update)
Candidate Type Result Date of close Tally
S O N %
ToadetteEdit RfA Closed per WP:NOTNOW 30 Apr 2024 0 0 0 0
Sdkb RfA Successful 16 Feb 2024 265 2 0 99
The Night Watch RfA Successful 11 Feb 2024 215 63 13 77

The community grants administrator access to trusted users, so nominees should have been on Wikipedia long enough for people to determine whether they are trustworthy. Administrators are held to high standards of conduct because other editors often turn to them for help and advice, and because they have access to tools that can have a negative impact on users or content if carelessly applied.

Nomination standards

The only formal prerequisite for adminship is having an extended confirmed account on Wikipedia (500 edits and 30 days of experience).[1] However, the community usually looks for candidates with much more experience and those without are generally unlikely to succeed at gaining adminship. The community looks for a variety of factors in candidates and discussion can be intense. To get an insight of what the community is looking for, you could review some successful and some unsuccessful RfAs, or start an RfA candidate poll.

If you are unsure about nominating yourself or another user for adminship, you may first wish to consult a few editors you respect to get an idea of what the community might think of your request. There is also a list of editors willing to consider nominating you. Editors interested in becoming administrators might explore adoption by a more experienced user to gain experience. They may also add themselves to Category:Wikipedia administrator hopefuls; a list of names and some additional information are automatically maintained at Wikipedia:List of administrator hopefuls. The RfA guide and the miniguide might be helpful, while Advice for RfA candidates will let you evaluate whether or not you are ready to be an admin.

Nominations

To nominate either yourself or another user for adminship, follow these instructions. If you wish to nominate someone else, check with them before making the nomination page. Nominations may only be added by the candidate or after the candidate has signed the acceptance of the nomination.

Notice of RfA

Some candidates display the {{RfX-notice}} on their userpages. Also, per community consensus, RfAs are to be advertised on MediaWiki:Watchlist-messages and Template:Centralized discussion. The watchlist notice will only be visible to you if your user interface language is set to (plain) en.

Expressing opinions

All Wikipedians—including those without an account or not logged in ("anons")—are welcome to comment and ask questions in an RfA. Numerated (#) "votes" in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections may only be placed by editors with an extended confirmed account[2] and only after the RfA has been open for 48 hours.[3]

If you are relatively new to contributing to Wikipedia, or if you have not yet participated on many RfAs, please consider first reading "Advice for RfA voters".

There is a limit of two questions per editor, with relevant follow-ups permitted. The two-question limit cannot be circumvented by asking questions that require multiple answers (e.g. asking the candidate what they would do in each of five scenarios). The candidate may respond to the comments of others. Certain comments may be discounted if there are suspicions of fraud; these may be the contributions of very new editors, sockpuppets, or meatpuppets. Please explain your opinion by including a short explanation of your reasoning. Your input (positive or negative) will carry more weight if supported by evidence.

To add a comment, click the "Voice your opinion" link for the candidate. Always be respectful towards others in your comments. Constructive criticism will help the candidate make proper adjustments and possibly fare better in a future RfA attempt. Note that bureaucrats have been authorized by the community to clerk at RfA, so they may appropriately deal with comments and !votes which they deem to be inappropriate. You may wish to review arguments to avoid in adminship discussions. Irrelevant questions may be removed or ignored, so please stay on topic.

The RfA process attracts many Wikipedians and some may routinely oppose many or most requests; other editors routinely support many or most requests. Although the community currently endorses the right of every Wikipedian with an account to participate, one-sided approaches to RfA voting have been labeled as "trolling" by some. Before commenting or responding to comments (especially to Oppose comments with uncommon rationales or which feel like baiting) consider whether others are likely to treat it as influential, and whether RfA is an appropriate forum for your point. Try hard not to fan the fire. Remember, the bureaucrats who close discussions have considerable experience and give more weight to constructive comments than unproductive ones.

Discussion, decision, and closing procedures

Most nominations will remain active for a minimum of seven days from the time the nomination is posted on this page, during which users give their opinions, ask questions, and make comments. This discussion process is not a vote (it is sometimes referred to as a !vote, using the computer science negation symbol). At the end of the discussion period, a bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether there is a consensus for promotion. Consensus at RfA is not determined by surpassing a numerical threshold, but by the strength of rationales presented. In practice, most RfAs above 75% support pass.

