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

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Now that the open discussion has concluded, we'll concurrently consider whether to retain the discussion-only period and whether to modify it. Since these discussions are running concurrently, feel free to condition one !vote on another's result. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 09:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Should the discussion-only period be retained? Consider the RfAs that were run under the trial to those that were not, both before and after, in light of the proposal's goals. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 09:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Discontinue. In effect it turned into a period of pseudo voting with no net benefits. - SchroCat (talk) 09:57, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Modify. If we manage to encourage people to provide and discuss useful information (say, evaluations of the candidate's contributions to AFD/NPP/GA/whatever), this can help voters make a more informed choice. Pseudo-voting is not helpful. —Kusma (talk) 10:07, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue over-complicated process without clear benefits. Pseudo-voting happened anyways and objections will take longer if complex/specific anyways. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:11, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue way many cons than pros, whichever is first. ToadetteEdit (talk) 10:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue per my reasoning in the open discussion: toxicity at RfA is a problem with voter attitude which is not going to be fixed by discussion-only periods. JavaHurricane 10:14, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue see my new response that was just archived. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:21, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue.—S Marshall T/C 10:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue There were no obvious benefits from doing it. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:11, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue This was a good idea, but not all good ideas work. It either simply worked as delay, or gained comments that just showed what editors intentions were once the delay was up. Critically it doesn't seem to have had any effect on the nature or style of comments in the RFA process. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Modify per Kusma. I still believe that this did nearly no harm and significantly decreased the badgering of opposes. (By the way, for their RfA, asilvering reflected As for the discussion period, I do think it helped things remain civil and on-track, but I'm ambivalent on the experiment overall. in the latest Signpost.) Aaron Liu (talk) 11:47, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  My modification would be what I stated below: Add During the discussion-only period, please cite specific behavior or actions. somehwere, maybe at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#Expressing opinions along with information on the discussion-only period, or below the "General comments" section. A designated monitor would be in charge of discretion and removal. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:02, 30 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Discontinue. I'm glad we tried it, but I didn't see any obvious benefits. RoySmith (talk) 11:55, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. All it really does is frustrate people and reduce the number of actual voters in the process, since people will forget and not come back when the discussion-only period has ended.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue More complexity and I don't see any real benefit. North8000 (talk) 13:57, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue All I really saw was psudo-voting with none of the other benefits. ~ Matthewrb ^{Talk to me · Changes I've made} 14:19, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Didn't significantly improve the discussions it improved. Drastically worsened the discussions it worsened. Can it. —Cryptic 15:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• I support having a discussion-only period. I think there was less escalation of back-and-forth arguing, which reduced repetitiveness and thus enabled participants interested in reading the comments to go through them more efficiently. isaacl (talk) 15:46, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue and salt. This idea was a nonstarter, and I told ya so way back in February, seven — months — ago. Contiuing to nag about this both at {{Centralized discussion}} and posting to my talk, at this point is disruptive. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:20, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  I believe you were pinged on the talk page because of participation in the previous RFC of this, which I understand is standard. And for better or for worse, consensus is not derived from just what some editors with experience decree.

  This proposal jumped through all the hoops, and achieved consensus to be accepted. That we are now decisively rejecting it is just WP:CCC at work, imo. Soni (talk) 18:29, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Discontinue, per my opposition to the initial proposal and my assessment of the trial. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. It turns out that requiring opposers to provide arguments against a candidate is not helpful. It's already a problem with the "not a vote" idea behind requiring rationales for RfA oppose votes, but it has worsened when "not a vote" was actually enforced. I'm eagerly awaiting the experiment in the other direction – admin elections, finally allowing people to silently oppose for any reason, hopefully making RfA less toxic. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Retain or Modify, didn't notice any problems come from it. I also agree with isaacl. There is also a suggested change in the talk page that I really like. fanfanboy (block) 18:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Retain per isaacl. The places we had clashes on were things I do not think discussion-only phase was intended to fix. I believe the RFA experience was improved, but understandable if others felt otherwise. Soni (talk) 18:30, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue Just led to pseudo-voting with no obvious benefit, per all the above.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:47, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. Bobby Cohn (talk) 19:39, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Retain or modify per Kusma. My perception was that the RfA experience was improved; the three candidates who responded to my question in the discussion period (here, here, and here) did not uniformly say the discussion was bad, rather there was reference to both good and bad experiences. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 21:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. It did not really achieve its intended effect of making RfA less stressful for candidates, and it actually decreased the amount of substantive discussion, by substituting rah-rah support statements for careful examination of the merits of oppose rationales. Sometimes, trying something new just for the sake of trying something new doesn't lead to an improvement. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. When I see an announcement of a RfA, I go and have a look, intending to form a view and !vote accordingly. If I find I can't !vote, I leave, intending to go back later. Sometimes I forget. (But I did enjoy the !!voting process.) Maproom (talk) 22:30, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Comment Kusma makes a good point above. From my own observation, discussion period did not function the way it was intended. I still think that going to the polls should not be about consensus nor should it require a voter to announce their vote. This is not the place for my digression and it appears most editors favor no waiting period. Lightburst (talk) 02:05, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. Not having comments grouped into supports, neutrals, and opposes was less organized, creating a wall of text. Depriving candidates of the first 24-48 hours that typically tends to be all supports probably hurts candidate morale. Being ready to vote for certain candidates but not being able to do so was frustrating to me as a voter. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:58, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. I do think there's a subset of RfAs for which this is beneficial, but more often it just inconveniences !voters and keeps candidates from knowing where they stand numerically, and in some situations (most notably would-be SNOW RfAs) it's made things noticeably worse. Different people will balance those factors in different ways, but I come down on the discontinue side, especially since there's so little support for a compromise 24-hour solution. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. I have nothing more to add that I did not say in the forced “open discussion period”. My exact same statement will follow. The fact that I need to copy-paste my statement in order to participate in actual consensus building is exemplary of the inanity of the proposal. I am not impressed that an editor has dictated that my opinion is deemed “unofficial” for some reason, and I find that it is insulting and a huge turn off. “As a historical proponent of RfA reforms I agree that this experiment seems desperate and unhelpful with no discernible benefits. A mandate for informal discussion preceding formal consensus building does not sit well with me, and the fact that the review discussion itself seems to take for granted that this is the way, and that an editor may deem that initial feedback is not to formally mean anything real, is not only nonsensical and arbitrary, but insulting to the fundamental system of governance of the project.” The fact that so much community time and effort is being invested in vetting this pointless experiment is tragic. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 04:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue. I've found it difficult to remember when I can vote in the RfA, especially as the watchlist notice will appear but I need to remember for two days that I've not voted in that RfA so I don't click on it again until then. Also, the period had people say things like "I will vote support when voting opens" which was counterproductive to the idea of this period. In the end, I think we can say this is an experiment that we tried but ultimately failed. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 07:33, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue It's better to have to vote immediately rather than after two days. The discussion only period feels like it should've been done elsewhere to gauge the candidate. We already have the extended confirmed requirements for both candidates and voters. The rule is to only apply for RfA if there is a good chance to succeed and ideally have someone to nominate you on your behalf. JuniperChill (talk) 10:55, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue The discussion period led to more questions which increased the pressure the candidates have as they had to answer more questions. Lightoil (talk) 21:47, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue - Having observed each of these elections keenly, it doesn't seem to me to make much difference whether or not there is an initial comment-only period. My sense is that it was an annoyance to those who like to vote early and loudly, which may be a good thing, I suppose. I don't think the user experience was much different for either successful or unsuccessful candidates from the previous system. So why? Carrite (talk) 00:57, 29 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue as there was no perceivable benefits, and a variety of niggles. Some niggles could be ironed out (such as doing a double notification - one for the discussion, and one for the voting), but irritating wrinkles would still remain, and we'd still be left with no discernible advantages. SilkTork (talk) 10:48, 29 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue - didn't see any evidence that it made RFA a less stressful experience for candidates. If anything, it looked like it was worse in some cases. Gizza (talk) 23:48, 29 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue - I don't think any of the RFAs under this system were improved by having a pre-voting discussion period. Walsh90210 (talk) 23:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Discontinue per above. Overall net negative for the RfA experience. -Fastily 22:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

• @Xaosflux Could you elaborate on by splitting the phases it may prevent some contributors who are not active daily? Isn't the total time the same? IMO, the most harm this could do on that front is remove a few uninformed support votes. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:44, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  As the actual !voting phase was reduced to less than a week, it may exclude contributors that for example only contribute on weekends (depending on the start day). — xaosflux ^Talk 12:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  I'd want some data on this before making it part of the decision. There are certainly contributors who only contribute on certain days. How many are RFA participants, I have no idea. -- asilvering (talk) 12:50, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Good point. First, do we have any data whatsoever on contributors who only contribute on certain days? Aaron Liu (talk) 03:24, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• I'm not really in favor of either of these, but I can see two ways to modify this to deal with the early !!votes:
  1. During the discussion-only period, only allow questions - formal ones, in the "Questions for the candidate" section - and not any edits to the "General comments" section at all. (I'm not in favor because one of the negative effects I observed is that this already seemed to generate more questions - Numberguy6 got 32 in two days! - and excessive questioning is one of the major ways RFA has gotten worse over the last decade and a half or so.)
  2. Anyone who makes a comment during the discussion-only period can't cast a formal !vote in that RFA. (I'm not in favor because I think it'd make early discussion about borderline candidates worse - you won't want to defend against an allegation because it means you can't support later; and for an ideal candidate, you'd probably get silence, because people will think it more crucial that they're visibly on the side of the 248-2 eventual vote.)
• —Cryptic 15:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I hate (and abhor) both of these. #1 defeats the point of countering the inertia of support votes earlier than oppose arguments and that of an early oppose that's only guilded with substantiation, as well as fighting badgering, which it has been successful at. #2... well, yeah.