In December 2015 the community determined that in general, RfAs that finish between 65 and 75% support are subject to the discretion of bureaucrats (so, therefore, almost all RfAs below 65% will fail). However, a request for adminship is first and foremost a consensus-building process.[4] In calculating an RfA's percentage, only numbered Support and Oppose comments are considered. Neutral comments are ignored for calculating an RfA's percentage, but they (and other relevant information) are considered for determining consensus by the closing bureaucrat.

In nominations where consensus is unclear, detailed explanations behind Support or Oppose comments will have more impact than positions with no explanations or simple comments such as "yep" and "no way".[5] A nomination may be closed as successful only by bureaucrats. In exceptional circumstances, bureaucrats may extend RfAs beyond seven days or restart the nomination to make consensus clearer. They may also close nominations early if success is unlikely and leaving the application open has no likely benefit, and the candidate may withdraw their application at any time for any reason.

If uncontroversial, any user in good standing can close a request that has no chance of passing in accordance with WP:SNOW or WP:NOTNOW. Do not close any requests that you have taken part in, or those that have even a slim chance of passing, unless you are the candidate and you are withdrawing your application. In the case of vandalism, improper formatting, or a declined or withdrawn nomination, non-bureaucrats may also delist a nomination. A list of procedures to close an RfA may be found at WP:Bureaucrats. If your nomination fails, then please wait for a reasonable period of time before renominating yourself or accepting another nomination. Some candidates have tried again and succeeded within three months, but many editors prefer to wait considerably longer before reapplying.

Current nominations for adminship

Current time is 11:56:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Purge page cache if nominations have not updated.

Numberguy6

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (0/0/0); Scheduled to end 01:36, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Nomination

Numberguy6 (talk · contribs) – I have been editing Wikipedia for nearly 8 years, and I have over 43,000 edits (120,000+ edits across all projects). I have experience as an AfC reviewer, new pages patroller, template editor (see Template:Expand language), and bot writer (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Numberguy6Bot, and please expedite the review process if possible). I have been awarded the following barnstars: Categorization; Energy; Random Acts of Kindness. I have received 250 thanks. Numberguy6 (talk) 00:58, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. Why are you interested in becoming an administrator?
A: I am very active on Wikipedia, and I already have a very large amount of editing experience.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: Toss-up between three things:
  • I am the site expert on Template:Expand language. I have made edits to the template itself, and I have added and removed the template from a very large number of articles, aided by my Python scrapers.
  • I created more than half of the articles titled "Plug-in electric vehicles in [country/state/province]."
  • I have dealt with Template:Page needed by writing a Python script to search through the citations with the template, extract the ISBN, and check to see if the book is available at my local library; I then go to the library and go through the list.
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A: In the past year, I have not had any major issues. I have been told to reduce my usage Template:Expand language, but I haven't gotten into any arguments over that.

You may ask optional questions below. There is a limit of two questions per editor. Multi-part questions disguised as one question, with the intention of evading the limit, are disallowed. Follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked are allowed.

Optional question from CanonNi

4. Hi Numberguy6, if this RfA succeeds, which areas of adminship do you think you'll be active in?
A: I would go through Category:Administrative backlog and do the stuff there. Also, I would deal with users who I caught vandalizing pages on my watchlist.
Follow-up: Thank you for your answer. You mentioned that you would like to deal with vandalism, but when looking at your reverts, I found little to no anti-vandalism work. Do you plan on working in those areas in the future?
A: Yes. Once I have the authority to block people, I will pay more attention to this area. (And yes, I am familiar with WP:UWS.)

Optional question from HouseBlaster

5. Looking at Special:PageHistory/Template:Expand language, I don't see any edits by Numberguy6. What exactly do you mean by I have made edits to the template [{{expand language}}] itself in your answer to question 2?
A: I am referring to the sub-templates, e.g. Template:Expand French.