I'd rather just require comments to "cite specific behavior or actions" or something like that. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

If anyone else supports such a proposal, please open a subsection below. I'm not doing that myself because I'm not sure if this is something that only I and I alone would support. Aaron Liu (talk) 04:01, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• @ToBeFree:, your comments here have been confusing. This proposal is about a 2-day period where voting is forbidden and not about or related whatsoever to requiring opposers provide arguments. As I have said in replying to this comment before, that's the designated monitors proposal. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Aaron Liu, the point of a bolded vote is to summarize one's opinion using a single word, with arguments for the opinion becoming secondary, mostly being ignored for the end result when the support/oppose percentage is clear enough. Prohibiting bolded votes results in wordy attempts to provide the same information without summarizing it in the prohibited way. Requiring voters to provide detailed reasoning instead of a short bold "Support" or "Oppose, per X" has the opposite effect of admin elections, which take away the reasoning and reduce votes to "support" or "oppose". And to me personally, reducing the amount of words spent by people on describing why someone is a bad candidate improves the atmosphere. I'd choose an admin election over the current RfA process any day, and would have done so back in 2019 too. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  @ToBeFree, this proposal doesn't prohibit or attempt to forbid bolded votes either; and as I have said above, it also does not require anyone to provide rationales. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:02, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Aaron Liu, it does so for two days, and it has exactly the described effect in my eyes. I understand that your opinion differs. That's okay. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:06, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• @Cryptic You mentioned Drastically worsened the discussions it worsened. Could you elaborate?
  @Vanamonde93 In your archived comment you refereed to, you claimed Most people with substantive concerns about candidates rarely brought them up, instead reserving them for the oppose section. However, I have failed at finding an example that we can be sure of, except perhaps Lightburst's oppose against Elli. How did you determine that oppose voters fit your claim instead of just arriving late to the RfC? Aaron Liu (talk) 19:58, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  We can't, not without those who !voted oppose explaining themselves. But that is my opinion. Asilvering's RFA is the other that immediately comes to mind. Vanamonde93 (talk) 00:09, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  That makes sense. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:03, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  DreamRimmer's RFA looks a whole lot like that to me. DoubleGrazing's comment at the very bottom kind of encapsulates it. —Cryptic 00:23, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

  You do expose a fault in my thought process: excluding the prematurely closed RfAs. However, I'd disagree on both of your major counts: that the discussion was a lot more positive than the survey (thus being incongruent with the outcome), and that the discussion part somehow worsened the vote.
  Firstly, I don't see the connection to the latter at all (other than a potential inference that the proposal isn't serving its purpose, but that's not necessarily worsening anything, just not having enough positives).
  Secondly, roughly 53.8% of the pre-voting comments' words are dedicated to scrutiny that resulted in less-than−"okay candidate"−conclusions, all excluding the extended content. I don't see how this echoes DoubleGrazing's comment that it seemed so positive and encouraging. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:23, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Should the discussion-only period be shortened to one day? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 09:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• No: with multiple time zones and weekday/weekend, timing is super variable. If we do discussion period, it should not be shorter than 2 days. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:08, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No. 48 hours is already short for a discussion spanning people from time zones all over the world. In 24 hours you can make comments, but you can only "discuss" with people who happen to be online at the same time. —Kusma (talk) 10:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• 2x(edit conflict) support. whichever comes first. ToadetteEdit (talk) 10:11, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No this is even more of the problem I identified above. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:21, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No, everyone should have an opportunity, not everyone edits every day, as Shushugah and Kusma identify above discussion can't happen in less than 48 hours. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 11:06, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No, as above. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:26, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No. If the discussion-only period is retained, it should be 48 hours, per the above (esp. the time-zones issue).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:11, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No If we keep it, it should be 48 hours. QuicoleJR (talk) 13:39, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No per the above time-zone issue. Should be at least 48 hours. SirMemeGod  16:21, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No. One day is too little time to accomplish anything, and so this change would not fix the more fundamental problems with the trialed process. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• No. Per my comment above. Which was just a restating of my participation in a forced, unofficial “open discussion” in the vein of this idea, only to be immediately sent to the archives in apparent smoke-and-mirrors exemplificaion of how nonsensical this entire proposed system is. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 04:44, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Yes I don't see a pre-RFA discussion period being valuable because "everyone is able to comment". The most problematic concern with the trial was that people felt obliged to comment with pseudo-votes because the process dragged on too long. If there is an issue that needs to be raised before voting starts, 24 hours should be enough for somebody to do so. I think removing the period entirely is probably the best option, but a 24 hour "scrutiny" period seems better than dragging it out longer. Walsh90210 (talk) 23:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• discussion goes here...