Optional questions from Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI

6. Hi Numberguy6, and thank you for running. You mention the discussion over your template overuse, yes, but the one-year time period you've chosen to examine is rather short. Have you been in any content or conduct disputes before that time? Of course, I'm not asking about stuff from like a decade ago or anything, but say the last 3-4 years.
A: In December 2022, I was accused of "topic-spamming" when I added a whole bunch of links to "Plug-in electric vehicles in [location]" articles from the "See also" section on the page for "[location]". See [links to articles on electric vehicles in cities].
7. A lot of your "Hybrid vehicles in X" articles are Start-class, and many genuinely can't be developed beyond what you've already put in them. I would argue that they can be merged into more substantial articles. I think the articles for hybrids in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and the Faroes can probably be merged into something like Plug-in electric vehicles in Northern Europe or something like that. And even more importantly, the articles arranged by US state and Canadian province should probably go to Plug-in electric vehicles by US state and similar. What say?
A:

Optional question from SchroCat

8. Why are you interested in becoming an administrator? (Your answer above is not an answer: many people are "very active on Wikipedia, and ... already have a very large amount of editing experience" but zero interest in becoming an admin, but you don't say why.)
A:

Optional question from DandelionAndBurdock

9. Please could you expand on being asked to reduce your use of {{Expand language}}, from your own understanding what happened there?
A: My initial criterion was "the foreign-language article is at least twice as long as the English article" (adjusted for script byte density), so that I could use a Python scraper. Then, other users gave me criticism such as: "twice as long" is too short; foreign-language articles are unsourced; foreign-language Wikipedias don't have reliable sourcing standard. I changed my rule and Python scraper to "the foreign-language article is at least three times as long and has twice as many sources as the English article, and the foreign-language Wikipedia has a page at wikidata:Q59821108". But then a fourth editor told me that the foreign-language articles often have unnecessary amounts of detail that would be inappropriate for ENWP; I have no fix for this.

Optional question from Grabup

10. I saw that you just participated in 15 AfDs, and the majority of them are your nominations. Why don't you participate in AfDs more often?
A: Mostly, it's because I have better things to do. My Wiki to-do list is already eight pages long, and I can't remember the last time I checked an item off of it (although I will once someone approves my bot).
11. Will you handle closing AfDs after becoming an admin?
A: Yes.

Optional question from Innisfree987

12. Hi and thank you for running. You mention the backlogs, much appreciated. To help me understand your plans for adminship better, could I ask if there are any in particular you see as especially well suited to your skills and interests, or any you would plan not to tackle?
A: I would most likely work on WP:CfD, WP:RfD, and WP:RM.

Optional question from RoySmith

13. There have been a number of cases over the past couple of years where admins have been found to have violated WP:INVOLVED, or been accused of such and it was later determined not to be so. Could you talk about what WP:INVOLVED means and how you would apply it to yourself?
A:


Discussion

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.

Support
Per a recent RFC, this RFA is in trial for a new voting system. Voting opens at 01:36, 27 May 2024 (UTC). In the meantime, discussion may only take place under § General comments.
Oppose
Voting opens at 01:36, 27 May 2024 (UTC). In the meantime, discussion may only take place under § General comments.
Neutral
Voting opens at 01:36, 27 May 2024 (UTC). In the meantime, discussion may only take place under § General comments.
General comments
  • Numberguy6: could you expand on your answers to the three questions? As far as I can see, you haven't stated what you would do if you become an administrator. —Ingenuity (t • c) 01:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Experienced, no skeletons in the closet as far as I can see. Sure, there's no "need" for the tools, but do I care? Not really. Maybe you could argue that they haven't shown the appropriate familiarity with the most up-to-date guidelines, but do they need to? If they don't, that's what the new desysop process is for. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:32, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a listing somewhere of the articles you've written, Numberguy6? I went through some of your contributions in search of articles you'd written that were beyond start-class and came up empty-handed. It would be helpful for us to assess your contributions if we could see the articles you consider your best work (like, 5 or fewer specific articles, with links). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:40, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for your interest in becoming an administrator. Be aware that your lack of nominator and your short answers to questions is an unorthodox way to do RFA, and may create apprehension among some community members. Especially the short answers thing. That may raise some concerns about communication style, effort, and evasiveness. But hey, with the recent RFA reforms, we're also in a time of RFA experimentation, so maybe short answers aren't a big deal anymore. Guess we'll see soon. Good luck. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:19, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • As Novem Linguae said above, the very short answers to questions worry me a bit. Good communication skills are something I look for in prospective admins, and very short, undescriptive answers don't give me much faith in their ability to communicate. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 05:22, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not only the terseness but also the answers' lack of depth. "To clear admin backlogs" and opacity over what template was imtended is really rather vague. ——Serial Number 54129 09:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's very neat to see your use of Python in creating these bots for use in the Templates. I'm wondering if there are other scripts that you use for Wiki editing. Personally, I don't mind the short quick answers. However, it matters more when communicating with another user when it comes to conflict. Conyo14 (talk) 05:29, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Conyo14: I'd recommend asking a question up in the appropriate section if you want an answer :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 06:22, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm slightly concerned by Q1, but I largely concur with Airship here. Depends on how they respond to Q8, I guess. Queen of Hearts (talk) 06:05, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lack of experience in Wikipedia's administrative areas and projectspace is an issue. Numberguy6 has over 40,000 edits, but the majority of them just change a few bytes; these are valuable, but they don't give us much to demonstrate an understanding of content policies or editing practices. His combined edits to projectspace and project talkspace only come out to about 800, and he hardly ever uses edit summaries, which is a key indicator of understanding Wikipedia's culture and processes. He cites NPP experience, but he only had access to NPP for 30 days back in 2022. Numberguy6 is a good editor and clearly valuable to Wikipedia, and I think he could be a good admin candidate if he gets involved in some of these areas for a while. But at this moment I'm not convinced that he's spent enough time learning the ins and outs of Wikipedia's behind the scenes areas, especially those where administrators are most commonly active. As indicated by the answer to question one, this RfA seems to exist simply because it's something that editors with high edit counts are supposed to do. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:34, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • My most major concern is that there is nothing the user even needs admin tools for. I look to see if there's something the user has already been doing that can be made easier if they are an admin, but in this case there doesn't appear to be something that can't be done in a normal editing capacity. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • i'm not at all concerned with a "need for tools" as, well, no one really needs them, but we do really need more admins. however, i concur with above comments that a little more is to be desired from the candidate's answers to the questions. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 08:05, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just a procedural question about the new RfAs, will we receive a reminder to vote when voting opens? Numberguy6 is excused from answering this one :) SportingFlyer T·C 07:07, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]



About RfB

"WP:RFB" redirects here. For bot requests, see Wikipedia:Bot requests. For help with referencing, see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners.

Shortcut

Requests for bureaucratship (RfB) is the process by which the Wikipedia community decides who will become bureaucrats. Bureaucrats can make other users administrators or bureaucrats, based on community decisions reached here, and remove administrator rights in limited circumstances. They can also grant or remove bot status on an account.

The process for bureaucrats is similar to that for adminship above; however the expectation for promotion to bureaucratship is significantly higher than for admin, requiring a clearer consensus. In general, the threshold for consensus is somewhere around 85%. Bureaucrats are expected to determine consensus in difficult cases and be ready to explain their decisions.

Create a new RfB page as you would for an RfA, and insert 

{{subst:RfB|User=Username|Description=Your description of the candidate. ~~~~}}

into it, then answer the questions. New bureaucrats are recorded at Wikipedia:Successful bureaucratship candidacies. Failed nominations are at Wikipedia:Unsuccessful bureaucratship candidacies.

At minimum, study what is expected of a bureaucrat by reading discussions at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship including the recent archives, before seeking this position.

While canvassing for support is often viewed negatively by the community, some users find it helpful to place the neutrally worded {{RfX-notice|b}} on their userpages – this is generally not seen as canvassing. Like requests for adminship, requests for bureaucratship are advertised on the watchlist and on Template:Centralized discussion.

Please add new requests at the top of the section immediately below this line.

Current nominations for bureaucratship

There are no current nominations.

Related pages

Footnotes

  1. ^ Candidates were restricted to editors with an extended confirmed account following the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I § Proposal 25: Require nominees to be extended confirmed.
  2. ^ Voting was restricted to editors with an extended confirmed account following the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I § Proposal 14: Suffrage requirements.
  3. ^ The initial two discussion-only days are a trial measure agreed on following Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I#Proposal 3b: Make the first two days discussion-only (trial). It applies to the first five RfAs opened on or after 24 March 2024, excluding those closed per WP:SNOW or WP:NOTNOW, or until 25 September 2024 – whichever is first.
  4. ^ The community determined this in a May 2019 RfC.
  5. ^ Historically, there has not been the same obligation on supporters to explain their reasons for supporting (assumed to be "per nom" or a confirmation that the candidate is regarded as fully qualified) as there has been on opposers.
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